Should the Treaty of Versailles have been more ruthless in its punishment of Germany?

[♖The Balkan Sobranie♖]

Following the German Empire's defeat in The Great War, the Treaty of Versailles was devised to punish the subdued and to ensure that another war of that scale happened again. With the benefit of hindsight we can unanimously say that this treaty failed to achieve its purpose. While some might argue that this was a result of the treaty being to harsh to Germany, others, like myself, believe in rather the contrary. If the Treaty of Versailles considered, then French Prime Minister, Clemenceau's intentions of ripping Germany apart into little separate countries again, would the Second World War have occurred? With the benefit of hindsight, can we safely agree that the world may have been better off if the treaty completely demolished the unified German states?

[Manuel I Komnenos]

I haven't had a chance to read it yet but I bought an interesting book on the matter, called Paris 1919 by Margaret Macmillan which deals with the peace treaties regarding the various WW1 combatants.

According to my current knowledge on the matter, I believe that the articles of the Versailles Treaty created the environment in which nationalism thrived in Germany. In detail, the most important factors that contributed to the instability of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism in Germany were:

a)The exclusion of millions of ethnic Germans from the borders of the German Republic. These were the Germans of Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, the Austrians (back in the day maybe it would have been better to include Austria in the new German Republic with the level of autonomy that the other German states enjoyed, such as Bavaria, Baden etc) and the Germans of Danzig. Those minorities which were represented and organized by local nationalists who openly collaborated with the Nazis, gave Hitler a perfect pretext in order to annex first Austria and Czechia (Slovakia became independent) and declare war against Poland. If those areas were included/remained in the German Republic, the nationalists would have had less ground to stand on and promote their agenda.

b) The harsh economic measures. Germany was forced to pay plenty of money which created huge economic problems, with unemployment rising to unprecedented levels. Hitler also played this card perfectly. He recaptured the rich province of Ruhr and solved much of Germany's economic problems, reducing unemployment, opening new factories etc.

[pannonian]

I haven't had a chance to read it yet but I bought an interesting book on the matter, called Paris 1919 by Margaret Macmillan which deals with the peace treaties regarding the various WW1 combatants.

According to my current knowledge on the matter, I believe that the articles of the Versailles Treaty created the environment in which nationalism thrived in Germany. In detail, the most important factors that contributed to the instability of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism in Germany were:

a)The exclusion of millions of ethnic Germans from the borders of the German Republic. These were the Germans of Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, the Austrians (back in the day maybe it would have been better to include Austria in the new German Republic with the level of autonomy that the other German states enjoyed, such as Bavaria, Baden etc) and the Germans of Danzig. Those minorities which were represented and organized by local nationalists who openly collaborated with the Nazis, gave Hitler a perfect pretext in order to annex first Austria and Czechia (Slovakia became independent) and declare war against Poland. If those areas were included/remained in the German Republic, the nationalists would have had less ground to stand on and promote their agenda.

b) The harsh economic measures. Germany was forced to play plenty of money which created huge economic problems, with unemployment rising to unprecedented levels. Hitler also played this card perfectly. He recaptured the rich province of Ruhr and solved much of Germany's economic problems, reducing unemployment, opening new factories etc.

Also

c) The end of the first war before the Allies had set foot in Germany, thus allowing revisionist German military types to pretend that they had not been defeated on the battlefield, but were stabbed in the back by Jews, bankers and other civilian types.

Whatever happened, the German warmongers would be able to turn to c to justify another war. Prosperity might make fewer people want to listen to them, but any hardship would give them that leverage again. Hence unconditional surrender, to impress on the Germans the undeniable fact that they had been totally and utterly defeated, was an important principle of the second war. (Plus it assured Stalin that the softer west would not conclude a separate peace with Germany and leave the Russians carrying on the war).

[MarcoRossolini]

Interesting idea, I would say that they shouldn't have been as ruthless as they were but then I think of the Franco-Prussian war previous to it, whilst compared to Versailles the losses to France was rather small, France still had quite a grudge with German 4 decades later, they knew they had been defeated so now they needed to regain their lost "honour" so to speak. Then again, they weren't going through quite the same hardships Germany was by the end of the WWI and they weren't having to deal quite the same scale of communist movements in their vicinity, they may have had the communard "disputes" (I'm unsure of exactly what to call them) but they didn't come near to bringing France to something like what was happening in Russia.

[Keyser]

ruthless ?
Please... Not again...

As to the commune, it was a bloody civil war and it took 100 000 men to put it down in blood. Don't know what it should have been for you to notice it...

Sure enought though the result wouldn't have been the USSR given the character of the movement and its intents were very different from the radicalised bolsheviks (radicalised precisely because the marxist analysis of the commune was that they were too soft in their attempt and that's why they failed against a determined and ruthless opposition).

[Luger]

Considering the role France and to a lesser extent Britain had in the escalation of the war, I would argue for a deduction in the payments and transfers of property and equipment to these countries in the treaty.

[Watercress]

Dividing up Germany into it's individual states wouldn't have fulfilled the role of crippling Germany as one would hope - rather it would only intensify German nationalism, perhaps doubly so in reaction to a harsher Treaty of Versailles.

