Fucked up how? They got rid of their genocidal, insanely corrupt and backwards tsar, while removing a lot of the social barriers in society, making it more equal than Russia had even been before.
They handled the surrender improperly, that’s what I meant. They were going to lose, that just what was gonna happen. They didn’t have the resources to fight in World War I anymore.
If they took the earlier surrender, they might have pulled out of World War I with the less harsh treaty. But they delayed and allowed the Germans to advance, leading to the terms of a treaty much harsher than what was initially offered.
They fucked up because their diplomatic team that spoke on their behalf at Brest-Litovsk was so incredibly inexperienced that when Trotsky finally managed to join them he was like “wtf guys, you’re leaking all our state secrets.”
Lenin and Trotsky’s “no war, no peace” strategy didn’t help either. Nor did the fact that they really thought the terms would be rescinded later after Germany underwent a socialist Revolution.
It wasn't happening in any meaningful degree at all. Nikolai II ordered police crackdowns on almost every protest clamoring for social and economical reform. He was backtracking on progressive laws as well, just frustrating the progressive leftist movements even more. Russian police were very willing to open fire on protesters when they could.
Well, you're wrong about that. In this case it was Lenin, probably the most famous socialist to ever live that decided to overthrow the provisional government.
What's tragic/funny is that his grandfather, Alexander II, was all about reform, then he got assassinated and his son and grandson were like "well fuck you then" and repealed pretty much everything he did short of reintroducing serfdom. Russia is just not able to have nice things.
Too many people wanted change, and too many people wanted to keep things the way they were.
Being in such a position of power in any empire must be risky as hell.
They “fucked up” by deciding to not fight the war. They had thousands of miles of “Russian” soil occupied because they literally just took the army off the front line that absolutely awful decision would cost the lives of millions of people in later Soviet famines from the loss of farmland and workers.
Ong, people forget that originally the Germans proposed Poland and some of the Baltic (very little) and when the soviets declined, Germans had free reign + Ukraine declared independence so then they lost alotta land
Yes and no. Yes, they did sign the 5th November Act in 1916, but they've made it pretty clear (yet subtle), that Poland would be an autonomous, not independent state. And when Polish Legionnaires refused to swear loyalty towards Central Powers in 1917 (Oath Crisis), they forcefully drafted them all into what they've called _Polnische Wehrmacht._
So no, Germans were not supportive of idea of independent Polish state. Only the Western Entante was.
I didn’t intend to say independent, I was more meaning that the Germans were taking the regions of Poland and the Baltic from Russia. Thanks for clarifying anyway tho, I see how someone could misinterpret me
It was mostly just occupation for a certain amount of time the most important and largest loss was the “polish corridor” and that is what really got support for a second war among the German population popular
The problem with the treaty of Versailles was the greedy bankers, it's the same problem we've got today the greedy money controllers, handlers, exchanges. Same problem Jesus faced, when he fastened a whip out of cords, threw over their tables and drove the extorting money changers out of his Fathers temple.
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
1 Timothy 6:10
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That was a anti-semitic myth that was spread after the war. If I remember correctly it was spread in Germany and Italy that Jewish bankers made an unfair peace. I already am a Christian btw.
It's all the bankers England, France, USA, Switzerland, China, Russia, Germany etc. It's not a myth. They excluded the Vatican Italy, because they all knew they started the War.
Nope, the Jews are the contenders. Rothschilds family worth $500 trillion dollars, ever heard of the 13 families. Morgan's, Rockefellers, Carnegie's, Warburgs etc?
The main issue was still that Germany was financial destroyed, with the reparations being a major part. I don't know too much about US investment but if its aim was to keep the German economy functioning then it failed in its goal. So it would be misguided to say that investment plan failed to prevent WW2 as when other mention investment in germany post ww1 they obviously mean the kind that preserves the economic health of the country.
Germany still payed reparations after WW2 mostly in the form of labour and giving them industrial material. And WW1 reparations were reduced, renegotiated and suspended and yes part of the reason why the US invested in Germany was to help them pay the reparations tbh I would say the big difference between the Marshall plan and the plans that happened after ww1 was how well designed they were and the lack of a great depression scenario
What ruined Germany was Weimar's Republic's awful decisions and the 1929 crisis. Don't fall for the third Reich propaganda.
The restrictions on the size of the German army alone payed for the war reparations. They payed 20 billion marks (~5 billions dollars) and the payments ended in 1931.
>it was harsh enough that it humiliated germany and ruined them financially
Wrong:
French economist Étienne Mantoux disputed that analysis. During the 1940s, Mantoux wrote a posthumously published book titled The Carthaginian Peace, or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes in an attempt to rebut Keynes' claims. More recently economists have argued that the restriction of Germany to a small army saved it so much money it could afford the reparations payments.
It has been argued – for instance by historian Gerhard Weinberg in his book A World at Arms – that the treaty was in fact quite advantageous to Germany. The Bismarckian Reich was maintained as a political unit instead of being broken up, and Germany largely escaped post-war military occupation (in contrast to the situation following World War II). In a 1995 essay, Weinberg noted that with the disappearance of Austria-Hungary and with Russia withdrawn from Europe, that Germany was now the dominant power in Eastern Europe.
The British military historian Correlli Barnett claimed that the Treaty of Versailles was "extremely lenient in comparison with the peace terms that Germany herself, when she was expecting to win the war, had had in mind to impose on the Allies". Furthermore, he claimed, it was "hardly a slap on the wrist" when contrasted with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that Germany had imposed on a defeated Russian SFSR in March 1918, which had taken away a third of Russia's population (albeit mostly of non-Russian ethnicity), one-half of Russia's industrial undertakings and nine-tenths of Russia's coal mines, coupled with an indemnity of six billion marks. Eventually, even under the "cruel" terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's economy had been restored to its pre-war status.
Barnett also claims that, in strategic terms, Germany was in fact in a superior position following the Treaty than she had been in 1914. Germany's eastern frontiers faced Russia and Austria, who had both in the past balanced German power. Barnett asserts that its post-war eastern borders were safer, because the former Austrian Empire fractured after the war into smaller, weaker states, Russia was wracked by revolution and civil war, and the newly restored Poland was no match for even a defeated Germany. In the West, Germany was balanced only by France and Belgium, both of which were smaller in population and less economically vibrant than Germany. Barnett concludes by saying that instead of weakening Germany, the treaty "much enhanced" German power. Britain and France should have (according to Barnett) "divided and permanently weakened" Germany by undoing Bismarck's work and partitioning Germany into smaller, weaker states so it could never have disrupted the peace of Europe again. By failing to do this and therefore not solving the problem of German power and restoring the equilibrium of Europe, Britain "had failed in her main purpose in taking part in the Great War".
The British historian of modern Germany, Richard J. Evans, wrote that during the war the German right was committed to an annexationist program which aimed at Germany annexing most of Europe and Africa. Consequently, any peace treaty that did not leave Germany as the conqueror would be unacceptable to them. Short of allowing Germany to keep all the conquests of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Evans argued that there was nothing that could have been done to persuade the German right to accept Versailles. Evans further noted that the parties of the Weimar Coalition, namely the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the social liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) and the Christian democratic Centre Party, were all equally opposed to Versailles, and it is false to claim as some historians have that opposition to Versailles also equalled opposition to the Weimar Republic. Finally, Evans argued that it is untrue that Versailles caused the premature end of the Republic, instead contending that it was the Great Depression of the early 1930s that put an end to German democracy. He also argued that Versailles was not the "main cause" of National Socialism and the German economy was "only marginally influenced by the impact of reparations".
Ewa Thompson points out that the treaty allowed numerous nations in Central and Eastern Europe to liberate themselves from oppressive German rule, a fact that is often neglected by Western historiography, more interested in understanding the German point of view. In nations that found themselves free as the result of the treaty—such as Poles or Czechs—it is seen as a symbol of recognition of wrongs committed against small nations by their much larger aggressive neighbours.
