Annexations in 1918

[King of Men]

Why didn't Britain annex Hannover in the treaty of Versailles? The royal family came from there, so they should have a good claim, no?
In fact, there seem to have been rather few annexations generally. France got Alsace-Lorraine back, but surely annexing the Rhineland would have been better than demilitarizing it?

 

[unmerged(11486)]

The difference of course, being that France had a legitimate claim to Alsace and Lorraine, while the Rhineland was quite obviously part of Germany.

And in the case of Hannover, what would the British do with a small chunk of Germany? The fact that the royal family was German mightr have been a good enough reason two hundred years before, but not in 1919.

Steele

 

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Did France have any kind of legal claim to the Saarland?

 

[unmerged(11486)]

No, but France did not annex the Saar. It was run by the League of Nations, and was supposed to be an international area.

Steele

 

[Syt]

The French did occupy the Saar, though, in 1923 (a remarkable year, seeing some putsch attempts [Kapp, Hitler], inflation,and said occupation of Saar), because the Germans stalled their reparations towards the French. The Germans attempted the concept of passive resistance.

Annexations after 1918? Well, the perceived aggressors were beaten. Usually, the aggressors try to take territory. Of course, a host of countries was creates in Europe in the aftermath of WW1 (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia....), and Denmark got Nord-Schleswig after a plebiscite. Nevertheless, there were few claims any of the antions had on the other. And even if the French or British had decided to take pieces of German or Austria-Hungary for themselves, there's little telling if they could have sustained it without major resistance from the population.

 

[unmerged(9600)]

Originally posted by King of Men
Why didn't Britain annex Hannover in the treaty of Versailles? The royal family came from there, so they should have a good claim, no?

Because it would have been enormously difficult and costly to hold it. And Wilson would never have let them have it, thanks to his self-determinatory principles. There simply wasn't enough benefit to make it worthwhile to try and annex part of an entirely different national group. Just imagine the cost to Britain of permanently keeping a million and a half men in uniform, just to garrison a chunk of Germany. And that's not even including their other commitments.

 

[unmerged(4253)]

They already had a huge empire... they believed in self determination in Europe ( each ethnicity has its' own nation ). And furthermore, the house had already changed its name to sound less German when the war started, and the stoped speaking German. To become German oncemore after the war was over would be fighting all the political propoganda (a.k.a. hate) they had used against Germany.

 

[unmerged(9563)]

I don't think the European's listened to Wilson much. (After all, he was Uncle Shylock.)

 

[unmerged(9600)]

Originally posted by KwangTiger
I don't think the European's listened to Wilson much. (After all, he was Uncle Shylock.)

All the same, he did play a huge role in winning the war. Plus, Wilson, through American creditors, owned France. Without the US, WWI goes on until 1950, and everyone knew it.

 

[PMLF]

I think instead of annexing parts of Germany, the allies could give independence to the former German kingdoms like Bayern and the others. Of course it wouldn't work if all of them formed a new united Germany later on.