Treaty of Versailles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Treaty of Versailles - Essay Example The Elbe, the Oder, the Niemen and the Danube were declared as free international routes.The Versailles-Washington system has created a lot of large and small problems, which together led to war. So, East Prussia was cut off from the rest of Germany and had no train and motorway connections with it. The separate existence of the city of Danzig did not satisfy either Poland or Germany (German population totally prevailed in the city). USSR lost almost all bases of the Baltic Fleet. The Soviet fleet could be based only in Leningrad after the Treaty.Germany was unable to pay huge reparations to the Western countries. This was the reason why the French army occupied the Ruhr in 1923, which was the most developed industrial region of Germany. 10% of the German population lived in the Ruhr. It produced 40% of steel, 70% iron and 88% of coal were mined there. Occupation of the Ruhr only exacerbated the economic crisis in Germany.Many problems were not resolved during the Versailles Conferen ce and after signing the Treaty. The new treaties were called to deal with the unsolved challenges: Treaty of St. Germain(1919), which established the current borders of Austria; Treaty of Trianon (1920) of the victorious nations and Hungary; Washington Naval Conference (1921-1922), etc.The direct consequences of the Great War and the Treaty of Versailles were so-called small wars: Romania and Serbia against the Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919); Greco-Turkish War (1919-1921); Soviet-Polish War (1920).