What did the treaty of Versailles get right?

What did the treaty of Versailles get right?
Conversely what did it get wrong?
How would you have changed it

>How would you have changed it?
Free Bavaria

France was even more crushed economically than Germany, who artificially inflated their currency to try and minimize debt. The only problem with Versailles is that it wasnt enforced strictly.

Germany could have been BTFO as soon as they reoccupied the rheinland

This.

And remind the Germans that their country will be occupied if they screw around.

In my opinion it wasn't that Versailles was too strong, but rather that it was in a terrible middle ground. They failed Machiavelli's chief rule- if you are to injure a man so that he will want revenge, make sure that you injure him so badly that he will never be able to rise against you. They should have either destroyed Germany or acted must more conciliatory. What they did was a mistake.

It should have been a Status quo ante bellum with the possibility of Belgium taking Alsace-Lorraine to keep Franco-German autism from surging again.

>with the possibility of Belgium taking Alsace-Lorraine
LEL

If you think about it, it's the perfect solution. Make a non country into an ultra meme country and slap the sperglords of the west on the wrist.

France should have occupied the Nordrhein until the germans fully reimbursed them, or maybe even permanenty to keep the eternal kraut in check.
Disarmament should have been heavily enforced


It's a solution as retarded as You.

Versaille wasn't harsh enough.
Germany Should have been partitioned.

>What did the treaty of Versailles get right?

Everything

>Conversely what did it get wrong?

Not going far enough

>How would you have changed it

Germany would have been dismantled and wiped off the map forever

Here's the official Veeky Forums /quickrundown/

Four dudes ran the show.

Wilson: Naïve liberal who's primary agenda was virtue signaling. He belived 100% that his league of nations would be credited for world peace. He almost always abandoned his 14 points while also using them to virtue signal.

2. Clemenceau: French Nationalist who wanted to fuck Germany up at all costs

3. Lloyd George: Eternal Anglo. Everything came down to cash money. He didn't care about fucking up Germany, he wanted the colonies and he wanted her to be a strong and open market for trade.

Orlando: Italy stabbed the central powers in the back and entered the war on the allied side in exchange for quite a nice chunk of Austria Hungary in Turkey. Orlando's main goal at Paris was to make the allies fulfill the promise that caused Italy to sacrifice half a million soldiers for.

Wilson entered the war because the US loaned a shit load of money to the allies (the central powers were blockaded and would have been loaned to as well, were it a possibility). Wilson almost always sacrificed for muh league and always fought for 'self determination'. Unless it was literally almost everywhere. He'd argue for muh self determination and Clemencau would hardline for we have to fuck Germany. Lloyd George would offer a compromise which would break the akward tension in the room and Wilson would usually agree, but compromising his 14 points and without realizing give Clemenceau and Lloyd George what they really wanted.

This is how almost every decision was made.

England had entered WWI 'in order to protect Belgian sovereignty'. The whole reason Belgium even existed as a nation was in order to have a guaranteed neutral state on the continent, which would allow Britian to have guaranteed ports in which to move goods should any of its rivals or all of them (Germany, Netherlands, France) attempt to block british commerce. Ironically after the war Lloyd George fucked over Belgium hard and basically took all the german reperations that were supposed to be rebuilding the totally devastated nation and kept them for herself. The whole point of them entering the war had little interest to Lloyd George, he didn't really care to see Belgium rebuilt or not. They didn't even get the 'priority reperations' they were promised until 1925. Despite them being designated first recipient. Where peace treaties with nations didn't involve payment or land for Britian LLoyd George would simply manipulate Wilson into giving up on the 14 points without Wilson even realizing it.

Lloyd George didn't care to see Germany destroyed because he wanted Germany to buy up British goods. He blocked the French efforts as best he could at doing so. He didn't really give a fuck about the slavs, calling them savage race and thinking the Hungarians and Austrians would be better off ruling over some of them than vice versa, again having economics in mind.