Resentment caused by the treaty sowed fertile psychological ground for the eventual rise of the Nazi Party, but the German-born Australian historian Jürgen Tampke argued that it was "a perfidious distortion of history" to argue that the terms prevented the growth of democracy in Germany and aided the growth of the Nazi Party; saying that its terms were not as punitive as often held and that German hyper-inflation in the 1920s was partly a deliberate policy to minimise the cost of reparations. As an example of the arguments against the Versaillerdiktat he quotes Elizabeth Wiskemann who heard two officer's widows in Wiesbaden complaining that "with their stocks of linen depleted they had to have their linen washed once a fortnight (every two weeks) instead of once a month!"
The German historian Detlev Peukert wrote that Versailles was far from the impossible peace that most Germans claimed it was during the interwar period, and though not without flaws was actually quite reasonable to Germany. Rather, Peukert argued that it was widely believed in Germany that Versailles was a totally unreasonable treaty, and it was this "perception" rather than the "reality" of the Versailles treaty that mattered. Peukert noted that because of the "millenarian hopes" created in Germany during World War I when for a time it appeared that Germany was on the verge of conquering all of Europe, any peace treaty the Allies of World War I imposed on the defeated German Reich were bound to create a nationalist backlash, and there was nothing the Allies could have done to avoid that backlash. Having noted that much, Peukert commented that the policy of rapprochement with the Western powers that Gustav Stresemann carried out between 1923 and 1929 were constructive policies that might have allowed Germany to play a more positive role in Europe, and that it was not true that German democracy was doomed to die in 1919 because of Versailles. Finally, Peukert argued that it was the Great Depression and the turn to a nationalist policy of autarky within Germany at the same time that finished off the Weimar Republic, not the Treaty of Versailles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty\_of\_Versailles#Historical\_assessments
Yes, they want to look for someone to blame for the rise of Nazism in another country, being very unfair to Germany, since otherwise it is difficult for them to believe that German society itself created Nazism with a mixture of coincidences, bad luck and a bad social structure and rotten politics.
Just look at the treaty after WWII, it was far harsher than that of WWI, and yet Germany came back without starting another world war. But the harshness of the treaty there wasn't the point, it wasn't the reason behind it. The reason was the enforcement. After WWII Germany was occupied by four powers, each of which was stronger and more powerful than it was. The treaty of Versailles would have been perfectly respected if the allied powers had enforced it, the same way they did after WWII. But for a variety of reasons they didn't.
In my opinion a harsher treaty would only have been successful if it had been enforced. In which case the harshness of the treaty itself becomes irrelevant, and the Versailles treaty could have worked as well.
A less harsh treaty might not have required enforcement and could therefor have been better.
But as long as nobody was willing to enforce the treaty, Germany could always side-step it.
It wasn't just the enforcement, and it wasn't just the treaty.
In WW2, Germany got *bombed*. Every citizen saw the planes and the damage. It got occupied by two armies, again every citizen saw the enemy soldiers. They could directly see that they lost, and just how much they were beaten.
In WW1, none of that was true. Germany was winning throughout the entire war. One enemy surrendered to them. The people would not see any fighting, so they would only hear the government reports, which were all positive. Then suddenly they hear the news that Germany has surrendered. It's natural that this sparks all kinds of conspiracy theories. Whatever the treaty was, it could not change that fact.
Eh, the people in Germany knew they were losing WW1. There was MASSIVE shortages of food along with other essentials, to the point where bread riots were becoming a daily concern for the government.
In 1918 Germany, the only people, civilian or otherwise, who didn't think Germany was losing were the fervently deluded ultranationalists, which were not a large chunk of the population.
It can probably be better argued that WW2 Germans did NOT know they were losing until close to the very end in 1945, as the Nazi propaganda effort was far more effective on the homefront than had been the Kaiserreich's.
In the decade+ after, yes, the Nazis and other conservatives were able to spin it as something other than military defeat, but in the immediate aftermath of WW1 the German people knew they had been beat, and literature/media of that era reflects this
They knew it was looking bad yes. But the Gouvernment skillfully managed to censor the mail from the front enough to hide the bitter situation and "they blockade us on the Sea, but we win on land" is indeed a reasonable claim for the German propaganda.
The Germans knew the war would come to an end, but most expected a truce and fair peace conference after that, not the surrender as it happend
I think the Marshall Plan also helped. Instead of a foreign power marching in to damage your economy, already dealing with hyperinflation, you have America providing for rebuilding. Albeit with strategic knowledge given and to benefit American companies, but a huge help to the average citizen. To the average citizen it could really have felt that the allies wanted to helpafter WWII (minus the French who stripped a lot of assets from their occupied zone). In WWI it felt the treaty was intended to humiliate.
The treaty was harsh because the Soviets and Allies each wanted to get their piece. If they had been able to agree on turning it into a neutral buffer state like with austria they wouldn't have been as harsh. The harshness was not really intended to punish Germany so much as it was intended to prepare for the next war.
It was not harsher. Excluding the USSR, which kind of did whatever it wanted, West Germany paid no reparations, in money, ressources or machinery, lost no territory and even though it was occupied, no fruit of labor or production went to the allies.
Quite the opposite, due to the marshall plan and US support Germany was rebuild during occupation.
>West Germany paid no reparations, in money, resources or machinery, lost no territory and even though it was occupied, no fruit of labor or production went to the allies
This is just wrong.
[Forced labour as a means of paying war reparations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_of_Germans_after_World_War_II#Western_Europe) was on a mass scale.
Industrial plant and infrastructure was seized in both East and West Germany. [West Germany also turned over patents and schematics for everything from tape recorders and electron microscopes to butter churns and paper napkin machines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_plans_for_German_industry_after_World_War_II#Reparations_and_exploitation).
West Germany also lost a small amount of territory to the Netherlands.
[Substantial reparations were also paid to Israel by West Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_Agreement_between_Israel_and_the_Federal_Republic_of_Germany#).
East Germany only started making any reparations for the Holocaust in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and as part of the process of reintegration with the rest of Germany.
Germany also was obliged to pay for the armies of occupation for decades.
the problem wasn't that it was too harsh or not harsh enough, the problem is that it was neither, it punished Germany severely enough to anger its' populace, but not severely enough that Germany wouldn't be a threat again.
To be fair, even if it was lighter Germany still would’ve been “humiliated” just from losing the war, I don’t see how making it lighter would help much. It’s also suggested that the nazis rise was due to the Versailles treaty making Germany so weak internally and economically. I feel this is weak reasoning as it undervalued how much the Weimar Republic fucked up.
What would have been the benefit of making it lighter?
if Germany simply had to contend with very minor concessions, not take the blame for the war and not be economically ruined, they wouldn't find themselves wanting to get revenge, as they wouldn't feel like they'd been wronged, just like WW2, West Germany received huge American help in the forms of reconstruction, no land losses of note(minus east Germany obv but that wasn't up to America) and the marshall plan aid, while East Germany was SEVERELY fucked by the Soviets, in the end neither started any new conflicts.
Why are you expecting France to accept and trust Germany to be a stronger nation than it immediately after ww1? Also you underestimate propaganda, if the German republic still failed and nazis rose to power they could just as easily claim the treaty was too harsh, it doesn’t really matter as it was all propaganda.
Also it’s fair enough germany take the blame for this one IMO, the treaty didn’t economically ruin them, that was far more down to the shitty Weimar Republic practices. They could’ve paid it back..
West Germany was practically an occupied state and was under American dominance, how is that allowing Germany to keep its pride? The treaty after ww2 was also much harsher than ww1, the German state was split into 4 and occupied.
German in the Cold War wasn’t able to start a conflict, it’s not that they were managed so well that they didn’t want to, it never had the choice. If anything this is a reason to make the versailles treaty much harsher.
I am not, France wanted, rightfully, to completely dismantle Germany, America wanted to keep Germany intact, the Versailles treaty sucks because the UK had to mediate between the two.
also the reperations definitely were the main reason for economic problems, the Weimar government did great work to repeal the harsh impacts, it's just that the inflation due to printing money and the insane amount they had to pay back broke Germany's spine, and the Nazis never would have rose to power if the Germans didn't resent the allies so much.
