How harsh was it, exactly?

How harsh was it, exactly?

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Not enough.

>Germany lost little land and what it did lose was mostly ethnically Polish
>Germany's industry was basically untouched by the war while they ravaged France's; the treaty did not balance that out
>Germany entered the war with Europe's largest continental GDP, exited the war with the same and underwent great economic growth until the depression
>reparations were designed to look much worse than they really were; French/British specifically designed reparations that Germany was able to pay
>total bill that Germany had to pay was $12.5 billion; to appease their populations at home, the allies designed the treaty to look like Germany was paying $33 billion. The Germans were able to turn this around and make it look like they were forced to pay far more than they could afford.

The conditions Germany offered as a PEACE arrangement in 1916 were much more harsh than what they got from what was a fairly unambiguous defeat. And let's not even think about comparing this treaty to what they imposed on the Russian Empire after they won that war.

Germans are terrible losers

I'll leave this here.

>How harsh was it, exactly?

Not at all.

Nowhere near the magnitude of German defeat.
Nowhere near the harshness of peace imposed upon Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary.
Nowhere near the harshness of what Germany imposed upon Russia in peace of Brest-Litovsk.
Nowhere near the harshness of what Germany had indented for Western Allies.

Germany emerged virtually unscathed. They lost territories that were unreliable to begin with. The reparations were nowhere close to the damage that Germany wrought in occupied territories.

this desu. germany should have been dismembered

Not nearly harsh enough.

Whether it was harsh or not, it was never properly enforced.

Nah. Give everything East of Spree and Havel to Poland, everything West of the Rhine and also Franconia and Swabia to France, Bavaria and Tyrol to Italy, the rest of Austria to Yugoslavia, Thuringia to Czechoslovakia, Frisia to the Netherlands, and everything North of Hamburg to Denmark.

Is the Treaty of Versailles not being harsh some kind of revisionist trend that's popular lately? It seems more of the post-war literature indicates that the treaty was in fact even harsher than the authors intended

They were essentially forced into economic servitude and then robbed of the means to make good on this large debt.

I recommend reading "The Economic Consequences of Peace" by John Maynard Keyes for an economic perspective on the Treaty of Versaille, at the time it was being drawn up.

It goes into great detail on exactly how and why the terms of the treaty came to be, and exactly how misguided those terms were.

The Allies saw Germany as a huge economic competitor and decided to destroy them with the treaty, rather than trying to make a lasting peace.

t. Pierre LeFrog OR Janusz Kowalski

No, people are just allowed to be objective and not cry about being "too mean" to an aggressive losing power and blame themselves for said power starting another war.

Well, I suppose if you take the view that the treaty wasn't meant to prevent another war from starting, then saying it wasn't "too mean" is a logically sound thought.

I take the view that if it had been enforced, there wouldn't have been another war. The Allies should have been "more mean".

So you believe it was completely feasible for the Allies, who were also financially strained, to maintain a standing army in Germany for an indefinite amount of time?

This. Not only would this have prevented WWII, but it would have been beneficial for Germans themselves. They could just live peaceful, prosperous lifes without involving themselves in unnecessary international politics. Kind of like Switzerland.

The reparitions were st at 132 billion mark, the french and british expected to receive 53 billion mark, the germans paid 21 billion from beginning to the point where they stopped

Are you retarded? Woodrow Wilson was for self determination of small nations not the dismemberment of the german state

>only Poles and Frenchmen have an interest in WW2 not happening

Ridiculous.

>Prussia dosen't own Prussia
otherwise it's perfect

>Nowhere near the harshness of what Germany had indented for Western Allies.
i have been trying to find some information about this but i haven't found anything.
what did the germans actually plan to do if they won?

It was totally fair. France lost just as many in terms of population as Germany if not more and they had a great deal of their cultural heritage lost in northwestern France because of German aggression. Is absurd for people to say that it was natural for Germany to fall to a Hitler leadership because of all the suffering they had when France was put through similar situations.

I think we can all agree that the world would be a better place had Germany won WWI.

1. That's not the topic at hand.
2. Absolutely not.

t. cuck

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemberprogramm

Essentially, to make France pay for all of their personal debts and make them completely dependent on them, to cut out a few vassal states out Russia, pseudo-vassalize Belgium, and isolate the UK.

Less harsh that the one that actually worked at forever ending further German chimp out (Post-WW2 Peace)

It's just common sense when comparing it to Post-WW2 Peace
If anything, the whole "Germany dindu nuffin and versailles was too harsh" is the revisionist stance that's more popular than it should

How did they get away with this?

By claiming victimhood, which got the British to take their side against the French, who DID want to enforce Versailles by occupying the Ruhr.

In the end, claiming persecution allowed them to get off mostly scot-free.

