International affairs moved along new paths for a substantial time after
the war's conclusion. Germany, the rising power of the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, was reduced in size and power in the aftermath
of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles ended the German overseas empire,
and it restricted the size and nature of the German military system. While
neighbors such as France and Poland could have armies as large and as well
equipped as they wished, Germany was compelled to limit its force to
100,000 men and to renounce the era's most potent weapons, such as the
submarine and the combat airplane. The surrender of the great ships of the
German navy after the November 1918 Armistice, and their scuttling by
their own crews at Scapa Flow on June 21, 1 9 1 9, to prevent them from being
transferred to British hands, ended the threat of Germany as a naval power.
The territory of imperial Germany was reduced by 15 percent as it lost lands
to Belgium, France, Denmark, and Poland. For the next decade and a half,
countries along Germany's borders were able to breathe more easily at the
sight of their mammoth neighbor reduced to second-rate military status.
World History
