There is a discussion about the Versailles Treaty. If it was to harsh or not harsh enough - so do pe

[steffen]

Nov 17, 2022 15:03:41 GMT lordroel said:

Nov 17, 2022 10:58:20 GMT steffen said:

The thing about ww1 is, it wasn´t black versus white. It was grey versus grey.
Uk and france, both less or only as democratic as germany was (the ugly truth if you remove the propaganda) bounded themself with brutal oppressive tsardom. The same country that caused 500k jewish people to "vanish" in their great retreat 1915. Jews in russia were seen as "german spies" (or what other kind of excuse was used by them) and killed. 

So, if we just talk about the evil doing of russia, the numbers of mass murderings is way higher as anything the germans did to the belgians and in northern france. PERIOD.

But we have more. The so called blockade caused the death of 500-800.000 civilians. Not soldiers. The worst thing about that, they kept it going on even after november 11.1918. So in germany people died by starvation because of what? Well, because of the brutality of the Royal Navy. 
Facts hurt pride, the Entente were as bad and criminal as the central powers, here esp. the osmans (the armenian genocide) and the austrian-hungarians. Nobody talks about how they acted in serbia, as they took it. Hint: similar to the russians treating their jewish people, lets call it "unpleasant" (modern people would call it brutal war crimes). 

I did not say that the Versailles Dictate should be leninent about germany, i just said they should act sane and fair. As i mentioned, if they take colonies, they have to REDUCE the sum they demand. Or let the germans keep it.
If they demand payment, they need to allow the germans to SELL products, not to raise high tariffs and in the same time forbid germany to raise them, too. 

German war crimes were minor compared to the ones of Great Britain, the Osmans, russians and austrian-hungarians. That is a matter of facts. They were no saints, they acted brutal, evil and - for the higher officers that was the worst, they were acting like rioters. Most killings happened in the beginning, troops belived they got attacked by belgian (or northern french) partisans... in reality 99% they go shot at by OWN forces, who were not able to find the enemy. They punished the civilians for their own "friendly fire"-syndrom. But the motivation behind it came from 1871, as the french used the partisans and paied a high price for it. That doesn´t make the german crimes any better. But numbers count. 5000 dead civilians on one side comared to 800.000, esp. most of them AFTER the fighting ended (and with germany not having anything to say, it was the Entente who delayed the results of Versailles), you do not come out of this. Basically the Entente killed civilians after they won. Period. Don´t like it? Blame the so called honorful Royal Navy, who followed the orders of the British government. 

Some people like to compare versailles with Frankfurt, 1871. But again, even if the french got defeated, they lost no single colony. They did not get any limitations of weapons, guns, size of the army. They lost a province they took 1715 from the former german areas, so at last this area was disputed. A winner taking Elsass-Lothringen is a move everybody understood. The way they treated the german people there, another crime, but war means crimes. 

But to give denmark, a neutral state - stuff? To allow votings and then, with the results doesn´t fit to do what you wanted to do AGAINST the votings? Doing this mean, you will suffer fro this treatment.

And no, WW1 was not the worst war in history, the napoleonic wars with the mad dog french destroying most of central europe was worse, in casulties relative to people living there. Still, france wasn´t reduced to some insignificant helpless country. Why? Because in that times the people had common sense. 

Common sense was lacking at Versailles. Completly. And that caused WW2. The system established in Versailles (germany needs to rent money from the US of A so the Entente could pay the US of A) was done the moment the economic crisis happened. And so Versailles caused Hitlers raise, not directly, but indirectly. At some point this "lease money to finance stuff"-Thing had to explode. Esp. with all the limitations they demanded.

steffen , reading this you are entering a Grey Zone in defending World War I Germany, my advice, do not do that, While World War I Germany might not be the same as World War II Germany, it is still not a good idea to go the route in defending it.

Hi, i do not defend ANY nation in ww1. I just brought a point, a matter of facts about the casulty rates and who killed whom. These numbers are not fake but historical facts. So what is wrong in bringing them up if one acts like the other poster did? Do you think that facts aren´t allowed if they upset people? Also, were did i support the killing of people by dumb troops who shot themself before by friendly fire and then start shooting complete innocents? Nowhere. But if one try to paint imperial germany as bad as UK (who starved 800k to death, most deaths occured POST 11.11.18) austria-hungaria (who propably killed 100k serbian civilians in their move through the country), the osmans or the russians (again, 500k jewish people living there "vanished" (aka had been killed by retreating russian forces). Every single war crime is one to much. But just because some people have no knowledge about ww1 and think "it is ww2 just 25 years earlier" it is bad to mention facts? 

I do not defend - again anybody. I just claimed, compared to 5000 killed civillians by german forces (a huge and very bad war crime) 800.000 are way more. And numbers do count in wars. That doesn´t mean i appologize the killed belgian or (often forgoten) french civilians who were shot, because german troops fired at each other and then the side that had casulties "punished" belgian civillans, and we have not talked about the "we know but still want to shoot someone"-crimes. 

Here we talk about morale high ground, the Entente, esp. the british had ZERO high ground. So to talk about peace is not to blame the defeated about "how evil" and ignore the own crimes, that had a way more body count. That is not ww2. And no, i defend nothing about it. I mention facts. If facts are "bad" because they do not show what someone wants to read, that isn´t my fault, right? Just asking, because nothing i wrote is appologizing any war partitiant in ww1. But the one who got the most unfair "treatment" post war was indeed germany. Not that i would want to live in that imperial germany, but compared to what they blamed them they were harmless and - yes, the british empire was way worse in killing enemy civillians. 

