What would the best post WWI Treaties have been to contain Germany and the Soviet Union?

CaliGuy

Banned
It probably would have been more fair to have what the French extracted from the Saarland count as part of reparations.

Agreed.

The problem of giving Danzig was that it was more than 90% German. It's not justifiable given the claims of national self-determination of people when divvying up territories, which is why they did the Free State situation. Poland needed that port to be able to cheaply export via the Vistula (Danzig was the only port at the mouth of the river on the Baltic Sea) and that was the only way to ensure Germany wouldn't throttle Poland's economy by raising tariffs at will.

Yes, I get that; however, I also proposed giving eastern Upper Silesia to Germany (that specific part of Upper Silesia was pro-Poland in 1921) to compensate Germany for this. Indeed, as much national self-determination sounds like a good idea, I nevertheless wonder if a swap of pro-German Danzig for pro-Polish eastern Upper Silesia would have been better here due to the importance of Danzig for Poland.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yes, I get that; however, I also proposed giving eastern Upper Silesia to Germany (that specific part of Upper Silesia was pro-Poland in 1921) to compensate Germany for this. Indeed, as much national self-determination sounds like a good idea, I nevertheless wonder if a swap of pro-German Danzig for pro-Polish eastern Upper Silesia would have been better here due to the importance of Danzig for Poland.
Good luck getting OTL Poland or France to agree to that. They wanted territory and to punish Germany respectively. Poland wanted both Danzig AND all Polish speaking AND disputed territories. They tried to take even more land in Silesia in the 1920s clandestinely, which led to a low level guerrilla war between German local border guard volunteers and Polish nationalists with backing from Poland.
http://piotrwroblewski.us.edu.pl/rudy/F_Gregory_Campbell.pdf
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Good luck getting OTL Poland or France to agree to that. They wanted territory and to punish Germany respectively. Poland wanted both Danzig AND all Polish speaking AND disputed territories. They tried to take even more land in Silesia in the 1920s clandestinely, which led to a low level guerrilla war between German local border guard volunteers and Polish nationalists with backing from Poland.
http://piotrwroblewski.us.edu.pl/rudy/F_Gregory_Campbell.pdf
Well, yeah, I didn't say that my solution here would be acceptable to everyone; as you said, it certainly wouldn't be.

Also, thank you very much for sharing that link with me! :) Indeed, out of curiosity--how exactly do you find such articles? Using a Google search? Or do you have a better way of finding these articles? (For the record, I certainly enjoy reading whatever articles I can find on various historical topics.)
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Also, in regards to Danzig, couldn't Gdynia have eventually been a suitable replacement for Poland?
 

Deleted member 1487

Also, in regards to Danzig, couldn't Gdynia have eventually been a suitable replacement for Poland?
Much more expensive to use given that it relied on rail, it was a nice Polish propaganda alternative, but it couldn't entirely replace Danzig otherwise the Poles would have negotiated it away to remove the issue.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Much more expensive to use given that it relied on rail, it was a nice Polish propaganda alternative, but it couldn't entirely replace Danzig otherwise the Poles would have negotiated it away to remove the issue.
OK; however, in regards to the rail dependence, couldn't that have been fixed if, say, a canal was built connecting Gdynia to the Vistula?
 
That might have been a good compromise; however, I fear that, in this TL, someone will simply invade Silesia sooner or later.

Maybe it could be part of Czechoslovakia, as a nation containing both Bohemia (the arsenal of Austria-Hungary) and the Silesian coal-fields should be capable of building enough of a military-industrial complex to dissuade aggression.
But 'Czechosilesoslovakia' might end up paralyzed by ethnic divisions and become a house of cards, like Yugoslavia.
 
Maybe it could be part of Czechoslovakia, as a nation containing both Bohemia (the arsenal of Austria-Hungary) and the Silesian coal-fields should be capable of building enough of a military-industrial complex to dissuade aggression.
But 'Czechosilesoslovakia' might end up paralyzed by ethnic divisions and become a house of cards, like Yugoslavia.

I imagine that just becomes a gigantic bone of contention between Poland and Czechoslovakia and leaves any Little Entente plans stillborn.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Maybe it could be part of Czechoslovakia, as a nation containing both Bohemia (the arsenal of Austria-Hungary) and the Silesian coal-fields should be capable of building enough of a military-industrial complex to dissuade aggression.
But 'Czechosilesoslovakia' might end up paralyzed by ethnic divisions and become a house of cards, like Yugoslavia.
You could try having Czechoslovakia become an Eastern European Switzerland, though.
 

Deleted member 1487

Well, yeah, I didn't say that my solution here would be acceptable to everyone; as you said, it certainly wouldn't be.

Also, thank you very much for sharing that link with me! :) Indeed, out of curiosity--how exactly do you find such articles? Using a Google search? Or do you have a better way of finding these articles? (For the record, I certainly enjoy reading whatever articles I can find on various historical topics.)
Google search. It yields a lot of surprising info if you know how the ask the search question and how far you dig.
 

Deleted member 1487

OK; also, would it be OK for you to PM me some tips in regards to this?
I don't really have universal tips to give honestly, just hunches and intuition. You can try taking a class on search optimization to understand how search engines work to find info.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
I don't really have universal tips to give honestly, just hunches and intuition. You can try taking a class on search optimization to understand how search engines work to find info.
OK; understood.

Also, I'll see if I can find some tips for this on Google. :)
 
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