[Poach]

The Treaty of Versailles was suitably harsh in theory, the problem was the Allies gradually stopped enforcing it. The German Armed Forces were increased in size unopposed, the Rhineland was remilitarised and Austria was annexed, no action occurred. Italy was actually on the Franco-British side at this point, opposing the Anschluss. Had the Allies acted with strength and determination to keep Germany down, war would've been avoided or it would have been very short and one-sided.

So no, I don't think Versailles should've been harsher on Germany, I think it should've been enforced when challenged.

[Nik]

Tooze argues that the Weimar Republic under the auspices of Stresemann leaned heavily on the USA in order to lessen the pressure to enforce the treaty, by heavily trading with the USA and borrowing even heavier, in essence making itself "to big to fail" in the eyes of the USA. Clever tactic, as long as the economy was going strong.
But all that fell apart with Black Friday when the USA turned isolationistic and withdrew from european security policy.

[Treize]

No, the wrong side won the war.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Following the German Empire's defeat in The Great War, the Treaty of Versailles was devised to punish the subdued and to ensure that another war of that scale happened again. With the benefit of hindsight we can unanimously say that this treaty failed to achieve its purpose. While some might argue that this was a result of the treaty being to harsh to Germany, others, like myself, believe in rather the contrary. If the Treaty of Versailles considered, then French Prime Minister, Clemenceau's intentions of ripping Germany apart into little separate countries again, would the Second World War have occurred? With the benefit of hindsight, can we safely agree that the world may have been better off if the treaty completely demolished the unified German states?

The truth is that Germany pay still today the depts of this treaty. If they had inlcuded the germans to the negoations history might have taken a diffrent direction. There were two good solution (offcourse in relation of the results, not in humanism) total splittering of germany or including them and make them equal partners. They choose the third one, the wrong one.

[Ne Obliviscaris]

Quite the opposite. The Treaty of Versailles was designed to destroy Germany economically, militarily and culturally in what amounted to the deliberate and ritualised humiliation of a people that had just months before been looking at total victory in the Great War. The victorious nations took advantage of Germany in revenge when the people were almost broken from the horrendous casualties. We all know what happens when you back an animal into a corner; they fight or leg it. Since nations can't really do a runner the result was WWII. Wellington saw the value in showing clemency to the French in the course of and after the Napoleonic wars, so there is no argument to cite a lack of precedent for reasonable cessation of hostilities and the appropriate reparations as opposed to a calculated attempt to destroy the German Empire and its people.

[pannonian]

Quite the opposite. The Treaty of Versailles was designed to destroy Germany economically, militarily and culturally in what amounted to the deliberate and ritualised humiliation of a people that had just months before been looking at total victory in the Great War. The victorious nations took advantage of Germany in revenge when the people were almost broken from the horrendous casualties. We all know what happens when you back an animal into a corner; they fight or leg it. Since nations can't really do a runner the result was WWII. Wellington saw the value in showing clemency to the French in the course of and after the Napoleonic wars, so there is no argument to cite a lack of precedent for reasonable cessation of hostilities and the appropriate reparations as opposed to a calculated attempt to destroy the German Empire and its people.

Nothing in the Versailles treaty was any worse than Germany had done to France and Russia at Versailles and Brest-Litovsk. War reparations? The French paid more in real terms (particularly as German payments were eventually cancelled) as a result of the 1871 treaty than the Germans did as a result of the 1919 treaty. Loss of territory? The Russians lost more from the 1918 treaty than the Germans did from the 1919 treaty.

The one provision of the 1919 treaty that rankled more than any other was the insistence that Germany had lost the war. No peace treaty containing this assumption, no matter what the other clauses were, would have been acceptable to the German nationalists. To them, the German army were victorious but for being stabbed in the back by domestic enemies.

[Watercress]

Uhm, I think it was the provision that Germany was to blame for the war, not that fact they lost it But yeah, the Germans were rather shocked they lost in the first place. As Poach said, the Treaty was fine-ish, they just needed to enforce it properly.

[pannonian]

Uhm, I think it was the provision that Germany was to blame for the war, not that fact they lost it But yeah, the Germans were rather shocked they lost in the first place. As Poach said, the Treaty was fine-ish, they just needed to enforce it properly.

That's my point, and something that critics of the 1919 Versailles treaty miss. Even if there were no reparations, even if there was no territory loss, even if the treaty did not blame Germany for the war, the German nationalists would still not have accepted the fact that they'd lost. The warmongers for the second war were unable to accept this very basic fact, and that Germany accepted it the second time round was because it was made utterly clear to them that Germany had, indeed, lost the war. All the stuff about Versailles being harsh rather misses the point if Germany did not accept that they'd lost the war in the first place.

Incidentally, even this has its German precedent, when the Bolsheviks dithered over signing the Brest-Litovsk treaty. The Germans restarted the fighting, conquered a bit more land before the Russians called for another ceasefire, and added some more conditions to those they'd given before. If the Russians couldn't accept that they'd lost, then Germany would batter them until they accepted this fact.