[lordroel]

Nov 21, 2022 17:17:04 GMT steffen said:

Nov 17, 2022 15:03:41 GMT lordroel said:

steffen , reading this you are entering a Grey Zone in defending World War I Germany, my advice, do not do that, While World War I Germany might not be the same as World War II Germany, it is still not a good idea to go the route in defending it.

Hi, i do not defend ANY nation in ww1. I just brought a point, a matter of facts about the casulty rates and who killed whom. These numbers are not fake but historical facts. So what is wrong in bringing them up if one acts like the other poster did? Do you think that facts aren´t allowed if they upset people? Also, were did i support the killing of people by dumb troops who shot themself before by friendly fire and then start shooting complete innocents? Nowhere. But if one try to paint imperial germany as bad as UK (who starved 800k to death, most deaths occured POST 11.11.18) austria-hungaria (who propably killed 100k serbian civilians in their move through the country), the osmans or the russians (again, 500k jewish people living there "vanished" (aka had been killed by retreating russian forces). Every single war crime is one to much. But just because some people have no knowledge about ww1 and think "it is ww2 just 25 years earlier" it is bad to mention facts? 

I do not defend - again anybody. I just claimed, compared to 5000 killed civillians by german forces (a huge and very bad war crime) 800.000 are way more. And numbers do count in wars. That doesn´t mean i appologize the killed belgian or (often forgoten) french civilians who were shot, because german troops fired at each other and then the side that had casulties "punished" belgian civillans, and we have not talked about the "we know but still want to shoot someone"-crimes. 

Here we talk about morale high ground, the Entente, esp. the british had ZERO high ground. So to talk about peace is not to blame the defeated about "how evil" and ignore the own crimes, that had a way more body count. That is not ww2. And no, i defend nothing about it. I mention facts. If facts are "bad" because they do not show what someone wants to read, that isn´t my fault, right? Just asking, because nothing i wrote is appologizing any war partitiant in ww1. But the one who got the most unfair "treatment" post war was indeed germany. Not that i would want to live in that imperial germany, but compared to what they blamed them they were harmless and - yes, the british empire was way worse in killing enemy civillians. 

Well, sorry for the late responds, seems your post slipped my notice.

First, when i ore a mod post something in their function as a mod, it is a good idea to listen, do not go against what i have said, the post i made was for a reason and the reason was that regardless of the fact defending Germany in the Great War is not allowed here, you can discuses What Ifs, you can discuses it Historical but you cannot defend them, these two reasons are enough for me to give you a time out, so you are hereby kicked for 7 days.

[simon darkshade]

It is useful to note that the mention of German war crimes in the Great War was not limited to the killing of civilians in France and Belgium under the pretext of responding to francs-tireurs, which whilst very problematic under the laws of the time was not quite on the verge of a war crime, but rather included mention of the destruction of significant swathes of France during the retreats of 1917 and 1918. Further to that can be added the Rape of Belgium, murder of civilians, pillage, unrestricted submarine warfare and the bombardments of Scarborough and Whitby; the latter two were very much contrary to established laws of war/IHL even at that stage.

However, it is a case of minimising a war crime by simply putting it down to incompetent or over exuberant soldiers shooting the odd civilian. There was a lot more on Germany's 'charge sheet'.

There was claim that 800,000 Germans died as a result of the Allied blockade and that was an absolute, incontrovertible fact. The problem is that it is far from it.

1.) The 800,000 figure comes from a study by the German Board of Health in December 1918 which claimed 763,000 deaths. There are additional claims of up to 100,000 deaths between the Armistice and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, coming from a German 1919 article and a statement from a British anti-war activist in 1919. The latter two sources are not free from bias or supported by independent evidence. It is worth noting that a subsequent 1928 study put the death toll in total at 428,000.

2.) Germany refused to surrender its merchant ships between January 1919 and 14 March 1919, as it was trying to hold them back in case the Armistice collapsed and war restarted. Following this point, American food deliveries began to arrive in April and 300,000 tons of grain and 70,000 tons of pork were allocated per month. The Allies had offered to cease the blockade in January 1919, but the Germans held out until March. The time between the initial Armistice on November 11 and January 1919 is not sufficient for drastic loss of life on the basis of subsequent scholarship.

3.) Therefore, we have some nebulous data on the Allied blockade, which was maintained by the French and Americans in addition to the British, but not the absolute slam dunk cold hard facts that Steffen referred to. We thus get into murky territory of moral equivalence that bears a passing resemblance to the Dresden situation.

No one here is upset by differing opinions or arguments. When claiming that something is an absolute incontrovertible fact and then carrying on to minimise or weasel away from actual and more direct crimes, then we enter into different territory.

No one claims that there were absolute black and white sides to World War One, but there was a good side and one that wasn't good, by both their actions and intentions. Germany was treated firmly by the Treaty of Versailles. Many thinkers and decision makers at the time thought it was too firm, with the result of slackening off from many restrictions in very short order. Whether or not this was the case is a matter of historical debate; in the process of the debate, no one is necessarily entitled to bring their own facts.

[lordroel]

Thread closed.