The treaty of Versailles is considered to be too harsh because Germany was being punished as if they were the sole instigator and agressor of WW1. In reality there were deeper causes for the outbreak of WW1 which includes many different European countries.

The reparations Germany had to pay as stated in the treaty of Versailles was a infeasible amount of money. This on top of Germany having to surrender (economically important) parts of land and the ‘great depression’ led to Germany going through an incredibly punishing time for the German people.

IMO, the rise of Hitler in Germany was the result of a two pronged problem. The Treaty of Versailles was onerous in many ways...and in some respects, against German dignity as a nation. Then the Great Depression hit and while the rest of the world was trying to recover from that the country of France insisted on Germany continue it's reparations. This allowed the rise of the extremists in German society...this 'us against the world' mentality preached by the likes of Hitler.

This is usually invoked as an explanation for the ill will many Germans had towards the Allies; feeling that they were being unfairly blamed and forced to pay for a war in which the other Great Powers had all played their own role in making inevitable.

> as if they were the sole instigator and agressor of WW1

I didn't have anything to do with it.

I find it an oversimplification. Fascism and communism were on the rise in Europe anyways, ww2 was inevitable I think, in one way or another. Treaty of Versailles was just a pretext, like the stab in the back myth, trying to move blame away from extremists. Many countries suffered economically after ww2, not just Germans. Nazis would've done the same things regardless.

Thank god you didn’t…

But all kidding aside. What do you think is the reason German was so harshly punished?

Churchill's explanation was that the public sentiment in the Allied countries, and in particular in France, made it impossible for the Allied politicians and diplomats to do anything other than cut out pounds of flesh. A generation had been cut down in its prime, and the public weren't interested in nuance, only in punishment.

Whether Nazism would have risen or not if Versailles had had easier terms is one history's great "what if" stories. What is clear, however, is that even the Weimar Republic was planning for a potential sequel to the Great War. One of the provisions of Versailles, the abolition of the Germany Army's General Staff, was secretly undermined by the Weimar government. The members of the General Staff were taken out of their uniforms, dressed up as civilian civil servants, put on the government payroll, and then spent the next decade planning the next war. When Hitler rose to power, he had a German Army; the high ranking officers, and all that was needed was the time to put the flesh on the bones.

Having an army is not a crime, unless we're taking Versailles into account, so I'm not sure one should blame Weimar government for pursuing this.

The standard thinking among academics is actually different - that the Treaty of Versailles was EITHER far too harsh OR far too lenient.

They needed to either choose to not build resentment and not load up punishing reparations, OR they needed to go much much further and make it literally impossible for Germany to have rebuilt at all, probably including standing troop contingents for a a decade or so.

They instead chose the middle ground, which was the worst of both worlds.

Germany was permitted a civil defense force. It was explicitly forbidden an army offensive capabilities. The abolition of the General Staff was a critical part of that, because the senior officers in any army, the product of generations of training and experience, is something that would be extraordinarily hard to reproduce. The Allies didn't merely want to hamper Germany's ability to wage war, they wanted to actively terminate it. The Weimar government, by very quietly breaching the Treaty as regards to the General Staff, by calling them "civil servants" and then giving them the space and the time to pick up the pieces and begin planning for the next war, ultimately handed Hitler not only the expertise to wage another war, but the actual plans for waging that war.

> The reparations Germany had to pay as stated in the treaty of Versailles was a infeasible amount of money

The treaty didn't stipulate any amounts to be paid, that was from a later commission.

The amounts determined weren't onerous, and instead based on Germany's capacity to pay. A lot of it was to be paid in in-kind goods for, surprise, literally destroying the industry of Belgium and North Eastern France, looting, etc...

Scholars today no longer view the treaty as having been "onerous" or that the reparations were "infeasible". Sally Marks was one of the first historians to make those arguments, and it has been strengthened by the work of later writers such as Margaret Macmillan and Adam Tooze.

