Prime Minister David Lloyd George speech about Treaty of Versailles

I stand here today as proud leader of this country to tell you of a great victory, we have at last come to an agreement on the set out in the treaty of Versailles. Our men and women have fought hard to defend this country against the likes of Germany and I felt it was extremely important to ensure that these conditions in the treaty honoured those people, especially those who gave their lives. Germany has been punished! But I have also had to protect you and your children from what Germany could do in the future. You must appreciate how difficult it was to set out these conditions.

All of you know that Germany was to blame for this war and I have made sure that they know it too, hence their acceptance of guilt. So many of you have suffered from Germany’s actions and to recover from this Germany is paying compensation of £6,600 million so that Britain can become a greater Britain than ever before. This reparation will help to rebuild buildings, and may go someway to alleviate the suffering of those left behind.

Of course we want to punish Germany but we don’t want a vendetta where Germany will seek revenge in the form of another war. We have tried to prevent this by taking Germany’s overseas empire. These former colonies are now mandates controlled by the League of Nations. Germany has also been forbidden from uniting with Austria ever again. All these conditions will hopefully prevent Germany from becoming too great a threat to Britain in the future.

We have also downsized the German Army and decided that just 100 thousand men is all they are allowed, and only if fellow countrymen voluntarily join up. They’re not allowed any armed vehicles so no submarines, tanks, aircraft and only six battleships. Many of you may be familiar with an area called the Rhineland, this is the bordering land between France and Germany; well this is now a demilitarised zone, no German forces are allowed in this area which is big enough to be a country in itself.

Earlier I talked of a committee called the League of Nations. You could say it is like an international ‘police force’ and will protect the world from war. Germany is not allowed to join this force until it has proved it is a peace loving country.

We have to be careful with the treaty as Germany is still a major trading partner of ours and we do not want to lose this partnership however bad it sounds, many of your jobs rely on this link and the goods that we sell and buy are from them.

I think I can speak for all of us when I say we have got the better half of the treaty, you must value that although I would like nothing more than to have brought Germany to its knees, my hands are tied by the fact that we still need to communicate with Germany both for trading purposes and also with their cooperation and acceptance in the treaty conditions, we have therefore had to make compromises in order to ensure Germany don’t start another war.

No amount of punishment or revenge on Germany will bring our loved ones back to us; we can only hope that this treaty goes someway in preventing any further unrest.

God Save Our King

Bibliography:

History Teacher- Mrs Dawson- Notes which built up into essay- ALOT OF HELP

Wikipedia- Brief summary of Treaty of Versailles- LITTLE HELP