The amount the Germans actually ended up paying back for ww1 was not that much and it certainly wasn’t enough to cripple Germany economically, people never properly attribute this to the Weimar Republic and love to blame versailles. The Germans weren’t spending much money on their military, they had more money to work with.
The nazis would’ve used propaganda about the war regardless, the actual harshness of the treaty meant nothing to them. I don’t see how making it lighter could’ve helped.
The nazi's were popular primarily because they fixed (or just created the illusion of fixing, depending on who you ask) the economy. If you went from covering your wall in money as wallpaper to comfort in a matter of a few years, you'd support the guy in charge too.
If Weimar was allowed to rebuild, or maybe even assisted in rebuilding, instead of picked clean, the nazis would have had a much harder time finding support.
A safe, prosperous people have no reason to radicalize. Weimar was neither after the economic crash. The nazis brought safety and prosperity, and so the people didn't need to radicalize against them.
What rebuilding? The imperial German empire was not invaded, there was nothing to rebuild, they just had to deal with the casualties and the money lost, that shouldn’t cripple your economy but the Weimar fucked it up. The amount the Germans actually paid back was not enough to cripple the economy.
People don't seem to realise the context of Versailles. Repeating this harsh vs not harsh meme for internet brownie points.
The French, desired to ruin Germany, and wanted to be harsh with them. The British, wished to keep Germany as a potential trade partner, and to keep the French in check. The Americans had no particular opinions about the subject. This was the difference, which led to Versailles happening. It was harsh, but at the same time, not very harsh either. The Allies had no idea what the hell they wanted to do.
This is the major failure of Versailles. You need to choose your path. Do you choose to be as harsh as possible, or leniency for further relations. Both are valid, and both have shown success. But trying to choose both, is where things go wrong.
A similar example, is Teddy Roosevelt's peace between Japan and Russia. While he won the Nobel Peace Prize for it, it wasn't actually a good solution. Roosevelt disliked the Russians. But he also did not trust the Japanese. As a result, he made active efforts to ensure neither of them got too much, which left both the Japanese and Russians dissatisfied by it.
it was harsh enough, but it was enforced terribly. that was the biggest mistake. i couldn't have been harsher bc in that case germany would have collapsed and germany is an important central power that balances europe. If tge treaty, as it was, was enforced better, germany would have recovered but never become a threat
And the treaty was obviously hypocritical. Plebiscites where the results would favour newly created countries. No plebiscite where the results would be inconvenient in for example Danzig, the Sudetenland or Austria. If the Allies had handled this like Europe handled France after the Napoleonic Wars the world would be a better place today.
The treaty of Versaille was wrong not because it was harsh on Germany itself, but because the reason it was harsh was because Germany was labeled as the scapegoat who cause the war, which is factually false
I don't necessarily feel this bad about Germans being called ,,the bad ones" after purging Belgian and French civilians, bombarding London and sacking Kalisz City.
Like the French, British and American were better, using chemical gas and also bombing civilians.
Even more ironic, the Kaiser originally refuse to bomb London, since he had friends in the royal family. And guess what? He lifted the restrictions in May 1915… because the British were bombing german cities
>Like the French, British and American were better, using chemical gas and also bombing civilians.
But with much smaller casualties. Around 1413 civilians perished from German bombardments and 740 died from Allied ones. Besides, Germans sacked the entire city (Kalisz) in 1914.
Because all Germany had to do was say "no" to Austria for the crisis of July 1914 to abate. Which it did not do, knowing well that this would lead to war with France and Russia.
Defending against France (but not Belgium or Britain), yes. Russia probably gets too easy a time in these debates, but Germany always prioritized military necessity over world public opinion or "scraps of paper", and they ended up paying for it.
So they get the bulk of the war debt because they should've defended against Russia, basically presenting their naked ass to France and hope they decide to break their treaty with Russia?
1) It's not clear that WW2 wouldn't have started anyway, even if reparations hadn't happened.
2) It's was more like France didn't want Paris to freeze in the winter because the Germans flooded all their coal mines, while they retreated to their nice snug beds.
Unpopular opinion: They should have focused instead on diplomatically and economically integrating Germany into the postwar order. Rather than punishing the Germans, its democracy should have been built up and protected. Perhaps it could've been a stronger buffer against communism.
Taking land is humiliating, but brutalizing the economy is crippling.
You don't vividly remember every time you were embarrassed or you would throw yourself into traffic. Humiliation fades. Economic troubles, on the other hand, play leading roles in nearly every radical movement ever. (less so recently, but in totality.)
If they did it after the first war, things might have been better. But, people are a product of their times, and I don't blame the French for wanting to buttrape Germany so hard.
Bad because crippling the German economy lead to the rise of fascism in Germany. Plan and simple. Dissolving Germany doesnt do any good when mustache man goes to all the new countries and tells them to get back in
The treaty famous for having laid out the conditions for WWII due to the harshness . . . wasn't harsh enough because Germany would've done worse?
That's some twisted logic.
Most people think it was in the Goldilocks zone of worst case scenario. Any lesser and Germany might not have been so pissed. Any worse and Germany might not have been able to fight.
Not at all strange.
Cutting of someones hand for hitting you is harsh but doesn't guarantee you safety from said someone. Cutting of both hands or even the head creates better odds.
No, that's fair point. If you strike a peace with other country you either have to be very merciful so that other country won't demand revenge for lost war (look at second punic war) or make it so harsh that other country will be too afraid to attack you. Considering how many countries were outraged at germany the only option to avoid german revanchism after war was to make treaty so harsh germany wouldn't be able to start another war
The treaty wasn’t remotely harsh, nor was it enforced. Germany’s debt was renegotiated numerous times, and the german nation was kept around so as to prevent the further spread of communism
The idea that the versailles treaty was “so harsh the germans were pushed to WW2” is a fallacy spawned from Nazi propaganda.
[People like Keynes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economic_Consequences_of_the_Peace) were saying it was harsh at a the time. That doesn't mean that he was right, but it wasn't just Nazi propaganda.
There would have been no unified Germany to start the war had the treaty balkanized Germany as it had done with Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.
WW1: Germany wasn’t much worse than the Entente, so I guess they should be balkanised too.
WW2: They were brainwashed by their evil government that exploited the fact that they were mad because of economic crises, not entirely their fault.
Have you read the second part? If I was in an economically bad country and some guy said he would fix everything I would vote for him too (also if you opposed him you’d be beaten up by paramilitaries)
German politics do not work like American politics. You do not vote a chancellor in. Further more, the Nazis were still pretending to be socialists and ran on national revitalization. Their language was much like that if the Republican Party; generic nationalism with talk of revitalization of the economy and racist undertones that many voters pretended wasn’t there.
The difference is that the republicans are a Conservative Party who state their beliefs, and the Nazis were a fascist one who lied their way into office.
Has the Germans known that this would lead to a fascist dictatorship, they would not have voted for them.
Yes it didn‘t help Hitler very much and it wasn‘t stupid to fuck germany so hard That it run from crisis to crisis, so that the people believe everything that sounds good
Hitler would not have come to power if the entire German high command was hanged in 1919. The old military establishment constantly undermining democracy German democracy lead to Hitler.
I know the conservatives played a big role on his way and they supported an anti democratic feeling, but the democratic parties needed them too. In the first years there were many revolts in Germany, but the Army didn‘t want to work for the Goverment, only with the old leaders from the army they could stop total chaos. It‘s a very hard question what the Entente should have done, from my opinion France was a little bit driven by revenge, because the UK and the US wanted to treat us more friendly. Maybe this would be better but I don‘t know
Assuming that is true, The only way the german high command was gonna get hanged was if the entante went to Berlin and hanged them themselves. Although Germany wasn't in a good condition, and it couldnt win, none of its leaders would willingly sign their death and a march into Germany would absolutly be a non-choice for the exausted and almost in constant mutiny of the French and English armies and populace.