In my understanding the treaty simply did not reflect the actual longterm power balance after the war, aka, the entry of the USA had shifted the situation in favour of the entente to the point where they could temporarily enforce a much harsher treaty that was not really rooted in the actual battlefield strength of France & the UK and when the USA eventually withdrew they were simply not able to reinforce their position accordingly, resulting in the enormous revanchism in Germany being able to flourish.

Basically: the treaty was too harsh but not in terms of its content but because it was fundamentally based on a participant who, for many years, had essentially only wanted to passively profit from the war economically and had practically no serious political goals when it finally entered into it aside from securing its returns which were not a result of targeted funding but the entente dominance at sea limiting the ability of the central powers to engage in trade across the Atlantic.

I know this second part is unpopular but I think that it holds up well when we look the political developments at the time.

TLDR: the central powers were not as weak as the treaty which was enforced with the help of the USA, which resulted in the collapse of the power war system when the latter left the picture again.

PS: a harsher treaty was not possible because the USA understood that if it wanted to dismantle Germany, this would have likely lead to the former being the one who would have to ultimately become involved in an unprofitable longterm commitment to secure half of Europe against Soviet communism, which granted, is quite ironic due to the later developments, not to mention that it’s anti colonial legacy meant that it as not willing to give the remaining European colonial empires all they wanted on the continent.

I would draw a link to what happend to France after the Napoleonic wars - the US-American goal was to establish a balanced Europe, mirroring the actions of great powers roughly a century prior.

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Unfortunately, they arguably had no better choice.

France was understandably seeking the maximum reparations aso. they could and the USA obviously wanted to leave the expensive business of actively being involved in major wars / occupations to go back to being a passive profiteer and not an active participant, not to mention the Soviet threat looming in the background.

The UK fell kind of in the middle, not being as vengeful as France and not as relatively speaking, uninvolved as the USA and as a result, they all elected to compromise.

It was honestly a fairly decent outcome given the circumstances but fate ( in a non religious deterministic sense ) had other ideas.

>Versailles added a bunch of injustice layers to a bunch of places.

The Treaty of Versailles was only between Germany and the allies; it didn't involve other states, unless you're thinking of newly formed states which emerged from previous German territory, like Poland.

Many other treaties of Paris such as the treaty of Trianon and Saint Germain on Hungary and Austria were considerable harsher in comparison, their empire was dismantled and repetitions as well as demilitarisation were agreed. The money Germany was paying for the treaty of Versailles was helped by the Dawes plan where America helped Germany with its debts. This allowed Germany recover its economy in the late 1920’s, an era called the ‘golden era’ for the Weimar Republic after its turbulent early days of hyper inflation and political upheaval.

The successor states of the Austrian-Hungarian empire joined the Axis, why are you acting like they were peachy with the terms?

One of the big lies that Hitler told was that German leaders stabbed Germany in the back, and the treaty of Versailles was a betrayal of the country. This was a point of view that was very appealing in Munich , but may have had only minority appeal in Berlin or Hamburg or other cities. National Socialists were successful in winning over the nation because they were first successful in Munich. The subsequent march to power of the Nazis is unique and absolutely unpredictable - it was not fated because of the depression or because of the treaty of Versailles. It was accomplished by turning a toe-hold into a foot hold and eventually turning a fire at the Reichstag into a cause for a power grab, then consolidating power by a night of murdering potential threats etc etc etc.

Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938. Meanwhile Hungary too needed to rely on fascist Germany and Italy for trade after it too was hit hard by the depression, true it also joined the axis also due to the peace treaties but other nations such as Turkey did not join the axis also after having its empire dismantled.

The myth is not of Hitler's making, though. It was peddled by Ludendorff and others at the end of the war to deflect blame. The German public was kept unaware of the disastrous state of the army at the end of the war as well as the fact that the state finances had been run into the ground. Going all in the German government had also taken on huge debts which they only realistically could repay if the war was won and they could have France, Russia and the UK pay war indemnities. This was a failed gambit that proved to be extremely costly.

Edit: typos (thanks autocorrect).

