Which is kinda what happens when you lose the war...Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
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Which is kinda what happens when you lose the war...Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
I think you'll find this has been the case ever since Knut the Cavemen waved his large club around and told Ugh-Ugh that no, he can not have the impala.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
Or, just about every war is ended at gunpoint. Of course Germany had a surrender imposed on them at gunpoint. 'Pointing guns' at each other, sometimes even actually pulling the trigger and shooting at the other, is exactly what war is.
It is part of the bizarre Versailles lore that Germany was terribly injusticed simply by being subjected to the most basic principles of war.
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No, this is simply not true.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fisherking
Germany's surrender was not based on Wilson's Fourteen Points. Consequently, Germany neither agreed to them, nor had any reason to expect them.
Incidentally, tentative peace offers based on the fourteen points were offered in early 1918, which Germany did not accept, because it still hoped to win the war.
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I am still curious - would these 21 points be at all aceptable as a Treaty, as conduct to make a workable peace?
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
No, that is not it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
If you decide to buy a house and you sign an earnest money agreement based on a cost you expect the agreement to go through.
If the terms are changed and they say we are keeping your money and you are liable for the balance, don’t you think you might get angry? Especially if you find out you can’t take it to court.
That just might be why they got a little upset and why the Neutrals were asking what ever happened to the 14 Points of Mr. Wilson.
If not, then why the additional three points?Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
What were they haggling over, play dates for the children?
If the terms were so extravagantly unfair, the Germans could have resumed war. After all, that's what happened to the Russians. Once again, why is there such outrage over Versailles, but none over Brest-Litovsk? The treaty with the Russians was signed after the Fourteen Points was laid out. What did the Allies do that the Germans did not?Quote:
Originally Posted by Fisherking
Louis, Sarmatian... The most basic principles of war, perhaps. The most basic principle of diplomacy, no. The problem with winner/loser is that sometimes situation changes and enemies of a certain war are expected to work together. Then this could create certain problems. Making peace is an art that is often underestimated. In addition, too much pieces of the mosaic were absent. Where was Russia (the reason can be obvious but you should always have it in mind) and you have Germany taken out of the Great Powers list (in the very same League of Nations). It is not a random thing somebody (can't remeber his name) called Eastern Europe "no man's land". Btw, this perception (for the perception rule the politics, not facts) led to the treachery to Czechoslovakia in Munich. Anyway, my point was that Great Britain and France as single pillars of the Versailles put it on a sand foundation.
The treaties of Versailles and Brest Litovsk are on a different presumption, the way I see it. By Brest Litovsk Germany granted a freedom a potential satelite of Poland and Ukraine (national states). Germany was one national state, there is difference. Once again, I think Saint Germain treaty for Austria can be a better source for comparing.
Meh, I'll let you do the work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fisherking
Can you show us the treaty / ceasefire / surrender where Germany agrees to the Fourteen / Seventeen points? Or show us any part of any treaty which left any room to expect it was based on these 14/17 points?
I can't prove a negative. You shall have to show us the positive truth of your assertion.
With Brest-Litovsk, the territories west of a certain line were to be disposed of as Germany and Austria-Hungary saw fit, with the rider "with the agreement of their people", which is effectively worthless. That's the Baltics, Poland, Belorus and Ukraine ceded by Russia, to be split up between Germany and Austria-Hungary. And people are arguing that Versailles was harsh and unfair on the Germans.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prince Cobra
I won't address the War Criminal part, but the abdication part seems to be a totally moot point. If the Kaisar had not abdicated, he would have been overthrown. The German Revolution had already begun before he stepped down, and it became clear very quickly that it had great popular support. That was not temporary support either, as Weimar survived the Kapp Putsch in 1920 purely on the basis of popular support. By late 1918, Germany was done with Kaisars, and nothing could change that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
I'll say that the next time Auschwitz, Palestine, 9/11 or slavery comes up and I'm sure everybody will find it funny. :inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
It's funny how we went from "Versailles was not a harsh treaty" to "well, fine, it was harsh, but we had the guns, nananana"...
Though if you did that, you are taking it out of context. Unless as a German, you are advocating your nations historical treatment of the jewish population... as the Winners stopped the said Germans from doing those acts, thus they couldn't choose to continue. So arguably in that context, the losers couldn't choose to continue those acts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
Also, Versailles is not a harsh treaty and it never went to "well, fine it was harsh, but we had the guns, nananana", it went to "You lost the war, the treaty was fair, there is nothing you could have done, unless you want to continue but lose even more..."
