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If You Could Change History


GAROVORKIN

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2 hours ago, Sullen said:

Versailles should have declawed and defanged the tiger that was the German Empire, instead they simply yanked its tail and angered it more.

It did; if the actual terms of Versailles had been followed, Germany certainly would have stayed "declawed". They weren't allowed to build up a military or militarise the Rhineland. If we'd just listened to the likes of Churchill and crushed Hitler as soon as he did those things, there would have been no WW2, I believe Hitler said the Rhineland move was his greatest risk.

Of course, I'm talking with hindsight, I have no confidence I would have supported that move at the time.

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1 hour ago, Red Tiger said:

So basically the victors were too soft on Germany?

Way too soft.

Simply compare the fate of Germany at Versailles to what they imposed to the Russians with Brest-Litovsk, or what Germany had planned for the Allies should they have won, or what happened with the other Central Powers, or hell, if you want to keep in mind the continuity of the Franco-Prussian War (which is extremely relevant), what they demanded of France after the war.

A buttload of different circumstances made it really easy to paint Versailles as being too harsh on Germany, the numbers shown on paper for one. The economic crash and the occupation of the Ruhr is another one, but both are really the doings of the Weimar government which refused to raise taxes on the German people while keeping lofty social programs afloat and devaluated the Deutsche Mark in order the reduce the amount of reparations they had to pay considerably. Until the market crash, quality of life was better in Germany than in any of Allied countries. Add to that the fact the most Germans had no idea as to why they had lost the war, considering that the war never took to German territory, and you had a population ripe to believe that the deal was supposed to absolve of any guilt, and lead to what Wilson would have called a fair peace. While a great deal of the industry and infrastructure in France had been destroyed by the war, Germany was left mostly intact, which meant that in relative terms, Germany actually came out stronger than France did.

The lack of fighting on German soil also contributed to the notion that Germany had not lost the war on the battlefield, but had rather been betrayed by its own population, the tragically famous Stab-in-the-back myth that led to the scapegoating of the Jews, and eventually the rise of antisemitism through Germany. (And you-know-what)

Quickly put, Germany caused the war through the carte blanche, inflicted enormous amounts of damage to enemy and neutral actors both while staying mostly intact, surrendered as soon as things started turning sour, got a mere slap on the hand for the whole thing despite all of its allies being severely punished, crashed their economy in bad faith and then put all the blame on Versailles, the Allies, and whatever local scapegoat they could find.

A good deal of the blame for the misconception that Versailles was too harsh on Germany can be attributed to Keynes, who argued highly in favour of lesser sanctions, while being the great economic authority of the epoch. (And he truly was incredible, wrong on this point though)

If you want good reads about the subject, I'd suggest The Carthaginian Peace: the Consequences of Mr. Keynes by Etienne Mantoux, The Deluge: The Great War, America, and the Remaking of the Global Order by Adam Tooze, or The Myths of Reparations by Sally Marks (which is merely an article, so it's a light read).

The academic perception of Versailles has greatly shifted over the decades, it's now seen as way too lenient, but the popular misconception about it being too harsh still remains deeply ubiquitous among the general population.

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33 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

It did; if the actual terms of Versailles had been followed, Germany certainly would have stayed "declawed". They weren't allowed to build up a military or militarise the Rhineland. If we'd just listened to the likes of Churchill and crushed Hitler as soon as he did those things, there would have been no WW2, I believe Hitler said the Rhineland move was his greatest risk.

Of course, I'm talking with hindsight, I have no confidence I would have supported that move at the time.

They were actually allowed to keep a military, one that was 500k strong, which is nothing to scoff at.

And a country with a population of 70 million, and the highest productivity output in all of Europe is certainly not "declawed", as Hitler showed us.

I do agree that an unwillingness to enforce the terms of the Treaty on the part of all actors except France truly did make things worse, though. Enforcing the conditions of Versailles would have been easier to do with smaller individual nations though, which was why a good deal of French politicians pushed for the dismantling of the German Empire. It's considerably simpler to handle smaller entities than to handle a nation large and powerful enough to crush you both economically and in terms of manpower. The Treaty is pretty pointless if you're in no condition to guarantee that Germany would abide by it, as it happened.

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1 hour ago, Sullen said:

Way too soft.