I think the problem was sooner the way the war ended than the peace terms agreed upon. The war didn't penetrate German borders; the German military was not 'thoroughly' defeated (though, really, it was not going to put up much resistance in October 1918 given the state it was in). This meant that whilst ordinary Germans had verifiably endured great hardships during the war, it wasn't clear to them that they had actually lost the war: hence the 'stab in the back'. Contrast this with 1945, when the bitterness of defeat became incredibly clear to Germans.

This didn't make Nazism or WW2 inevitable, but it created the situation in which the Right could tell the tale of a strong, proud Germany, on the verge of victory, being fucked over by socialists hell-bent on ruining the country. Versailles was just part of this myth.

Why would they harbor resentment to treaties that gave them independence? Specifically, since you seem so confident, what in these treaties did they take issue with? What consequences did they suffer due to these treaties that made them hold a grudge for decades until joining the axis was deemed the natural thing to do?

Keynes predicted the treaty would destroy Germany's economy and usher in hyper-inflation. He then said that could lead to some sort of destabilization of Germany.

You can read your self in his The Economic Consequences of the Peace, published in December, 1919. He didn't predict Nazis. But he did predict it would cause problems.

You’re also neglecting the “War Guilt Clause” - it’s easier to see how this would’ve enraged Germany when you consider the fact that it wasn’t “just Germany” that caused World War I. All the great powers were tied up in nationalism, militarism, imperialism, etc etc.

WWII - different story. 100% Germany’s fault. But, WWI - I don’t think it’s reasonable to suggest the blame should have been laid squarely on Germany. And, a lot of Germans felt this way in the years after the war (perhaps justifiably so).

The treaty was harsh and unjust enough that the German people felt wronged and humiliated by it, and simultaneously not harsh enough to permanently cripple Germany.

David Lloyd George (British PM) said after the treaty: “We shall have to fight another war again in 25 years' time.” French general and Supreme allied commander Ferdinand Foch also said: “This is not peace, this is an armistice for 20 years."

> You’re also neglecting the “War Guilt Clause”

A misrepresentation of what it says. It was establishing the legal framework for a treaty with Germany (so yeah it's going to mention Germany), nor does it "solely blame" Germany. It in fact says "Germany and her Allies" while the other treaties with the Central Powers use the same language except with nations swapped around, for instance "Austria and her Allies" or "Hungary and her Allies".

How the myth of the War Guilt Clause has been able to stay alive for so long is a mystery. It is so easily debunked and you only need to look at the formulation of three paragraphs of the three treaties to see for yourself that the argument has no merit.

It’s more like the treaty was too easy on them to realistically weaken them, and too harsh to engender anything other then frustration. A harsher treaty would have destroyed the countries, a less one might have engendered goodwill (notably post WW2 Germany not going the way post WW1)

The treaty was apt and was probably lenient. Germans weren't the primary instigators of the war but they were very much responsible for what happened in Belgium.

http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/memoryofwar/the-rape-of-belgium-revisited/

Treaty of Versailles certainly contributed to the rise of fascism in Germany, it was not the sole cause. Rather, it was a complex interplay of various factors, including the economic crisis of the Great Depression, the failures of the Weimar Republic, and the appeal of Hitler's nationalist and anti-western message.

Another thing is no one thinks about Versailles logically, nor do the education systems ever encourage this. Compare it to Saint Germain, Trianon, Serves, Brest Litovsk, all of which are never taught in Western history classes but were arguably harsher than Versailles. Your teacher will never reveal to you that Russia LOST World War I. It's all "Germany lost the war, and they got blamed for everything." Versailles was actually quite lenient for its time. What made Versailles so difficult for the Germans to swallow is that it deprived them of their pride.

The Treaty was always just an excuse, given that Germany started to remilitarize in secret almost immediately. That was expected though, which is why France went through such lengths to surround Germany with, if not hostile powers, then at least non-subservient ones.

What really made it happen was that France, Germany, and the USSR were all run by idiots: France sat around until it was stuck with an unwinnable war, Russia helped Germany get into a position where Russia could very well have been stuck fighting a one-front war against an enemy it had lost to while fighting on two, and Hitler kept lying about his objectives, and was somehow surprised when people assumed he just wanted to conquer the entire world and reacted as such.

