The Bismark
Once the World War I was officially over, the victorious powers, Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, met in Paris to determine the terms of the peace treaty. When the conference was started there were two approaches suggested to dealing with the defeated Germans. The Americans recommended that they adopt President Wilson's Fourteen Points, but the French were determined to make Germany pay for its destruction of French land and resources. France wanted Germany to be weakened so badly so that they could never wage war again. They were successful and in 1919 the Treaty of Versailles was signed. The terms were harsh, limit the size of German army to 100,000 men, ban submarines and major battleships, disband the air force, return the former French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine to France, allow French occupation of Ruhr coal lands for 15 years, demilitarize the Rhineland, pay $35 billion in reparations to the victors of the war, give up all its colonies, and admit it was the aggressor the war. One would say that the Treaty of Versailles caused World War II, but it clearly limited the size and power of the German Navy. The following will explain how Germany defied Article 181 through 190 of the Treaty, the construction, an explanation of the ship, and its story, which was a huge part of the war at sea in WWII as the biggest and most powerful battleship.
The Treaty of Versailles of 1919, stated in its Article 181 that the German naval forces in commission could not exceed six battleships, six light cruisers, twelve destroyers and twelve torpedo boats, while Article 190 limited the displacement of capital ships to 10,000 tons. On 6 February 1922, the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan, signed the Washington Naval Treaty. Under the terms of this treaty, the five major naval powers agreed to limit the standard displacement of their capital ships to 35 000 tons and the caliber of their heavy guns to 16 inches. The total capital...
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