Slesvig was about half-danish and the seziure became a huge national trauma for the danes. Holstein was a different issue, but then again, that was never returned (and neither was half of Slesvig)
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Slesvig was about half-danish and the seziure became a huge national trauma for the danes. Holstein was a different issue, but then again, that was never returned (and neither was half of Slesvig)
No, the army was in tatters. And the german command knew it perfectly well. The german economy was likewise in tatters (fools hope of being able to feed german by conquests in the east turned out to be just that, a fools hope)
The germans were outproduced in every category even without the americans, they were lacking in everything, their men were deserting in droves. The country was undergoing a revolution. The german army was done, and they knew it. (hence why they tried desperatedly to hand over the responsibility to the SPD)
Why did France not invade through the Rhine valley in 1939?
Reasons of the top of my head:
- Restricted Route: The Rhine Valley is a valley, hills, often wooded, on both sides, allowing relativly little things to completly block the advance
- Urban environment: There are villages almost directly on the River all the way making both for excellent environment for the defender
- Preregistered landscape: All of Germany and in any case the Rhine Valley was 'pre-registered' as in military cartographers had measured and drawn the whole area allowing an artillery battery going into poistion anywhere and hitting anywhere else in range with the first shot. Which would mean that as little as two or three roving batteries could wreck untold havoc upon the French force while at the same time being nearly immune to counter battery fire.
- Limited to the left side: What bridges there were, either already were destroyed or prepped or destruction, most likely containing the French to the left side of the Rhine
Did I miss anything?
I am going to quote/paraphrase myself from the 'time travelling adviser post' since it seems to me relevant to this discussion.
TLDR: without a top to bottom revamp of what the French army believes it exists for, what sort of conflict it is prepared to fight, a thorough restructuring of its command and control technologies and techniques, and a complete replacement of it's general staff, it won't be capable of actions significantly different than the ones it actually took. A major offensive action is simply unimaginable, especially one at the early phases (less than 6 months) of the start of the war.
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You're completely missing the context of that line, Foch thought that Versailles didn't go nearly far enough, not that it was being unfair to the Germans, and he was 100% right, Keynes' widespread assessment of the severity of Versailles be damned.
To call Versailles's conditions "absolutely ridiculous" when the Germans had been even more harsh with the Russians only one year prior with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk shows an insane amount of either hypocrisy, or double standards. Allowing Germany to surrender early and thus be able to forge and propagate revisionist stories about the nature of their defeat and the severity of the peace conditions directly led to the rise of revanchists, allowing the German state to remain mostly whole led to said revanchists being able to take it out on the rest of Europe.
This "the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh and fueled by petty sentiments" meme needs to stop, it's verifiably untrue, and serves German Empire and Nazi apologist interests.
The difference was that Germany was beaten, but still able to resist- unlike the Bolsheviks- who were going to be crushed if the Germans kept rolling into Eastern Europe.
If the treaty was too harsh, the Germans would simply decide to fight to the death, wasting countless more lives. If the treaty was too lenient, the French would have rioted.
At the time, the Treaty of Versailles was the only solution that worked. Keep in mind Hitler never came into power until the Great Depression.
It never ceases to amaze me how cavalier people can be with facts or even peoples lives.
If Niall Ferguson's number in 'The Pity of War' are to believed the German Army on the Western Front killed more Allied soldiers than it lost for 7 out of 10 month that year, July, August and September were Allied 'net gain' month but even in October German casaulties were less than Allied.
It was not that if it had been decided that Germany was not 'allowed' to surrender the whole edifice would have come crushing down. The German Revolution happened because Kriegsmarine sailors refused to be sacrificed in a grand gesture without cause... A Germany fighting for survival, not allowed to surrender, that would have been a very different picture.
What you are arguing for, in essence, is alienating the Americans (the German offer for the armistice was based on the 14 points), boost German morale and then roll the dice and see whether the French and British Army are able to defeat Germany before their Armies (who will also have been informed that the enemy is not 'allowed' to surrendre) are starting to rebel...
It is certainly a bold idea.
As for the harshness of Brest-Litovsk, I'd like to point out that a lot of the territories 'annexed' (they were not really, but they were supposed to become puppet states under German control) were not Russian territories but the area that now makes up Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States, etc.
In that sense the whole deal was curiously close to the idea of 'self-determination'... albeit under a German prince...
It is something quite different to take German-speaking areas (sometimes since the middle ages) and then either frenchify them, ethnical cleanse them or transfer them to other states were they are damned to be minorities.
I agree that the 'harshness' bit is dubious (it was more a problem of three sides with crosspurpose ending up with a treaty that was both too harsh (for peaceful coexistence) and not harsh enough (to prevent Germany ever again waging war)) but the petty sentiment I would agree with.
It also strikes me as Germanophobe and racist to opine that somehow the European powers had a moral right to keep Germany in a state of impotence. What right to European Primacy do Britain or France have that does not also apply to Germany?
Germany was starving and the government was being overthrown, I don't think effective resistance to the death would have occurred to save face.
You missed why the government was being overthrown.
The whole disaster starts with the armistice and the brilliant idea of the Marineführung that they really should sail the whole fleet and get it sunk in a cataclysmic battle against the Royal Navy. I cannot possibly discern why the sailors objected.