Treaty of versailles worked perfectly, france and UK just refused to ally with hitler

Like I said Italy joined the allies after signing the secret treaty of London giving it large portions of what would be Yugoslavia and Austria hungary. This meant betraying its allies of the triple alliance, Germany and AH. However, after the war Wilson was all about >muh 14 points and didn't give a shit what Italy ahd signed and was more interested in allowsins south slavs to do what they wanted, which was form Yugoslavia. Orlando was easy to get along with except where it concerned Yugoslavia and treaty of London claims. Any request he made was either to get the eternal anglo to honor its treaty or to create strong neighbors to the new Yugoslavian state. Italy got fucked and Orlando went home early because of it. Wilson's wife saw him literally weeping in a window from across the street was smug Wilson patted him on the back with some virtue signaling about >muh 14 points. Italy essentially fucked Germany and then got fucked by the US for it. LLoyd George and Clemenceau didn't care to spend any good will with Wilson to make sure Italy got what it was promised and left poor Italy to eat shit. This lead almost directly to Benito's rise.

this, should have just apologized and allied against the soviets, guess hindsight is 20/20 though

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>Wilson: Naïve liberal who's primary agenda was virtue signaling.

I wouldn't even call him naive, he was just a dick.

Clemenceau went to Paris looking to totally destroy Germany. He was part of the Franco-Prussian war and saw Alsace-Lorraine stolen from France. He was also well aware of how the coalition forces had fucked France after Napoleon fell. France had gone from being the sole dominating power in Europe to stalemate with Germany and he wanted to destroy Germany for good.

He had several options to do this.

One was to create a third neutral and independent buffer state out of the Rhineland with the similar purpose as Belgium. Belgium again exists solely for English economic and military strategy. This new Rhineland state would allow France to take the initiative in a new war and poke through the Rhineland to fight on German soil next time. It also reduced German manpower by 10%. He even offered Wilson a >muh self determination and would offer Rhineland a plebiscite to join France if it wanted.

The other option was to unite Catholic Germans of Austria and Bavaria into a south German state and leave protestant north together as a north german state. With or without and inependant Rhineland. This again reduces the manpower of a hostile Germany as well as eliminates Germany as a economic and military rival with France.

Wilson was offended by France's demanding of territory and Lloyd George wanted strong Germany both to play against France if it needed to and to sell goods to. Lloyd George found the medium that both took away muh self determination for Germany but allowed France to occupy the Rhineland (military advantage) and demilitarized the Rhineland (reduced manpower) which Clemenceau agreed too.

Exactly, they got the worst of both worlds by angering Germany, but not completely crippling it.

t. Gaston

Clemenceau wanted to resserect Poland both because of his hard on for napoleon and his mistress Marie voleska and the history and because once again it give France an ally on the otherside of Germany for the military advantage while at the same time reducing German man power. Wilson was all about muh self determination with regard to the poles and also belived in giving them a source to water. He forgot about the 2 million Germans he put into Poland to give them one. Lloyd George of course saw a new nation with 30 million inhabitants and a port. Markets for britian to sell to. He even pointed at the map where Poland got German land and said, that's going to be a problem in the future but Clemencau had a hard on for wreking Germany, and Wilson felt he had satisfied 'self determination' even though the 2 million germans that lived there were most definitely 'treated like niggers' according to Hitler years later. The same situation acccured in Silesia where mines and factories built and occupied by Germans were given to Poland in order to make it economically successful.

Czeckoslavakia had some how formed and sent intelligent and good looking polite people to meet with the big four and they made a good first impression. Wilson immediately liked them and France saw yet another opportunity as the bohemians asked for the Sudetenland and said the state couldn't exist without. The Sudetenland was occupied by, you guessed it, Germans. It had factories and mines, and in fact when it was joined with Czechoslovakia it had 60% of the nations industry. However, nobody asked the Germans if they wanted to be a part of Czechoslovakia. (muh 14 points). Wilson liked the bohemians that visited Benesh and so when they told him that the new state couldn't survive without the Sudetenland he gave way. Clemenceau earged this as it weakend Germany and strengthened another neighbor of Germany.

