How Did The Treaty Of Versailles Treaty Affect Germany

The Treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919 by Hermann Müller and Johannes Bell after being written by the leaders of the Allied nations in the aftermath of the First World War. They needed a country on which to pin the blame for the war; a country which would need to accept its defeat by the Allied powers during the war and pay for reparations.

The terms of the treaty affected Germany in many ways. For example, article 231 of the Treaty stated that Germany would be made responsible for all loss and damage caused by the war. This, although not directly affecting Germany, had many more indirect effects on the country. This is because blaming Germany wholly for the damage caused by the war, as well as affecting the German morale, also paved the way for other terms, such as article 232 in which Germany was made to pay reparations and article 51, in which Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France.
Although Germany paid its first instalment of £50 million on time in 1921, in 1922, Germany did not pay. After failed negotiation attempts, in 1923, French and Belgium soldiers entered the Ruhr region and took the money owed to them in the form of raw materials and goods. This was known as the occupation of the Ruhr. Since this had such devastating effects on the German economy, the German government organised a strike; this would mean the workers were not producing anything for the French to take. However, the French gave a firm response, by killing over 100 workers and expelling over 100,000 from the region. However, the crucial impact of the strike is that the Germans had not produced anything for the French to