>forever ending further German chimp out
just whait until the inevitable fourth reich/EU collapse and you will see another German mass spergout

Why does everyone assume it's one or the other? Germany rose up again because conditions were shitty and the population felt they had no choice, leading to a rise in radical politics. If it weren't the Fascists coming to power, it would've been the communists or something else, which would've probably caused the same amount of trouble in Europe in a different way.

Everyone fears the German.

Conditions were shitty for everyone, France having been considerably more damaged by the War than Germany was, and yet you didn't see France and Britain turn full-fascist and conquer their neighbors.

Ripping Germany apart would have made it easier to enforce Versailles on whichever new German state decided to "rise up".

German steel output is above GB again by 1923
Need I say more

The conditions were shitty because of the Great Depression, not because of Versailles
Hitler was butthurt not because the treaty was "too harsh" but because his ego was hurt by the fact his precious Germany had lost the war, and the people voted for him because the US-spawned economical crisis had made their lives shitty

In the end, WW2 happening had nothing to do with the particular content of Versailles (other than aknowledging that Germany lost) but everything to do with the fact a global economical crisis enabled the people to vote for a skilled demagogue who also happened to be a revanchist war vet buttdevasted about his defeat in the last war

Not enough

See That's mostly German revisionism.

well this first version inculde give whole rheinland to france and whole uppersilesia, east prussia and danzig to poland
thing could even go worse if russian empire would won in 1914

>German steel output is above GB again by 1923
>Need I say more

Yes, you do need to say more, GB had a population 2/3 the size of Germany's so you would expect Germany to have higher steel production.

Nor do I think dismissing Keynes as "German revisionism" is reasonable.

I'd hardly call letting a nation reclaim the position of most productive country in the continent within 5 years of the end of the conflict "forcing them into economic servitude", especially when Versailles was so lax compared to previous treaties, and compared to Germany's plans for Russia and France.

As per the wishes of Britain and France, the goal of Versailles was never to economically cripple Germany, as they wanted a willing and powerful trade partner, and a continental counterbalance to France and Russia.

"Economical servitude" is frankly a joke, they didn't even bother enforcing the goddamn Treaty.

>>Germany's industry was basically untouched by the war while they ravaged France's; the treaty did not balance that out

It did balance it out though. The transfer of Alsace-Lorraine, French economical control of the Sarre area and Germany's loss of territory in the East (esp. eastern Upper Silesia) meant that the gap between French and German industrial production shrinked compared to 1913. And while German industry was not physically harmed, the export business was due to four years isolation from the world market and measures like the confiscation of the merchant fleet, the sequestration of German private and national property abroad or the one-sided most-favoured-nation clause.

See Holtferrich, The German Inflation 1914-1923, p. 204:
German industrial production surpassed pre-war level slightly for the first time in 1928; French industrial production of 1928 was already 20% above 1913 level.

See also Madison's estimation for the development of GDP/capita: French GDP/capita was below the German before the war and surpassed it after the war

>>Germany entered the war with Europe's largest continental GDP, exited the war with the same and underwent great economic growth until the depression

"Great" growth is quite an exaggeration, see above. There was a phase of relatively fast, inflation fueled growth from 1919-1922, though many historians consider the growth "wasted" since the unstable price relations led to misallocations of resources. Between 1924-1928 there was a phase of relative stability, but overall the Weimar economy is still described as "relatively stagnant" (Petzina, Abelshauser).

>>total bill that Germany had to pay was $12.5 billion; to appease their populations at home, the allies designed the treaty to look like Germany was paying $33 billion.

You're talking about the C-Bonds; it's not correct to say that they can be disregarded since they wouldn't have to be paid anyway. The C-Bond issue was to be decided later; France was prepared to reduce the C-Bonds in return for an equal reduction of inter-allied debt - which was sure to happen. Additionally, the C-Bonds could be used to apply political pressure and to raise the debt in case of a revival of the German economy.
>>to appease their populations at home

This was just ONE factor of the C-Bonds, not the only one.

Didn't really expect much more from a Wehraboo.

...

Not denying it, but do you have any statistics?

Anyway compared to before the war, German steel output decreased, so a relative weakening of Germany compared to the Allies is evident. It should also be noted that the weak performance of British interwar economy can be partly attributed to its perhaps not very wise deflationary policies.

>German steel output in the inter-war years follows the general pattern of relative industrial decline that we found already in the previous tables. Largely, this is due to the territorial changes of 1920, which reduced Germany’s steel-making capacity by about 40%. Evaluated on constant territory, German steel industry hardly performed worse than its British counterpart.

