Geneva would be the first choice, however The Hague can do as a compromise. What's important is that everybody concerned is given a fair shake at the peace conference.
How would you have handled Versailles?
- Thread starter Taktubaani
- Start date
Geneva would be the first choice, however The Hague can do as a compromise. What's important is that everybody concerned is given a fair shake at the peace conference.
With the benefit of hindsight, the first thing I would like to change is the location and method. Instead of the Versailles Treaty, it would be the Strasbourg/Strassburg Conference.
a) Lorraine is to be given to France, a plebiscite is to be held to determine the future of Elsass/Alsace on continued union with Germany or annexation to France.
b) Other plebiscites are to be held at the following areas: Schleswig, Tyrol, Istria.
c) Czechoslovakia is to become a federal state, with equal rights given to Sudeten Germans, Slovaks, Ruthenes as the Czechs.
d)The Austrian people are free to choose their form of govenment, but is to shoulder primary responsibility for starting the war; and must stay separate from germany for 20 years, after the time period is up, the issue of union is decided through a referendum. Reparation is in the form of 200 million Krones to Serbia/Yugoslavia per year for 20 years.
e) Hungary is to shoulder secondary responsibility and its borders are defined as per OTL Treaty of Trianon for 30 years, any intended revision must wait until the 30 years are up, and in the meantime the border agreement is guaranteed with help from neighbouring nations.
f) Germany is to shoulder tertiary responsibility, and reparations to france is in the form of Togoland, Kamerun and a payment of 5 billion Reichsmarks per year for 10 years. Belgium is given 2.5 billion reichsmarks per year for 15 years. The colonies of Tanganyika and Kaiser Wilhelms Land is given to Great Britain while the Carolines is given to Japan, minor reparation money to China as compensation, along with Shandong. The colony of South West Africa is under South African mandate. The German army is to be reduced to 3/4ths of the French army, the Kriegsmarine reduced in tonnage to half of that of the Royal Navy, and the air force permitted to operate 100 planes total.
g)the League of Nations will administer the following territories for 10 years, after which plebiscites will be held: Danzig-Gdynia, Memel, Saarland, Upper Silesia, City of Rijeka.
h) Most of the province of Posen/Poznan and a strip of land connecting aforementioned province to Danzig-Gdynia is given to Poland.
i) Lithuania is to have port rights at Memel. Poland to have port rights to both Danzig and Gdynia. territorial rearrangements to be made at either nation's request.
j) Rhineland (only) demilitarised. Straits of Bosporus and Dardanelles open to all shipping and the turkish republic do not reserve the rights to close the straits in times of war.
k) former arab lands held by the Ottoman empire to be divided into mandates of the Entente powers. Hejaz comes under british influence.
l) Bulgaria to cede Aegean coastline to Greece.
m)Status of Vilnius/Wilno to be decided through an International Court.
Extraordinary situations:
1. any state within Germany is permitted, in fact, encouraged to form their own type of govenment, be it monarchy or republic. If any state wish to secede, they may do so, with their peoples' consent.
2. The rights of any group in Yugoslavia is to be respected.
a) Lorraine is to be given to France, a plebiscite is to be held to determine the future of Elsass/Alsace on continued union with Germany or annexation to France.
b) Other plebiscites are to be held at the following areas: Schleswig, Tyrol, Istria.
c) Czechoslovakia is to become a federal state, with equal rights given to Sudeten Germans, Slovaks, Ruthenes as the Czechs.
d)The Austrian people are free to choose their form of govenment, but is to shoulder primary responsibility for starting the war; and must stay separate from germany for 20 years, after the time period is up, the issue of union is decided through a referendum. Reparation is in the form of 200 million Krones to Serbia/Yugoslavia per year for 20 years.
e) Hungary is to shoulder secondary responsibility and its borders are defined as per OTL Treaty of Trianon for 30 years, any intended revision must wait until the 30 years are up, and in the meantime the border agreement is guaranteed with help from neighbouring nations.
f) Germany is to shoulder tertiary responsibility, and reparations to france is in the form of Togoland, Kamerun and a payment of 5 billion Reichsmarks per year for 10 years. Belgium is given 2.5 billion reichsmarks per year for 15 years. The colonies of Tanganyika and Kaiser Wilhelms Land is given to Great Britain while the Carolines is given to Japan, minor reparation money to China as compensation, along with Shandong. The colony of South West Africa is under South African mandate. The German army is to be reduced to 3/4ths of the French army, the Kriegsmarine reduced in tonnage to half of that of the Royal Navy, and the air force permitted to operate 100 planes total.
g)the League of Nations will administer the following territories for 10 years, after which plebiscites will be held: Danzig-Gdynia, Memel, Saarland, Upper Silesia, City of Rijeka.
h) Most of the province of Posen/Poznan and a strip of land connecting aforementioned province to Danzig-Gdynia is given to Poland.
i) Lithuania is to have port rights at Memel. Poland to have port rights to both Danzig and Gdynia. territorial rearrangements to be made at either nation's request.
j) Rhineland (only) demilitarised. Straits of Bosporus and Dardanelles open to all shipping and the turkish republic do not reserve the rights to close the straits in times of war.
k) former arab lands held by the Ottoman empire to be divided into mandates of the Entente powers. Hejaz comes under british influence.
l) Bulgaria to cede Aegean coastline to Greece.
m)Status of Vilnius/Wilno to be decided through an International Court.
