Did the Treaty of Versailles make World War II inevitable - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Evidently, such thing could hardly have happened unless the system was initially flawed, and precisely those flaws might be amongst the key reasons for the outbreak of World War II.
More than sixty years since the end of World War II, the causes of the overwhelming military event continue to produce intensive discussions among scholars. The debate revolves around such issues as the nature of German policy in the 1930s, the role of the Soviets in the outbreak of the war, the date which can actually be considered the beginning of the Second World War, a policy of appeasement conducted by the UK and France towards Germany, which allowed the latter to fully recover and accumulate power, competition for resources between the European powers, etc. However, neither of these causes and preconditions that undoubtedly played a role in setting up the scene for World War II can be properly understood without analysis of the system that shaped political life in Europe during the two pre-war decades.
The Versailles System was the structure of peace in Europe established during the Peace Conference of 1919: the system took its name from the main treaty signed during the conference, the Treaty of Versailles (Henig 1995). The Versailles System replaced the Bismarckian Alliance system to govern Europe until World War II. Despite being commonly addressed as the system of European peace, the Versailles System apparently failed to fulfil its noble mission: the story of the causes of World War II is largely the story of this political system's failure.
Discussion
One of the first attempts to analyze the pre-war developments in Europe from a non-traditional stance was made in 1961 by A. J. Taylor. The author's main argument was that Hitler's aggressive international policies during the 1930's owed a debt to the political situation in Europe as well as the policies conducted by other European powers within the framework of the Versailles System. In Taylor's opinion, Hitler was not actually driven by the Nazi ideology of expansionism but performed as a typical German statesman who cared about strengthening the country and reestablishing it as the leading European power (Taylor 1996). Such controversial point of view produced a wave of sharp criticism with Taylor being accused of trying to whitewash the Nazi leader. However, the reality was that no solid arguments could be found to dismiss Taylor's point of view that the Versailles System might be one of the major root causes of World War II.
The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 - 1920 brought together the most influential people in the world whom determined the political situation not only in Europe but across the globe at that time. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, the President of the United States, the Prime Ministers of France, Italy, Australia and Canada, the Queen of Romania, and many other national leaders spent almost six months debating the outcomes of World War I as well as economic and political implications of that conflict for each country involved.
The overall outcomes of the Conference have been usually labelled as failure because the treaties signed during the Paris ...Download file to see next pagesRead More