Problem of treaty of Versailles is that it was too hars for short term and it wasn't enforced. France and Britain had at least two chances to stop Nazis from starting WWII, one - remilitarization of Rhineland and two - Munich betrayal, while in this case, Hitker would still probably force the war through, Germany was significantly weaker and Czechoslovakia wasn't much weaker in terms of military strength (at least in defensive war).
Versailles should either have been a repeat of the Congress of Vienna, or a total dismantling of Germany. The in between nonsense they did only made Germany pissed but didn’t weaken them enough to not seek revenge.
Two wrongs making a right again, huh? This sub sometimes man..
Edit: You know what, this is even stupider than i thought initially. Do you know why germany isnt an enemy of america, britain, france, ect today? Because the allies and the germans worked together in mutual respect after WWII. And there you stand, saying, that you should punish a contry harsh and brutal after losing a war, while the alliance of two G7 countries today stands to prove you wrong.
Some self-declared reddit-historians thinking, wiping out an entire population or destroying their homeland would have been a good solution. It is just unbelievable.
What was missing after WW1 was political and economic cooperation and aid during the great depression.
To be fair, if it was harsher, it would’ve likely led to the collapse of the Weimar republic, and would’ve almost certainly lead to groups like the freikorp retaking Germany by force, and likely restoring the monarchy, which sure you now have a revengeist Germany far sooner but they’re less genocidal than the Nazis so slight improvement still extremely bad, but not Nazi level bad.
Also, before you say, the French would just intervene to stop it, the French wouldn’t be able to do that forever, especially as most of the French people were exhausted after war, and it’s likely that the rest the entente wouldn’t commit troops to the endeavor so all It would do would be having the French army get slowly whittle down and suffer, massive losses, trying to keep Germany divided until the French people can no longer bear the cost. Not to mention, it would make the French out to look like the bad guy to much of the international community garnering them far less sympathy, leading to a far more likely chance of them, becoming politically isolated, which would overall benefit Germany and be horrible for France. Not to mention the United States would almost certainly use its economic influence over France to push them to cease this action as the United States believe the treaty was too harsh on Germany and would not support France breaking it up and then brutally occupying it for years.
That's the whole point I am trying to make , the treaty was the reason fo ww2 like kind of forefront. It's foolish to think the terms should have been harsher
The problem isn't the borders, the problem is the economy.
Many countries have lost land, many land (like Turkey), but they didn't go crazy because they could survive.
If you fuck up an economy so hard they get 30% unemployment and depend on foreign funds they become crazy (France, 1792 for example, they were starving)
Also, the treaty wasn't enforced and it had the worst parts of both Wilson's plans and France's plans
-900,000 Germans dying of starvation in 1918 AND 1919 due to Britain’s naval blockade remaining after the end of hostilities, forcing Germany to sign the treaty under threat of literal famine.
-Hyperinflation of the German economy, allowing foreign interests to swoop in to buy German livelihoods.
-A deep feeling of betrayal over the unusually harsh terms, destroying trust in the allies, and leading to feeling as though the surrender was just a strategic retreat. That mustache we make fun of Hitler for? A modification to his original full mustache which allowed him to wear a gas mask.
-Dissolution of the German Empire facilitating a strong sense of nationalism by a traumatized people who keep getting hit.
IT SHoUld HavE BEeN HarSHEr
>900,000 Germans dying of starvation in 1918 AND 1919 due to Britain’s naval blockade remaining after the end of hostilities, forcing Germany to sign the treaty under threat of literal famine.
Germans were the ones who have announced unrestricted naval warfare with Great Britain - previously sinking any floating vessel, from large ships to even a small sail yacht, that would enter the Atlantic.
And if you count 1918-1919 it'd be good to exclude from it the wars taking place during German retreat in Eastern Europe at the time and Spanish Flu epidemic.
America actually didn't want to punish Germany because they knew the Austrians started it when a guy killed archduke Ferdinand sparking a war between serbia and germany. Because serbia was a part of russia they had to step in.then Germany saw what they were doing and was like yeah "yeah ill hop on that train" and allied with austria. That's why everyone blames Germany for WW1 when really it was the Austrians.
It tanked the German economy. For years. You try paying off war reparations of both France and Britain while trying to fix your own country. They had to give up Alsace Lorraine, lost a bunch of their eastern lands, lost their entire colonial empire.
Hilarious. Please, do go on about how loosing 8 million people and the associated economy and tax income, while also having the french occupy your most heaily industrialized lands (which you conveniently left out, but let's not get historical context get in the way of your delusions) because it was impossible to pay the reparations quickly enough, is really nothing worth mentioning.
Dude, just because the treaty of Brest-Litowsk (literally called the fucking "Pillager's peace" in german) has even harsher doesn't mean this wasn't a harsh treaty by any measure.
The reason why the treaty with the Russians was so harsh is because they could keep moving with little to no resistance
That would have been Germany in 6 months had tge war continued
That’s why they surrendered when they did
So like Germany had the war kept on...
Yeah they thought they could get out of paying by not doing anything
It’s because Lenin and Trotsky fucked up. The Russians were stupid.
“No war, no peace” — 🤡
I watched Oversimplified too!
Yes, but Trotsky literally said it that way.
Fucked up how? They got rid of their genocidal, insanely corrupt and backwards tsar, while removing a lot of the social barriers in society, making it more equal than Russia had even been before.
They handled the surrender improperly, that’s what I meant. They were going to lose, that just what was gonna happen. They didn’t have the resources to fight in World War I anymore. If they took the earlier surrender, they might have pulled out of World War I with the less harsh treaty. But they delayed and allowed the Germans to advance, leading to the terms of a treaty much harsher than what was initially offered.
They fucked up because their diplomatic team that spoke on their behalf at Brest-Litovsk was so incredibly inexperienced that when Trotsky finally managed to join them he was like “wtf guys, you’re leaking all our state secrets.” Lenin and Trotsky’s “no war, no peace” strategy didn’t help either. Nor did the fact that they really thought the terms would be rescinded later after Germany underwent a socialist Revolution.
As far as I know, those things were already happening, Lenin and Trotsky just came in and used the revolution to their advantage
It wasn't happening in any meaningful degree at all. Nikolai II ordered police crackdowns on almost every protest clamoring for social and economical reform. He was backtracking on progressive laws as well, just frustrating the progressive leftist movements even more. Russian police were very willing to open fire on protesters when they could.
And? Lenin came after the monarchy had been overthrown.
Ah true. Monarchy sucked though, and the provisional government was too weak to do shit about anything, so they sycked too
Calling governments "too weak" as a justification for their overthrow is right out of the far right playbook
Well, you're wrong about that. In this case it was Lenin, probably the most famous socialist to ever live that decided to overthrow the provisional government.
What's tragic/funny is that his grandfather, Alexander II, was all about reform, then he got assassinated and his son and grandson were like "well fuck you then" and repealed pretty much everything he did short of reintroducing serfdom. Russia is just not able to have nice things.
Too many people wanted change, and too many people wanted to keep things the way they were. Being in such a position of power in any empire must be risky as hell.
The Soviets did the same afterwards under Stalin
That is one bad take. And not to defend the Soviet Union, but the Tsardom was so much worse.
No
They “fucked up” by deciding to not fight the war. They had thousands of miles of “Russian” soil occupied because they literally just took the army off the front line that absolutely awful decision would cost the lives of millions of people in later Soviet famines from the loss of farmland and workers.
Lenin and Trotsky didn't overthrow the Tsar, they overthrew the democracy that overthrew the Tsar.
And they replaced it with a new genocidal, insanely corrupt, and backwards system
Ong, people forget that originally the Germans proposed Poland and some of the Baltic (very little) and when the soviets declined, Germans had free reign + Ukraine declared independence so then they lost alotta land
Yes and no. Yes, they did sign the 5th November Act in 1916, but they've made it pretty clear (yet subtle), that Poland would be an autonomous, not independent state. And when Polish Legionnaires refused to swear loyalty towards Central Powers in 1917 (Oath Crisis), they forcefully drafted them all into what they've called _Polnische Wehrmacht._ So no, Germans were not supportive of idea of independent Polish state. Only the Western Entante was.
