If your neighbor really has attacked you 30 times in the last 200 years, a buffer zone is entirely legitimate.
So, create a client state. Don't annex the region.
If your neighbor really has attacked you 30 times in the last 200 years, a buffer zone is entirely legitimate.
Jan, I feel justified in riding my high horse.
This is not about facts. Facts are clear. France made the stupid mistake to jump in the trap Bismarck had set and it list the war. It had to pay the price. End of the story.
The treaty of Tilsitt was very hard for the State of Prussia. But did it take away any german land ? No, it have some prussian lands to other german States. And no need of polls to know the opinion of the poles : they rebelled on their own initiative and literally forced Napoleon to establish a polish entity.
I don't care about frontier changes for realpolitics.
But what I can't stand is f... ideologic lies of ideologic absurdities, especially when such lies were the cause of the worst wars and crimes of history.
When I read such garbage, it makes me think it's a shame and a threat to peace for any country, Germany included. Those people don't realize how they are a disgrace to Germany.
Will it never end. It is crazy that there still be people who think that Prussia and Germany had a rightful claim on any territory and who just regret that it was defeated.
Germany was defeated. We can peacefully discuss alternate TLs in which it would have succeeded.
But please, no garbage about it being rightful ?
This is could end in ? Was Germany rightful when it searched a final way de along with the jews it no longer wanted to have in their own country named Germany ?
And I hope nobody wanted to go in that field.
That's what the absurd notion of rightfulness unavoidably leads.
Do correct me if I'm wrong, but there is not a single person in this threat who unconditionally supports the German claim on A-L in 1871, let alone today, but just many people who don't unconditionally oppose it.
And in case no one has told you, the Nazis did A LOT more than just trying to include all German-speaking people into one country and/or keeping all supposed non-Germans out of Germany./QUOTE]
Yes. But they did so because they shared this goal. And they considered the german people was so superior than any other that it had an absolute right to do whatever they considered necessary to have their people prevail.
The syllogisms were very clear :
- The german people is the superior people of the world.
- So all germanic people should be ruled by a german ruler, any other situation being counter-nature and being a threat to the preservation of the german people.
- oh by the way, they need room and any power who could become stronger than Germany is a threat against which it would be better to have a preemptive strike than to wait it actually becoming stronger than Germany (that basically was the cause of WWI : with Russia being a quickly emerging economic and military power, the balance of powers was turning less favourable to Germany).
You don't need to wait Hitler to have this way of thinking. That was the pangermanist movement. That was also the case with the particular side of the kulturkampf that was enforced in the prussian part of Poland under Bismarck.
Hitler was nothing more than all this ideology brought to a more extreme point.
Fortunately for the generations of my parents onwards, both Germany and France have learned lessions that you apperently have yet to learn:
1) When you loose a war of agression, you loose territory (Both France and Germany lost A-L that way, and Germany lost a lot more in WWII).
2) Unreasonable irredentism doesn't undo the previous desaster, it brings you into the next one (Pyrrhic victory for France in WWI and full military and moral desaster for Germany in WWII)
3) Neither France nor Germany have the power to knock the other our of the game, so they better learn living with each other.
4) Behind the facade of the traditional enmity, there is a deep mutual respect that led to a lasting friendship.
Had either of them learned those lessions before 1914, WWI as we know it is gone. Had te bulk of the German population learned before 1933, Hitler doesn't rise to power. Unfortunately, it took Germany one more war to learn than France.
If you had read my previous posts, you should have realized that I wrote and mean exactly what you wrote on your point 1.
I am more perplex on your point 2. Doest it mean "people should know when they are conquered" ?
You may have missed the point but Germany forced WWI on France and Belgium and Luxembourg. Germany sent an ultimatum demanding that France give new parts of its territory as a guarantee for staying out of the conflict against Russia.
You may also have missed the point that Alsacians did not want war. They wanted peace. They never expressed the will of being part of Germany.
The problem I pointed to is that the pangermanist ideology postulated that any people speaking a germanic dialect was a german and wanted could but want being part of the german Reich, even if they obviously did not.
Point 3 and 4 : who talks about knocking France or Germany out of the game ? However, what I am sure is that thinking and saying that any territorial claim based on the pangermanist ideology could be rightful is :
- anachronistic since it was nothing more than ideological forgery without serious foundations,
- very dangerous and worrying today because we at least both know where it can lead.
