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This document was on and copyright the Channel 4Learning Website at www.4learning.co.uk/netnotes/dsp_series.cfm?sectionid=371

This page went down in November 2005, so I have copied it here..

 

 

Treaty of Versailles - Newspaper Extracts

 

 

This page contains many of the quotations from newspapers of the time

 

The People, 29 June 1919

 HISTORIC PEACE CEREMONY

The excitement was tense in the extreme, as, with trembling hand, the German minister ... took the pen and placed his signature to paper. Everyone felt the tremendous significance of the moment. Not a word was spoken, and the fall of a pin could be heard in the famous gallery. There was just the rustle of shutters of the cameras of the press photographers to be noticed.

   

Daily Mail, 30 June 1919

The little figures in black are going out with bent backs. The German Empire is dead.

   

Daily Chronicle, 30 June 1919

 PEACE SIGNED!

 SUBMISSION OF GERMANY AT 3.14PM

Peace has been signed, and the long drawn out conflict with Germany is over.

   

The Times, 24 June 1919

The Germans have given in ... They writhe at the obligation imposed on them to confess their guilt ... Some of the conditions, they affirm, are designed to deprive the German people of its honour ... They thought little of the honour of the nations whose territories they defiled with their barbarous and inhuman warfare for more than three awful years.

   

Daily Chronicle, 30 June 1919

 LONDON'S JOY SCENES

 MULTITUDES OF CHEERING, SINGING PEOPLE HOLD HIGH CARNIVAL

 ALL CLASSES COMBINE TO CELEBRATE

There were great scenes outside Buckingham Palace, where all day Londoners flocked in their thousands to cheer the King and Queen ... The West-end was naturally the objective of all who felt the need of releasing pent-up feelings of enthusiasm, and there were carnival scenes everywhere, but no rowdiness, only boisterous merriment and noise.

   

The Star, 24 June 1919

 PARIS GOES WILD WITH JOY

Paris went wild with joy last night when news of the Germans' unconditional climb-down arrived, and expressed its feelings in the traditional way - flags, processions, gun firing, illuminations, cheering.

   

The People, 11 May 1919

 GERMANY'S DEATH SENTENCE

   

Daily Herald, 10 May 1919

 GERMANY IN MOURNING

ll Public Amusements Suspended by Government Proclamation.

   

Deutsche Zietung, reprinted in the Daily Chronicle, 30 June 1919

 THE TREATY IS ONLY A SCRAP OF PAPER!

We will seek vengeance for the shame of 1919.

   

Vorwarts, reprinted in the Daily Chronicle, 30 June 1919

... the Treaty does not create a lasting and final order of things in the world. The Treaty is full of injustices, brutalities and exploitations.

   

The People, 25 May 1919

 Terms of Treaty Better Than Germany Deserves

 WAR MAKERS MUST BE MADE TO SUFFER

Germany's chickens are coming home to roost, and she is making no end of a song about it. That was expected, but it will not help her much ...

If Germany had her deserts, indeed, there would be no Germany left to bear any burden at all; she would be wiped off the map of Europe ...

Stern justice would demand for Germany a punishment 10 times harder than any she will have to bear ...

The feeling in this country is not that Germany is being too hardly dealt by, but that she is being let off too lightly ...

   

Daily Mail, 30 June 1919

 PEACE WITH VIGILANCE

... though we have paralysed Germany afield, afloat and in the air, we have not annihilated her inherent power for evil.

Germany is still a menace.

   

Daily Herald, 8 May 1919

 THE PEACE THAT IS NO PEACE

 WHEN THERE IS NO PEACE

We have a League of Nations have we? It is in practice a League of Allies ... Its provisions ... contain no recognition of the brotherhood of man, the spiritual equality of one with another, the equal rights of all.

 

 


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