Imho The French wanted payback for the war and humiliation of 1870/1871 and the Brits wanted to make sure they were not being contested by a country with the potential to become more powerful than they were especially since the empire was crumbling.

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What exactly do you consider the "myth of the War Guilt Clause"?

Are you saying that the War Guilt Clause did not have an effect on German politics? If so, I'd say that is wrong. It led to the resignatiuon of the cabinet, because they were unwilling to sign the treaty with that clause in it - and I think it's important to note, that (regardless of whether Germany was actually solely or mostly responsible for the war or not) the idea of adding such a clause to a peace treaty was an innovation (caused by the immense suffering in World War I compared to prior conflicts), And it most certainly had an effect on German public opinion, especially given Clemenceau's reply to the objections of the German delegation.

The War Guilt Clause certainly isn't the root cause of the rise of nazism. But it's also not really a building block for a future peaceful Europe

You should probably look at how much of Hungary was carved off.

the treaty of versailles was exceppent propaganda to use for right wing extremists but I agree its role beyond that is usually overstated. There were plentx of right wing dictatorships at that time but only germany had this treaty so there are other factors at play

In a nutshell because the french wanted revenge for the franco prussian war

>What exactly do you consider the "myth of the War Guilt Clause"?

I consider it to be the myth that the allies solely blamed Germany for the war.

The innovation was that the allies put all the blame on the central powers which said central powers understandably might have issues with. Now, if the argument concerning the War Guilt Clause brought up in this discussion had stuck to the "the central powers were blamed for the war" interpretation all would be fine and I wouldn't complain but instead this was said:

>the “War Guilt Clause” - it’s easier to see how this would’ve enraged Germany when you consider the fact that it wasn’t “just Germany” that caused World War I.

Austria-Hungary was a double monarchy and Hungary enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy. I'm thinking of the states that truly gained independence.

Yes, this is obviously incorrect, the other central powers were blamed as well. And there was certainly enough blame to go around. However, it's not really surprising that this was contentitious (mainly for the central powers, for obvious reasons), because while it is certainly true that Austria-Hungary backed by Germany (or instigated by Germany, depending on interpretations) very much provoked the outbreak of war, it is also true that the Allied powers seemed far from opposed to the idea of fighting a war against the central powers (at least until the full horror of a large scale modern war became apparent).

And while it is technically true that the allies did not solely blame Germany in the peace treaties but included Germany's allies as well, the Allied reply to the German delegation in 1919 certainly seems to put the blame almost eclusively on Germany

Versailles is part (a big part - it fuelled German nationalists during the 20’s and 30’s) of the reason for the rise of Nazism but it should be seen in combination with a number of factors. The Weimar Republic was a weak country with a terrible constitution that had clauses built in that would make autocratic government pretty easy to install regardless of whether it was the Nazis or the Communists that got there first. This was fine during the good years when there was a degree of prosperity but the Wall Street Crash obliterated this and left the country vulnerable to extremists. The Nazis had long rejected the terms of Versailles (to be fair so had many Weimar governments who were covertly training an air force in the Soviet Union that was illegal under the terms of the treaty) and managed to convince the public that the economic crisis was in large part due to Versailles.

Worth noting that ‘rolling back’ elements of the treaty such as the reoccupation of the Rhineland, rearmament and the annexation of the Saarland helped to legitimise Hitlers government and provided it cover from any potential coup from the armed forces and the feeling of revenge against the treaty and Germanys perceived humiliation.

Incorrect. So you are just gonna ignore all the direct references to the treaty and how Hitler used the treaty to harbor resentment to of the other European powers and and galvanise support for his cause? Do you not wonder *why* Germany was hit comparatively so hard by the Great Depression? Also that isn't even true, hyperinflation was a problem long before the Great Depression, it began in 1921!

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My opinion is the Allies should have enforced loss of territory but shouldn’t have been as harsh on the economy. Another failure was the unwillingness to uphold the restrictions on rearmament of Germany.
Early on Germany and Hitler would have been unable to resist enforcement of the treaty. France and Germany dithered while the Nazis were becoming a problem.