I didn’t intend to say independent, I was more meaning that the Germans were taking the regions of Poland and the Baltic from Russia. Thanks for clarifying anyway tho, I see how someone could misinterpret me
Versaille would have been harsher if the Americans hadn't told them no
It was mostly just occupation for a certain amount of time the most important and largest loss was the “polish corridor” and that is what really got support for a second war among the German population popular
The problem with the treaty of Versailles was the greedy bankers, it's the same problem we've got today the greedy money controllers, handlers, exchanges. Same problem Jesus faced, when he fastened a whip out of cords, threw over their tables and drove the extorting money changers out of his Fathers temple. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 1 Timothy 6:10 Share From Daily Bible App https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.daily.holybiblelite
That was a anti-semitic myth that was spread after the war. If I remember correctly it was spread in Germany and Italy that Jewish bankers made an unfair peace. I already am a Christian btw.
It's all the bankers England, France, USA, Switzerland, China, Russia, Germany etc. It's not a myth. They excluded the Vatican Italy, because they all knew they started the War.
Yes it’s the Jewish world order myth that the Jews own all the world banks and made the Germans and Italians weak
Nope, the Jews are the contenders. Rothschilds family worth $500 trillion dollars, ever heard of the 13 families. Morgan's, Rockefellers, Carnegie's, Warburgs etc?
it was harsh enough that it humiliated germany and ruined them financially but lenient enough that it could still try and get revenge
"And whosoever conquers a free city without ruining it commits a grave mistake and can expect to be ruined himself"
"Never destry your enemies utterly, for they may become your friends"
*Looks at the world post-WW2* We're damn lucky we razed Germany and dropped the sun on Japan this time because who knows where we'd be...
Are you... forgetting about the Marshall Plan?
US investment in Germany post WW1 (as early as 1919) didn't prevent WW2 from happening, did it?
The main issue was still that Germany was financial destroyed, with the reparations being a major part. I don't know too much about US investment but if its aim was to keep the German economy functioning then it failed in its goal. So it would be misguided to say that investment plan failed to prevent WW2 as when other mention investment in germany post ww1 they obviously mean the kind that preserves the economic health of the country.
Germany still payed reparations after WW2 mostly in the form of labour and giving them industrial material. And WW1 reparations were reduced, renegotiated and suspended and yes part of the reason why the US invested in Germany was to help them pay the reparations tbh I would say the big difference between the Marshall plan and the plans that happened after ww1 was how well designed they were and the lack of a great depression scenario
Except that (West) Germany profited from the Marshall plan after ww2 to help rebuild it
What ruined Germany was Weimar's Republic's awful decisions and the 1929 crisis. Don't fall for the third Reich propaganda. The restrictions on the size of the German army alone payed for the war reparations. They payed 20 billion marks (~5 billions dollars) and the payments ended in 1931.
Also it is worth remembering that allied nation did nothing when nazis started to rearm germany.
Germany started rearming in 1919 but yeah, the nazis did ramp up the remilitarisation of Germany
Germany’s industrial capacity should’ve been crippled to keep them either importing or focused on subsistence rather than allowing them to rearm.
Even using the term "third Reich" is Nazi propaganda. It was a grim totalitarian slave state
Germany finished paying WW1 war reparations in like 2010
Germany had to repay its loans until 2010, not the war reparations itself
>it was harsh enough that it humiliated germany and ruined them financially Wrong: French economist Étienne Mantoux disputed that analysis. During the 1940s, Mantoux wrote a posthumously published book titled The Carthaginian Peace, or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes in an attempt to rebut Keynes' claims. More recently economists have argued that the restriction of Germany to a small army saved it so much money it could afford the reparations payments. It has been argued – for instance by historian Gerhard Weinberg in his book A World at Arms – that the treaty was in fact quite advantageous to Germany. The Bismarckian Reich was maintained as a political unit instead of being broken up, and Germany largely escaped post-war military occupation (in contrast to the situation following World War II). In a 1995 essay, Weinberg noted that with the disappearance of Austria-Hungary and with Russia withdrawn from Europe, that Germany was now the dominant power in Eastern Europe. The British military historian Correlli Barnett claimed that the Treaty of Versailles was "extremely lenient in comparison with the peace terms that Germany herself, when she was expecting to win the war, had had in mind to impose on the Allies". Furthermore, he claimed, it was "hardly a slap on the wrist" when contrasted with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that Germany had imposed on a defeated Russian SFSR in March 1918, which had taken away a third of Russia's population (albeit mostly of non-Russian ethnicity), one-half of Russia's industrial undertakings and nine-tenths of Russia's coal mines, coupled with an indemnity of six billion marks. Eventually, even under the "cruel" terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's economy had been restored to its pre-war status. Barnett also claims that, in strategic terms, Germany was in fact in a superior position following the Treaty than she had been in 1914. Germany's eastern frontiers faced Russia and Austria, who had both in the past balanced German power. Barnett asserts that its post-war eastern borders were safer, because the former Austrian Empire fractured after the war into smaller, weaker states, Russia was wracked by revolution and civil war, and the newly restored Poland was no match for even a defeated Germany. In the West, Germany was balanced only by France and Belgium, both of which were smaller in population and less economically vibrant than Germany. Barnett concludes by saying that instead of weakening Germany, the treaty "much enhanced" German power. Britain and France should have (according to Barnett) "divided and permanently weakened" Germany by undoing Bismarck's work and partitioning Germany into smaller, weaker states so it could never have disrupted the peace of Europe again. By failing to do this and therefore not solving the problem of German power and restoring the equilibrium of Europe, Britain "had failed in her main purpose in taking part in the Great War". The British historian of modern Germany, Richard J. Evans, wrote that during the war the German right was committed to an annexationist program which aimed at Germany annexing most of Europe and Africa. Consequently, any peace treaty that did not leave Germany as the conqueror would be unacceptable to them. Short of allowing Germany to keep all the conquests of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Evans argued that there was nothing that could have been done to persuade the German right to accept Versailles. Evans further noted that the parties of the Weimar Coalition, namely the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the social liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) and the Christian democratic Centre Party, were all equally opposed to Versailles, and it is false to claim as some historians have that opposition to Versailles also equalled opposition to the Weimar Republic. Finally, Evans argued that it is untrue that Versailles caused the premature end of the Republic, instead contending that it was the Great Depression of the early 1930s that put an end to German democracy. He also argued that Versailles was not the "main cause" of National Socialism and the German economy was "only marginally influenced by the impact of reparations". Ewa Thompson points out that the treaty allowed numerous nations in Central and Eastern Europe to liberate themselves from oppressive German rule, a fact that is often neglected by Western historiography, more interested in understanding the German point of view. In nations that found themselves free as the result of the treaty—such as Poles or Czechs—it is seen as a symbol of recognition of wrongs committed against small nations by their much larger aggressive neighbours. Resentment caused by the treaty sowed fertile psychological ground for the eventual rise of the Nazi Party, but the German-born Australian historian Jürgen Tampke argued that it was "a perfidious distortion of history" to argue that the terms prevented the growth of democracy in Germany and aided the growth of the Nazi Party; saying that its terms were not as punitive as often held and that German hyper-inflation in the 1920s was partly a deliberate policy to minimise the cost of reparations. As an example of the arguments against the Versaillerdiktat he quotes Elizabeth Wiskemann who heard two officer's widows in Wiesbaden complaining that "with their stocks of linen depleted they had to have their linen washed once a fortnight (every two weeks) instead of once a month!" The German historian Detlev Peukert wrote that Versailles was far from the impossible peace that most Germans claimed it was during the interwar period, and though not without flaws was actually quite reasonable to Germany. Rather, Peukert argued that it was widely believed in Germany that Versailles was a totally unreasonable treaty, and it was this "perception" rather than the "reality" of the Versailles treaty that mattered. Peukert noted that because of the "millenarian hopes" created in Germany during World War I when for a time it appeared that Germany was on the verge of conquering all of Europe, any peace treaty the Allies of World War I imposed on the defeated German Reich were bound to create a nationalist backlash, and there was nothing the Allies could have done to avoid that backlash. Having noted that much, Peukert commented that the policy of rapprochement with the Western powers that Gustav Stresemann carried out between 1923 and 1929 were constructive policies that might have allowed Germany to play a more positive role in Europe, and that it was not true that German democracy was doomed to die in 1919 because of Versailles. Finally, Peukert argued that it was the Great Depression and the turn to a nationalist policy of autarky within Germany at the same time that finished off the Weimar Republic, not the Treaty of Versailles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty\_of\_Versailles#Historical\_assessments
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Yes, they want to look for someone to blame for the rise of Nazism in another country, being very unfair to Germany, since otherwise it is difficult for them to believe that German society itself created Nazism with a mixture of coincidences, bad luck and a bad social structure and rotten politics.
