| | Signed in June 1919, the [[Treaty of Versailles]] limited Germany to an army of 100,000 soldiers; it stipulated that the Rhineland be demilitarized and occupied by the western Allies for fifteen years. Germany was to surrender Alsace-Lorraine, northern Schleswig-Holstein, a portion of western Prussia that became known as the Polish Corridor because it gave Poland access to the Baltic, and all overseas colonies. An Allied Reparations Commission was established and charged with setting the amount of war-damage payments that would be demanded of Germany. And, most infuriatingly, the treaty also included the "war guilt clause," ascribing responsibility for World War I to Germany and Austria-Hungary. The clause would lay the seeds for the rise of the [[Nazi Party]], which would ultimately take power in Germany and cause another major war two decades later. | | Signed in June 1919, the [[Treaty of Versailles]] limited Germany to an army of 100,000 soldiers; it stipulated that the Rhineland be demilitarized and occupied by the western Allies for fifteen years. Germany was to surrender Alsace-Lorraine, northern Schleswig-Holstein, a portion of western Prussia that became known as the Polish Corridor because it gave Poland access to the Baltic, and all overseas colonies. An Allied Reparations Commission was established and charged with setting the amount of war-damage payments that would be demanded of Germany. And, most infuriatingly, the treaty also included the "war guilt clause," ascribing responsibility for World War I to Germany and Austria-Hungary. The clause would lay the seeds for the rise of the [[Nazi Party]], which would ultimately take power in Germany and cause another major war two decades later. |