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Versailles
Topic Started: Apr 20 2011, 09:02 AM (556 Views)
Simon Darkshade
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Was the Treaty of Versailles too harsh; too lenient; somewhere between the two; or not enforced properly?

My personal view combines the 'too lenient' with 'not enforced'.
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Basil Fawlty
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As always, it depends on objectives. If the goal was a Wilsonian "peace without victory," the terms were far too harsh; if a means of permanently breaking German power and ending the military threat posed to Britain and France, they were too lenient. In neither case was the treaty adequately enforced.

My understanding is that the Big Four did not have a coherent strategy outlined beforehand, and this was reflected in the somewhat muddled outcome.
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Matthew
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I suppose the question would be what the practical options would be.

Could Germany realistically have been broken up again? Would it be possible to rehabilitate her life France post Napoleon? What about balancing out Russia (without facism)?
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Simon Darkshade
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Breaking up Germany is not a realistic option.

However, the middle path between Wilsonian idealism and Clemenceau would best characterize my position on the treaty. The main aim would be to remove the German threat to Western Europe, but maintain it as a bulwark against the Soviets; that would involve a lot of issues, not limited to fleets, fortifications and size of armies. Additionally, Germany needs to pay, but not in a way that cripples her and defeats the purpose.
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JBK
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It was foolish, the whole of Versailles it sowed the seeds for the next war. Just as 1870 had done before. The Allies should have been intelligent and should have understood that ruining a nation cannot ever be a security for peace, they had witnessed the revanchism in France themselves. This sounds slightly extreme, but I think it is the truth, whichever way you look at it.

The real answer to this question lies in the opinion whether one thinks Germany was responsible for the war or not. I think not, it was a combination of events, a fluke which threw the world into the abyss. Sure there were lead ups which could have been avoided, but I think that all nations were responsible for that and not just Germany.
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Simon Darkshade
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I don't subscribe to the theory that all nations were responsible for the Great War. A number of different nations contributed to the rise of tensions leading up to it, for various reasons that are not all malign or of the angels. Several key states played a big role in the July Days.

However, in the end, it was Germany's lack of any ability to deal with a crisis short of a general war - and to begin it by callously invading a neutral country - that is to blame for the war. The fluke of Franz Ferdinand was rather a spark to a prepared powder keg and one that was doomed to envelop all in its explosion due to German plans, aggression and inflexibility.

The school of thought that labels Versailles a disaster uses a lot of hindsight and doesn't truly deal with the mindsets of the time, or the legitimate security concerns of other states.
Every party in Weimar Germany was a critic of Versailles, so it is painting with a very broad brush indeed to ascribe the rise of Nazism and the outbreak of the Second World War to the treaty.

Versailles, even in its harshest possible form, pales into comparison with intended German planned peace treaties and with the existing Treaty of Brest Litovsk imposed on Russia.
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JBK
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Just because the peace the treaties the allies imposed on their conquered foe are less cruel than the ones imposed by the Germans on theirs does not make them right or just.

I agree with you when you say that we use too much hindsight when speaking against Versailles, and a less harsh treaty probably was near impossible. However, the way that the foreign powers used the treaty afterwards is maybe wrong? The USA not joining the League of Nations made it a powerless organisation from the start and none of the great powers truly took it seriously, I think.

A reason why the treaty was so poorly enforced might be the distrust between the French and the British?
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Simon Darkshade
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1.) Very true; that was not so much a justification of Versailles as much as a contextualisation of what truly harsh peace looks like.

2.) I'm not sure the way it was used was wrong so much as the way it was enforced was not sufficiently serious. The US position was a most important factor.

3.) Distrust is the wrong word, really. Rather, it was a case of competing interests, and Italy not being sufficiently powerful to either counterbalance them or form an effective bloc one way.
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Doctor_Strangelove
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.
Edited by Doctor_Strangelove, Nov 11 2016, 08:00 AM.
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Simon Darkshade
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All things considered, it failed to permanently quash Germany or to sufficiently mollify it, thus creating a factor that could be used by right wing revanchists and the Nazis. Not quite 'just right', but rather a classic case of trying to be everything to everyone and failing on all counts.
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Doctor_Strangelove
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.
Edited by Doctor_Strangelove, Nov 11 2016, 07:56 AM.
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Simon Darkshade
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Making it happy was impossible, but removing it as a threat to the West was possible with enforcement - no remilitarization of the Rhineland being one case where enforcement of the treaty could have worked quite well.
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