Today Germany and France are dithering regarding Putin and China

You could say the "Spanish" Flu (it actually started in the U.S.) is also responsible. At the post WWI negotiations American President Woodrow Wilson was taking a somewhat generous position toward Germany, more in the direction of the Marshall Plan after WWII. French Prime Minister George Clemenceau took a much harsher, perhaps even vindictive, approach. The discussions were stalled, but then Wilson got the Spanish Flu and was knocked out of action, and so Clemenceau prevailed. Lots of circumstances combine...

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The better choice would have been to prop up the Weimar Republic. The government that entered WWI was gone and was replaced by a military government, which was replaced my a democratic socialist government that sued for peace. The Allies had a partner in Germany, the government that controlled Germany simultaneously threw out the military government so Germany could sue for peace and fought off a communist insurrection. How did the Allies reward this new government? By crushing it under the weight of the treaty of Versailles and later one sided agreements. They should have been propping up the Weimar government, they were team players, they were against the communists, fascists, monarchists, and old guard military supporters, all people the Allies didn't want to see in power. I would go on to say the Allies should have been subsidizing Germany's economy in the late 20s and early 30s so that fascists and communist extremists didn't gain power. A blind man could see what would happen if you take the absolute best government you can get after you defeat an enemy and then punish them for it.

You either have a treaty that is not punishing at all to avoid vengeance or a treaty that is so punishing to ensure the losers will never be able to go to war again. The problem with Versailles was that Germany was a rising nation with a strong industry and relatively large population. Treaty of Versailles did not significantly affect either. So they can still go to war and kill you except this time they will be extra motivated.

>it is also true that the Allied powers seemed far from opposed to the idea of fighting a war against the central powers

So the Allied powers wanted to fight rather than just immediately surrender when invaded?

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These comments on this post make me think I am reading an article on treaty of Versailles and its effect on germany Which is nice to see

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>By crushing it under the weight of the treaty of Versailles

They didn't.

>I would go on to say the Allies should have been subsidizing Germany's economy in the late 20s and early 30s

They did. Germany received about 35 billion marks in loans, almost all of it from the US.

The idea that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh on Germany is a myth. I'm more inclined to blame the outbreak of World War II on other factors, such as:

1. The Great Depression, basically unrelated to World War I/the Treaty of Versailles, devastated the world economy and, when economic times are tough, people turn to radical political leadership, like the Nazis (there was even clamoring for dictatorship in the United States during this time period...see the 1933 film Gabriel Over the White House, which depicts the President of the United States being possessed by an angel and becoming a "benevolent" dictator to deal with the Depression and rampant gangsterism).
2. The stab-in-the-back myth (also known as the "Big Lie"), which stated that the German military had not been defeated during World War I, only betrayed into surrendering by the Jews, Freemasons, and social democrats, was pervasive in German culture after World War I. Even social democratic German President Friedrich Ebert contributed to the odious lie by welcoming returning troops with "No enemy has vanquished you." The stab-in-the-back myth was especially promoted by Erich Ludendorff (former co-commander of the German military with Paul von Hindenburg and former co-military dictator of Germany with Hindenburg) and Adolf Hitler, who both led the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.
3. The United States' rejection of Wilsonianism after World War I meant that the United States would retreat back to the Western Hemisphere and ignore European and Middle Eastern affairs. The U.S. refused to join the League of Nations (and refuse to establish a protectorate over the new country of Armenia, meaning that that new state would be wiped off the map by Turkey) and, with Great Britain tending to its own empire, left France as the only leader of the world. The United States would learn the value of Wilsonianism with the Second World War and become a founding member of the United Nations and NATO.
4. The Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey following the "Turkish War of Independence" essentially legalized genocide. Turkey would get off the hook for its horrific genocides against the Armenians, Assyrians, and Ottoman Greeks during World War I, inspiring Adolf Hitler. Only proper punishment against Turkey could've prevented this unfortunate outcome of the "Turkish War of Independence."
5. The new democratic German government, the Weimar Republic, had somewhat weak democratic institutions and was fraught with political violence between the left and the right.