Versailles was not harsh by the standards of its time, such as the treaty dictated by Germany the year before. If the Germans disliked it that much, they should have returned to arms, and come back to the table after they'd been beaten back another couple of hundred km. Maybe a peace treaty with a line stretching longitudally from Munich, and all German territory west of this to be disposed of by Britain and France, "with the agreement of its people".Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
No we haven't gone from 'not harsh', to 'we had guns'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
We are disputing both 'Versailles was harsh', and 'Versailles was unjust because forced at gunpoint'.
'Versailles was unjust because Germany was forced at gunpoint' - this is saying that Versailles was harsh simply by virtue of Germany losing the war. This is one of the many fundamentally erroneous views about the Treaty. Of course it is harsh to lose a war. But it is preposterous to say that a treaty was unjust simply because it came about based on one side's surrender. By that reasoning, all wars that have been lost and had a treaty based on that circumstance should be considered unjust.
I am not sure Auschwitz and 9-11 are comparable to states waging war. You are getting uncomfortably close to reasoning that took hold 25 years after Versailles. That Auschwitz was merely justified revenge, a tit-for-tat, doing unto 'them' what they did to us. Then again, I said it before: it is not merely rhetoric to say that Versailles lore caused sixty million deaths.
This is part of the Versailles lore that no serious scholarship can overcome: Germany as the persecuted victim A state that simply loses a war - as states so often do, is not the same as inflicting terrible injustice upon it, never mind mass murder.
In the run up to Brest-Litovsk, the Russians considered peace, but were dissuaded by the terms demanded by Germany. As they resumed fighting and were pushed back, so the terms became more severe, until they finally agreed peace with worse terms than before.Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
I would say Versailles is best described, not as 'harsh' or 'unjust' but rather as 'duplicitous.' 'Harsh' and 'unjust' are subjective terms, and they are difficult to properly analyze due to changes in international law and diplomacy since 1918. To put it into historical context, the terms of Versailles were certainly far better than were offered to many heavily defeated nations in ancient and medieval times (i.e. Third Punic War), but they were far worse than would be expected today. So, it seems improper to try and impose our own judgment on whether it was right or wrong. The best analysis is simply what happened and why.Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
I think the key is that, if Germany had been presented with the final terms of Versailles on November 11, I do not believe they would have agreed to them. Germany signed the Armistice on the assumption that they would receive better terms than they eventually did. On that assumption, they began massive demobilization, with the result that they were no longer in a position to refuse any agreement whatsoever when they were presented with Versailles. Thus, Versailles was 'duplicitous' as it was a diplomatic exploitation of the altered German situation in 1919 as compared to 1918. I will not argue that such a maneuver was good or bad, only that it occurred. Indeed, such post-war but pre-treaty shifts in power are very common throughout all of human history and it was and is the normal course of business for nations to negotiate on the basis of present strength, not strength as it stood at some point of time in the past. One side may regard the changed situation as unfair, while the other says it is fair; it is possible that both sides are correct at the same time.
How is that different from Germany exploiting the disintegrating Russia and imposing more severe terms than the 1917 Russia might have expected? It's not the Allies' fault if Germany demobbed to avoid furthering the economic strain it already couldn't stand. If Germany didn't like the terms, they could have taken up arms again as the Russians did, and get beaten again as the Russians did, and get presented with even more severe terms as the Russians did. Nothing the Allies did to Germany was in any way worse than what the Germans did to Russia.Quote:
Originally Posted by TinCow
No, I am almost 100 per cent sure the Central Powers planned to restore the Polish Kingdom, though ruled under a German prince (German dynasties ruled Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, so nothing unusual here).Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
I do not claim that it is different.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Below is the German protest to the peace terms:Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/...anprotest1.htm
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I myself do not think the German leadership was this extraordinarily naive.Quote:
Originally Posted by TinCow
The eventual treaty was not going to be nothing but a temporary breathing space for Germany. No German could've expected this. In fact, I think the German leadership expected a far, far harsher* treaty than they received. Something along the lines of, indeed, Brest-Litovsk, if slightly mpore civilized since not even the Germans expected the West to be as brutal as Germany. Yet for the most part, Germany expected that would be done onto it, as it did unto others. This did not come about, not in the slightest. As for what did come about, any German knew that Alsace-Lorraine was going to be returned, that there would have to be compensation paid for the ravaged territories, that Poland woulod be restored (all of which were incidentally part of the 14 points), that Germany would have to return looted art and equipment.
