After World War I, the Big Three signed a document called the Treaty of Versailles, punishing Germany for causing the Great War. The Treaty of Versailles had effects on many European countries, both inside and outside of Europe, with the effects being mostly negative for the countries involved. The Treaty of Versailles especially caused social, political and economic unrest in Germany. The country had to pay millions of dollars to the Allied nations in order to repay the war debt, and due to the difficulties, the people decided to follow Hitler as their new leader. Some effects of the Treaty of Versailles were immediate, such as the economic inflation that countries faced, and other effects were exceptionally long-lasting, such as the reparations Germany had to pay to comply with the Treaty's directives. . Say no to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay “Total War” killed many soldiers, men, women and children in all participating European countries. At the Paris Peace Conference, representatives of Great Britain and France (Georges Clemenceau and David Lloyd George) wanted revenge on Germany, whom they believed had started the Great War. Woodrow Wilson, the United States representative, wanted a “just and lasting peace” for all nations. At the Peace Conference, delegates presented the Treaty as an agreement between the three countries. Adopting the Treaty would be wrong and seriously harmful to the German people, as it would kill innocent civilians in the middle of a territorial dispute, result in a lack of production of natural resources, and prevent the German people from emigrating from their territory. homeland in ruins. The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany should abandon its merchant navy and ships suitable for foreign trade. Germany would also end its relations with “allied and associated countries.” This would lead to a lack of resources and imports of goods. Without enough goods that could be imported into Germany, its population eventually starved. This change was detrimental to other countries in Europe as well as the United States, because if Germany had its imports frozen, other countries had one less option to export their products to. Natural resources became an issue once the Treaty of Versailles was adopted. Germany would lose much of its eastern territory, eliminating 21% of the food harvested in the country. Due to the changes, the pace of agricultural production would slow down. The importation of raw materials essential for fertilizer production would be hampered and, because of the Treaty, there would be a serious shortage of coal. There was a loss of almost a third of coalfield production, as well as a decade of coal exports to various allied countries. Additionally, the Treaty of Versailles would result in the export of three-quarters of ore production and three-fifths of zinc production. After these massive changes, Germany would no longer be in a stable position to import raw materials from abroad. “It goes without saying that an enormous part of German industry would thus be condemned to extinction.” As noted above, Germany would not be able to import these products, just as the need to import them would increase. Due to the inverse relationship that occurred, Germany was unable to produce a sufficient amount of bread to feed its population. People unable to feed themselves should emigrate to survive,but due to the ban on German emigration this was not possible. Germans from other countries should stay in these foreign countries, as it would be impossible and impractical to return to Germany. When the Treaty of Versailles was adopted, the estimated number of German deaths was in the millions. “Those who sign this treaty will sign the death sentence for several million German men, women and children” (Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, head of the German delegation on May 15, 1919). John Maynard Keynes, an English economist, predicted the effects of the Treaty of Versailles in Europe. Keynes had attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, but fled the meeting in protest against the treaty. It was clear to Keynes that the proposed new Treaty of Versailles would have little in common with Wilson's Fourteen Points. “On June 5, 1919, Keynes wrote a note to Prime Minister Lloyd George informing him that he was resigning his post in protest against the 'impending devastation of Europe'” (History.com). Disgusted with the Treaty and what it offered, Keynes wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace which was published in late 1919. Germany was seen as weak and economically unstable as it attempted to pay reparations imposed by the Treaty. As he predicted, Germany collapsed due to reparations and the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. Before and during the Great Depression, Germany experienced significant inflation. The value of the German mark against the US dollar increased from 4.2 marks equivalent to one dollar in 1919 to 4,200,000,000,000 equivalent to one US dollar in November 1923. In an attempt to help, Germany lowered the average salary of around twenty years. -five percent. With the value of the mark falling so much, people began buying almost anything in the hopes that it would be worth something once the depression ended. It was for such issues that the United States developed the Dawes Plan. The Dawes Plan first lowered the reparations that Germany still had to pay, and brought them in line with the country's capabilities. Additionally, the Dawes Plan provided Germany with a $200 million loan for its recovery. After the implementation of the Dawes Plan, all of Europe experienced "brief prosperity" and "opened the door to heavy American investment." Eventually, due to the many problems associated with the Great Depression, such as hunger