Treaty of Versailles - Modern Reappraisal

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Who says any such thing?

Such things have been said in the popular press these last few years. Germany has no heroes from either War, to hear it told in Britian. As far as the German historiographical reaction; don't ignore the German crisis of confidence, and the crisis of their history, that has lead to such idiocy as retiring the Iron Cross as a medal for valour and has left the German army demoralised and reluctant to do any actual fighting.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Such things have been said in the popular press these last few years. Germany has no heroes from either War, to hear it told in Britian. As far as the German historiographical reaction; don't ignore the German crisis of confidence, and the crisis of their history, that has lead to such idiocy as retiring the Iron Cross as a medal for valour and has left the German army demoralised and reluctant to do any actual fighting.

One of the tragedies is that I am a Germanophile. I grew up on Arte, speak German and have a great love for its culture. I can recite Schiller backwards and draw all of Cologne's romanesque churches with my eyes closed.

I have no moral qualms about Germany in 1914-1918. I do resent Germany's unwillingness to accept defeat, certainly in light of what this eventually led to.
The nazis I consider a disaster. They were just too much, they went a level beyond anything seen before in modern Europe. Uncouth, unsophisticated. Nowhere near as fascinating as they are sometimes thought to be. Banal. An excersize in pointlessness and futility.

Germany is a culture nation. It is also Prussian militarism.
If only German liberalism could've united Germany in 1848, instead of Prussia! Even so, I have little resentment against the period 1866-1918.
1918-1945, on the other hand, was an exersice in lunacy.


Of course, the very reason of the contention, is: what was behind 1918-1945: legitimate injustice, or perceived injustice? This is the question. This will decide a person's anger, at either the treaty or at German nationalist agitation, either of which is consequently held to no small degree responsible for WWII.
Me, I grew up naive about the period: 'Poor Germany, so hardly done by. Even if I regret the extent of German aggression in WWII, obviously Germany received a bad deal. Versailles was too stern. Etc.'

But the more I've learned, the more I've read, the clearer it has become that Versailles was not at all harsh, never mind tried to punish or destroy Germany. On the contrary. It was, certainly taking realistic limits into account, a lenient, workable treaty. The policy was to incorporate Germany peacefully as Europe's biggest power, within a peaceful Europe.

The modern claim is that the guilt clause wasn't a guilt clause at all simply because it was crafted by two Americans.

No. Nobody would make such a ridiculous claim.

[Husar]

Strangely, the Germans have written history. The view of German nationalist agitation has become dominant.

Well, looks like the nation of poets beat the brutish gauls there.

My sources are German, [...]

[French authors] who, incidentally, usually have a more negative view of Versailles than German, [...]

Well, look, all this proves is that Fragony was right all along and the modern liberal hippie commie left like to apologize for everything, cane themselves and generally feel like their own people are the worst anyway.

One of the tragedies is that I am a Germanophile. I grew up on Arte, speak German, [...]

Ist das so?

[Sarmatian]

I think were at impasse because of our definition of "harsh". As I've already said, arguably all peace treaties are harsh on the losers, but the general conception of the Versailles Treaty is that 1) it was incredible harsh and restricting, unlike any other 2) that it caused hyper-inflation and 3) that it was responsible for bringing Nazi party to power.

1) Comparing it to treaties of the same era show this to be false. Peace treaty of 1871, Brest-Litovsk, WW2... show that it wasn't harsher than any of those treaties.

2) German economy was heavily hit by the war and hyper inflation was deliberately caused by the German government. Reparations strained the economy even more, surely but they weren't sole reason for hyper inflation or even the most important reason.

3) Arguably this might be considered true, but I would choose different wording - it wasn't Versailles treaty that was responsible but German perception of the Versailles treaty. They didn't believe they had been defeated and they had felt humiliated.

All this nonsense how Versailles treaty crippled German economy was proven false when just 20 years later (including four years of the Great Depression) Germany emerged as the principal economic and industrial power of Europe once again, with the strongest or second strongest army after Soviet Union (it's a matter of debate I would rather avoid at the moment). If it was so harsh, so crippling, so restricting how is it possible that only 2 decades after Germany had not just recovered, but regained its position of the dominant power in Europe in every way...

[TinCow]

Of course, the very reason of the contention, is: what was behind 1918-1945: legitimate injustice, or perceived injustice? This is the question. This will decide a person's anger, at either the treaty or at German nationalist agitation, either of which is consequently held to no small degree responsible for WWII.
Me, I grew up naive about the period: 'Poor Germany, so hardly done by. Even if I regret the extent of German aggression in WWII, obviously Germany received a bad deal. Versailles was too stern. Etc.'

But the more I've learned, the more I've read, the clearer it has become that Versailles was not at all harsh, never mind tried to punish or destroy Germany. On the contrary. It was, certainly taking realistic limits into account, a lenient, workable treaty. The policy was to incorporate Germany peacefully as Europe's biggest power, within a peaceful Europe.

I think one of the greatest tragedies with the continuing emphasis on whether Versailles was the cause of WW2 is that it ignores other major factors which need a lot more public attention: (1) American isolationism and (2) Communism.