* 'Harsh', while indeed a troubled and subjective term, is important here. Because I think your verdict of the 'harshness' is very different from mine. Me, I see Versailles as very lenient, which left Germany fully intact as Europe's greatest power.
No. Those territores were forcefully taken from Russia, there were no plebiscites, nobody asked the population anything. Nobody asked Ukranians and Belorussians whether they want to live in Poland or Russia or want to have their own respective countries. It was simply a matter of the loser being forced to relinquish control of territory because the winner demanded it. There was no liberation there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prince Cobra
1) Yes, but - I am going to be a pest here - can you show us the treaty / ceasefire / surrender where Germany agrees to the Fourteen / Seventeen points? Or show us any part of any treaty which left any room to expect it was based on these 14/17 points?Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
2) "The German people would thus be condemned to perpetual slave labour
Germany's sovereignty is abolished.
Thus must a whole people sign the decree for its proscription, nay, its own death sentence."
[/I]
These are the conclusions of the protest. Hysteria, I have no other word for it. Yet this hysteria was the first, and final, verdict of Germany about the Treaty and formed the basis of Germany's ceaseless obstruction of the peace, no matter how ungrounded, nor what concilliatory measures the allies took. Here is the culprit. Not the Treaty, but nationalist agitation and hysteria.
As TinCow says, go back a hundred years or so, and Germany would have become "North France". World War 1 was the beginning of the liberation process, where there are no longer big Empires, but coalitions of nation states. Germany had to surrender the land it gained from Russia, and West Prussia and return land to France from the Franco-prussian war. Compared to what happened to the Habsburg Empire, this was nothing in comparison. On top of this, they have to pay reperations at the sum of 2% GDP per year. Oh and Germany had to disarm, which is good news economically, as it reduces state-spending.Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
In return, Germany was left basically in one piece.
A pretty low price, considering the *the long list I could be put here quite easily*.
No, the German leadership were not that naive, but that is part of the reason why I do not believe they would have signed the agreement. To sign such a treaty when German soil had not even been occupied would have spelled political (and possibly physical) death for those leaders. The question for the German leaders was not whether the treaty was realistic, but whether it would be accepted at home. I do not believe that the German people would have been content with the reparations levels set in Versailles, nor with the War Guilt clause. They had not experienced sufficient suffering yet to support such a treaty.Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
The important factor in all of this is not the German leadership, it is the German people. 1918-1939 is not Feudal Europe where the national leaders made all the decisions. Public support was required for the Nazis to gain power, and thus it was public perception that was most important. In this case, the public perceived Versailles as being a 'cheat' by the French which exploited German 'good will.' The Stab-in-the-back Myth worked because sufficient people believed it, not because it was true.
In fact, I would say that had Germany been presented with the Versailles terms on November 11 and continued to fight, the final treaty would have been harsher (agreed on its use here) than even Versailles was, for the same reasons cited by others for Brest-Litovsk. However, if the Germany population had been forced to personally experience the horrors of war on their own territory, they likely would have been far less willing to believe the propaganda that led them to WW2. In the long run, it might actually have saved more lives if WWI had continued into 1919.
While I can't find a document that explicity says that the Germans signed the armistice based on the fourteen points just about every source I've read points or alludes to it. Here, I'll try to post some.Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401800255.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/1918-armisticeQuote:
German military leaders acknowledged in October 1918 that their country had been defeated and, seeking more favorable terms than they were likely to obtain from Britain or France, appealed to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points.
I do understand though that Wilson's 14 points ammounted to no more than propaganda and that he did not have the authority to decide peace terms for the British Empire and France. I'll try and find a souce for it but from what i understand is that Prince von Baden proposed the 1918 offensive because he actually found the 14 points unacceptable and was hoping that by grabbing more French territory that he could negotiate from a position of strenght, though this of course failed utterly and caused a tremendous reversal.Quote:
In October the Austro-Hungarian and German governments separately proposed an armistice to US Pres Wilson, preliminary to a peace conference based on his ‘Fourteen Points’.
