WW2 and the 14 Points (split from US implosion)

[CJvR]

However Germany itself would grow in power, that isn't acceptable and wouldn't have been tolerated. Not to mention that this more powerful Germany would be able to attack its neighbours far more easily (with Austria and the Sudetenland in German hands Czechoslovakia has no chance of defending itself and would be carved up at the first opportunity).

Well perhaps but having Sudetenland sure didn't do the Czechoslovakians much good now did it? The entire point is to set Europe up so that there will not be a war. Not having Sudetenland would have been much better for the Czechoslovakians if they had been spared the Nazi invasion.

Britain is still paying off WW2 debts and we won don't expect me to feel sorry for teh Germans having to pay for a war they started.

Actually Serbian anarchists and Habsburg started it and Russian mobilization made sure it would be an all out war.

But they could pay it and should have, they chose not to and wrecked their economy in the process.

They could pay it in theory by wrecking the French and British industry in the process. In reality it was impossible when the world economy collapsed.

Germany had only existed for 50 years and Bavaria at least still had an independence movement (since the Prussians forced them to join Germany) which actually attempted to break away after the war.

There was a comunist revolt there true, when have commies ever failed to try a power grab? The goal of the Bavarian SSR was naturaly to get many more SSRs to joiun it, noth fracturing Germany for the benefit of France. That Germany was only 50 years old hardly matters, the forces that united it would still be there so splitting it would gain you no more security than the monsterous reparations did.

All artificial means to keep Germany down are dependent on the political will to take action and defend those terms. That is not something that you can take for granted a year or a decade after the fact.

Austria was absorbed because the government was forced to accede to Hitler’s demands at the point of a gun, if they had the power they would have fought (Governments tend to wish to maintain themselves as the big fish in the small pond. Anyway the way you keep Germany separate is to make the Prussians take the bulk of the blame and debt, that way nobody will want to reunify and take on that burden and be associated with those evil Prussians who caused the war.

Mmmm, yeah one can clearly see from the pictures of the Ansluss how opposed the Austrians was to the notion. Stopping the Ansluss would have been easy, if the will to do so had existed anywhere. What is Prussia by the way? How do you define it? Where do you draw the line and say "this is Prussia". Do you include Posen and West Prussia in that, they are Poles but they have been Prussians longer than most Prussians.

No I don't think splitting Germany will gain you any more security than the original Versailles treaty.

Actually the war guilt clause was inserted by the American delegation and in truth that clause wasn't far off the mark.

It was? Well I assume neither the French or the British complained to loudly.:) If you consider only the war in the west then it would be fairly accurate, if you don't - well then there is plenty of blame to go around.

The best way to prevent another war is to ensure the Germans can't start it, making them even more powerful isn't the best way to do that and will probably lead to another war somewhere down the line anyway (any treaty that treats the Germans like they lost will result in anger because the Germans didn't think they had lost).

The only way to make sure that Germany would be to weak to start another war would be to kill about half of them. I will admitt that that would probably be safer than a fair peace simply intended to remove tension between Germany and it's neighbors.

The Germans knew they had lost although the army could have bleed the allies a bit more before it went down if the political will had existed. The Versailles treaty made the legend of the knife in the back very tempting.

[TheDarkling]

Well perhaps but having Sudetenland sure didn't do the Czechoslovakians much good now did it? The entire point is to set Europe up so that there will not be a war. Not having Sudetenland would have been much better for the Czechoslovakians if they had been spared the Nazi invasion.

Czechoslovakia would be an undefended small nation which contains the industrial heart of a great power (the former A-H Empire), it is just too tempting a target which is why Hitler took it.
There will also be a lot of Germans who want their traditional Prussian lands that now reside within the borders of Poland.

Actually Serbian anarchists and Habsburg started it and Russian mobilization made sure it would be an all out war.

No, A-H forced the war and they did so on the say so of Germany, A-H was the German dog and they encouraged it to bite their neighbours.

As for the Russian mobilization, they had an obligation to protect Serbia from A-H aggression.

They could pay it in theory by wrecking the French and British industry in the process. In reality it was impossible when the world economy collapsed.

But they failed to pay it even before the world economy collapsed.

There was a comunist revolt there true, when have commies ever failed to try a power grab? The goal of the Bavarian SSR was naturaly to get many more SSRs to joiun it, noth fracturing Germany for the benefit of France. That Germany was only 50 years old hardly matters, the forces that united it would still be there so splitting it would gain you no more security than the monsterous reparations did.

The forces that united it was the Prussian army which wouldn't be there, Germany would stay disunited in the short term at least which gives the allies time to regain their footing.

All artificial means to keep Germany down are dependent on the political will to take action and defend those terms. That is not something that you can take for granted a year or a decade after the fact.

No they aren't, that is the beauty of smashing Germany up. The local German politicians will be interested in keeping themselves in power and won't need allied aid to do so.

Mmmm, yeah one can clearly see from the pictures of the Ansluss how opposed the Austrians was to the notion. Stopping the Ansluss would have been easy, if the will to do so had existed anywhere. What is Prussia by the way? How do you define it? Where do you draw the line and say "this is Prussia". Do you include Posen and West Prussia in that, they are Poles but they have been Prussians longer than most Prussians.

Stopping the Anschluss would have been easy if the Austrian government had an army to take on Hitler with, the politicians had no great desire to lose their jobs (and lives) and were forced into handing control to Hitler because he threatened invasion. If the government had the power to resist they would have, the opinion of their populace be damned (and the opinion was no as overwhelmingly in favour of unification as the post take over vote would have us believe).

No I don't think splitting Germany will gain you any more security than the original Versailles treaty.

So you think somebody will be able to reunify Germany and start knocking over other nations on schedule? That would be a rather grand plan.

It was? Well I assume neither the French or the British complained to loudly. If you consider only the war in the west then it would be fairly accurate, if you don't - well then there is plenty of blame to go around.

The blame is primarily with Germany and to a lesser extent A-H however since A-H no longer existed Germany was the obvious target.

The only way to make sure that Germany would be to weak to start another war would be to kill about half of them. I will admitt that that would probably be safer than a fair peace simply intended to remove tension between Germany and it's neighbors.

No need to kill half of them simply disunite them and give the allies more time to prepare.

The Germans knew they had lost although the army could have bleed the allies a bit more before it went down if the political will had existed. The Versailles treaty made the legend of the knife in the back very tempting.

Prussian arrogance made it very tempting.

[Plekhanov]

I don't think the 14 points had a "levy one motherfucker of a war fine" in it. It had a "self-determination" point, which is what Austria got chopped up, but it doesn't explain why Germany lost Ethnically German lands in the East.

Apart from in the Polish corridor and maybe the Sudetenland, Germany lost “Ethnically German lands in the East” because they weren’t “Ethnically German lands” but areas populated by other ethnic groups which desired independence, with significant ethnic German minorities,

But they have been German for a LONG time, and thus should've been rightfully ours.
But this is a moot point, since Germany has accepted the Oder/Neiße border.

I’m a little unclear here what was “rightfully yours” the Polish corridor, the Sudetenland or all the newly created nations with German minorities? The Polish corridor and Sudetenland maybe should have been they were primarily examples of the allies attempting to create a few strong viable nations to contain Germany and also in Poland’s case act as a buffer with the USSR.

As for the newly created ethnic states in what way were they “rightfully yours”? The fact they had been conquered and dominated by ethnic Germans for quite a while as Germany unified and expanded in no way gave Germany any moral right to continue to dominate them. The whole point of the self determination clause was that ethnic groups previously dominated others would finally be free regardless of for how long they had been under the imperial rule of others.