Treaty Of Versailles And The League Of Nations: An Analysis

The definition of what power is, is very symbolic and an idea based off of one’s points of view. Each person has a different perception because of the way that they grew up. One person in history that had a definition of power is Keynes; his definition of power was explained through economics and with his ideas of what the Treaty of Versailles actually did balancing out power between the different countries that were involved. He did not believe that the Treaty would do much or any good because of the punishments that it set out towards the weaker countries. Keynes also had his own point of view of how the League of Nations and if it had the enough power to balance out an environment post-World War One. Many of the Hessian readings assigned for class and the lectures help explain Keynes possible response to the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. The Treaty of Versailles was a contract made after World War 1 to make peace throughout the European countries. The Allied powers, three of the main countries consisting of the United States, France, and Great Britain, put many restrictions; which imposed many rules and regulations on defeated Germany. Many of the countries involved in the treaty blamed Germany for of their troubles and thus wanted them to be punished. Many of the regulations imposed in Germany had to do with Military and economic inconveniences to them. As well as them having to give up many territories to different countries; this was all done to make Germany weaker and get rid of their power. The countries wanted it to make is impossible for Germany to come back from this and cause another war like the one that had just happened, thus why they tried taking Germany’s power away from them. Wilson, the United States President at the time, had come up with the Fourteen Point plan; which was a plan that would have kept peace throughout the European Nations. However, congress would not allow the United States because they still believed that isolationism would best benefit the U.S. and their citizens. With all of what the Treaty of Versailles did, Keynes did not agree with it because of how it “balanced power,” or better yet how it was unable to properly balance out power and the many consequences throughout the countries involved in the treaty. He believed that the Treaty of Versailles would cause economic chaos, which it did later on. In his “The Economic Consequences of the Peace,” he predicted that if Germany had to go through all the terms that the treaty stated they would end up financially unstable and destroyed, and this would also lead the European countries to suffering financially. The chaos that were caused in Germany happened because the territories that they had, that made them money and had the resources to make and sell for the country, were taken away from them. Which made them unable to have any type of income to the country and thus unable to make any sort of payment towards the countries that they owed money to. Even with the few places that they were left with, many people did not want to buy from Germany. One reason why other countries did not buy from Germany was because they did not want to buy material from a country that had caused horrors throughout Europe. …show more content…
Another reason was because they did not want any incoming material or resource because they wanted to be the countries to have the output and have money coming into their country; instead of being the country buying resource and having money flow out of their country. This also did not allow for Germany to buy other material from countries because they did not have the proper funds to do so, but also because they needed to sell their materials to make money. Thus making them unable to make any money and making them go deeper into debt themselves and making other countries also go into debt because they did not have countries willing to buy from them. Keynes predicted almost all of these events in one form or another; he was a huge