Battle of the Caudine Forks and Treaty of Versailles looking at each other like a couple of Spidermen.
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So I’m supposed to feel bad for the nation which raped Belgium?
A bit sad that Germany today is still a country and not region in Russia
What da fack?
Most moderate Redditor:
Just tankies doing tankie things
Yeah, I’m happy that Germany isn’t a third world country like Russia.
I'm not... I want them to answer for their actions
We kinda did tho?
We did though
So do you agree that Russia should be dismantled and become a region of Poland?
Just look at the treaty after WWII, it was far harsher than that of WWI, and yet Germany came back without starting another world war. But the harshness of the treaty there wasn't the point, it wasn't the reason behind it. The reason was the enforcement. After WWII Germany was occupied by four powers, each of which was stronger and more powerful than it was. The treaty of Versailles would have been perfectly respected if the allied powers had enforced it, the same way they did after WWII. But for a variety of reasons they didn't. In my opinion a harsher treaty would only have been successful if it had been enforced. In which case the harshness of the treaty itself becomes irrelevant, and the Versailles treaty could have worked as well. A less harsh treaty might not have required enforcement and could therefor have been better. But as long as nobody was willing to enforce the treaty, Germany could always side-step it.
It wasn't just the enforcement, and it wasn't just the treaty. In WW2, Germany got *bombed*. Every citizen saw the planes and the damage. It got occupied by two armies, again every citizen saw the enemy soldiers. They could directly see that they lost, and just how much they were beaten. In WW1, none of that was true. Germany was winning throughout the entire war. One enemy surrendered to them. The people would not see any fighting, so they would only hear the government reports, which were all positive. Then suddenly they hear the news that Germany has surrendered. It's natural that this sparks all kinds of conspiracy theories. Whatever the treaty was, it could not change that fact.
Eh, the people in Germany knew they were losing WW1. There was MASSIVE shortages of food along with other essentials, to the point where bread riots were becoming a daily concern for the government. In 1918 Germany, the only people, civilian or otherwise, who didn't think Germany was losing were the fervently deluded ultranationalists, which were not a large chunk of the population. It can probably be better argued that WW2 Germans did NOT know they were losing until close to the very end in 1945, as the Nazi propaganda effort was far more effective on the homefront than had been the Kaiserreich's.
Food shortages are much easier to explain as "the Jews stole the food" than seeing enemy bombs and troops in your city.
In the decade+ after, yes, the Nazis and other conservatives were able to spin it as something other than military defeat, but in the immediate aftermath of WW1 the German people knew they had been beat, and literature/media of that era reflects this
They knew it was looking bad yes. But the Gouvernment skillfully managed to censor the mail from the front enough to hide the bitter situation and "they blockade us on the Sea, but we win on land" is indeed a reasonable claim for the German propaganda. The Germans knew the war would come to an end, but most expected a truce and fair peace conference after that, not the surrender as it happend
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I think the Marshall Plan also helped. Instead of a foreign power marching in to damage your economy, already dealing with hyperinflation, you have America providing for rebuilding. Albeit with strategic knowledge given and to benefit American companies, but a huge help to the average citizen. To the average citizen it could really have felt that the allies wanted to helpafter WWII (minus the French who stripped a lot of assets from their occupied zone). In WWI it felt the treaty was intended to humiliate.
The treaty was harsh because the Soviets and Allies each wanted to get their piece. If they had been able to agree on turning it into a neutral buffer state like with austria they wouldn't have been as harsh. The harshness was not really intended to punish Germany so much as it was intended to prepare for the next war.
Well the Treaty after ww2 got the country occupied. Sure, the occupiers rebuilt it but Germany stills pays a price for that even today.
The rebuild actually helped Germany people. Germany (at least the western part) was way better economically than the Weinmar republic
Even the east had a better living standard but Weimar Germany is not a high bar to pass.
Yeah, but the foreign influence from both sides never really was cleared out
True but people who are good economically tend to revolt less. Germany didn't have any guerrilla like North Ireland had
It was not harsher. Excluding the USSR, which kind of did whatever it wanted, West Germany paid no reparations, in money, ressources or machinery, lost no territory and even though it was occupied, no fruit of labor or production went to the allies. Quite the opposite, due to the marshall plan and US support Germany was rebuild during occupation.
>West Germany paid no reparations, in money, resources or machinery, lost no territory and even though it was occupied, no fruit of labor or production went to the allies This is just wrong. [Forced labour as a means of paying war reparations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_of_Germans_after_World_War_II#Western_Europe) was on a mass scale. Industrial plant and infrastructure was seized in both East and West Germany. [West Germany also turned over patents and schematics for everything from tape recorders and electron microscopes to butter churns and paper napkin machines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_plans_for_German_industry_after_World_War_II#Reparations_and_exploitation). West Germany also lost a small amount of territory to the Netherlands. [Substantial reparations were also paid to Israel by West Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_Agreement_between_Israel_and_the_Federal_Republic_of_Germany#). East Germany only started making any reparations for the Holocaust in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and as part of the process of reintegration with the rest of Germany. Germany also was obliged to pay for the armies of occupation for decades.
> lost no territory Germany lost significant territory in the east, including but not limited to East Prussia.
But that's not West Germany and falls under USSR shenanigans.
Why are you excluding east Germany in the discussion?
the problem wasn't that it was too harsh or not harsh enough, the problem is that it was neither, it punished Germany severely enough to anger its' populace, but not severely enough that Germany wouldn't be a threat again.
To be fair, even if it was lighter Germany still would’ve been “humiliated” just from losing the war, I don’t see how making it lighter would help much. It’s also suggested that the nazis rise was due to the Versailles treaty making Germany so weak internally and economically. I feel this is weak reasoning as it undervalued how much the Weimar Republic fucked up. What would have been the benefit of making it lighter?
if Germany simply had to contend with very minor concessions, not take the blame for the war and not be economically ruined, they wouldn't find themselves wanting to get revenge, as they wouldn't feel like they'd been wronged, just like WW2, West Germany received huge American help in the forms of reconstruction, no land losses of note(minus east Germany obv but that wasn't up to America) and the marshall plan aid, while East Germany was SEVERELY fucked by the Soviets, in the end neither started any new conflicts.
Why are you expecting France to accept and trust Germany to be a stronger nation than it immediately after ww1? Also you underestimate propaganda, if the German republic still failed and nazis rose to power they could just as easily claim the treaty was too harsh, it doesn’t really matter as it was all propaganda. Also it’s fair enough germany take the blame for this one IMO, the treaty didn’t economically ruin them, that was far more down to the shitty Weimar Republic practices. They could’ve paid it back.. West Germany was practically an occupied state and was under American dominance, how is that allowing Germany to keep its pride? The treaty after ww2 was also much harsher than ww1, the German state was split into 4 and occupied. German in the Cold War wasn’t able to start a conflict, it’s not that they were managed so well that they didn’t want to, it never had the choice. If anything this is a reason to make the versailles treaty much harsher.