[eisenkopf]

There is one important element missing in this discussion: The restrictions on the military.

From Wikipedia:

Part V of the treaty begins with the preamble, "In order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations, Germany undertakes strictly to observe the military, naval and air clauses which follow."[12]

• German armed forces will number no more than 100,000 troops, and conscription will be abolished.
• Enlisted men will be retained for at least 12 years; officers to be retained for at least 25 years.
• German naval forces will be limited to 15,000 men, six battleships (no more than 10,000 tons displacement each), six cruisers (no more than 6,000 tons displacement each), 12 destroyers (no more than 800 tons displacement each) and 12 torpedo boats (no more than 200 tons displacement each). No submarines are to be included.[clarification needed]
• The import and export of weapons is prohibited.
• Poison gas, armed aircraft, tanks and armoured cars are prohibited.
• Blockades on ships are prohibited.
• Restrictions on the manufacture of machine guns (e.g. the Maxim machine gun) and rifles (e.g. Gewehr 98 rifles).

While it makes sense in the short term to restrict your enemy's military capabilities, in the case of Germany these restrictions were counterproductive to peace.

We must not forget that Germany had been, even before the Great War, a thoroughly militarized society. The military was held in high regard, and being an officer was a prestigious position. From the perspective of the military and nationalistic establishment, not only were they stabbed in the back by Communists and Jews and made to surrender while undefeated in the field. No, in addition they were humiliated by demilitarization of the Rhineland and by the reduction of the armed forces to a size smaller than the Netherlands or even Danmark (IIRC). To make things even worse, there were now even more ex-soldiers around to fill the ranks of the paramilitary Freikorps, another destabilizing factor in the Weimar Republic.

[SLN445]

That's my point, and something that critics of the 1919 Versailles treaty miss. Even if there were no reparations, even if there was no territory loss, even if the treaty did not blame Germany for the war, the German nationalists would still not have accepted the fact that they'd lost. The warmongers for the second war were unable to accept this very basic fact, and that Germany accepted it the second time round was because it was made utterly clear to them that Germany had, indeed, lost the war. All the stuff about Versailles being harsh rather misses the point if Germany did not accept that they'd lost the war in the first place.
.

The thing is, Warmongers and Nationalists dont tend to have a foot to stand on in a country that is doing well, this can be seen in the mid to late 20's when Germany was booming and the Nazi party was a bit of a failure at getting any power even with its growth.
Maybe if the Treaty of Versailles hadnt been so harsh, Germany may have been able to cope with the Crisis that hit them during the Great Depression, due to the loss of American Loans that were being used to help pay of the War Debt.

[pannonian]

The thing is, Warmongers and Nationalists dont tend to have a foot to stand on in a country that is doing well, this can be seen in the mid to late 20's when Germany was booming and the Nazi party was a bit of a failure at getting any power even with its growth.
Maybe if the Treaty of Versailles hadnt been so harsh, Germany may have been able to cope with the Crisis that hit them during the Great Depression, due to the loss of American Loans that were being used to help pay of the War Debt.

When the US economy went down, everyone suffered. Not just Germany. If everything had been going hunkydory, then maybe the nationalists wouldn't have been able to get a foothold. But things did go badly, and not just for Germany. Everyone else got on with life. German nationalists looked for others to blame. Things were going to go wrong at some point, it's the nature of life. And when that happened, those who believed Germany hadn't lost the war would always look to blame their troubles on others. Therefore the solution had to be to show them that pretending that Germany hadn't lost the war was a useless endeavour. So it was always going to take another war, this time with far harsher consequences and an utterly subjugated Germany, to demonstrate this fact.

[SLN445]

When the US economy went down, everyone suffered. Not just Germany. If everything had been going hunkydory, then maybe the nationalists wouldn't have been able to get a foothold. But things did go badly, and not just for Germany. Everyone else got on with life. German nationalists looked for others to blame. Things were going to go wrong at some point, it's the nature of life. And when that happened, those who believed Germany hadn't lost the war would always look to blame their troubles on others. Therefore the solution had to be to show them that pretending that Germany hadn't lost the war was a useless endeavour. So it was always going to take another war, this time with far harsher consequences and an utterly subjugated Germany, to demonstrate this fact.

Of course it hit everyone, but it hit Germany particularly hard due to its existing debt and heavy reliance on U.S Loans, had they not had to rely so much on said loans the damage would of been considerably less.

[pannonian]

Of course it hit everyone, but it hit Germany particularly hard due to its existing debt and heavy reliance on U.S Loans, had they not had to rely so much on said loans the damage would of been considerably less.

Does anyone have figures on German government spending at the time of the Depression? Wiki says military spending went up even as the government claimed that it could not pay reparations, and that reparations payments ceased in 1931. It's also been pointed out that Germany received more in loans from the US to pay reparations than they eventually paid in total in reparations, meaning that not one cent of reparations was borne by the German economy, but was shifted onto their creditors, who eventually wrote off these debts. So if reparations costs were crippling, they were crippling for the Americans, not the Germans.