One reason for the "Treat of Versailles was too harsh" myth has to do with the "there were no bad guys in World War I" myth. In reality, the Central Powers were committing atrocities at almost every turn. Germany had its reprehensible Rape of Belgium and its use of Belgians Poles as slave labor. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Bulgaria committed genocide against the Serbs. The Ottoman Empire's nightmarish genocides against the Armenians, Assyrians, and Ottoman Greeks have already been touched on. The Allies of World War I had no such record of mass crimes against humanity. Well, Czarist Russia committed some cruel atrocities, but, by mid-1917 (with the democratic February Revolution in Russia, not to be confused with the communist October Revolution in that country), the Allies of World War I were arguably more democratic than the Allies of World War II (who had to rely on vicious dictatorships like the Soviet Union and China to do a lot of the heavy lifting).

French thought not hard enough, US/UK thought too hard. It was harsh enough to humiliate the Germans and it wasn't harsh enough to actually stop them from warring again. (not to mention it wasn't fully exercised anyways)

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They did. Germany was massively in debt to the US- which had been subsidizing the German economy even after the Great Depression started- until Hitler did the Machtergriefung and then promptly repudiated all international debts. (Technically it's more complicated, but that's basically what happened.) Germany owed 19 billion RM in 1932, over 8 billion of them borrowed from the US since 1924.

You really need to read Adam Tooze's first and best book, Wages of Destruction, a very thorough history of the German economy 1920-1945. I'd also recommend The Deluge, which is basically The US side of that 1920s international finance story.

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Did you ever see the terms Germany imposed on Russia at Brest-Litovsk?

>They didn't.

This isn't up for debate, factually the Weimar Republic failed.

>They did. Germany received about 35 billion marks in loans, almost all of it from the US.

I'm not sure if "here, you owe us even more later", counts as subsidies so much as life support. The problem was the original debt owed because of WWI, more loans would have kicked the can down the road but wouldn't have taken the struggling Weimar Republic into stability.

Recovery takes decades in the best of circumstances, original debts could have effects on the economy for decades. The Treaty of Versailles should have given everyone a clean slate and established a status quo in addition to demilitarizing all of Europe simultaneously. I realize that was unfeasible with France and Britain's colonial empires which required strong navies and armies and the threat of the Soviet Union, but that's even more of a reason to develop a common defense agreement rather than selecting "winners and losers" and then making the losers pay. We know the Treaty of Versailles was a failure, and arguing against that is arguing against history. A stronger Versailles treaty would only have accelerated Germany's road to extremism not tampered it.

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Forgive me if I’m wrong, haven’t really researched the Treaty of Versailles in a while, but wasn’t it a big factor in starting the German Depression? I mean, didn’t they owe so much money their currency was just basically decimated?

I’m referring to the same depression that happened globally originating from the Wall Street crash.

You might be mixing things up slightly. Hyperinflation in Germany happened approximately a decade earlier and was due to German economic policies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic

>Brest-Litovsk

Well the civil war was already ongoing but ultimately splitting Poland with Hitler, and before that seizure of Azerbaijan and Georgia caucuses, occupation of the Baltic countries, invasion of Ukraine, Polish-Soviet war, and invasion of Finland etc even before the invasion of the Soviet Union sounds pretty revanchist to me

There's a third prong - the Junkers ( Prussian big landowners with a longstanding , serious military culture ) based leadership class died out. Paul von Hindenburg was one of the last of them.

That led to a major power vacuum, and SFAIK, historians will use a power vacuum in explanations every time.

Ditto Russia. The enfeeblement, isolation and stubborn insistence on doubling down on absolute monarchy of Nicolas II contributed to that disaster.

Fair enough.

> Germany was being punished as if they were the sole instigator and agressor of WWI

This is the correct answer. France, Britain, and the US entered the war on the side of the nation that assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Germany was hardly at fault for supporting their ally in a war against a terrorist state.

