What Are Three Weaknesses of the Treaty of Versailles?
Three weaknesses of the Treaty of Versailles include: the lack of an army within the League of Nations, making it impossible for the League to have authority to follow through on decisions made; Italy and Japan’s resentfulness of the treaty, as they wanted a larger reward for fighting with the Allied Powers during World War I and President Wilson’s failure to get congressional support, preventing the United States from ratifying the treaty. The Treaty of Versailles had strengths, however, as it gave independence to Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary.
The Treaty of Versailles also helped to bring peace to Europe through the League of Nations, an international organization created to keep the peace. It also acknowledged countries as individual entities and did not treat countries as members of larger empires or under another country’s control.
The Treaty of Versailles was negotiated between January and June of 1919 in Paris. It was written by the Allied Power countries with little help from the Germans. The finished treaty had 15 parts and 440 articles. The first part was written to create the New League of Nations and prohibited Germany from joining until 1926. The second part of the Treaty of Versailles was written to detail Germany’s boundaries, the third part to create a demilitarized zone, the fourth to take away Germany’s colonies, the fifth to reduce Germany’s armed forces and keep Germany from owning certain weapons, the sixth to establish Germany’s liability and the seventh to put forth other financial obligations on Germany.