As for the 'effective resistance to the death' Germany maintained a 'positive' kill balance, i.e. they killed more allied soldiers than they themselves lost, in 7 out of the 10 month in 1918 and even had a positive balance in october. That does not seem like an army that will simply roll over if you push a little more.
I seem to recall some shred of information in my mind which says the Danes didn't even want the other half of it back in the first place, realizing it would be more hassle than it was worth.
Every time you bring this up, and every time I point out the same old problems.
The Western Front was on the brink of a collapse. German morale was failing, formations were under-strength, nowhere were the Germans successfully holding the Allies back (indeed, even the Americans were making headway), and all this without considering the hammer blow Foch and Petain were preparing for Lorraine. Moreover, one then has to consider the situation elsewhere; the Ottomans had surrendered, Bulgaria was gone, Austria-Hungary had collapsed, and Allied forces were pushing up the Danube and through Slovenia to threaten Germany's Southern border. By the end of 1918 the Germans were nearing collapse on the war's main front, and about to face an entirely new one which they had no resources on hand to meet.
The idea that the German army was not defeated in the field in 1918 is simply wrong, the war was lost. Yes, Germany could have continued on into 1919, much in the same way every combatant who has surrendered before they were totally and utterly defeated could have continued to fight. Japan could have continued the war past September 1945 if it so wished. The argument was however, completely nonsensical.
(And as far as the 1918 KIA balance goes, this is probably because in many cases the Allies were taking more prisoners than they were sustaining casualties; tends to keep the KIA down somewhat if all your chaps surrender).
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This debate has been going on since the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month that brought an end to the Great War. There are entire libraries of books on this subject, from every conceivable angle. The treaty has split governments, has come under criticism from its own architects, and everyone has an opinion.
You might argue the Versailles Treaty, which Keynes described as a 'Carthagenian Peace', was not enough. Perhaps the dismantling of Germany following the Second World War is the model to follow. But, for all of America's flaws during the Cold War, the only reason the partition of Germany worked is because the United States BANKROLLED the entire reconstruction of Western Europe under the Marshal Plan, with Germany and Japan receiving special treatment. The results? Look at the list of America's best allies. The French? No. Germany and Japan.
All one has to do is look at the state of East Germany after the reunification following Perestroika and Glasnost to see what Europe could still look like today.
France? France is a lovely country addicted to wearing pretty clothes, cheese and wine, and dining for hours at a time. But, they have trouble keeping a stable government, are so militarily inept they have been unable to defend their own borders or holdings since Waterloo, and can only follow short-term thinking that in no way might possibly create a hospitable environment of friendship and cooperation with Germany that would prevent future bloodshed.
So, with all due respect, I will maintain my beliefs that the Versailles Treaty in general, and the War Guilt Clause specifically, created an environment of hostility and established a national mindset that provided fertile ground for National Socialism. Hitler's words took root and blossomed, to the world's sorrow. We may know the 'Stab in the back' is hyperbole, but that was not the belief of the average German. And, history is replete with stories of nations who are driven into the dirt who rise up to punch their oppressors in the nose.
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The French tried, pretty much everyone else tried to stop them. Hell, even within France it was largely Foch who was the diehard (even going so far as to royally irritate Clemenceau by walking in and giving a speech about the need for the territory after the matter had already been settled). And honestly, it's not like he was wrong; his solution was certainly inelegant and probably impracticable, but his prediction about the next war were accurate.
How well could the Foch solution have worked? France in the 30s had deep social problems even as a sorta ethnically homogeneous nation state. Imagine how it would have been with ~4-6 millions of Germans (10-15%).
Depending on the form the plan took (IIRC the standard idea was not direct annexation but to break away a 'Rhineland' state), it could go either poorly or very poorly. Honestly all I'm seeing it producing is a bunch of strikes and civil unrest with the French getting increasingly tired of policing it. To be honest, I think they would probably have given it up during the 1920s anyway, in return for diplomatic gains. It's also worth noting that with the Rhineland, France is going to be on worse terms with Britain and the USA than she historically was, and will be more likely to be perceived as the aggressive party in dealings with Germany (and given there was already substantial sympathy for Germany in Britain, that is a real concern).
Oh yes the foreign relations are also in the mix.
But then the French had no real trump cards other than they had the strongest standing army on the continent as of 1919, an advantage which they cannot really maintain as the third most populous country. So going the friendship with the new German government thingy (basically a proto European Union, proposed by the same Monnet who did it one war later) might have avoided the war, but not the marginalization of France (which happened anyway against a divided and much weaker Germany). They were effectively out of options for Versailles*.
*there were options to sweaten the pill for Germany such as border correction between Czechoslovakia and Germany like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aš
This is a small piece of land with close to 100% German population and its economy is oriented towards Germany and not the Czech Basin, but such deals would not matter in the long run
(edit: wrong wiki link)
Problem with Versaille's was that Germans didn't really have any motivating factors to not break as soon as they dared to try, and on other hand by 1935 Allies had lost all their appetite to actually enforce it with any means necessary. I don't see how making it harsher would help to solve any of those issues.
they were already secretly violating it early on with prototype tanks (I think they were called liechtraktor or something like that)
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