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Article 231, often known as the "War Guilt" clause, was the opening article of the reparations section of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War between the German Empire and the Allied and Associated Powers.
English and French were the official languages of the treaty; in French, it was known formally as Article 231 du traité de Versailles or less formally as clause de culpabilité de la guerre ("war guilt clause"); and in German, as the Kriegsschuldartikel ("war guilt" + Artikel, "clause").
The other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles. This article, Article 231, became known as the "War Guilt" clause. Critics including John Maynard Keynes declared the treaty too harsh, styling it as a "Carthaginian peace", and saying the reparations were excessive and counterproductive.
The Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, changed the discussion by establishing the so-called war guilt article as the basis for the reparations that the treaty imposed. Without using the word "guilt", Article 231 stated:
The opening article of the reparation section of the Treaty of Versailles, Article 231, served as a legal basis for the following articles, which obliged Germany to pay compensation [22] and limited German responsibility to civilian damages. The same article, with the signatory's name changed, was also included in the treaties signed by Germany ...
The main result of the conference was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany; Article 231 of that treaty placed the whole guilt for the war on "the aggression of Germany and her allies". That provision proved very humiliating for German leaders, armies and citizens alike, and set the stage for the expensive reparations that Germany was intended ...
Moral injury is a relatively new concept that seems to describe what many feel: a sense that their fundamental understanding of right and wrong has been violated, and the grief, numbness or guilt that often ensues. Here, you will meet combat veterans struggling with the moral and ethical ambiguities of war.
In the interwar period, the question of responsibility of the war had immense political implications because the German government kept on insisting that because of the Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles was the "war guilt clause", the entire treaty rested upon Article 231, and if it could be proven that Germany was not responsible for the ...