Maybe, but the west was also too lax on enforcement. In 1936, the Nazis tested the UK and France by re-militarizing the Rhineland. Even Hitler ater admitted that had the west responded forcefully, he would've had to turn tail and retreat. In essence, it was a bluff and when the west didn't react, it emboldened him to go further.

The point is Germany had no room to squawk about Versailles given the punitive terms they laid on Russia.

This is an excellent answer! I would just add that much of the anti-Versailles sentiment remains with us from British interpretations of the treaty in the 1920s as all political parties adopted a belief that Germany had been treated harshly and developed a more francophobic mindset in the late 1920s, viewing the French as more dangerous to peace than the Germans. Versailles was never as damaging to Germany as the settlement Germany imposed on France in 1871 or on the Soviet Union in 1918. But the myth lives on…

I remembering watching a YouTube video saying something slightly different than what your saying.

It basically said that historians agree, relative to other treaties of the time, the Treaty of Versailles was pretty run of the mill.

That being said, I think it’s hard to argue against the idea that widespread suffering can cause major change. You can credit other things, sure. I still think the Treaty of Versailles deserves recognition in its role though.

Thank you! Your comment reminds me of a post-war meeting between Georges Clemenceau (arguably the greatest French statesman of all time) and David Lloyd George, where the former criticized Lloyd George for becoming increasingly anti-French, with the Briton responding "Well, was that not always our traditional policy?"

Paraphrasing Sun Tzu - Never give your opponent nothing to lose.

Thank you for using the word "squawk". My midwestern boss says it on occasion and it's just like hearing my fave song on the radio. You never expect it and it's just a delight.

The deadlines not the amount was the problem. France pushed for unrealistic deadlines that the weihmar republic couldn't keep up even when they printed so much money that ruined their economy.

Compare it to the treaty which ended the second Franco Prussian war. It was a normal peace treaty for the era

Yes, it’s a myth as false as the Stabbed In The Back theory. Germany defaulted payment of reparations anyway and received vastly more money under the Dawes plan. Versailles itself was not the issue. Problems stemmed from the fact that Germany lost the war but was not itself invaded and occupied as happened during WW2. The German government pumped its people with propaganda about how well the war was going right to the end, even though after Operation Michael they knew they would lose. As a result, Versailles and The Guilt Clause made no sense and the Nazis were eventually able to exploit this.

It wasn't harsh enough. Germany should have been occupied and de-militarized.

The Western Front of the Great War is one entirely of Germany's making. Germany attacked Belgium and France first and it was moreover Germany which pushed Austria-Hungary to present impossible demands to Serbia while telling them Russia would do nothing. The person and indeed the organization which killed Franz Ferdinand - Young Bosnia, wasn't Serbian in origin and its connections to the Serbian Black Hand was dubious and its not like the Austrians ever performed an actual investigation into it. Nonetheless, the Serbian Government tried and executed the entire organization in 1917 because the Serbian Government was just as annoyed by the Black Hand as the Austrians were.

And Keynes was wrong. German hyperinflation occurred due to gross mismanagement during the war done by the German government. Germany didn't actually pay hardly anything during the 1920s in terms of reparations but nonetheless complained of its inability to pay while receiving billions in cheap loans which saw its economy show record growth after 1924

Hyperinflation was caused by the grossly inept war time economic management so the fault of Germany. Germany was hit so hard because the German Government -deliberately- made the depression worse to get out of paying reparations

Treaty of Versailles might have been a reason for discontent but it was not the reason for Nazis coming to power, nor was Great Depression. Nazis were at first financed by German industrialists who payed for electoral campaigns and later also from abroad by very rich people and companies in the West including Henry Ford.

edit: what I mean that financing was decisive factor

So you admit that reparations were a key factor in hyperinflation and Germany's economic decline? Do you really think that massive reductions in territory and huge reparations had no effetc on why Germany experienced much worse hyperinfation prior to the depression than the other european powers?

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Extreme parties in Germany gained support when the effects of the treaty were at its worst (1923) but then dropped because of the Dawes Plan, then rose drastically after the Great Depression

The TOV played a role in Hitler’s rise to power, he promised to break it and lots of Germans liked that, encouraging them to vote for him