and lack of resources, the crime rate increased. But due to the cost of housing criminals, sentences were shortened. People who committed murders and were not imprisoned began selling their victims for meat because food was so scarce. The Great Depression led to war in many different ways, and all of them are questionable. But I think part of the reason is that during the Depression, people started to turn more to communism as a way out. But there were still people and countries that didn't like communism. Disagreement over the type of government may have partly led to World War II. People also began to split up to find a solution and follow leaders like Adolf Hitler for help. And Hitler, like many others, sought revenge on the Allies, thus leading to the start of World War II. Many factors contributed to the cause of World War II. Some of these major causes included the effects of the Treaty of Versailles and how it caused the Great Depression in Germany as well as its impact on the rise of Hitler, Adolf Hitler's power and decisions in Germanyand Japan's actions during the war. In November 1923, Hitler led an uprising against the Munich government. The uprising, called the Brewery Putsch, ended and Hitler was imprisoned. There he wrote Mein Kampf, a document of his beliefs. By 1932, Hitler's Nazi Party had 800,000 members and was the largest party in the Reichstag. In 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor. Two months later, on March 23, 1933, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act which allowed the government to disregard the constitution while attempting to rid Germany of its major economic problems, most of which resulted from the Treaty of Versailles. . Thanks to the Enabling Act, Hitler was able to become dictator. At the Munich Conference in 1938, Britain and France agreed that Germany could acquire the Sudetenland. Six months after taking the Sudetenland, Hitler also took all of Czechoslovakia. A year later, Germany wants to recover the Polish corridor. At the same time, Great Britain and France tried to ally with the USSR and Great Britain protected Poland. On September 1, 1939, Germany simulated a Polish attack against itself to justify the invasion of Poland. This is considered the start of World War II. Immediately after the attack on Poland in 1939, the main war conflict was between Great Britain and France, who declared war on Germany. September 3, 1939, Germany, Poland and the USSR. All Hitler really wants in World War II is for all of Germany, and surely the rest of the world, to follow his command; because it would bring peace. This idea is called appeasement. “A policy based on the belief that if European states met the reasonable demands of the dissatisfied powers, the dissatisfied powers would be satisfied and stability and peace would be achieved in Europe” (Pollack). In 1931, Japan took control of Manchuria, which upset the powerless League of Nations, and of northern China in 1937. In 1937, in Nanjing, the capital of China, the Rape of Nanjing occurred. As a result of this massacre, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians were brutally killed. On December 7, 1941, Japan declared war on the United States with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, 2,402 Americans were killed, 350 aircraft destroyed or damaged, and eight battleships were sunk or damaged. Also in December 1941, the Germans reached Moscow. It was freezing cold there and the German soldiers only wore short-sleeved summer uniforms. Their fuel froze and their tanks became useless. But Hitler refused to order the retreat. Ultimately, 500,000 German soldiers died in early December 1941 in the suburbs of Moscow. The main conflict at this time was between the United States and Germany, after the United States entered the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The main causes of World War II were the effects of the Treaty of Versailles on the decisions of Germany and Japan. Adolf Hitler is undoubtedly the main person responsible for World War II and the actions of Germany and its allies. World War II affected many types of people in different ways. One such type of person is non-combatants. Civilians in Japan, Germany and every country involved in the war were killed because of sheer human brutality. Examples of situations in which this brutality takes place are the bombing of Japan and the internment of Japanese American citizens. On February 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 was signed by the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The order authorized the sendingof all Japanese Americans in internment camps. This happened after the Japanese government bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. At the time, all Japanese were considered a threat to the United States by many non-Japanese Americans. At the time of the Pearl Harbor attacks, 127,000 Japanese Americans lived in the continental United States. As a result of Executive Order 9066, more than 120,000 Japanese of all ages and genders, 65 percent of whom were born in the United States, were incarcerated for up to three years. Signing Executive Order 9066 was an unconstitutional action and it shows that the rule of law can be abandoned in circumstances of war, whether it is morally correct or not. Adverse situations bring out the best and worst in people. In many cases, people do not experience prejudice publicly, or perhaps not prejudice at all, until they feel threatened and frightened. In this case, many white Americans felt threatened by the Japanese in the United States. While studying the internment of ethnic Japanese in the past, I have heard many stories about the Japanese and their experiences in America during the time of Executive Order 9066. One that I remember vividly involves a family Japanese woman who was rounded up to be taken to an internment camp in 1943, tells the point of view of their neighbor's daughter. When the girl's Japanese neighbors are taken away, she quickly realizes that there are seemingly racist people in the town who were not there before the internment camps. Bombs were frequently dropped on Japan throughout World War II. The United States participated in extensive bombings against the civilian population in Japan. On March 9, 1945, Tokyo was the target of an incendiary bomb launched by American troops. 