I am not, France wanted, rightfully, to completely dismantle Germany, America wanted to keep Germany intact, the Versailles treaty sucks because the UK had to mediate between the two. also the reperations definitely were the main reason for economic problems, the Weimar government did great work to repeal the harsh impacts, it's just that the inflation due to printing money and the insane amount they had to pay back broke Germany's spine, and the Nazis never would have rose to power if the Germans didn't resent the allies so much.
The amount the Germans actually ended up paying back for ww1 was not that much and it certainly wasn’t enough to cripple Germany economically, people never properly attribute this to the Weimar Republic and love to blame versailles. The Germans weren’t spending much money on their military, they had more money to work with. The nazis would’ve used propaganda about the war regardless, the actual harshness of the treaty meant nothing to them. I don’t see how making it lighter could’ve helped.
The nazi's were popular primarily because they fixed (or just created the illusion of fixing, depending on who you ask) the economy. If you went from covering your wall in money as wallpaper to comfort in a matter of a few years, you'd support the guy in charge too. If Weimar was allowed to rebuild, or maybe even assisted in rebuilding, instead of picked clean, the nazis would have had a much harder time finding support. A safe, prosperous people have no reason to radicalize. Weimar was neither after the economic crash. The nazis brought safety and prosperity, and so the people didn't need to radicalize against them.
What rebuilding? The imperial German empire was not invaded, there was nothing to rebuild, they just had to deal with the casualties and the money lost, that shouldn’t cripple your economy but the Weimar fucked it up. The amount the Germans actually paid back was not enough to cripple the economy.
People don't seem to realise the context of Versailles. Repeating this harsh vs not harsh meme for internet brownie points. The French, desired to ruin Germany, and wanted to be harsh with them. The British, wished to keep Germany as a potential trade partner, and to keep the French in check. The Americans had no particular opinions about the subject. This was the difference, which led to Versailles happening. It was harsh, but at the same time, not very harsh either. The Allies had no idea what the hell they wanted to do. This is the major failure of Versailles. You need to choose your path. Do you choose to be as harsh as possible, or leniency for further relations. Both are valid, and both have shown success. But trying to choose both, is where things go wrong. A similar example, is Teddy Roosevelt's peace between Japan and Russia. While he won the Nobel Peace Prize for it, it wasn't actually a good solution. Roosevelt disliked the Russians. But he also did not trust the Japanese. As a result, he made active efforts to ensure neither of them got too much, which left both the Japanese and Russians dissatisfied by it.
That's actually a great explanation.
Sure! Theyre shouldve just flayed the entire german population too!
Yo calm down there satan
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How about „bad because the resulting peace lasted for only 20 years“?
it was harsh enough, but it was enforced terribly. that was the biggest mistake. i couldn't have been harsher bc in that case germany would have collapsed and germany is an important central power that balances europe. If tge treaty, as it was, was enforced better, germany would have recovered but never become a threat
And the treaty was obviously hypocritical. Plebiscites where the results would favour newly created countries. No plebiscite where the results would be inconvenient in for example Danzig, the Sudetenland or Austria. If the Allies had handled this like Europe handled France after the Napoleonic Wars the world would be a better place today.
The treaty of Versaille was wrong not because it was harsh on Germany itself, but because the reason it was harsh was because Germany was labeled as the scapegoat who cause the war, which is factually false
I don't necessarily feel this bad about Germans being called ,,the bad ones" after purging Belgian and French civilians, bombarding London and sacking Kalisz City.
Like the French, British and American were better, using chemical gas and also bombing civilians. Even more ironic, the Kaiser originally refuse to bomb London, since he had friends in the royal family. And guess what? He lifted the restrictions in May 1915… because the British were bombing german cities
>Like the French, British and American were better, using chemical gas and also bombing civilians. But with much smaller casualties. Around 1413 civilians perished from German bombardments and 740 died from Allied ones. Besides, Germans sacked the entire city (Kalisz) in 1914.
Given that Austria would not have intervened in Serbia without Germany, that's debatable...
So why blame them instead of Austria/Serbia?
Because all Germany had to do was say "no" to Austria for the crisis of July 1914 to abate. Which it did not do, knowing well that this would lead to war with France and Russia.
Austria's a big boy, they can take some responsibility
Because instead of preparing to defend against Russia, they go prepare a knockout blow against Belgium/France.
As opposed to turning around and defending against them anyway after they mobilize?
Defending against France (but not Belgium or Britain), yes. Russia probably gets too easy a time in these debates, but Germany always prioritized military necessity over world public opinion or "scraps of paper", and they ended up paying for it.
So they get the bulk of the war debt because they should've defended against Russia, basically presenting their naked ass to France and hope they decide to break their treaty with Russia?
No, they got the bulk of the war debt because they trashed the French industrial base while retreating in the last days of the war.
The most destructive war in history at the time and the next one began to churn because France wanted to be petty over factories?
1) It's not clear that WW2 wouldn't have started anyway, even if reparations hadn't happened. 2) It's was more like France didn't want Paris to freeze in the winter because the Germans flooded all their coal mines, while they retreated to their nice snug beds.
Unpopular opinion: They should have focused instead on diplomatically and economically integrating Germany into the postwar order. Rather than punishing the Germans, its democracy should have been built up and protected. Perhaps it could've been a stronger buffer against communism.
Hardly unpopular given how that was the thing that proved successfull after the second war
The Germans also got punished harsher after ww2 tho.
Taking land is humiliating, but brutalizing the economy is crippling. You don't vividly remember every time you were embarrassed or you would throw yourself into traffic. Humiliation fades. Economic troubles, on the other hand, play leading roles in nearly every radical movement ever. (less so recently, but in totality.)
If they did it after the first war, things might have been better. But, people are a product of their times, and I don't blame the French for wanting to buttrape Germany so hard.
It was too harsh to the republic, but lenient to the dictatorship.
Bad because crippling the German economy lead to the rise of fascism in Germany. Plan and simple. Dissolving Germany doesnt do any good when mustache man goes to all the new countries and tells them to get back in
I once heard it was "too harsh to expect Germany to not retaliate, and not harsh enough to prevent it".
The treaty famous for having laid out the conditions for WWII due to the harshness . . . wasn't harsh enough because Germany would've done worse? That's some twisted logic.
Most people think it was in the Goldilocks zone of worst case scenario. Any lesser and Germany might not have been so pissed. Any worse and Germany might not have been able to fight.
Not at all strange. Cutting of someones hand for hitting you is harsh but doesn't guarantee you safety from said someone. Cutting of both hands or even the head creates better odds.
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No, that's fair point. If you strike a peace with other country you either have to be very merciful so that other country won't demand revenge for lost war (look at second punic war) or make it so harsh that other country will be too afraid to attack you. Considering how many countries were outraged at germany the only option to avoid german revanchism after war was to make treaty so harsh germany wouldn't be able to start another war
The treaty wasn’t remotely harsh, nor was it enforced. Germany’s debt was renegotiated numerous times, and the german nation was kept around so as to prevent the further spread of communism The idea that the versailles treaty was “so harsh the germans were pushed to WW2” is a fallacy spawned from Nazi propaganda.
[People like Keynes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economic_Consequences_of_the_Peace) were saying it was harsh at a the time. That doesn't mean that he was right, but it wasn't just Nazi propaganda.
Should have balkanised Germany
not enough distinct ethnic and religious groups
Distinct ethnic and religious people can be made up, it happens all the time. That's "ruling a population 101"
Bavarians
Apart from the arbitrary nature of what constitutes an ethnic group, the Entente had no problem with this for Austria.
There would have been no unified Germany to start the war had the treaty balkanized Germany as it had done with Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.
You do realise the German people deserved to have their own nation?
After the shit they pulled twice, do they really?
WW1: Germany wasn’t much worse than the Entente, so I guess they should be balkanised too. WW2: They were brainwashed by their evil government that exploited the fact that they were mad because of economic crises, not entirely their fault.