Simply compare the fate of Germany at Versailles to what they imposed to the Russians with Brest-Litovsk, or what Germany had planned for the Allies should they have won, or what happened with the other Central Powers, or hell, if you want to keep in mind the continuity of the Franco-Prussian War (which is extremely relevant), what they demanded of France after the war.

A buttload of different circumstances made it really easy to paint Versailles as being too harsh on Germany, the numbers shown on paper for one. The economic crash and the occupation of the Ruhr is another one, but both are really the doings of the Weimar government which refused to raise taxes on the German people while keeping lofty social programs afloat and devaluated the Deutsche Mark in order the reduce the amount of reparations they had to pay considerably. Until the market crash, quality of life was better in Germany than in any of Allied countries. Add to that the fact the most Germans had no idea as to why they had lost the war, considering that the war never took to German territory, and you had a population ripe to believe that the deal was supposed to absolve of any guilt, and lead to what Wilson would have could a fair peace. While a great deal of the industry and infrastructure in France had been destroyed by the war, Germany was left mostly intact, which meant that in relative terms, Germany actually came out stronger than France did.

The lack of fighting on German soil also contributed to the notion that Germany had not lost the war on the battlefield, but had rather been betrayed by its own population, the tragically famous Stab-in-the-back myth that led to the scapegoating of the Jews, and eventually the rise of antisemitism through Germany. (And you-know-what)

Quickly put, Germany caused the war through the carte blanche, inflicted enormous amounts of damage to enemy and neutral actors both while staying mostly intact, surrendered as soon as things started turning sour, got a mere slap on the hand for the whole thing despite all of its allies being severely punished, crashed their economy in bad faith and then put all the blame on Versailles, the Allies, and whatever local scapegoat they could find.

A good deal of the blame for the misconception that Versailles was too harsh on Germany can be attributed to Keynes, who argued highly in favour of lesser sanctions, while being the great economic authority of the epoch. (And he truly was incredible, wrong on this point though)

If you want good reads about the subject, I'd suggest The Carthaginian Peace: the Consequences of Mr. Keynes by Etienne Mantoux, The Deluge: The Great War, America, and the Remaking of the Global Order by Adam Tooze, or The Myths of Reparations by Sally Marks (which is merely an article, so it's a light read).

The academic perception of Versailles has greatly shifted over the decades, it's now seen as way too lenient, but the popular misconception about it being too harsh still remains deeply ubiquitous among the general population.

I take back everything I said.

Also, awesome post.

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6 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

I take back everything I said.

Also, awesome post.

Cheers mate.

Thanks, as I said, it's a favourite subject of mine, took as many classes Versailles and the interwar period could fit in back in uni. It's really something that isn't talked about enough as far as I am concerned.

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1 hour ago, Sullen said:

They were actually allowed to keep a military, one that was 500k strong, which is nothing to scoff at.

And a country with a population of 70 million, and the highest productivity output in all of Europe is certainly not "declawed", as Hitler showed us.

I do agree that an unwillingness to enforce the terms of the Treaty on the part of all actors except France truly did make things worse, though. Enforcing the conditions of Versailles would have been easier to do with smaller individual nations though, which was why a good deal of French politicians pushed for the dismantling of the German Empire. It's considerably simpler to handle smaller entities than to handle a nation large and powerful enough to crush you both economically and in terms of manpower. The Treaty is pretty pointless if you're in no condition to guarantee that Germany would abide by it, as it happened.

 

Balkanizing Germany would had consequences as well.

Given the fact that Germany had previously been united prior to the Treaty.  do you seriously think Germany and its people  would have stayed disunited ? 

 

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50 minutes ago, Sullen said:

They were actually allowed to keep a military, one that was 500k strong, which is nothing to scoff at.

And a country with a population of 70 million, and the highest productivity output in all of Europe is certainly not "declawed", as Hitler showed us.

I do agree that an unwillingness to enforce the terms of the Treaty on the part of all actors except France truly did make things worse, though. Enforcing the conditions of Versailles would have been easier to do with smaller individual nations though, which was why a good deal of French politicians pushed for the dismantling of the German Empire. It's considerably simpler to handle smaller entities than to handle a nation large and powerful enough to crush you both economically and in terms of manpower. The Treaty is pretty pointless if you're in no condition to guarantee that Germany would abide by it, as it happened.

