This. All France and Great Britain have to do is call Hitler's bluff in the Rhineland and the Nazi Party loses all credibility.
What should the United States, Britain, and France, have done differently regarding Germany, and Europe, at the End of World War One?
It objectively contributed the most to the allied victory, why shouldn't it?
Just divide Germany between Switzerland and Sweden. Leave a rump Prussia in Potsdam and put the Hohenzollerns in charge - it has a zoo.
Perhaps people put the maps away and focus on these points articulated before the 1st Hague Peace conference (1899):
(a) Disarmament is impossible without the assurance of a durable peace.
(b) A durable peace cannot be assured without adjustment of all differences such as Alsace, China, Egypt etc etc
(c) The adjustment of differences is impossible without a force to enforces the decrees of Congress.
(d) No such force exists.
The fact is that after a long peace each Power is prepared to fight for what it considers its legitimate aspirations. It will only yield when exhausted by war.
Perhaps people put the maps away and focus on these points articulated before the 1st Hague Peace conference (1899):
(a) Disarmament is impossible without the assurance of a durable peace.
(b) A durable peace cannot be assured without adjustment of all differences such as Alsace, China, Egypt etc etc
(c) The adjustment of differences is impossible without a force to enforces the decrees of Congress.
(d) No such force exists.
The fact is that after a long peace each Power is prepared to fight for what it considers its legitimate aspirations. It will only yield when exhausted by war.
I would personally remove that owing to how Germany had a revolution in the lead-up to the signing of the Armistice, which resulted in the formation of the Weimar Republic.
Exactly what happened OTL. So, at worst, what I suggest wouldn't change anything, and if it shortened or averted the period of appeasement it could even help.
If he Entente is willing to do that, there is no need to change the ToV at all. But how do you arrange it?
The problem is to get a treaty which they *will* have the will to enforce.
As said previously, the will issue isn't with the continental powers, it is with Britain and the US.
If those two countries don't want to see it enforced, they will (and have IOTL) punish continental powers seeking the enforcement of the treaty, making any further enforcement impossible.
And... to be honest, with regards to Versailles, the general feeling there doesn't strike me as being realistic.
So, there are three aspects :
1) Provide Germany clear incentives for compliance with the treaty through a progressive relaxation of restrictions over time conditional on continued compliance.
2) Ensure that the incentives for the Anglo-Saxon powers lay firmly with the continued enforcement of the treaty
3) Try and make as few of the clauses of the treaty require continuous enforcement
The Western powers committed many serious mistakes in the Paris Peace Conference - the most unnecessary and fateful concerning non-European matters. The way they treated Japan and their rejection of the racial equality clause antagonised Japan and doomed the League of Nations to failure right from the start. Either you want a league of peace of the nations of the world, or you want reckless European supremacy and imperialism running rampant. Mixing both is nonsense, and that should have been evident, even though racism and imperialism were so deeply ingrained at that time. The "Mandates" laid the foundation for most of the conflicts, hatred and bloodshed that has haunted the Middle East in the century ever since.
As for Germany, the role of Versailles is absolutely overstated. The rise of the Nazis is a combination of internal German problems and the socio-economic devastations of the Great Depression. The best the Entente and Associated Powers could have done to influence Germany's course was, as @NoMommsen has already said, to - long before diplomats gather in Paris - demand the surrender not from the civilian government, but from OHL, which had been dictators of Germany during wartime, in order to make the "stab in the back myth" a little less plauible yet. (It really wasn't all that plausible anyway, and only believed by those who really really wanted to believe it. But humiliating the generals instead of democratic politcians would have helped a little.)
As for Germany, the role of Versailles is absolutely overstated. The rise of the Nazis is a combination of internal German problems and the socio-economic devastations of the Great Depression. The best the Entente and Associated Powers could have done to influence Germany's course was, as @NoMommsen has already said, to - long before diplomats gather in Paris - demand the surrender not from the civilian government, but from OHL, which had been dictators of Germany during wartime, in order to make the "stab in the back myth" a little less plauible yet. (It really wasn't all that plausible anyway, and only believed by those who really really wanted to believe it. But humiliating the generals instead of democratic politcians would have helped a little.)
