The treaty of Versailles is just between the Allies and Germany , anything involving Austro-Hungary was dealt with via separate treaties ( Saint-Germain-en-Lay for the Austrian bits and Trianon for the Hungarian ), So Sudetenland etc are not really up for grabs.
What should the United States, Britain, and France, have done differently regarding Germany, and Europe, at the End of World War One?
Would Entente had been even invade and occupy Germany? And note that Germany already sued peace. It would be bit ridicolous invade Germany after armistice.
That would be really messy speciality if you go with expulsion of Germans since Poland would have massive German population.
Just try to get France realise benefit of that.
Completely agree. It would had been morally right to respect promises.
And I am bit surprised that you didn't promote trials against war-time German leadership.
Germany is still exist after WW2 and no one reasonable say that it is threat. You have not destroy yours enemy to get peace. And that would look really bad. Then no one ever would surrend or sue peace when they know that their nation would cease from exist. Perhaps Bush should had destroy Iraq too? And perhaps Afghanistan too should had been destroyed. Don't begin to play Cato the Elder.
True that the Great Depression helped but bigger factor was with probmels on ToV.
Garrison
Donor
You mean the country that had been invaded, provided most of the troops fighting the war in the west and made a major contribution to the final offensive that ended the war? That France?
How was Germany in the First World War, any different than France in the Napoleonic Wars? When Napoleon was defeated, did the victorious nations demand France be broken up?
I think the difference was the scale of the carnage in WW1, due to “modern” weapons of war being used. Germany was severely punished by the victors to scare the rest of the world (and each other) into never considering it again. “The “war to end all wars” was the myth that allowed the Nazis to rise. The foreshadowing of what the west would do (or didn’t do) in 1939, was their reaction to the Russian invasion of Poland in 1920. Instead of wringing their hands in the late 20s, with the rise of Nazism, the League of Nations should have mobilized immediately.
ric350
I think the difference was the scale of the carnage in WW1, due to “modern” weapons of war being used. Germany was severely punished by the victors to scare the rest of the world (and each other) into never considering it again. “The “war to end all wars” was the myth that allowed the Nazis to rise. The foreshadowing of what the west would do (or didn’t do) in 1939, was their reaction to the Russian invasion of Poland in 1920. Instead of wringing their hands in the late 20s, with the rise of Nazism, the League of Nations should have mobilized immediately.
ric350
Cool, and what do you do with the millions of Germans now outside the border?
Do the same after OTL WW2?
I think the principal difference here is that ultranationalist mass politicization wasn't yet that much of a thing in 1815, but in 1919 any French or British politician who would have called for a Congress of Vienna style peace (even if willing to do so) would have ended his career immediately and completely.
Ultranationalist mass politicization in turn was made inevitable by the advent of mass media and mass literacy in the industrial age.
That’s Nazi propaganda. The reality was that the Treaty wasn’t much of a problem by 1929, and the Allies had been willing to renegotiate terms. Repeatedly. The main issue with it was that Germany acted like a spoiled toddler in regards to said treaty for years. France managed to pay the more crippling (according to the Germans who levied them) reparations after the Franco-Prussian War in less time than Germany took to just decide, fuck it let’s murder everyone.
Well let’s see. You’ve just massively expanded German territory. And given them a set of client states. And eliminated any possibility of building any kind of non-German coalition in Germany. And alienated everyone inside your own countries by handing the Germans victory from their defeat. Care to just let them have Belgium too? Since its just giving the Germans everything they could ever want.
IMO the biggest problem is not so much the concrete territorial changes, reparations or occupations, but rather how final the treaty pretended to be. A lot of the consequences of the treaty were just written as permanent, and they were unenforceable. For example, how could the allies have kept Austria from joining Germany long term? Permanent occupation aside, it would be extremely hard to do.
The solution imo is to make a lot more things dependent on time and German good-will. Do they want Austria in 10 years? Sure, they can have it, if they have paid x reparations. Do they want Danzig? Only if they shoulder the burden of building modern port in Gdynia. Have a timetable for upscaling the military, dependen on reparation payments. And so on.
Oh, and allow Germany to join the League of Nations from the beginning. That was big blunder that discredited the LoN as an international forum right from the beginning.
The solution imo is to make a lot more things dependent on time and German good-will. Do they want Austria in 10 years? Sure, they can have it, if they have paid x reparations. Do they want Danzig? Only if they shoulder the burden of building modern port in Gdynia. Have a timetable for upscaling the military, dependen on reparation payments. And so on.