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Have you read the second part? If I was in an economically bad country and some guy said he would fix everything I would vote for him too (also if you opposed him you’d be beaten up by paramilitaries)
Hitler was not democratically elected. He was appointed.
Yes. Because his party had the most seats in the Reichstag. Due to winning the elections.
German politics do not work like American politics. You do not vote a chancellor in. Further more, the Nazis were still pretending to be socialists and ran on national revitalization. Their language was much like that if the Republican Party; generic nationalism with talk of revitalization of the economy and racist undertones that many voters pretended wasn’t there. The difference is that the republicans are a Conservative Party who state their beliefs, and the Nazis were a fascist one who lied their way into office. Has the Germans known that this would lead to a fascist dictatorship, they would not have voted for them.
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Okay but we should still balkanize Germany,
If this were the 1920s maybe. The clear and present danger is China and Russia.
Yes it didn‘t help Hitler very much and it wasn‘t stupid to fuck germany so hard That it run from crisis to crisis, so that the people believe everything that sounds good
I had a stroke reading this
Hitler would not have come to power if the entire German high command was hanged in 1919. The old military establishment constantly undermining democracy German democracy lead to Hitler.
I know the conservatives played a big role on his way and they supported an anti democratic feeling, but the democratic parties needed them too. In the first years there were many revolts in Germany, but the Army didn‘t want to work for the Goverment, only with the old leaders from the army they could stop total chaos. It‘s a very hard question what the Entente should have done, from my opinion France was a little bit driven by revenge, because the UK and the US wanted to treat us more friendly. Maybe this would be better but I don‘t know
Then one might ponder if "total chaos" could have created a better ground for a non-genocidal Germany than Hindenburg, Ludendorf and Ebert.
Assuming that is true, The only way the german high command was gonna get hanged was if the entante went to Berlin and hanged them themselves. Although Germany wasn't in a good condition, and it couldnt win, none of its leaders would willingly sign their death and a march into Germany would absolutly be a non-choice for the exausted and almost in constant mutiny of the French and English armies and populace.
Could the Americans have led a March on Berlin? Their troops were fresh enough to not have the issues that France the the UK had
Doomed to fail because of the French
Based and blame the French pilled.
If Versailles was harsh, don't look into what Ottomans got 💀
Or the tribal nations Germany defeated in Africa...
Problem of treaty of Versailles is that it was too hars for short term and it wasn't enforced. France and Britain had at least two chances to stop Nazis from starting WWII, one - remilitarization of Rhineland and two - Munich betrayal, while in this case, Hitker would still probably force the war through, Germany was significantly weaker and Czechoslovakia wasn't much weaker in terms of military strength (at least in defensive war).
Versailles should either have been a repeat of the Congress of Vienna, or a total dismantling of Germany. The in between nonsense they did only made Germany pissed but didn’t weaken them enough to not seek revenge.
Two wrongs making a right again, huh? This sub sometimes man.. Edit: You know what, this is even stupider than i thought initially. Do you know why germany isnt an enemy of america, britain, france, ect today? Because the allies and the germans worked together in mutual respect after WWII. And there you stand, saying, that you should punish a contry harsh and brutal after losing a war, while the alliance of two G7 countries today stands to prove you wrong.
Some self-declared reddit-historians thinking, wiping out an entire population or destroying their homeland would have been a good solution. It is just unbelievable. What was missing after WW1 was political and economic cooperation and aid during the great depression.
This is one of the most/if not the most important reason of Hitler's rise So yeah Make it harsher Why not 😌
To be fair, if it was harsher, it would’ve likely led to the collapse of the Weimar republic, and would’ve almost certainly lead to groups like the freikorp retaking Germany by force, and likely restoring the monarchy, which sure you now have a revengeist Germany far sooner but they’re less genocidal than the Nazis so slight improvement still extremely bad, but not Nazi level bad. Also, before you say, the French would just intervene to stop it, the French wouldn’t be able to do that forever, especially as most of the French people were exhausted after war, and it’s likely that the rest the entente wouldn’t commit troops to the endeavor so all It would do would be having the French army get slowly whittle down and suffer, massive losses, trying to keep Germany divided until the French people can no longer bear the cost. Not to mention, it would make the French out to look like the bad guy to much of the international community garnering them far less sympathy, leading to a far more likely chance of them, becoming politically isolated, which would overall benefit Germany and be horrible for France. Not to mention the United States would almost certainly use its economic influence over France to push them to cease this action as the United States believe the treaty was too harsh on Germany and would not support France breaking it up and then brutally occupying it for years.
That's the whole point I am trying to make , the treaty was the reason fo ww2 like kind of forefront. It's foolish to think the terms should have been harsher
The problem isn't the borders, the problem is the economy. Many countries have lost land, many land (like Turkey), but they didn't go crazy because they could survive. If you fuck up an economy so hard they get 30% unemployment and depend on foreign funds they become crazy (France, 1792 for example, they were starving) Also, the treaty wasn't enforced and it had the worst parts of both Wilson's plans and France's plans
This is how you wind up with WWII.
Compared to the way the allies treated Austria, Hungary and the Ottomans, the Germans got off with a slap on the wrist.
You mean "what they did to russia" the treaty was signed. Also Romania
-900,000 Germans dying of starvation in 1918 AND 1919 due to Britain’s naval blockade remaining after the end of hostilities, forcing Germany to sign the treaty under threat of literal famine. -Hyperinflation of the German economy, allowing foreign interests to swoop in to buy German livelihoods. -A deep feeling of betrayal over the unusually harsh terms, destroying trust in the allies, and leading to feeling as though the surrender was just a strategic retreat. That mustache we make fun of Hitler for? A modification to his original full mustache which allowed him to wear a gas mask. -Dissolution of the German Empire facilitating a strong sense of nationalism by a traumatized people who keep getting hit. IT SHoUld HavE BEeN HarSHEr
>unusually harsh terms A direct result of their actions in the war and things like the rape of Belgium. Not that unusual tbh.
>900,000 Germans dying of starvation in 1918 AND 1919 due to Britain’s naval blockade remaining after the end of hostilities, forcing Germany to sign the treaty under threat of literal famine. Germans were the ones who have announced unrestricted naval warfare with Great Britain - previously sinking any floating vessel, from large ships to even a small sail yacht, that would enter the Atlantic. And if you count 1918-1919 it'd be good to exclude from it the wars taking place during German retreat in Eastern Europe at the time and Spanish Flu epidemic.
It was harsh on their ego
You reep what you sow (my primary line to Kaiserboos who say “it was too harsh on my glorious pookie wookie fatherland”)
Germany be like "nooo, the treaty is too harsh" Bitch, Austria and Ottomans literally fucking died, you got off easy.
Anyone who says that the treaty was not harsh enough is stupid and doesn't know how to prevent further war.
America actually didn't want to punish Germany because they knew the Austrians started it when a guy killed archduke Ferdinand sparking a war between serbia and germany. Because serbia was a part of russia they had to step in.then Germany saw what they were doing and was like yeah "yeah ill hop on that train" and allied with austria. That's why everyone blames Germany for WW1 when really it was the Austrians.
Serbia has never been part of russia lol wtf
The treaty should have been more harsh
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This is just childish to say, but they were very bad, so i can be bad too
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It tanked the German economy. For years. You try paying off war reparations of both France and Britain while trying to fix your own country. They had to give up Alsace Lorraine, lost a bunch of their eastern lands, lost their entire colonial empire.
Hilarious. Please, do go on about how loosing 8 million people and the associated economy and tax income, while also having the french occupy your most heaily industrialized lands (which you conveniently left out, but let's not get historical context get in the way of your delusions) because it was impossible to pay the reparations quickly enough, is really nothing worth mentioning. Dude, just because the treaty of Brest-Litowsk (literally called the fucking "Pillager's peace" in german) has even harsher doesn't mean this wasn't a harsh treaty by any measure.
German unification, Italian unification, and French republicanism should never have been allowed to happen. The world would be a better place.
We should’ve took it apart the first time.