That would have been a bit much, I see why you thought it was too soft. It was actually 100k, which would not be enough to threaten their neighbours; which was the whole point, of course. Those might be fairly big numbers by modern standards, but Google tells me 18.2 million men fought for the Wehrmacht between 1935-45, for some perspective.

There were lots of other restrictions, no submarines, no tanks. If we'd enforced this, Germany simply would have been unable to show military aggression. We were in a position to enforce this, by the simple fact that we had a much larger army. Hitler admitted he would have been fucked if we'd stood up to him at this early stage.

We should have left out the war guilt and crippling reparations, but enforced the military conditions.

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11 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

That would have been a bit much, I see why you thought it was too soft. It was actually 100k, which would not be enough to threaten their neighbours; which was the whole point, of course. Those might be fairly big numbers by modern standards, but Google tells me 18.2 million men fought for the Wehrmacht between 1935-45, for some perspective.

There were lots of other restrictions, no submarines, no tanks. If we'd enforced this, Germany simply would have been unable to show military aggression. We were in a position to enforce this, by the simple fact that we had a much larger army. Hitler admitted he would have been fucked if we'd stood up to him at this early stage.

We should have left out the war guilt and crippling reparations, but enforced the military conditions.

 

 There is no question that Germany waging war ripped up huge swaths  of Europe but what about the allies ? Why didn't they pay for swaths of Europe they ripped up ? Wouldn't it have been better has all countries the victors  and vanquished worked together to rebuild Europe ? 

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15 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Balkanizing Germany would had consequences as well.

Given the fact that Germany had previously been united prior to the Treaty.  do you seriously think Germany and its people  would have stayed disunited ?

Under the threat of military and economic consequences, most likely yes.

Germany was still a young nation, the Ottoman Empire and the AH Empire had a considerably longer history, and they stayed disunited, didn't they?

16 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

We should have left out the war guilt and crippling reparations, but enforced the military conditions.

1. They were guilty for the War, no sense in leaving that out.

2. "Crippling reparations" is a myth born out of Nazi propaganda.

1 hour ago, Sullen said:

If you want good reads about the subject, I'd suggest The Carthaginian Peace: the Consequences of Mr. Keynes by Etienne Mantoux, The Deluge: The Great War, America, and the Remaking of the Global Order by Adam Tooze, or The Myths of Reparations by Sally Marks (which is merely an article, so it's a light read).

You should read about it, it's really eye opening.

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14 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

There is no question that Germany waging war ripped up huge swaths  of Europe but what about the allies ? Why didn't they pay for swaths of Europe they ripped up ? Wouldn't it have been better has all countries the victors  and vanquished worked together to rebuild Europe ? 

The fighting was pretty much all in Ally territory and colonial possessions. 

The Central Powers didn't pay much in reparations either, hell, the reparations France had to pay after the Franco-Prussian War (despite not being at fault) were heftier than all that Germany was supposed to pay after Versailles (but defaulted on).

Also, the Central Powers were the aggressors, they created the mess, they should be held responsible for it.

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11 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

There is no question that Germany waging war ripped up huge swaths  of Europe but what about the allies ? Why didn't they pay for swaths of Europe they ripped up ? Wouldn't it have been better has all countries the victors  and vanquished worked together to rebuild Europe ? 

Because the victors write the histories, and we wanted to write that the war was solely the fault of Germany. Instead of a nuanced view, we wanted a simple "good guys v bad guys" interpretation, which is usually the case. While it's easy to criticise, just think how much pain and suffering had just been caused to these people.

6 minutes ago, Sullen said:

1. They were guilty for the War, no sense in leaving that out.

2. "Crippling reparations" is a myth born out of Nazi propaganda.

1. I think you're being a little disingenuous here. The criticism is not that they were told to admit they were guilty, but that they were told to accept full responsibility for what had happened. Clearly, Germany and Austria-Hungary were the most aggressive nations, but to suggest none of the Allies should take any responsibility at all is ridiculous.

2. The reparations certainly had this reputation outside of the Nazi party, and before their rise, though I accept "crippling" might be going a bit far.

The really frustrating thing is that we showed a lot more wisdom a century before, when we defeated Napoleon and helped France back to her feet.

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4 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

Because the victors write the histories, and we wanted to write that the war was solely the fault of Germany. Instead of a nuanced view, we wanted a simple "good guys v bad guys" interpretation, which is usually the case. While it's easy to criticise, just think how much pain and suffering had just been caused to these people.

It's considerably more intellectually lazy to fall on a "everyone is to blame" excuse, and it's specifically what Germany tried to push as a narrative during the interwar.

Sometimes, there are bad guys and good guys. Let us no pretend that the Nazis and the Japanese were not worse than the Allies in the Second World War for instance, the same is true of the First, let us not play moral relativists here.

7 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

1. I think you're being a little disingenuous here. The criticism is not that they were told to admit they were guilty, but that they were told to accept full responsibility for what had happened. Clearly, Germany and Austria-Hungary were the most aggressive nations, but to suggest none of the Allies should take any responsibility at all is ridiculous.

Russia and Serbia should have just let themselves be bullied then? France should have abandoned its ally in a defensive war? Belgium should have let its sovereignty revoked, and the British should have refused to honour their promise of upholding Belgian sovereignty?

While it's true that there were some that were purely opportunistic factions on the Entente side (Japan and Italy come to mind), Germany and AH were the aggressors here, they're the ones who pushed for the War, and by reading the Septemberprogramm, it's quite clear that they were the ones with the obviously worse intentions here.

12 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

2. The reparations certainly had this reputation outside of the Nazi party, and before their rise, though I accept "crippling" might be going a bit far.

The really frustrating thing is that we showed a lot more wisdom a century before, when we defeated Napoleon and helped France back to her feet.

The reparations had the same reputations throughout Germany, but again, I explained why the whole of Germany felt that way, and why it was completely dishonest on their part. During the same time period, people had it worse in both France and the UK, treating Germany as a victim is missing the point here. Again, I suggest reading recent economist and historian perspectives on it, Germany absolutely could've paid the reparations asked of them several times over, but dealt in bad faith.

People act as if Germany was the only country that went through economic hardships in the interwar, forgetting that the 1929 Stock Market Crash affected everyone.

As for Napoleon, the situations are not the same. Considerably more land was taken from the Second Empire than was taken from the German Empire, and Napoleon was not the aggressor in the Revolutionary Wars in any case. (Peninsular War notwithstanding, but I won't defend Napoleon's actions there)

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49 minutes ago, Sullen said:

The fighting was pretty much all in Ally territory and colonial possessions. 

The Central Powers didn't pay much in reparations either, hell, the reparations France had to pay after the Franco-Prussian War (despite not being at fault) were heftier than all that Germany was supposed to pay after Versailles (but defaulted on).

Also, the Central Powers were the aggressors, they created the mess, they should be held responsible for it.

 

It did give France and Britain a convenient opportunity to settle some old scores Germany .

 

 

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6 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

It did give France and Britain a convenient opportunity to settle some old scores Germany .

Revanchisme was and still is blown absurdly out of proportions by the Germans, it was never the major driving force in France and was pretty much inexistant in Britain.

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On 8/31/2017 at 8:28 PM, Sullen said:

Revanchisme was and still is blown absurdly out of proportions by the Germans, it was never the major driving force in France and was pretty much inexistant in Britain.

If I'm not mistaken, Britain got  Germany's Africa colonial possessions  and  added to their already considerable imperial empire. France in addition to reacquiring . Alsace Loraine got The Saar Valley which was a significant Coal producing Region in Germany. So there were some spoils there.  I also suspect that in the case of French Premier George Clemenceau, payback for the Franco Prussian War might have been at the back of his mind during all of this.

As for the notion of clear good guys and bad guy , if you look closely at the the good guys and what they were doing in other parts of the world , they really don't look  to good either.  In the case Belgium,  king Leopold the II caused the deaths of millions in the Congo  region .  In Czarist Russia  , if you were not member the nobility , you were less then nothing. They still had serfdom in the 20th  country.

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2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

If I'm not mistaken, Britain got  Germany's Africa colonial possessions , to add to their already considerable imperial empire. France in addition to requiting. Alsace Loraine got The Saar Valley which was a significant Coal producing Region in Germany. So there were some spoils there.  I also suspect that in the case of French Premier George Clemenceau, payback for the Franco Prussian War might have been at the back of his mind during all of this.

