Since, even from the very beginning of the Franco-Russian Entente, Tsar Alexander III told Nikolai Giers that, in the event of war between Russia and A-H, the Entente's intention would be to "destroy" Germany and replace it with "a number of small, weak states", I think the hardest possible Versaiiles has to include not only a variable amount of territorial annexation, but also the dismemberment of the German State.
Unfortunately for the Entente leadership, Britain and the U.S. weren't going to countenance such a course, so even though that's what France and Russia desired from the beginning, it didn't happen.
Find a way for the Entente to beat the CP without American involvement, and with much less dependence on British help, and I suppose you might get such an outcome. But I'm not sure that achieving victory under those two conditions is plausible.
The best bet (barring ahistorical displays of utter German incompetence) might be to have A-H accept Serbia's response to the 1914 Ultimatum. Then, as seems likely to me, have France and Russia push a future Balkan incident to the point of war after 1917. If one accepts the view that Russian military reform would eliminate both the viability of the Schlieffen Plan, and any possibility of German victory (both Entente and German leaders thought this at the time), then you could get the Entente beating Germany without either American or British involvement, and thus the possibility for a harsher peace diktat.*
However, while I think it probable that the Franco-Russian Entente would push a war once they felt themselves unbeatable, I strongly doubt the actual efficacy of the Russian military reforms. So a maximally harsh treaty is still unlikely.
* British involvement being presumably avoided since German leaders by this point accept that the Schlieffen Plan cannot possibly succeed, and consider that a more compact defensive front is a better bet. Thus, no German invasion of Belgium.
Unfortunately for the Entente leadership, Britain and the U.S. weren't going to countenance such a course, so even though that's what France and Russia desired from the beginning, it didn't happen.
Find a way for the Entente to beat the CP without American involvement, and with much less dependence on British help, and I suppose you might get such an outcome. But I'm not sure that achieving victory under those two conditions is plausible.
The best bet (barring ahistorical displays of utter German incompetence) might be to have A-H accept Serbia's response to the 1914 Ultimatum. Then, as seems likely to me, have France and Russia push a future Balkan incident to the point of war after 1917. If one accepts the view that Russian military reform would eliminate both the viability of the Schlieffen Plan, and any possibility of German victory (both Entente and German leaders thought this at the time), then you could get the Entente beating Germany without either American or British involvement, and thus the possibility for a harsher peace diktat.*
However, while I think it probable that the Franco-Russian Entente would push a war once they felt themselves unbeatable, I strongly doubt the actual efficacy of the Russian military reforms. So a maximally harsh treaty is still unlikely.
* British involvement being presumably avoided since German leaders by this point accept that the Schlieffen Plan cannot possibly succeed, and consider that a more compact defensive front is a better bet. Thus, no German invasion of Belgium.
Last edited:
