Treaty of Versailles is less harsh on the Germans.

Danzig was nominally a "Free City", but in reality it was under Polish authority as a Leage of Nations mandate. So yes, it was basically given to the Poles.

And East Prussia was cut off from the Reich...
 
Poland needs access to a port to be a viable state, so I think the 'Polish Corridor' will still exist, whether it's at Danzig or somewhere else.
 
Danzig was nominally a "Free City", but in reality it was under Polish authority as a Leage of Nations mandate. So yes, it was basically given to the Poles.
Not true, AFAIK. Source?
They were extensive legal battles to have Polish postoffices and a Polish guarding depot in Danzig, doesn't really sound as being under Polish authority.

And East Prussia was cut off from the Reich...

It was also cut off from the Brandenburg 1618-1772 and managed just fine.
 
Give them Posen & Lithuania. But Danzig & the corridor practically crippled Germany.

Lithuania had the disadvantage of being inhabited by Lithuanians, who weren't really fond of being part of a Polish state again. And Posen isn't on the sea :confused:
Could you also explain to me how corridor crippled Germany?
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Lithuania had the disadvantage of being inhabited by Lithuanians, who weren't really fond of being part of a Polish state again. And Posen isn't on the sea :confused:
Could you also explain to me how corridor crippled Germany?
I know, but Posen isn't German either.


Danzig removed alot of income from Germany. Thus increasing it's economic woes.
 
I know, but Posen isn't German either.


Danzig removed alot of income from Germany. Thus increasing it's economic woes.

Some Germans would have disagreed.
And seriously. Danzig was a single city. And suddenly it affects whole German economy? Color me sceptic.
 
The seeds for the Great War were sown in the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt that ended the Franco-Prussian War. Aside from the War Guilt clause I don't see the treaty particularly harsh for the war that had occured.

I have to disagree:

Versailles: 226 billion Goldmark at ca. 0.358 g, later reduced to 132 billion
Frankfurt: 5 billion Golfgranc at ca. 0,290 g

The main difference was that France was treated as an - admittedly defeated - great nation, with the last German soldier leaving in 1873. France was already reforming its military in the late 1870´s ...

Germany was not treated as a defeated nation, but as a pariah state. Not allowed to have a real army, not given full control of its remaining territory, the war guilt clause, the Leipzig trials ...

There were also a lot of pointless, deliberate humiliations: Forcing Germany to disarm its civilian population and police, having to buy new short barreled police pistols (long ones being outlawed) abroad because it was no longer allowed to build its own weapons, forced to adopt US-style narcotics policies and reform its patent laws (maybe not in Versailles itself, but happening at the same time IIRC) etc.

These petty humiliations continued after Versailles. A few years later there was an international conference to regulate the radio spectrum ... guess which nation got very (!) few frequencies.

Another often overlooked fact is that the victorious nations blatantly violated the Treaty of Versailles (e.g. the Little Belgian Farce); this somehow undercut its legitimacy ...

Keynes may have been exaggerating when calling Versailles a Carthaginian peace, but not by much IMHO. It was quite unique, not only in its harshness, but also in being so full of hatred and stupidity ... all IMHO, of course.
 
Yes definitely. Yes, probably, No idea.

The problem with Versailles is not the Treaty, it is that no-one is willing to enforce it. A more lenient treaty will not change anything. It should have been harsher.

Really depends in what way you mean. Plenty of kids suffered malnutrition in Germany in 1919-20. A harsher settlement that made that even worse is going to do a world of hurt. If Germany had been told straight off that it was going to lose territory, but the Entente had taken pains to prevent suffering in the civilian population, then it might have worked out a bit better.

Also, it's hard to see what other parts of Germany could have been detached without creating a major minority problem in neighbouring states. Unless you're talking disunification...?
 
Well, it's not that the treaty wasn't harsh, it's that it was harsh after a war in which the Western Allies (the ones negotiating it) had never occupied a square inch of German soil.

This disconsonance meant that it was hard to enforce. If it had been harsher (i.e. undo unification), then it might have been easier, since no more Germany. If it's less harsh, it's also easier to enforce, since there's less to care about. It's also made more difficult because it was incredibly harsh to the Germans who seemed to have lost control of their country without even being invaded.

Hence, the problem is that France and the UK (much less so) felt like treating Germany as if she had surrendured, rather than as if they couldn't defeat her.

Ironically, a status quo ante bellum with maybe colonies lost instead of reparations probably would have been better. Now, if Wilson hadn't have been dead set on the Peace to end all Wars, maybe things might have been different.
 
