What would be a good peace after WWI?
- Thread starter Tibi088
- Start date
Well, it would be a great start to approach the peace negotiations like the allies did in 1814/15.
They refused to negotiate with the old regime. They intended to restore the monarchy, and wanted the 'new' government to succeed. They knew that utterly humiliating and crushing France would discredit the government they wanted to install. So France didn't lose any pre-war territories. She had to pay a heft indemnity, but it was hardly crippling. And the new government actually got to negotiate the peace, not merely receive a diktat.
(Of course, the 1814 terms were better than the 1815; but even after Napoleon came back and tried again, France lost no lands and went noticeably uncrushed)
Have the Entente actually commit to providing the post-WW1 German government realistic conditions for success, rather than try to punish her and do a half-assed job of crippling her, and that'll be a good starting point.
On exact points, I have no recommendations. Not taking pre-war land away from Germany would be one idea worth pursuing.
They refused to negotiate with the old regime. They intended to restore the monarchy, and wanted the 'new' government to succeed. They knew that utterly humiliating and crushing France would discredit the government they wanted to install. So France didn't lose any pre-war territories. She had to pay a heft indemnity, but it was hardly crippling. And the new government actually got to negotiate the peace, not merely receive a diktat.
(Of course, the 1814 terms were better than the 1815; but even after Napoleon came back and tried again, France lost no lands and went noticeably uncrushed)
Have the Entente actually commit to providing the post-WW1 German government realistic conditions for success, rather than try to punish her and do a half-assed job of crippling her, and that'll be a good starting point.
On exact points, I have no recommendations. Not taking pre-war land away from Germany would be one idea worth pursuing.
Not taking pre-war territory is impossible i think. Alsace is going t be french and a revived Poland need at least Posnan. I agree with your other statements.
Deleted member 1487
Let Germany annex the German speaking parts of Austria-Hungary on the border and put reparations off until after the post-war economy stabilizes and the trade situation can be determined to figure out Germany's actual ability to pay. They must pay reparations and cede OTL territories, plus have military limitations, but with a path to being brought back into the family of nations and in the wider context of continental disarmament so that Germany doesn't have an excuse to rearm later.
There is a huge difference balance of power wise in 1815 vs 1919. France in 1815 after losing the Napoleonic Wars has a population of around 30 million, and essentially all the Great Powers oppose - and are capable of opposing - hegemonic ambitions. Prussia, Austria, Russia, Britain, all exist and are all capable and willing to oppose French expansionism - not to mention the array of smaller states that would be opposed. Their opponents heavily outnumber them in both number of states and population(combined, although Russia and Austria are individually larger if I recall). By comparison in 1919 there are three great powers other than German left in Europe - France, Britain, and Italy. Britain is an unreliable nation for anything that involves serious sustained continental commitments, Italy does not border Germany and is only tangential to Germany, and France has 40m people to Germany's 60m, plus a devastated industrial base and substantially heavier Great War casualties. The rest of the territory is covered by small powers that can be bullied into submission. Treating Germany in 1919 the way France was treated in 1815 runs asunder on the hard reality that France in 1815 is in a much less advantageous position than Germany in 1919 is.
The Allies in 1815 would hardly be amenable to France controlling its territory under the Empire if it was a Monarchy again; neither are the Allies in 1919 going to be overjoyed at Germany being able to run amok in Eastern and Central Europe, regardless if the German government is a democracy now. This automatically means that Germany in 1919 has to be constrained if any sort of notion of the balance of power is to exist and the Entente victory exist, very much unlike in 1815 when the state of affairs with reduction of France to its pre-war power base meant that it could easily be constrained with the need for external controls.
This is also not mentioning the Government differences; the Monarchic regime in France in 1815 has in some form existed as an ally alongside the anti-Republican/Imperial coalition for decades. It has contributed troops to the cause(admittedly these have fallen off after the first years of the war, but there were Chasseurs Britanniques fighting with the British up until the end of the war), and has repeatedly proved its willingness to fight against its countrymen as part of the Alliance. What does the German government in 1919 bring to the table? They're a democracy - or a "democracy", depending on how one views German politics during the era - but they're also committed to defending the Empire's policies, such as on the war guilt front. Regardless of one's opinions on that particular matter (this is not to discuss the cause of the war, only its perception in 1919), there must be a difference between a government which has spent decades fighting alongside you, and a government that has spent much of its time in office defending the policies of the predecessor you spent years fighting. If there were German Republican battalions fighting alongside the British and the French for the duration of the War, German republican uprisings against the Imperial government at the beginning of the war(not at the end when all is lost), and a German government in exile aligned with the Allies, then the 1815/1919 situation would be capable of being compared. As it stood there are huge differences between the governments.
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Territory wise Germany would still have to loose Alsace-Lorraine and Posnan.
The allies could not allow German areas of Austria-Hungary to go directly to Germany because it would make Germany to powerful. Perhaps a Plebiscite with German areas of former Austria-Hungary in 20 years or so.
The Polish corridor was a very bad idea because it was clearly an issue that would lead to war, so the Germans should not loose it.
As for the rest I would mostly agree with what Tallil2long said.
The allies could not allow German areas of Austria-Hungary to go directly to Germany because it would make Germany to powerful. Perhaps a Plebiscite with German areas of former Austria-Hungary in 20 years or so.
The Polish corridor was a very bad idea because it was clearly an issue that would lead to war, so the Germans should not loose it.
As for the rest I would mostly agree with what Tallil2long said.