Nope, sorry but it seem to talk to a wall, you don't make things like OTL in he worst case scenario; in OTL Germany was forced to roll all six and even doing that it mean putting her economy in such much strain that it risked collapse...here she is already much more powerfull and can pursuit all her politics with a lot more easy, France can't expect a two front war as Poland, Czech and even Lithuania are in the German sphere due to military and economic reason and the entente has ruined her economies due to the need to keep military expense higher than OTL because well being certain of Germany remain under the military provision of ToV is their only way to survive.
By ITTL 30's the Entente or even simply France had no other choice to appease Germany because their/her economy can't sustain a military build up or even a simple mobilization, her military situation is much worse than OTL and she has less allies.
S
Why would they need to? France alone could have ousted Hitler from the Rhineland with her OTL forces, had the will to do so existed. Giving Germany a few extra provinces in the south-east doesn't change that.
Because and sorry but it's the fourth time that i said that and is frankly tiring, the few extra provinces not only give Germany more population and resources than prewar but also transform Poland, Czechoslovackia and Lithuania in economic dependence of Berlin plus decrease their capacity of military resist making a two front war aka the cornestone of France defense politics not a possibility
On the other side, both France and UK need to never fully demilitarize as keeping Germany disarmed is the only possibility they have to keep her honest...unfortunely London and Paris don't have the damned money to do that and France don't have even the political stability, if the Entente was hard pressed to muster resources and political will to stop appeasing Germany in OTL image a world where they are weaker and Berlin is much stronger, so no giving Germany everything she want is not the way for anyone that don't have Germans citizenships
Yeah let's give the defeated nation more territories than they started... make perfect sense and would totally not backfire at all etheir.
Deleted member 145219
A guess, in a Pax Americana/Entente, they push into Germany and get an Unconditional surrender, then onto at least the Brest Litovsk line, and even to Moscow. And eliminate the future threat of Germany and the Soviets in a one two punch.
Probably extremely unrealistic, you would probably need to double the size of the American Expeditionary Force.
Probably extremely unrealistic, you would probably need to double the size of the American Expeditionary Force.
Vs OTL where Poland was so strong it lasted a full month. The two-front war policy seems to have been a weak cornerstone, given how willing France was to give up Czechoslovakia or Lithuania(memel) for the slightest chance of peace.
this line of thinking only makes sense if you think post 1918-1919/ww1 defeat that Germany would inevitably fall to fascism and go on a warpath.
Fall on fascism? Not a given but it's very probable , she will want to readress the geopolital situation in Europe with the good or the bad? Absolutely sure, frankly this proposal make sense only if you already decide to surrender and merely hope the new German overlord will live you alone if they are satisfaied enough...and we all know how THIS politcs had been succesfull in OTL
Just two punches on Germany really. The Austrians have already signed an armistice giving the Entente access to the south German border. German forces are either on the Western front under hard pressure from the Entente and US forces and the other German troops are deep in Russia. Unconditional Surrender may only be weeks away.
Keeping the Soviets to unify a scared Europe could be a cornerstone of a lasting treaty with collective security and a measure of disarmament.
Finally someone who understands the basic problem of meeting German demands. We can argue about economic or military issues, but the lack of Silesia in Poland means bringing German economic influence to Poland
Honestly, what they need to do is enforce the treaty before Germany has the time to rearm. Anytime between 1934-1936 would be fine.
France is the country that can take the most credit for Germany's defeat and had the strongest army in the world by quite a bit. By the end of the war, they'd built almost 5,000 tanks (more than Britain) and almost 70,000 aircraft (more than Britain by about 10,000 and more than Germany by almost 20,0000). For most of the interwar period, France was the worlds greatest military power. If you're going to constrain Germany in the period between 1871 and 1945, you're going to need France, Russia or both on your side. It would be like telling the Soviets to fuck off at Yalta. It's not going to happen.
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except this is not what happened. real life is not a paradox game where you annex countries and then press a "release puppet" button. the FGR was coopted into the western system against the perceived soviet menace and (if they ever got any doubts about playing along) they could always look to the East at what the alternative was