IMHO, the US has as much blame for starting WW2 as Germany, France, and Britain. The US was the only nation that emerged unscathed from WWI. It's refusal to join the League of Nations and its total disengagement from European diplomacy removed the only option for a neutral (at the time) arbitrator in European politics. Had the US remained actively engaged in Europe after 1918, I believe war with Germany could have been avoided.

At the same time, the growth of Communism itself propelled the Nazis to power. There were very strong pro-German movements in Britain and France in the 1930s, even after 1933, which specifically saw Germany in general (and Hitler in specific) as bulwarks against the USSR. In the 1920s, Communism was growing very, very quickly in much of Europe. It was a realistic possibility that Germany, France, and Spain could have gone communist at various points in time. Without the Communist threat in Russia, I believe that Britain and France would have taken a far harder line with Germany from 1933-1939. In addition, without the Communist agitation in Germany, the Nazis themselves would have gained far less support and would not likely have earned the Chancellorship in 1933. Without control of the Reichstag, the Nazis would have been just another strong right wing political party as are present in so many nations even today.

I also believe that war itself was inevitable due to Communism. The conflict between Communism and Capitalism was going to occur even if Weimar had never fallen and Hitler remained nothing more than a forgotten painter. Remove the German WW2, and you instead replace it with a Soviet WW2, but that's another topic.

[Fisherking]

Lewis, that was one of the things that struck me when reading the paper. Perhaps I got it wrong some how but it was there assertion.



With the rest please bare with me.

The revolutionary government took power on November 9 and the Armistice was signed on November 11th taking Germany out of the war.

I think that the German People were proud of that. They were forming a new republic and putting an end to a very nasty war. They didn't feel defeated, the Kiser was defeated. I think they may have felt a little surprised that the Allies didn't share in their joy and kept up the blockade.

On the other hand France, Britain, et. all expected contrition and they didn't see near enough. Not that it would have made much difference in the treaty terms, but this made them unhappy.

Not allowing Germany to negotiate was not a slap just to the German Government but to the German People.

Had the Allies recognized this and negotiated in good faith they may well have gotten reparations, most of what was in the treaty, and a friendly State in Central Europe. In handling it in the way they did they continued the enmity of the war and the resentment and hostility that followed.

That was the mistake.

[Beskar]

Why are people blaming Britain? It was Britain that made sure the treay was as moderate as it was, with a few concessions to the French. Britain wanted to keep a strong Germany, France for example wanted to see Germany broken up into smaller states like the Habsburg Empire. Either way, when Germany wrote that blank cheque to the Habsburg Empire, it began the war. Russia declared war on the Habsburg Empire, Germany declared war on Russia and France (not the otherway round), Germany then declared war on Belguim, etc, which made Britain come in Belguims aid.

In short, Germany is very responsible for the war. Also, German reprerations were no where near the level that France had to spend, rebuilding half of its nation. Also, the amount of loans Germany recieved from the United States more and covered the cost of the reperations, so any problems were down to the German Government, and the Great Depression.

[The Wizard]

My personal opinion that the question of who to blame for WW1 is a question of propaganda, with Entente propaganda (the evil Huns did it!) facing off against Triple Alliance propaganda (we were attacked!).

As far as I'm concerned, this was a conflict a long time coming, and that any perceptive mind could have seen coming from far, far away (as Friedrich Engels did as early as 1878, as I recall). Every single major power on the European continent was ready to pull the trigger, and had been sharpening knives to settle some old grudges for decades. Everyone, consequently, is partially to blame. Though I am sympathetic to the viewpoint that it was the horrible Austro-Hungarian diplomacy in the month separating the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the ultimatum to Serbia, a month in which all sympathy for the Habsburgs in the world had drained away, which sealed the deal.

I'm going to derail this discussion horribly, aren't I? I couldn't help myself, though...

[Louis VI the Fat]

My personal opinion that the question of who to blame for WW1 is a question of propaganda, with Entente propaganda (the evil Huns did it!) facing off against Triple Alliance propaganda (we were attacked!).

As far as I'm concerned, this was a conflict a long time coming, and that any perceptive mind could have seen coming from far, far away (as Friedrich Engels did as early as 1878, as I recall). Every single major power on the European continent was ready to pull the trigger, and had been sharpening knives to settle some old grudges for decades. Everyone, consequently, is partially to blame. Though I am sympathetic to the viewpoint that it was the horrible Austro-Hungarian diplomacy in the month separating the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the ultimatum to Serbia, a month in which all sympathy for the Habsburgs in the world had drained away, which sealed the deal.

I'm going to derail this discussion horribly, aren't I? I couldn't help myself, though...

No, these are good points. You've made several, even if I can't possibly respond to every point raised in this thread.

To me, blackadder said it best, and most succinctly:

Baldrick: 'Why are we at war?'
George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire-building.
Edmund: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.


Even if Germany is most directly responsible for the war - which I think it is - this loses much of its political relevance in light of the eagerness of the other powers, and its moral significance in light of the imperialism of all.