quote:

Originally posted by Allan D:
As far as the disarmament provisions the truth is not that they were too harsh but that they were never properly enforced. The Jewish Armaments Minister, Rathenau (later murdered by the Nazis) and the Army Chief, Von Seeckt, began a secret rearmament programme almost before the signature on Versailles was dry.

That was one of my points - that imposed disarmament has almost never worked. The French under Napoleon attempted to disarm Prussia - and failed. The Crimean War Allies attempted to stop Russia building a Black Sea Fleet - and failed. I don't think German rearmament could have been prevented short of a Morgenthau-style policy.

The allies got the worst of both worlds, because the public demanded a harsh peace, while being too exhausted by war to make the effort to actually enforce that harsh peace.

quote:

Originally posted by Allan D:
German expansion began not by rectifying Versailles but by annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia, areas which had never been part of the German Reich between 1871-1919 on the dubious notion that all German-speakers should belong to the same state, a claim that even Bismarck had scoffed at.

The idea of a Grossdeutschland including Austria and the Czech lands was popular among many Germans in the 19th century, even liberal democrats. The reason why Bismarck went down the Kleindeutsch route was because he wanted a Germany dominated by Prussia.

quote:

Originally posted by Allan D:
Fergusson was right to point out the mass deportation of Jews from the Soviet sector of Poland, as well as from the Soviet Union itself, to Siberia in 1940, most of whom never returned, partly to please Hitler and partly to indulge Stalin's own anti-semitism.

I quite agree with you. In fact just a week before Operation Barbarossa started Stalin was deporting the residents of the Baltic States. At a small suburban railway station in the suburbs of Riga there is a cattle truck with a plaques in Latvian, Russian and English which read “In such railroad cars, more than 16,000 residents of Latvia were deported to distant regions of the USSR on June 14, 1941. Guilty of this crime is the communist regime. Its executors were members of the state security apparatus and their supporters.” Most of the deportees never returned.

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Versailles wasn't that extreme, in fact it was positively lenient.

Lloyd George thought it too harsh. After Versailles, he remarked "we'll have to fight this war all over again in 25 years".

Was it Lloyd George? I thought it was Marshal Foch who said after the treaty-signing ceremony, with astonishing accuracy, "I fear all we have done is sign a twenty-year armistice."

Lloyd George should have known all about Versailles, as one of "The Big Three" (or "Four" if you count Orlando of Italy) he was one of its principal architects. He certainly help moderate France's demand for reparations (while at the same time ensuring Britain's fair share) but he was equally keen on the disarmarment clauses (particularly regarding naval disarmament) and the demilitarisation of the Rhineland. Incidentally, I recently read that the notorious "war guilt" clause was of American, not French, devising.

quote:

"I fear all we have done is sign a twenty-year armistice."

I'd forgotten about that. Yes Foch said this, in addition to Lloyd George's statement. Even on this issue, 20 or 25 years, the British and French couldn't agree at Versailles. :-)

best

harry A

Oh dear,oh dear. I watched last night's episode with interest to begin with, and then with disbelief as Fergusson came down hard on the racial button, when it should have been the ideological one. All of the subsequent war with the exception of the ongoing Israeli/ Palestinian conflict has been based on the American terror of communism.