In late 1918, American, Belgian, British and French troops entered the Rhineland to enforce the ceasefire. [25] Before the treaty, the occupying power had about 740,000 men. [111] [112] [113] [114] After the signing of the peace treaty, the number dropped dramatically and, until 1926, the occupying power had only 76,000 men. [115] As part of the 1929 negotiations, which later became a young plan, Stresemann and Aristide Briand negotiated the early withdrawal of the Rhineland Allies. [116] On June 30, 1930, after speeches and the lowering of the flags, the last troops of the Anglo-French occupying force withdrew from Germany. [117] The closest treaty was on November 19, 1919, when Lodge and his republicans formed a coalition with the pro-treaty Democrats and moved closer to a two-thirds majority for a treaty with reservations, but Wilson rejected that compromise and enough Democrats followed his lead to end the chances of lasting ratification. In general, American Catholics and German Americans were strongly opposed to the treaty, saying that he preferred the British. [87] Among the many provisions of the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required „Germany [the responsibility of Germany and its allies] for the cause of all losses and damage“ during the war (the other members of the central powers signed treaties containing similar articles). This article, Section 231, later became known as the War Debt Clause. The treaty required Germany to disarm, make abundant territorial concessions and pay reparations to certain countries formed by the powers of the Agreement. In 1921, the total cost of these repairs was estimated at 132 billion gold marks (at the time $31.4 billion, or $6.6 billion, or about $442 billion, or 284 billion British dollars in 2020). At the time, economists, particularly John Maynard Keynes (a British delegate to the Paris peace conference), predicted that the treaty was too harsh – a „Carthaginian peace“ – and said that the number of reparations was excessive and counterproductive, opinions that have been the subject of debate from historians and economists since then.
On the other hand, prominent allies, such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, criticized the treaty for treating Germany with too much leniency. On November 11, 1918, when Germany signed the armistice that ended hostilities during world war I, its leaders believed they would accept a „peace without victory,“ as US President Woodrow Wilson described it in his famous fourteen points. But from that moment on, the leaders of the… The result of these competing and sometimes contradictory objectives among the victors was a compromise that did not satisfy anyone and, in particular, Germany was neither pacified nor reconciled, nor was it permanently weakened. The problems posed by the treaty would lead to the Locarno Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other European powers, and the renegotiation of the reparation system that led to the Dawes plan, the boys` plan and the permanent postponement of reparations at the Lausanne conference in 1932.
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