You could argue that the government had the foresight to know that continuing was simply futile. All in all, you are completely outgunned, surrounded, and only one left in your alliance still able to fight and America just joined the war on your enemies side. Isn't going "hey, we surrender." Leaving your country pretty much intact and lesser terms the best thing to do?Quote:
Originally Posted by TinCow
Otherwise, you are simply saying the allies would have been justified in destroying half the nation and imposing significantly tougher terms on Germany and allowing far more causalities and deaths in an already bloody war.
But...the treaty did spell political suicide and that is why the then German leadership did not sign it indeed. That's why the emperor abdicated, and that is why the Prusiian military caste - this state within a state, this state over the state which had assumed control over Germany - who realised perfectly well what was coming, quickly retreated politically and left the handling of the treaty to the civil government. Which therefore became forever tainted. And who thus sought to regain and maintain legitimacy by undermining the treaty and the peace.Quote:
Originally Posted by TinCow
The rest of the post I think I agree with. Certainly with the part that even a few more months of war - two, three - would've sufficed. Alternatively - rather than waste a million German lives in this manner - the German government and especially the military caste could've made clear to their people that indeed Germany had been fully defeated. Instead of trying to pass the buck and encourage dangerous fairy tales.
To be fair: you won't find any such document. It is a fable. One of many that keeps being repeated in spite of cold, hard fact.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
Germany did seek, at several instances, 'peace without victory'. This it did after it was defeated, hence obviously was an illusion.
We all dream of 'wage aggressive war with plenty of spoils in victory, but no consequences in defeat'. But it takes a Prussian Junker to mewl like a piglet about it when it is not granted.
Edit: good points, Beskar.
You ascribe to those that made the decision the ability to have absolute foresight of the result. That ability has never been blessed on any human, particularly not on diplomats or politicians. All that would be required would be the belief in the leaders that if they continued to fight, they could get better terms that would outweight the costs of that fighting. That is a reasonable response, and many nations at war have improved their final circumstances by holding out and inflicting horrible casualties on the enemy, even when their own defeat was inevitable. It is even possible that it could have happened in this case. Like I said above, I believe that Germany would have ended up in an even worse situation had they continued fighting, but there is sufficient doubt in war to allow for the possibility that the Germans could have bled the Allies sufficiently in 1919 to make them relax their demands somewhat. It is that possibility that would have factored into the cost-benefit analysis that the German leaders would have to have considered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
It was clear in 1919 that the German public strongly believed that it would have been better to continue fighting than to agree to Versailles, except that they no longer had the military strength to continue the fight. Had they had that strength, as they did on November 11, they would almost certainly have rejected the peace and gambled on the improvement in 1919.
Okay Lewis, here goes. I will stand corrected.
The whole thing is a bag of worms worthy of the condemnation of everyone involved...
Germany opened negotiations based upon the 14 points. In having to democratize the government the German Army cynically contrived to place the blame on the political parties.
The Entente on the other hand had no intentions of agreeing to the 14 points because they were only a propaganda instrument. They didn’t come out and say that to the Germans however, they just imposed more conditions.
The Army was left to negotiate the ceasefire and they panicked and agreed to just about anything.
After the Armistice the civilian government expected to negotiate dealing with the 14 points. (the additional 3 were all military).
They got a surprise when they showed up at the peace conference and were told they were not permitted to negotiate, the terms were what ever the Allies said they were, take it or leave it.
You can say that the Germans were stupid or that the Entente was duplicitous and both would be correct.
I would say it is a low point for international relations and there is more than enough shame to go around for all the principals.
You have a choice. You can condemn the German reaction, because they were actually not promised anything. Or you can say it was a stab in the back because the Germans were duped.
There was no small amount of dissention on the allied side either, over what had been done. Diplomats resigned during the drafting of the treaty. Books were written telling how Germany was being betrayed.
It was not Germanys views that they had been betrayed that took root in allied nations, it was the view of many in the diplomatic service of the allied countries.
So duplicitous is not a bad term in describing the allied position.
So, who was in the right? Nobody! Or maybe the victims were the German People, but in a Nationalistic Rage they brought more suffering to themselves.
I would have imported much of the text but for some reason it won’t let me...so if you really, really want to know...never mind...you don’t actually want to go through this disgusting crap.