>Economically speaking, Allied victory in World War I was an economic success, if only a transitory one. Germany lost considerable parts of her most profitable coal and steel capacities and was also deprived of the advantages of inter-regional specialisation patterns that these industries had built up before. As our data bear out, by 1936 German heavy industry had not
yet recovered to the levels of 1913, which was one of the motivations for Hitler’s Four Years Plan. - As Nazi autarky policies attempted to expand capacities on the existing territory, this may explain why the coal and steel shock striking the German economy after World War II was apparently much less persistent.

personal.lse.ac.uk/ritschl/pdf_files/KETCHUP.pdf - Table 7 shows steel output, unfortunately only as an index and not in absolute numbers

Not UK as in the British isles, but as in THE BRITISH EMPIRE,
Notes from a Holocaust lecture and 'struggle for peace in europe' combined
Reminder that hitler was not a miracle maker for 'fixing' the german economy, it could have run well under almost anyone, even communists due to how industrialised Germany was

What made them start WW1 then?

no every g*rm should have been sterilized

You realize that unless you genocides the Austrians "chezchia" would just be greater Austria, right?

The only way to have built a lasting peace would be to somehow convince the Germans of the pointlessness of using military force in the first place.

But the Treaty of Versailles could only be enacted in the first place because the entente powers won through military force.

It's really only the lessons of World War 2 which could have finally convinced Europe of the fruitlessness of pursuing armed struggle.

those austrian g*rms would be sent to camps where they belong

Ironic shitposting is still shitposting.

Good post user

t. g*rm

>Essentially, to make France pay for all of their personal debts
That's what's the wikipedia article claims, without citing a source though.

According to wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/workbook/ralprs34.htm it says:

>Further, a war indemnity, to be paid in instalments; it must be high enough to prevent France from spending any considerable sums on armaments in the next 15-20 years.
>Nowhere near the harshness of what Germany imposed upon Russia in peace of Brest-Litovsk.

That's comparing apples with oranges. The cessation of non-Russian territory ought to be compared with the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire; in that respect (that is the liquidation of the multi-national empires) the treatis of Trianon, Saint-Germain and Sèvres were perhaps even more radical than Brest-Litovsk. After Brest-Litovsk, Russia also agreed to deliver oil and goods worth 6 bn marks, which was far below the reparations of Versailles.

A*strians deserve genocide.

That's a bit much.

You have to give the remaining German ethnicities some sort of self-determination, in that, is vastly superiour.

>go to war and everybody dies
>yeah bro you gotta foot the bill
why does this exist

Because not everybody shares the amount of responsibility in a conflict, dumbass.

so germany has to take all the responsibility?

the ottoman and austrian empire were destroyed, far worse than what happened to germany

and that was the fault of germany was it

Not him, but yes, it was. Germany pushed Austria into the war against Serbia.

no I am saying germany didn't take all the responsibility when its two allies were dismantled for losing the war

>beat everybody up
>h-hey you gotta pay us a tribute now for b-beating us up
blow it out your ass

>small penis size
>wonky arm
>wanting to be a HRE emperor whilst snubbing Charlemagne and hapsburgs legacy
>involving himself in diplomatic disputes like the Moroccan crisis
>building a navy larger than the British despite being warned against it
>England and France's failure to give the freed orthodox Slavs to the Russian empire thus making them more powerful than the central alliance

>lasting peace recquires them to see errror of their ways
Nah m8, put the g*rms across the Rhine, free up Poland, Schleswig Holstein, anschull with Austria but then make them back into a feudal HRE and shits lit AF

>US-spawned economical crisis
The US was the only country holdin the wold economy together through the 20's. They only delayed WW1 depression though their loans.

>implying white peace is fine
>Yeah just forget all that economic loss, negative growth, empowerment of the executive, and inflation we suffered.

For starting WW1 and not the fourth Balkan war. Yes
>ww1 depression
>MUH loans
If GB hadn't taken as many war loans with America as they had, and if America had intervened before 30 seconds to the end, then the 20s would have been far more stable. Also proof is in the pudding that GB can be trusted to be the stock market and financial capital whilst America can't be

Not harsh enough apparently

...

>piss everyone off with your fullretard foreign policy for two decades
>pressure your only ally into going to war
>declare war on everyone
>invade neutral country first
>rape and pillage through said neutral country
>fight on enemy territory and turn it into a wasteland
>be first one to use poison gas
>treat POWs like shit and let them starve to death
>lose war
>"It's not only Germany's fault!"

Except German was getting beaten up as well, it sued for peace as soon as it realized it was wholly and thoroughly fucked.

In all honesty, the Entente should have rejected peace for a time, question of letting Germany know just how bad it lost.

T. British propaganda office

...

Shit!!!

Don't forget that they regularly sank civilian ships too, which ended up biting them in the ass.

The British were the ones who were too merciful to the Germans, you moron.

It's rather sad that you have Germans opposed to this possibility. It would have been for their own good.