The Air Clauses of the Versailles Treaty

Section III. Air Clauses
Article 198

The armed forces of Germany must not include any military or naval air forces.

Germany may, during a period not extending beyond 1 October 1919, maintain a maximum number of one hundred seaplanes or flying boats, which shall be exclusively employed in searching for submarine mines, shall be furnished with the necessary equipment for this purpose, and shall in no case carry arms, munitions or bombs of any nature whatever.

In addition to the engines installed in the seaplanes or flying boats above mentioned, one spare engine may be provided for each engine of each of these craft.

No dirigible shall be kept.

Article 199

Within two months from the coming into force of the present Treaty the personnel of air forces on the rolls of the German land and sea forces shall be demobilised. Up to 1 October 1919, however, Germany may keep and maintain a total number of one thousand men, including officers, for the whole of the cadres and personnel, flying and non-flying, of all formations and establishments.

Article 200

Until the complete evacuation of German territory by the Allied and Associated troops, the aircraft of the Allied and Associated Powers shall enjoy in Germany freedom of passage through the air, freedom of transit and of landing.

Article 201

During the six months following the coming into force of the present Treaty, the manufacture and importation of aircraft, parts of aircraft, engines for aircraft, and parts of engines for aircraft, shall be forbidden in all German territory.

Article 202

On the coming into force of the present Treaty, all military and naval aeronautical material, except the machines mentioned in the second and third paragraphs of Article 198, must be delivered to the Governments of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers.

Delivery must be effected at such places as the said Governments may select, and must be completed within three months.

In particular, this material will include all items under the following heads which are or have been in use or were designed for warlike purposes:

• Complete aeroplanes and seaplanes, as well as those being manufactured, repaired or assembled.
• Dirigibles able to take the air, being manufactured, repaired or assembled.
• Plant for the manufacture of hydrogen.
• Dirigible sheds and shelters of every kind for aircraft.

Pending their delivery, dirigibles will, at the expense of Germany, be maintained inflated with hydrogen; the plant for the manufacture of hydrogen, as well as the sheds for dirigibles may at the discretion of the said Powers, be left to Germany until the time when the dirigibles are handed over.

• Engines for aircraft.
• Nacelles and fuselages.
• Armament (guns, machine guns, light machine guns, bomb-dropping apparatus, torpedo-dropping apparatus, synchronisation apparatus, aiming apparatus).
• Munitions (cartridges, shells, bombs loaded or unloaded, stocks of explosives or of material for their manufacture).
• Instruments for use on aircraft.
• Wireless apparatus and photographic or cinematograph apparatus for use on aircraft.
• Component parts of any of the items under the preceding heads.

The material referred to above shall not be removed without special permission from the said Governments.

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Until I read the text of the treaty, I had not realised quite how draconian its terms actually were, nor the detail that was included. It is not difficult to understand why the Allies imposed such conditions upon their defeated enemy; likewise, it is not difficult to understand why these terms were so resented by the Germans.