Slide 1

Great Britain and Empire947,000 France1,360,000 Germany1,800,000 Italy615,000 Some of the figures for soldiers killed in action in the First World War Slide 2 Slide 3 Europe after the Treaties of Versailles and St Germain, 1919 Slide 4 The Treaty of Versailles The treaty which Germany was forced to sign at the end of the First World War in 1919 contained several terms which many Germans found humiliating: - Germany was to have an army no bigger than 100,000 men. - The Germans were not allowed to have any tanks, submarines or military aircraft in the armed forces. - Germany lost 13 per cent of her territory to other countries. - Germany had to pay 6000 million in gold to Britain and France as compensation for starting the war. Slide 5 More than anything I hated to see war crippled men standing in the gutter selling matches. We had been promised a land fit for heroes; it took a hero to live in it. Id never fight for my country again. Private W.A. Turner quoted in M. Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme, 1971 Slide 6 Why cannot our children be taught that the seeds of the Second World War were well and truly sown in that Treaty and although there was a twenty year period of germination the bloody harvest of the Second World War was inevitable? Why not explain that the vengeful [punishing] Treaty of Versailles provided very fertile ground for the madman Hitler to brainwash the German people with his warlike Nazi philosophy...? W.H.A. Groom, Poor Bloody Infantry Slide 7 Slide 8 An unemployed disabled ex-serviceman in 1921 Slide 9 Slide 10 A peace demonstration in Britain in the 1930s