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Deleted member 1487
Poland needed a connection to the Sea, so they need the corridor, plus it was filled with Poles and related Slavs. What they should have done was allowed Germany an extraterritorial rail road to connect East Prussia and Germany.
I get what you're saying, and I think many of your points are entirely correct.
But. The conditions imposed by the Entente were (unlike in 1814/15) guaranteed to make it extraordinarily difficult for the new government to maintain any credibility and legitimacy with the German population. That government could only be viewed as a weak, sell-out body that didnt have the welfare of the German people at heart.
Who will be viewed as credible under such conditions, is a more radical government that will work to throw off the harsher clauses of Versailles.
That's exactly what the world got with the Nazis, in spades.
So while it wouldn't have been plausible for the Entente to be utterly nonpunitive and unrestraining towards Germany, I still think they should've made a conscious effort to set terms that would assist the new government to survive, and the German people to be relatively content with their new lot.
Maybe the ideal compromise couldn't have been found, regardless. But I don't think the Entente even tried.
Deleted member 1487
Nothing, it fell apart and IOTL the Austrians voted to join Germany, but were prevented from doing so by the Entente.
Unable to unfie Germany in the centuries before and adding non German areas to the realm.....and that inbreed Habsburg family.
Im of the opinion that a stronger Austria is needed to counteract the Germans. Also keeping the monarchy in some fashion so Austrians feel like they have some nation identity and not just a German state separated from the mother country. Just my two somewhat informed but not really cents.
A few points:
Germany just lost a war so it getting Austria or any austrian territories in 1919 or a set plebistice about this in the future is out of question.
There are similarities between 1814/15 and 1919 but huge differences as well. But i think that inviting Germany to the peace conference and actually negotiating with it would go a long way to a much better peace in many way.
The necessity of the polish corridor is one of the most difficult questions IMO. I dont think i have any good answer for this.
Germany just lost a war so it getting Austria or any austrian territories in 1919 or a set plebistice about this in the future is out of question.
There are similarities between 1814/15 and 1919 but huge differences as well. But i think that inviting Germany to the peace conference and actually negotiating with it would go a long way to a much better peace in many way.
The necessity of the polish corridor is one of the most difficult questions IMO. I dont think i have any good answer for this.
I guess I can sympathize with that. While I do tend to take the line that the Versailles treaty isn't as bad as commonly portrayed, I do admit that negotiations with it would probably have been a good idea to lessen the blow and enable the German government to escape with some face. If I recall there were some proposals to do this - the French apparently did propose German involvement in the economic committee according to some sources I had read. There were also lower reparation sums tossed about, the figures adopted were put up by the British and were much higher than that of any of the other nation's serious proposals (extremely ironically, considering the British stance on reparations post-war).
Even with all of its problems though, I don't think that Versailles was inherently flawed. In fact I might argue that the pre-Great Depression period was a time of startling progress and the forging of a peaceful accord between the nations. To be sure there was resentment, but it was settling throughout the 1920s, with increasingly moderate politics in Weimar Germany. The inter-war period of 1918-1933 is my favorite historical period from the last several centuries, and one of the most interesting things I've been reading was Franco-German rapprochement during the period. There were increasingly economic cooperation between the two states(especially in the coal/steel/coke exchange for steel), cultural exchanges with WW1 veterans from both sides being brought together on the old battlefields as well as artistic depictions of emerging concepts of united Europe, and the beginnings of joint understanding with Catholic/Christian parties on both sides beginning to forge friendship, much like some of the modern Christian democracy parties that have emerged.
This was under the Versailles order for the most part, and I think that Germany would have ultimately been reconciled to an understanding with other nations and become a peaceful center-stone of an emerging proto-EU, along with France. The fact that it didn't succeed I tend to attribute to the Great Depression which shattered the emerging economic collaboration and growing political moderation in Germany, rather than inherently to Versailles. Versailles no doubt had its part in the problems of Germany, but in my opinion Versailles related reaction was often a symptom rather than always the cause, and if not for the destabilizing economic patterns of the 1930s it would have largely worked.
That is my long way of saying that I think that while the problems of Versailles were very real, I tend to think that the conditions that led to the rise of the Nazis often came from conditions other than Versailles, and that it was possible that even with Versailles as it originally stood, the same results did not inherently have to occur.
That doesn't make any sense to me, did the Austrians really just see themselves as German? Had the last 43 years not created some semblance of a separate national identity?
Deleted member 1487
They didn't think they could survive on their own and did have ideas of pan-Germanic identity, because they spoke the same language, originated in Bavaria over 1000 years ago, and were part of the same empire until the 30 years war.
And allowing them to keep more territory and maintain their monarchy* wouldn't reduce any of this sentiment?
*Im not entirely clear on Charles the first and his decision to abdicate.
Deleted member 1487
Charles was ousted by the Austrians before the peace deal, just like Wilhelm in Germany; they didn't want him. Even at the maximum, which they claimed as they held their personal plebiscite, they wanted to join Germany, as their economy was imploding before they were whittled down in the final peace deal. Things were so bad that the Allies did not require them to pay reparations because they couldn't.
In Franco-German rapprochement in the 20s Streseman played a huge role - he was its main propagator on the german side. But even he didnt give up the revision of the Versailles treaty - using force if need be. If even the more moderate germans like him couldnt accept the treaty it shows that this treaties were really unacceptable to Germany and instigate it to go to war again if needed to revise them.
The Versailles Treaty was really bad and Germany was determined to its revision. I see the Great Depression more as a catalyst that strengthened this anti versailles feelings and made them more evident. But sooner or later a conflict was bound to happen because of german revision plans even without the Great Depression.