Might I note that Germany actually paid @1.5% of the total reparation enacted? And that debts never repaid by Germany may have actually exceeded what was paid?
 
I think that Versailles is something of a red herring really...I believe that the treaty was about as lenient as it was realistically going to be and that, in fact, a far more profitable exercise might be to posit what would have happened if Germany had simply been more fully defeated; i.e. if Allied troops had marched through Berlin. We must remember that Germany was in fact treated more ''harshly'' after WW2- Germans were expelled in their millions from Eastern European countries, a good deal of land was taken and what remained became, for nearly five years, essentially the possessions of other countries and industry was generally sabotaged or stolen (particularly by the Soviets); yet that did not provoke another global conflict led by the people of that country.
 
I think that Versailles is something of a red herring really...I believe that the treaty was about as lenient as it was realistically going to be and that, in fact, a far more profitable exercise might be to posit what would have happened if Germany had simply been more fully defeated; i.e. if Allied troops had marched through Berlin. We must remember that Germany was in fact treated more ''harshly'' after WW2- Germans were expelled in their millions from Eastern European countries, a good deal of land was taken and what remained became, for nearly five years, essentially the possessions of other countries and industry was generally sabotaged or stolen (particularly by the Soviets); yet that did not provoke another global conflict led by the people of that country.

No, the Allies learnt their lesson: If you're aiming to crush an enemy, you have to crush him completely.

Nowadays the Germans themselves enforce the pacifism et cetera the Allies inculcated them with.
 
The allies had no choice.

At the end of the Franco-Prussian war you had Germany. She dwarfed France. She had a larger population, a bigger and better industry and far greater military potential. France alone was no threat. Even an alliance between France and Russia (which wasn't immediately obvious in 1870) could probably have been defeated. Germany didn't need to permanently end France as a great power.

What does France have at the end of WW1? She has none of these advantages. A natural return will merely see Germany still have a greater population, far more industry and thus a greater military potential. All WW1 has done is led Russia into revolution which renders her a less than viable ally and quite possibly an enemy. Germany will recover from the war and quite possibly do so quicker than France unless grave impositions are placed upon her. Germany will inevitably become the continental hegemon.

This was unacceptable to the British and French before WW1. It was certainly unacceptable after it.

The harshness of a treaty is meaningless if it is not enforced.
You will have another war unless the Anglo-French are willing to accept German hegemony. You can argue the EU prevented this fear, but that argueably only came about because in the aftermath of WW2 Germany was politically neutered. She has the economy to rule Europe and argueably is the paymaster of the EU. How the British and the French (not to mention the Italians, Poles and so on) shall handle her growing political confidence shall be an interesting feature of the 21st century.
 
Nowadays the Germans themselves enforce the pacifism et cetera the Allies inculcated them with.

Yes, but a major factor for German post-WW II pacifism was shame about the Holocaust.

There was no comparable reason for self-castigation post WW I, at least in German public opinion.
 
The harshness of a treaty is meaningless if it is not enforced.

A harsh treaty will create hatred, whether its enforced or not.

An average citizen - not being a bookkeeper - does not know or care how much money was actually paid, but how much was originally demanded. The diplomatic struggle about reducing said amount will keep the original treaty with all its petty humiliations in the headlines ...
 

Lonewolf

Banned
Versailles: Nobody of us lived through these years. And the generation that did is nearly dead.

I just looked some data up and i came upon the following:

I remember that in the eastern regions elections were held. Some of the were in favour of staying with germany. But the Allies gave the territories regadles of the election to poland.

The reparations were so huge that the last payment was to be made 1988. BUT because of World War II we germans still pay reparations for WW I.
The half-official information is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations
In this text it is said that the last reparations will be payed 2010.

In another page whose sources are not identified it is said that Germany will pay till 2020.

And then there is a rumor that Clemeceau told the graduating class of St. Cyr military academy shortly after Versailles something like: Gentlemen, you do not fear for your employment. With Versailles i made sure there will be plenty of war for all of you.

Last but not least: the germans were angry about the US-president. He proposed 14 points = peace with honor.
If Versailles would have been like that, than i dont think that anybody would have objected against fair reparations.
But if i get it right, Clemenceau and Lloyd George told Wilson he had to choose: League of nations or peace with honor.

A very good person (i dont remember the name) said after Versailles: We will have peace for not more than 20 years.
He was right.
 
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