100,000 innocent Japanese citizens were killed in this act of war. By bombing Japan, the Americans were attempting to destroy the will of Japanese citizens and soldiers to continue the war. Seeing the deaths of tens of thousands of their fellow citizens, the Japanese faced serious character issues. For example, in the movie Grave of the Fireflies, Seita had to make important decisions to care for his sister, such as leaving their aunt's house and stealing to feed her. In Seita's case, the adversity of the situation brought out the good side of him. On the other hand, Seita's aunt and Setsuko reacted very differently to the stress of war. She was tense and rude to the children and eventually kicked them out of the house in full knowledge of the health and safety risks they would face. In the winter of 1918, former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson wrote and presented “The Fourteen Points.” » in the American Congress. The document could be applied to various regions of the world, particularly the Middle East. Wilson's fifth point, that "all decisions concerning settlements must be impartial," among others, would later serve as a source of guidance for the reconstruction of the Middle East. Concealed under a film of secrecy, the United Kingdom, represented by Sir Mark Sykes and France, represented by François Georges-Picot, concluded an agreement: the Sykes-Picot of 1916. The agreement was concluded regarding the division of Arab provinces that once belonged to the powerful Ottoman Empire. The secret treaty, however, came to an abrupt end when the Bolsheviks, following the Russian Revolution, brought the agreement into the open. The Balfour Declaration was a letter drawn up, after long periods of negotiation, by Arthur James Balfour, British Foreign Secretary. InNovember 1917, the letter was sent to Lord Rothschild, president of the British Zionist Federation. The letter publicly expressed Britain's support for a national homeland for the Jews of Palestine. The declaration, however, does not support undermining the rights of non-Jewish people already living there. Finally, in July 1922, the proposal was accepted by the League of Nations, this acceptance giving the British temporary control over Palestine. The Western Allies, in an attempt to gain Arab support against the Ottoman Turks during World War I, had pledged to recognize the independence of Arab countries within the Ottoman Empire in exchange for support during the Great War. In the end, the war was indeed successful in breaking up the Ottoman Empire. A change of heart on the part of the Western allies, however, followed the end of the war. Instead of being recognized as an independent state, as promised, France assumed administrative control of Lebanon and Syria; and Britain on Iraq and Palestine. The result of these acquisitions resulted in the formation of the mandate system; a system in which one nation could govern another country in the name of the League of Nations, even though the governing nation would not own the territory. Today, conflict erupts within a divided Israel. Establishing mutual recognition of control of Jerusalem, borders, water rights, security and the never-ending search for a solution to the refugee issue remain sensitive and controversial topics, even if the two parties often fail to make and maintain their commitments. Recent discussions on the creation of two separate states, a Palestinian state and a Jewish state, on a given territory appear to be a rare but possible compromise, although both sides are reluctant to cede half of their precious country to the adversary. Due to perennial disagreement, violence has become a common aspect of life in Israel since the conflict began in the early 20th century, although deaths have not been limited to military personnel. Wilson believed that letting the people speak and make the calls, and letting the majority rule was what being an American was truly about. Likewise, the Chinese and Vietnamese wanted to be able to choose their type of government. As a result, some Vietnamese and Chinese nationalists turned to the Russians, particularly Lenin, because they liked his ideas and concepts of communism, Ho Chi Minh being one. Lenin took power and was the head of the Communist Party in Russia, but he wanted to continue to develop. He convinced Western Europe to join him and his party in rebelling against their leaders. The United States didn't like this, given the free-thinking democracy it seemed to have. The United States believed that communism was aggressive and expansive and posed a threat to any country whose government did not follow communist beliefs. They saw how Lenin tried to bring other nations together and turn them against capitalist countries like the United States. The French and British were wary because they did not want the Soviets to control them. The French and British may have been cautious because they did not want to deal with another revolution. The French just finished one, and it didn't last long. In 1920, Lenin adopted a new strategy of attempting to spread communism beyond the borders of Europe. Lenin attempted to create an international way of thinking and thus spread his ideas throughout Asia. Ho Chi Minh went to the peace conference hoping to regain his lands from the French and in..