Woodrow Wilson had actually arranged the armistice by offering Germany a peace based on the 14 points.

The treaty produced by the paris peace conference had almost nothing to do with the 14 points.

Wilson used up almost all of his capital and goodwill with the others to get the league of nations going. Ironically in order to make a decision the league votes had to be unanimous. And thus it made no decisions because every member had veto power.

But that didn't stop the other 3 from using it to their advantage. They would often get what they wanted by saying 'well we'll take care of this for now and in 5 years the league will decide!' Wilson would always be like 'great idea!!!! omg! I'll be remembered as the man who brought world peace!!'. The other popular tactic to get Wilson to give what they wanted wanted was to show him bad numbers supporting a >muh self determination that lined up with what they wanted.

When Austria hungary sued for peace based on the 14 points the allies refused. Italy wanted the grab the whole thing. And when it was finally actually time to make peace AH ceased to exist.

The nation was roughly along pic related and all these groups sent diplomats to meet with the big 4 who argued along the lines I demonstrated above to draw the map.

Italy strengthed yugoslavias neighbors. France strengthened Germany's neighbors. England didn't really care and choose to butter up to Wilson in order to earn good will to spend elsewhere. Wilson got tricked into thinking self determination had decided everything.

Had Clemenceau been in charge in 1936 things would have gone differently. The third republic was a complete disaster of a system of government and the leaders at the time didn't understand what Clemenceau had done at Versailles.

The Rhineland was a non militarized zone so france would have a free pass into Germany. Poland and Czechkoslavakia were strong so that if the time came they could crush Germany from all sides. At the Munich Crisis Czechoslovakia had heavily fortified the Sudetenland and had 40 divisions to defend it with. Germany had slightly less. France had the best army in the world ( on paper anyway). Instead France allowed Czeckoslovakia to give up Sudetenland for free 60% of its industry and all of its defenses. France failed to act again during the Danzig Crisis.

Britian on the other hand never really cared to punish Germany so much as profit. They weren't really offended that Hitler wanted the Sudetenland. They knew it shouldn't have been given away in the first place.

So Ironically the peace they got served most of France's purposes but later French leaders didn't realize it and use it to their advantage when the time came.

Britian had made out great from reparations and Hitler wanted to ally them.

The US on the other hand had failed to uphold the 14 points it had promised Germany. Had Wilson taken a hardline stance and mandated that Germans stay in Germany, Poles in Poland ect Hitler wouldn't have even have taken them back.

Wilson had the right ideas but was played during negotations.

France also had good ideas for peace but the third republic was a disaster and the leadership completely failed.

I honestly don't know why britian gave a fuck if Danzig was a German city or a free city.

To a lesser extent the former AH states were in various states of anger about the treaty and like Hitler worked to undo it though on a smaller scale at the expense of the states that had taken advantage of 'muh self determination'.

I like your write up alot, thanks

t. anglo

T. eternal Anglo.

Almost all of Hitler's moves were moves done to undo Versailles and the only reason he was elected was because he promised to undo the treaty.

30 years war thesis is the best one.

The treaty could have worked but due to the nature of shifting governments in France UK and the US, the leadership didn't know how to use the treaty to make sure Germany didn't try to undo it.

>Naïve liberal who's primary agenda was virtue signaling
Essentially ALL of Wilson's 14 points would see a rebirth in the post-WW2 international order that have been responsible for the world's greatest period of peace & economic growth. Wilson was ahead of his time and all the concepts he fought for are alive today in some form or another and have proven to be tremendously successful. Collective security, self determination & freedom of the seas and international organizations to bind them together were not 'virtue signalling' but natural evolutions from the ad hoc systems of diplomacy & imperialism of the 19th century which were in large part responsible for the conflict in the first place.

