What would you do differently at Versailles in 1919?

For all the people saying no reparations , just remember GB+Fr+Be need the money. Without it they are broke and in the latter two cases have large totally trashed areas to rebuild ( the Germans did a fair approximation of scorched earth near the end ). Now you can argue it should be more in kind and have a cap as %GDP per year but it would need to be paid. Just as well remember Germany asked for and was paid more after the Franco-Prussian war.
 
How does changing the peace terms help unless you can also create the will to enforce them?

Imho it is significant that the only WW1 peace treaty that can be said to have worked is the Treaty of Lausanne, which was negotiated on far more equal terms than the others. There, essentially, the victors imposed only the things they cared enough about to actually enforce, with the result that with only minor modifications it has survived to the present day.
Yeah, I 100% know that there's no real will to treat Germany like it deserves, the best Versailles IMO is the max the Allies are willing to enforce.
I believe that the Treaty should be the same, but the war guilt clause would be shifted to Austria
*Invades Sovereign Country*
*Declares war on Russia and France*
*Rapes an entire country*
*Uses poison gas first*
"WTF, ur blaming us/1"

and German reparations would be limited to 1913 German military budget
Germany would whine about that too. Versailles did bankrupt the German Nation, you know who did? The German Nation. The allies waffered over atcually making Germany make all the payments of Versailles, and gave reductions on it multiple times,
Meanwhile, Austria would be allowed for Anchsluss after 10 years. Finally, Italy and Japan must receive more territories.
I'd support an Anchulus after an internationally watched Plebiscite. They can't just join Germany in 1919 and act like nothing's happened.I agree that Italy should've received more territories, considering what they were promised. But Japan? What they got after WW1 was already too much, and unlike Italy, how would it actually stop the rise of Japanese Imperialism, not make it worse? "The Europeans gave us land, they consider us Equals! Time to carve our place in the Sun in China!"
 
3. Poland would've been handed the Memel region and the east Prussian province of Gumbinnen thus ensuring there would be no vulnerable "Polish Corridor" while still keeping the promise to give Poland access to the sea.
4. Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia would have their independence recognised.
How is Lithuania supposed to be independent if Poland has Memel? Why you handing Poland the more-German Gumbinnen instead of areas with more Poles? Not to mention, trade-wise Memel is a not a suitable replacement for the Corridor.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Plebiscites everywhere. If you're going to use a vote to determine borders in any place it's only fair to do it everywhere. If it's a village by village situation, either go by county or pay people (fairly) to move around. I'm serious, if you want peace you want to eliminate all of the ethnic reasons for nations to declare war.

EDIT: also reduced reparations, occupation of German areas is fine but none indefinitely.

At the end of the day, keeping your allies happy and your enemies weak is more important then keeping your enemies happy. If Italy had been given everything it was promised Fascism never would have happened. If Germany was weakened even more then maybe the next war would have turned out better. I have the opinion that Hitler or no Hitler, Germany starting another war was guaranteed. Even the Weimar Republic was preparing for another war.
 
*Invades Sovereign Country*
*Declares war on Russia and France*
*Rapes an entire country*
*Uses poison gas first*
"WTF, ur blaming us/1"

Russia had the choice to either partially mobilizing or full, know what the latter would lead to. There is no way Serbia and Russia are not at fault when a Serbian-funded terrorist group kills a monarch and is supported. Yes Germany committed war crimes in Belgium, they should be punished. But don't put blame on them for not just allowing Russia to walk all over A-H because you have a something against them, which is evident by your posts in this thread.
 
At the end of the day, keeping your allies happy and your enemies weak is more important then keeping your enemies happy. If Italy had been given everything it was promised Fascism never would have happened. If Germany was weakened even more then maybe the next war would have turned out better. I have the opinion that Hitler or no Hitler, Germany starting another war was guaranteed. Even the Weimar Republic was preparing for another war.

Weimar Germany shouldve have been supported and brought back into the western sphere permanently rather than keeping them pissed. You saying they were going to war no matter what is baseless.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Weimar Germany shouldve have been supported and brought back into the western sphere permanently rather than keeping them pissed. You saying they were going to war no matter what is baseless.
No Germany, democratic or dictatorship, would ever accept the loss of Alsace-Lorraine or the Corridor. War is guaranteed.
 
Maybe, maybe not. Occupation doesn't mean direct rule Occupation means the right to keep your army there. Its basically what happens to Germany after WWII The Western Zones aren't bad, the Eastern one is

In any event, I think they'll enjoy it a whole lot more than being bombed into oblivion and having the Red Army occupy a third of the country In any event, the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and other victims of Nazi aggression would be much better off

Germany lost the war. Letting her rearm and challenge the peace is the dumbest thing ever done
The trouble is that the german population had no prophetic powers back then so they would never know what catastrophy is averted. Also, their spirit wasn't as broken after WWI as it was after WWII - no matter how objectively pleasant their civilian lives, going from a great power to occupied statelets would infuriate a lot of people to no end, a whole bouquet of hitlers perhaps, and violent uprisings can be expected.
Mind you, in the end this doesn't invalidate your point - reducing the "german question" entirely to civil wars safely contained within germany would be a boon to the rest of the world and stability of Europe, ignoring occasional terror attacks in neighbouring countries. Except inevitably, the occupiers would get tired of this, and "decolonize" the germanies probably by the 1960ies or so. And who knows what kind of Germany would emerge then? Perhaps weakened enough to be de facto harmless for generations to come, but who knows?