Extraordinary situations:
1. any state within Germany is permitted, in fact, encouraged to form their own type of govenment, be it monarchy or republic. If any state wish to secede, they may do so, with their peoples' consent.
2. The rights of any group in Yugoslavia is to be respected.
I don't quite understand the idea behind this point. Doesn't it basically say "Gear up for revisions and possible war in 30 years?"
How much land exactly? Less than OTL Corridor doesn't solve the underlying problem and more than OTL seems far-fetched in the context of the treaty.
Hm. Alright.
Have Austria (or whatever is the A-H successor state) accept responsibility for the war, instead of Germany.
France still gets Alsace back still
Germany doesn't lose land in the east, but must allow ethnic Poles to migrate to the new polish state if they wish.
Reparations and restrictions on Germany aren't as harsh, but there still should be some.
Have Austria (or whatever is the A-H successor state) accept responsibility for the war, instead of Germany.
France still gets Alsace back still
Germany doesn't lose land in the east, but must allow ethnic Poles to migrate to the new polish state if they wish.
Reparations and restrictions on Germany aren't as harsh, but there still should be some.
Whoops, I actually meant an extraterritorial railway and roads to Danzig and Gdynia and the right to use the Vistula for river transportation, if any.
This sort of thing would require the most rigid enforcement of the treaty to work. What if, at some later date, Germany decides to block transit across that transport route until Poland consents to some demands? Who would die for a railway, especially if Germany manages to rearm in before making such demands?
Snake Featherston
Banned
For a more realistic and likely-to-be-enforced version:
1) Leave Neuilly as it was.
2) When it comes to Austria, permit an Anschluss on the condition that the border with the new Czechoslovakia is guaranteed by a DMZ on both sides of the border. Secure this DMZ further with a Franco-Italian joint bloc to safeguard the new border, strengthened by territorial concessions in the Adriatic to secure that Italy would be interested in this.
3) Integrate the Bolsheviks into Europe, using an EU-style approach to smother the revolution in bread and butter. This would prevent any possibility that Bolshevik Russia would need to turn to Germany to reconstruct a military, securing in particular a joint bloc of the French and Bolshies against Germany, preserving the alliance that began the war, combining it with a new, more tightly-knit approach to unifying all the other states. Additionally, specify Eastern European borders, such as Poland's on the Curzon Line, thus to forestall any German attempts to end-run guarantees of the Western border by going to war in the East.
4) When it comes to Hungary, create a customs union-military alliance of a Hungarian-Yugoslav-Bulgarian-Romanian economic bloc and military alliance, integrating the Balkans states into a united economic bloc that's interdependent and not able or willing to go to war against each other without mutual economic collapse.
5) Accept that the Allied conquests in the Near East form the core of LoN mandates, but do not try to partition Anatolia, seeking instead to return Transcaucasia to the USSR in return for a joint Greco-Turkish customs union and economic bloc that would make it impossible for either to risk war against each other.
6) Germany must disarm all weapons for an offensive war, retaining enough to defend itself against its neighbors, meaning that it cannot have armor or aircraft carriers or submarines but can have a surplus of heavy artillery and other weapons unfeasible to invade other countries. The amount of troops are also appropriate to defend Germany, this and nothing more. The peace treaty must be signed by the dictators who lost the war, not a new Republic that might be weakened, then the new Republic is permitted this kind of military at the expense of another, and this together with economic guarantees means that Germany is less likely to turn its Self-Defense Force into an offensive military. Germany yields Alsace-Lorraine and accepts a temporary French interest in the Saar, for a term specified for a specific duration of years, in return for the German devastation of French mines.
No War Guilt Clause for anyone, that's an idea that can only end poorly.
It's got the right combination of idealism and the more indirect means of power that it'd have at least a chance of enforcement beyond OTL Versailles.
1) Leave Neuilly as it was.
2) When it comes to Austria, permit an Anschluss on the condition that the border with the new Czechoslovakia is guaranteed by a DMZ on both sides of the border. Secure this DMZ further with a Franco-Italian joint bloc to safeguard the new border, strengthened by territorial concessions in the Adriatic to secure that Italy would be interested in this.
3) Integrate the Bolsheviks into Europe, using an EU-style approach to smother the revolution in bread and butter. This would prevent any possibility that Bolshevik Russia would need to turn to Germany to reconstruct a military, securing in particular a joint bloc of the French and Bolshies against Germany, preserving the alliance that began the war, combining it with a new, more tightly-knit approach to unifying all the other states. Additionally, specify Eastern European borders, such as Poland's on the Curzon Line, thus to forestall any German attempts to end-run guarantees of the Western border by going to war in the East.