Wilson is hardly to blame for the British & French reluctance to shake themselves from their 19th century imperialist mindsets of dividing territory among themselves in direct opposition to self-determination as was seen in the Sykes-Picot agreement, for them it was the spoils of war they had sacrificed unimaginably for, for them as elected representatives to go their people empty handed was out of the question.

no reparations
heavy restrictions on materiel and arms industries
troop limits to the point where Germany can still deal with commies and internal unrest
unfettered free trade
every year any veterans who wish to come (expenses paid) and all high ranking generals will meet French, US and British empire veterans at a war memorial at the Somme for remembrance ceremonies

If possible, perhaps in excange for 0 territorial concessions, split the country into Bavaria, Rhineland, Saxony, Prussia, Danzig and Prussian Poland. Each get a referendum in 30 years deciding if they want to reunify or remain independent. If they want Prussian Poland back they have to be nice to Poles.

>pretends nukes don't exist

>pretends the sophisticated international diplomatic & economic initiatives & apparatuses formed in the aftermath of WW2 that were advocated for by Wilson more than 30 years ago and have been instrumental in the stability of the world order don't exist

Wilson's 14 points have been vindicated by history

The cold war was a war where nobody would fight because of nukes.

People were saying the same after Napoleon about how great he new diplomacy was and only had Franco-Prussia as an outlier.


You're just as naïve as Wilson.

>The cold war was a war where nobody would fight because of nukes
Except nukes were almost launched half a dozen times and were only stopped by flukes. The US hasn't followed MAD for decades and the same is true for the USSR. You're mistaking the simplicity of your argument as validity.

Poland was the main mistake of Versailles, they should've split that region into Prussia in the west and Poland in the east.
They should've also let Germany keep Austria but then landlocked them

The English opposed partition of Germany though, that was the French position.

lol yeah right.

Besides, muh 14 points aren't in effect at all.

Tibet?
Crimea?
the list goes on forever.

Those are exceptions and not the rule.

>no reparations
given how the germans acted in occupied territory this is flat out retarded

>we just spend 4 years systematically destroying your economy, killing your people and blowing up your heritage for shits'n giggles, why should we pay for any of that after losing the war?

>the only reason he was elected was because he promised to undo the treat
Absolute horseshit.

Except France wasn't forced into a new government and a ton of sanctions.

Neither was Germany

Germany didn't have its industrial areas utterly destroyed

The Allies were refusing to make peace with Germany unless the Kaiserreich turned into a republic.

I trust you have some evidence for such an allegation, friend.

Woodrow Wilson "If the Government of the United States must deal with the military masters and the monarchical autocrats of Germany now, or if it is likely to have to deal with them later in regard to the international obligations of the German Empire, it must demand not peace negotiations but surrender."

Czernin, Ferdinand (1964). Versailles, 1919. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Yeah IDK what this guy is on. The Germans made France pay twice, once for Napoleon, once for Franco-Prussia. Its basically expected.

The problem was how the allies went about it compounded with the depressoin.

They had to asnwer teo public opinoin about it and so they kept the total amount of reperations a secret.

It kept the Englihs and French happy but had teh opposite effect in Germany.

>muh evul monarchical autocrats
Goddamn these fucking Yanks always meddling with shit they can't understand and installing muh democracy which only ends up causing more wars. There is no difference between Wilson and for example Bush.

>All that Allied propaganda
whew lad I suppose you think the Russians where liberators of Galicia.

>Britian had made out great from reparations and Hitler wanted to ally them.
>I honestly don't know why britian gave a fuck if Danzig was a German city or a free city.

They didn't. It was Churchill's autism. He pressured the Tories to make his claims even before he was in government. He even made and pushed the whole LMAO CHAMBERLAIN IS A KEK LMAO meme. Churchill is the equivalent of modern day neocons that go to war for glory but in the end fuck up because they didn't think about it. Its why Churchill's ego brought down the British Empire and made it America's aircraft carrier in Europe.