As I previously wrote, I have no problem about timelines about Germany winning WWI or WWII. This is the goal of this forum.
But I have serious trouble with people on this forum saying "I think Germany was right." This is not the kind of "living together" that most I accept, nor fortunately that most french and most german people would accept.
Just consider this : would any german politician say today that he thinks Germany was rightful in annexing Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 ?
No. None of them would make such a statement.
Germany forced France into World War I? That's both wrong and an oversimplification, ultimately policymakers in Vienna, Belgrade, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, London etc. all share a part of that blame. Too many of them wanted and demanded from others things they simply could not agree with.
AFAIK Germany demanded French neutrality, which is different from what Austria-Hungary demanded from Serbia. I can understand Austro-Hungarian anger due to assassination of archduke Francis Ferdinand, but they overplayed their hand with some of the demands made to Serbia (some were not unreasonable and Serbia even agreed to some of them). OTOH Russia supported Serbia, like Germany supported Austria-Hungary. Another element is that the coup, which brought another dynasty on Serbia's, had turned Serbia from more Austria-Hungary friendly to definitely more pro Russia.
I don't see anything monstrous or particularly scary in the idea that Germany could have been justified or semi-justified in annexing Alsace-Lorraine. In my opinion: it wasn't, since the people clearly preferred France (thus making France the rightful owner), but it's not like having a different interpretation automatically makes someone a German ultranationalist.
With the benefit of knowing about those 20th century events, one can easily make the argument that the annexation of A-L backfired in the goal of helping German security by making France more resentful and revanchist. The Germans however had no way of knowing that in 1871.
Well, that isn't quite accurate - Bismarck himself argued against the annexation for that very reason. It would be more precise to say that Germany recognized that the loss of territory could alienate France, but that the apparent security (and economic) benefits that Alsace-Lorraine could bring outweighed that risk.
I don't see anything monstrous or particularly scary in the idea that Germany could have been justified or semi-justified in annexing Alsace-Lorraine. In my opinion: it wasn't, since the people clearly preferred France (thus making France the rightful owner), but it's not like having a different interpretation automatically makes someone a German ultranationalist.
Germany demanded that France declare neutrality, but the orders given to the German ambassador in Paris were to also demand the occupation of two French fortresses as a token of "good faith".
As for the partial breakdown in Habsburg-Serbian relations, it happened in 1906, not after/because of the coup itself. In fact, certain Austro-Hungarian high officials knew about the plot in advance; Austria-Hungary accepted the coup and was one of the first countries to recognize the new government. Vienna had connections to several of the coup's conspirators and even later tried to influence internal Serbian politics through them.
When the more-or-less open hostility started in 1906, the chief and direct reason was Vienna's demands that Serbia cancel a previous trade agreement with Bulgaria.
As I previously wrote, I have no problem about timelines about Germany winning WWI or WWII. This is the goal of this forum.
But I have serious trouble with people on this forum saying "I think Germany was right." This is not the kind of "living together" that most I accept, nor fortunately that most french and most german people would accept.
Just consider this : would any german politician say today that he thinks Germany was rightful in annexing Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 ?
No. None of them would make such a statement.
By the laws of war, a winner is justified in taking territories away from the loser.
What I said is that claiming that the anachronic and bad faith nationalist propaganda made these annexions rightful is as wrong as very dangerous.
And the argument about the so called 30 invasions in 200 years is as anachronic and bad faith as if the french said they were justified in taking lands away from Germany because roman Gaul had been raided by germanic barbarians for centuries or because the Ottonian dynasty took away territories that belonged to the carolingians reigning in Francia occidentalis in the 10th century.
So you at least admit that all this is just forged and liar anachronic propaganda ?
Winner or not, a country is not morally justified in taking territory if the people of that territory are against it (assuming this consensus has not been created by recent violence or demographic warfare). As far as I'm concerned this also applies to Germany and Alsace-Lorraine; can't see what the whole question has to do with Nazis and all that, though.
I never wrote about anachronistic propaganda or the number of past invasions, so I don't think there's anything to admit. You might have confused me with someone? Or the question was directed elsewhere.