4) When it comes to Hungary, create a customs union-military alliance of a Hungarian-Yugoslav-Bulgarian-Romanian economic bloc and military alliance, integrating the Balkans states into a united economic bloc that's interdependent and not able or willing to go to war against each other without mutual economic collapse.
5) Accept that the Allied conquests in the Near East form the core of LoN mandates, but do not try to partition Anatolia, seeking instead to return Transcaucasia to the USSR in return for a joint Greco-Turkish customs union and economic bloc that would make it impossible for either to risk war against each other.
6) Germany must disarm all weapons for an offensive war, retaining enough to defend itself against its neighbors, meaning that it cannot have armor or aircraft carriers or submarines but can have a surplus of heavy artillery and other weapons unfeasible to invade other countries. The amount of troops are also appropriate to defend Germany, this and nothing more. The peace treaty must be signed by the dictators who lost the war, not a new Republic that might be weakened, then the new Republic is permitted this kind of military at the expense of another, and this together with economic guarantees means that Germany is less likely to turn its Self-Defense Force into an offensive military. Germany yields Alsace-Lorraine and accepts a temporary French interest in the Saar, for a term specified for a specific duration of years, in return for the German devastation of French mines.
No War Guilt Clause for anyone, that's an idea that can only end poorly.
It's got the right combination of idealism and the more indirect means of power that it'd have at least a chance of enforcement beyond OTL Versailles.
Snake: It sounds like the stuff directed at Germany would be stuff that after things settle down to a state that nations can pretend to be reasonable people again can be approached again - maybe not specifically spelled out as such, but there's room for dealing with things when it comes up.
Germany really, really isn't in much of a position to maintain much beyond a Self Defense Force in 1918 anyway. Keeping a powerful offensive-bent force in existence would be a dreadful strain on a greatly overburdened by the war economy.
It'll recover, sure, but by that point, it can be worked out when that comes up, assuming things have generally held together.
Germany really, really isn't in much of a position to maintain much beyond a Self Defense Force in 1918 anyway. Keeping a powerful offensive-bent force in existence would be a dreadful strain on a greatly overburdened by the war economy.
It'll recover, sure, but by that point, it can be worked out when that comes up, assuming things have generally held together.
The ignorance people show here is staggering, really
Well, speaking for myself, that looks a lot like saying its "all your fault". A plural you, but a you directed at Germany and friends.
But that's not technically exclusive - just partisan.
You do realize that solution creates a rump state that is most likely to fall into German orbit rather soon?
It increases German influence above the pre-war levels.This is worse (I might even go so far as to say "different") than OTL how again?
Seriously though, you don't see anything wrong with Poles continuing to be dependant on Germany?
Maur
Banned
This is the realistic one, right? I'm not picking on you, simply commenting on everyone's fantastic scenarios would be too exhausting. If i didn't mentione something, it's realistic in my opinion.
Appeasing Bolsheviks is simply impossible with, say, Lloyd George at the helm. And Entente deciding Polish-Bolshevik borders is fantasy, they had practically no leverage there at all.
Happy convincing Romanians and Hungarians to cooperate. This is also borderline ASB.
Greek-Turkish... uh, what next? Polish-German economic union (well, that one would be more realistic, actually)? This is no go.
Kaiser in Holland, Ludendorff in Sweden, and treaty signed by what amounts to private citizens... interesting.
Maur
Banned
Ah, yes - but that's what the poster proposed, non-exclusive war guilt, not aware that's exactly what was IOTL treaty...
Of course, it could be changed by adding others by name, still, you can't call OTL wording "exclusive".
Again: OTL is any different? Having a larger state didn't do Poland much good OTL in the next twenty or so years.
Poland is too weak to avoid being overshadowed by Germany even if that's only in the economic sphere. Whether I regard that as wrong or not won't rebalance the scales.
Personally I think the idea of reestablishing a Polish state is an exercise in folly. Not wrong per se, but...its neighbors overshadow it so badly it hurts.
Maur
Banned
Well, if we go by ethnic cleansing, why not partition East Prussia between Poland and Lithuanian with the condition that these countries "allow" ethnic Germans to migrate to Germany? That gets rid of the corridor issue, tooThis is worse (I might even go so far as to say "different") than OTL how again?
(not actually directed at you since it wasn't you who made that silly proposal)
Maur
Banned
That could be said about plenty of states, though. Czechoslovakia, Poland, Baltic States, Finland, basically everyone that happens to border Russia. Or China.
Well, if we go by ethnic cleansing, why not partition East Prussia between Poland and Lithuanian with the condition that these countries "allow" ethnic Germans to migrate to Germany? That gets rid of the corridor issue, too
(not actually directed at you since it wasn't you who made that silly proposal)
This is the sort of thing that makes me want a treaty that adjusts borders as little as possible, because any adjustments wind up badly.
That could be said about plenty of states, though. Czechoslovakia, Poland, Baltic States, Finland, basically everyone that happens to border Russia. Or China.
See above. It sucks, I don't like it, but I don't want to commit to something I have no faith in just because I dislike the alternative.