That's the trouble with all alternate Versailles, really. Short of getting rid of germany as a nation (not just the german state), the "german question" will return.
I don't think allowing postwar germany to be more powerful and self-confident is any better, by the way.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
How does changing the peace terms help unless you can also create the will to enforce them?

Imho it is significant that the only WW1 peace treaty that can be said to have worked is the Treaty of Lausanne, which was negotiated on far more equal terms than the others. There, essentially, the victors imposed only the things they cared enough about to actually enforce, with the result that with only minor modifications it has survived to the present day.
Lausanne was too pro-Turkish, IMHO. While the Turkish border with Greece seems fair, Turkey got a lot of territories in the east where Armenians, Kurds, or a combination of these two groups made up the majority of the population:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_vilayets
 
Lausanne was too pro-Turkish, IMHO. While the Turkish border with Greece seems fair, Turkey got a lot of territories in the east where Armenians, Kurds, or a combination of these two groups made up the majority of the population:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_vilayets

Then maybe the Entente should have been fairer to the Turks at Sevres, rather than provoking more fighting they didn't have the stomach for. That's the other thing the "No more Germany!" crowd are ignoring, that if they make their terms harsh enough, continued hostilities will seem preferable, and morale for your own troops will take a dip after you called an armistice, only for it to be ruined by your foolish attempts to shoot the moon.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Then maybe the Entente should have been fairer to the Turks at Sevres, rather than provoking more fighting they didn't have the stomach for.

Fair enough, I suppose.

That's the other thing the "No more Germany!" crowd are ignoring, that if they make their terms harsh enough, continued hostilities will seem preferable, and morale for your own troops will take a dip after you called an armistice, only for it to be ruined by your foolish attempts to shoot the moon.

That's why 100 ASB divisions would certainly be great for the Entente! :D
 
Fair enough, I suppose.

That's why 100 ASB divisions would certainly be great for the Entente! :D

Well, there's your Alt-Treaty of Versailles: petition an ASB to ISOT all Germans to another timeline. Whatever wars come after, at least they won't be caused by Germany.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Well, there's your Alt-Treaty of Versailles: petition an ASB to ISOT all Germans to another timeline. Whatever wars come after, at least they won't be caused by Germany.
Why not simply ISOT the Germans who were right-wingers and Communists, though? After all, a SD-dominated Germany would probably be very good for peace. :)
 
Why on Earth would you give the Southern Sudetenland to Bavaria? If you won't give it to the Czechs, why not let the Austrians keep it? Also, your proposed Kingdom of Mesopotamia sounds just as unstable as the OTL Iraq and Syria, given the mix of Sunnis and Shiites.

When drawing up my proposals I was using a map from about 1900 that showed rail and other infrastructure in the area. From a ethnic perspective allowing Austria to annex Southern Sudetenland makes sense but not from a infrastructural point of view.

As for creating peace in the Middle East after the First World War? I don't think anyone could come up with an alternate peace plan and prevent war from breaking out.
 
How is Lithuania supposed to be independent if Poland has Memel? Why you handing Poland the more-German Gumbinnen instead of areas with more Poles? Not to mention, trade-wise Memel is a not a suitable replacement for the Corridor.

Lithuania didn't need Memel to be independent. From 1919 to 1923 Memel wasn't part of Lithuania. It was a Free State.

Although the areas Poland received from Germany in OTL had more Poles the reason for giving Germany Gumbinnen is two-fold. The first is that it wouldn't split Prussia in two, thus providing the potential for further conflict. The second is that the Gumbinnen province had 9399 sq km and about half a million people. It was also rather poor. In contrast, the Polish Corridor was 46,142 sq km and had around four million people as well as a lot of industry.
 
The proof of the pudding is in eating it - it was a new kind of a war: Germany should have been occupied and reconstructed, but the Allies had neither will nor actually the capability of doing it, so a compromise treaty was needed, balanced of course in the Allied favour. In Versailles they were trying to do the impossible: keeping Germany from ever regaining great military power status without occupation. Versailles was a destructive attempt to do what was impossible in those conditions. Keynes proposed a kind of European free trading system but I guess that was way too utopian. So, war guilt away, reducing and fixing the reparations and moderating the military restrictions combined with less humiliating treatment of the German delegation. (Not that I would think that this would avoid a second war, but at least giving Weimar a bit better chance of lasting.)
 
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