Oh, and allow Germany to join the League of Nations from the beginning. That was big blunder that discredited the LoN as an international forum right from the beginning.
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cardcarrier
Banned
No armistice. Full on military invasion and occupation
10x the reparations of OTL under bayonet point
Rhineland is given to France and Poland given everything up to the Oder
Allied occupation government for a minimum of 99 years
10x the reparations of OTL under bayonet point
Rhineland is given to France and Poland given everything up to the Oder
Allied occupation government for a minimum of 99 years
No just giving them what the principle of nationality would entitle them to. And where her principal former ally used to be there's just a shower of petty states, some of whom may be pro-German, others not, but whose preferences don't hugely matter one way or the other. So overall she's still weaker than before.
I certainly wouldn't give her Belgium, because Belgium doesn't want to belong to her. AIUI some Flemings had had vaguely pro-German sympathies, butt the experiences of a four year German occupation probably cured mot of them.
And even those flaws wouldn't have mattered if the victors had had the will to enforce it.
That is the crucial problem. Nothing anyone does is going to stop the Germans seeking revenge. What is needed is a peace such that its authors will have the moral courage to defend their handiwork. That's where a German border which follows strictly ethnic lines might help, as it would be easier to justify.
. This is the basic problem with alternate ToVs. If the will to enforce is there, they are unnecessary. The OTL Treaty will do perfectly well. If not, the terms of the treaty scarcely matter, since whatever they are they will go unenforced.
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Unfortunely such proposal make the Germans basically stronger than before the war in populationa and economic term and force the Entente to keep a sizeble army to enforce the disarmament...basically only the winner of the second place of the idiot olympic will agree with this term and sure while it make Germany happy as it basically give her a lot of nice things even if she had lost the war. Frankly the only thing that the proposal lack is the Entente formally admitt that they are the guilty party for the war
They were defenseless anyway unless the WAllies were prepared to back them up, and events OTL showed that this will did not exist - or at any rate not until it was too late..
You can rewrite the ToV until you give yourselves RSI, but without the will to fight for it, the treaty will still be just a scrap of paper.
People tend to compare in this thread napoleonic France to Imperial Germany, how the Entente should treat Germany the way the anti-napoleonic coalition treated France at the Congress of Vienna. But you forget one thing: it was France the one who managed to get for itself the comfortable terms at the Congress of Vienna. Or should I say, the diplomatic brilliance of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, who managed to present France as "the first victim of revolution" and buy for France the comfortable terms by cutting off any connections to bonapartism, especially its expansionist aspect. That's what allowed France to be treated well. Germany on the other hand, lacked this kind of diplomatic attitude.
I think Germany could get for itself the comfortable position, if the Germans too play the Talleyrand-like gambit. After the Russian Empire was out of the war, Germany's main enemies were democracies either parliamentary monarchies. So if we ignore the minor players like Serbia, the war became de facto democracies vs monarchies. If Germany blames the war exclusively on Wilhelm II the way Talleyrand blamed exclusively Napoleon, this could've worked. But only if Germany proves its good intentions by renouncing any demands for itself, something which was hard to imagine due to the way Germans felt themselves to be special.
I think Germany could get for itself the comfortable position, if the Germans too play the Talleyrand-like gambit. After the Russian Empire was out of the war, Germany's main enemies were democracies either parliamentary monarchies. So if we ignore the minor players like Serbia, the war became de facto democracies vs monarchies. If Germany blames the war exclusively on Wilhelm II the way Talleyrand blamed exclusively Napoleon, this could've worked. But only if Germany proves its good intentions by renouncing any demands for itself, something which was hard to imagine due to the way Germans felt themselves to be special.
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This wouldn't have changed much. It was the Weimar Republic, which arguably had the most progressive democratic constitution of its time, that was forced to sign the ToV. It was many tens of thousands of Weimar Republic citizens whom the British murdered with their blockade between the armistice and the German signature on the Treaty. The enemy of the Entente was Germany, not its political system per se.
For them the problem about "German militarism/authoritarianism/imperialism" was merely the "German" part.
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Last time I checked, the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, whereas the Weimar Republic's constitution was proclaimed on 11 August 1919. Back in ww1 Germany showed little will to surrender, so regardless of whether the blockade was moral or not, it's no wonder that the Entente saw Germany as unable to negociate. Back in 1814-1815 the French threw away their national pride, and it went pretty well for them.
My error for conflating the abolition of the monarchy with the establishment and "constitutionality" of the republic.
But my main point that what worked in 1815 would never have worked in 1919 because the spirit of the time was profoundly different still stands.