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.