The world is not devided in inherently good and inherently evil nations, and the statement of Germany beeing right, let alone Germany not beeing absolutely wrong, in 1871 is in no way connected to Germany beeing right 1914-1918, let alone 1933-1945.
The concept of a black ad white world were some nations are always good and other nation are always bad is not a solution but the problem. Even the notion that once all the blame lies on one side is applicable only in very rare exceptions, such as WWII.
Even less I understand your raised tempers on the 19th century concept of Germany beeing the summary of all majority German-speaking territories. The horrors of the 20th century originated from the German attempts to annex non-German-seaking areas and the refusal to give up teritories that never were German-speaking. Switzerland was always an undenied exception to that rule, so all that's left is the dispute about wether A-L should have been recognized as a second exception. A mere footnote compared to the magnitude of the OTL crimes. IMHO Germany was not too much but too little into the language=nationality principle!
So long as they don't deny that Alsace-Lorraine is rightfully French now, and ensure they're not misunderstood that way, I don't see any problem there. Why should France insist on anything more than Germany recognizing the current boundary now?
Just relax, the war is over, even the cold war. The peace is not endangered by the notion that Germany wasn't always evil, even less by the notion that when it was evil it was not always totally evil.
This is not what I stated.
By the laws of war, a winner is justified in taking territories away from the loser.
What I said is that claiming that the anachronic and bad faith nationalist propaganda made these annexions rightful is as wrong as very dangerous.
And the argument about the so called 30 invasions in 200 years is as anachronic and bad faith as if the french said they were justified in taking lands away from Germany because roman Gaul had been raided by germanic barbarians for centuries or because the Ottonian dynasty took away territories that belonged to the carolingians reigning in Francia occidentalis in the 10th century.
So you at least admit that all this is just forged and liar anachronic propaganda ?
So to end with this thread, I don't like when I read people in the 21st century saying that they consider that claims that had been founded on such ideology in the 19th century were rightful claims.
Snip
Not so much to justify things, but to better understand why they perhaps thought certain things and acted upon them.
Snip
Just make an effort and you may too reach the conclusion that what was said by some members of this forum and against which I reacted was that they considered that Prussia/Germany was then (not now) rightful when Prussia/Germany annexed Alsace-Lorraine.
This is not and never was about changing frontiers in the early 21st century or recognizing the current boundaries now.
This was not either about whether the prussians/germans really considered by 1870 they had a rightful claim on Alsace-Lorraine because those territories had been part of the HRE and that a majority of alsacians spoke a germanic dialect. This point is History, whatever we think about it and however some clever people like Bismarck perfectly understood that it was very dangerous going on that field.
This is about 21st century people saying that they consider Prussia/Germany were rightful in annexing these territories because Alsace-Lorraine had been part of the HRE and that a majority of alsacians spoke a germanic dialect.
One of the reasons that makes me react is that such a position is biased from the start. What also makes me react is that such a claim was based on the pangermanist ideology that was flourishing in the middle of the 19th century and that was based on totally pseudo-scientific theories deliberately forged on political purposes and used in an anachronic way.
The horrors of the 20th century did not originate from nowhere. They directly and quickly originated from the theories and opinions developed in the 19th century and widely popular in Germany. Hitler was an incult who invented nothing. When he was a child, basically all the material which he used to devise his own political program had already been developed.
All this came from the idea of a german nation being the true and pure indo-europeans, the naturally superior culture and race that should prevail over the others. When one wants to justify a political ambition of creating a german nation-State, one develops the idea that all germanic people once spoke a common original language and that they have to be re-united, then one makes in kind to teach a common language in order to recreate this mythical lost unity that actually never existed. Since one can't find the original language, one quickly reaches the conclusion that german can only be founded by blood ties.
You basically had it all developed in the second half of the 19th century. And very especially in Germany where it knew a real success, even if the german pseudo-scholars that developed this ideology and made it popular imported theories of a few foreign racists like the french Gobineau.
So to end with this thread, I don't like when I read people in the 21st century saying that they consider that claims that had been founded on such ideology in the 19th century were rightful claims.
I don't see the connection of this question to your own reasoning in this thread, let alone mine.All this is like asking : "do you think the arab, english, spanish, portuguese, french slavers that bought slaves in Africa and exploited them (often to death), were rightful ?
How do you think some people would react to such a question ?
The question should be : did those slavers consider themselves rightful ?