There were spoils, but these spoils are laughably small compared to what the Germans were planning, a quick look at the Septemberprogramm would show you that. And again, revanchisme was historically blown out of proportion.

5 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

As for the notion of Clear good guys and bad guy , if you look closely at the the good guy and what they were doing in other parts of the world , they really don't so good either.  In the case Belgium,  king Leopold the II caused the deaths of million in the Congo  region .  In Czarist Russia y, if you were not member the nobility , you were less then nothing. They still had serfdom in that country.

Moral relativism, again.

Just because the Entente acted horribly in other parts of the world doesn't make the actions of Germany and AH any less terrible, just as the brutal way that the Aztecs ruthlessly slaughtered their neighbours did not make their conquest and genocide any less of an ignominy.

You have to look at it within the context itself, and within the context, the Germans clearly come out of it the "bad guys".

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9 hours ago, Sullen said:

There were spoils, but these spoils are laughably small compared to what the Germans were planning, a quick look at the Septemberprogramm would show you that. And again, revanchisme was historically blown out of proportion.

Moral relativism, again.

Just because the Entente acted horribly in other parts of the world doesn't make the actions of Germany and AH any less terrible, just as the brutal way that the Aztecs ruthlessly slaughtered their neighbours did not make their conquest and genocide any less of an ignominy.

You have to look at it within the context itself, and within the context, the Germans clearly come out of it the "bad guys".

 

True , it doesn't make what the Central powers didn't any less terrible . But the Entente were not all  that much better.    

 

 

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50 minutes ago, Sullen said:

There were spoils, but these spoils are laughably small compared to what the Germans were planning, a quick look at the Septemberprogramm would show you that. And again, revanchisme was historically blown out of proportion.

Moral relativism, again.

Just because the Entente acted horribly in other parts of the world doesn't make the actions of Germany and AH any less terrible, just as the brutal way that the Aztecs ruthlessly slaughtered their neighbours did not make their conquest and genocide any less of an ignominy.

You have to look at it within the context itself, and within the context, the Germans clearly come out of it the "bad guys".

You can't simultaneously cry relativism and defend Versailles because the Germans planned worse. Either/or.

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4 hours ago, mankytoes said:

It did; if the actual terms of Versailles had been followed, Germany certainly would have stayed "declawed". They weren't allowed to build up a military or militarise the Rhineland. If we'd just listened to the likes of Churchill and crushed Hitler as soon as he did those things, there would have been no WW2, I believe Hitler said the Rhineland move was his greatest risk.

Of course, I'm talking with hindsight, I have no confidence I would have supported that move at the time.

Understand, too, it wasn't happening in a vacuum. Most parties at the Eurotable were much more worried about the goings on in Russia, and as Hitler's power grew they basically thought it would be ideal if these 2 new ideologies had their own trench hell few years war and be easy pickings should the Western powers decide on a little more geo-political turkey carving. And it's also worth remembering that that wasn't an insane idea; Hitler's entire argument was that WWI was a waste because they never needed to go West, everything needed for the New Sparta was to be found in the East and that also happened to be the home of the Number One enemy of fascism; the soviets. 

The West slightly overplayed that hand, though. By not even including Russia's reps at Munich they pretty much showed Stalin which way the wind was blowing, and so rather than bear the brunt of the Hitler being aimed his way (his command structure was literally massacred recently) he made his own deal with the Devil, re-pointed Hitler back the other way and thought he'd bought the time needed to rebuild. Basically there are no good guys in this story. Chamberlain gets a rougher treatment than he deserves, though. He was no more fooled than anyone else, but was playing for time and imo pretty heroically put his head in the lion's mouth to get it. 

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Actions do have consequences.  If you start a war and then lose it, you should expect more than a slap on the wrist from the victors.

Germany could legitimately feel aggrieved that it was not allowed to unite with German Austria, given the wishes of both peoples, and the loss of Danzig, given its largely German population.  The remaining territorial losses were fair (West Prussia, Posen, Schleswig, Alsace-Lorraine) as the inhabitants were not German, and had no wish to be part of Germany.

The war guilt clause and reparations rankled, but the first was not unfair, and the second were set at a modest level, one that Germany could easily have afforded.

Overall, Germany came out of it pretty well.  It retained the vast majority of its territory, and the bulk of its industrial base.

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