I was at leats a little surprised to see NR both bashing Bismarck, and advocating for deliberate German dis-unification (back to its pre-1871 state.) I don't think it's obviously intended as serious per se, the article appears to primarily be guided by a desire to attack Angela Merkel and the modern German progressives, but with some good shade shown on the real OvB as well.
QuoteBismarck's Terrible Idea
By CAMERON HILDITCH
The unification of the German nation-state brought us a world of trouble.
In light of my Corner post defending cancel culture earlier this week, it's interesting to note that the German woke Left has launched a war on Otto von Bismarck, the architect of Germany's unification into a single nation-state and its first chancellor. As Katja Hoyer, writing for Unherd, notes, Bismarck is coming under increasing criticism from public figures in Germany for the imperial, expansionist nature of his statecraft, which is seen by some as culminating in certain colonial atrocities committed by Germany in Africa at the turn of the 20th century.
As a general rule, it's a sorry state of affairs when the people of a given nation turn against their own history on account of its imperfections with indignant and masochistic wrath.
But Germany is different.
If socialism (in all of its national and international permutations) tops the list of bad ideas to have emerged from the last 200 years of human history, the German nation-state is not much farther down. Before its unification in 1871, it had been a militarily, economically, and geopolitically unthreatening patchwork quilt of quaint principalities, loosely confederated by the Treaty of Verdun in the year 843. The peoples of the various principalities retained for many centuries a greater allegiance to their local prince than to the larger Holy Roman Empire of which they were a part. This fierce and obstinate attachment to local autonomy was called, rather delightfully, kleinstaaterei, or "small-statery," a phrase and an idea sure to warm the cockles of anti-authoritarian hearts everywhere.
The Holy Roman Empire collapsed in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars, leading to a mad scramble over disputed territory in central Europe. By the middle of the 19th century, Bismarck, as prime minister of Prussia, had begun to exploit this state of affairs by expanding Prussia's authority over neighboring principalities. This led eventually to the formation of the North German Confederation in 1867 and then to the establishment of the First German Reich in 1871 (the first in a particularly inauspicious trilogy, one might add).
Bismarck's Germany was born in war. Prussian victories in three successive wars of aggression against Denmark, Austria, and France in the 1860s and '70s allowed him to lay the foundation of German nationhood on the corpses of well-established neighboring nation-states, all three of whom were unlikely soon either to collapse or to forget the cost that Bismarck had exacted from them in the course of his state-building. Aggression toward the French in particular was built into German identity from the start. In his memoirs Bismarck wrote that he "had no doubt that a Franco-German war must take place before the construction of a united Germany could be realized." The terms of the eventual peace treaty with France were punitive, as France was forced to cede Alsace and Lorraine and to pay an indemnity to boot. The French would not be able to resist retribution when the shoe was on the other foot at Versailles in 1918.
The antidemocratic bureaucracy of professional rulers that so plagues both the European Union and the U.S. federal government today is often described as "Bonapartist," but in reality it was Bismarck who provided the template for how to bureaucratize a modern nation-state and insulate its rulers from the forces of democracy. The architecture of the German state was arranged in such a way as to ensure that it was technocrats drawn from the landed nobility in Prussia who ran the country, rather than representatives of the people.
We also have Bismarck and his fellow Prussians to thank for America's incurably dirigiste and ineffective progressive government education system, geared as it is more toward social engineering than to the ennobling of the human spirit. Horace Mann, the godfather of American public education, was totally enamored of the Prussian education model. When he presented it to the Massachusetts House of Representatives as a model for the American public school, it was greeted with skepticism. A committee of the state legislature described Mann's favored Prussian model as "more for the purpose of modifying the sentiments and opinions of the rising generation, according to a certain government standard, than as a mere means of diffusing elementary knowledge," which was exactly what enthused early progressives, whose vision for education in this country eventually triumphed. From Bismarck's Prussia flowed the current of modern state technocracy that eventually swelled into the deluge that would consume much of the 20th century.
The momentum of megalomania that drove Bismarck to forge the German nation-state was unabated by 1914. Kaiser Wilhelm and his court were anxious for the young German state to impress itself upon the nations of the earth and to assume a station equal to that of the powers surrounding it. Germany began a huge naval buildup, with the goal of supplanting the Royal Navy as the world's dominant sea power. The French were also aware years before the outbreak of the First World War that the Germans were planning to attack them through Belgium.
The impetus behind all of this was the fever of nationalism that seized Western European states — especially, though not exclusively, Germany — at the turn of the 20th century. Germany's well of achievements was, after all, not as deep as that of its neighbors. The French could trace their nationality back in some form to Charlemagne and the Frankish dominance of the Carolingian Empire. England could plausibly claim to be the oldest nation-state of all, having been unified in the ninth century by Alfred the Great, the mirror and the light of all Christian kings. The Germans had some catching up to do, and by 1914, they were spoiling for a fight.
It's generally thought that the Treaty of Versailles, which brought the First World War to a close, was too harsh on Germany, and that its seizure of German territory guaranteed the aggrieved reaction that catapulted the National Socialists to power during the '30s and thus allowed them to carry out their genocidal program during the '40s. I beg to differ. Versailles did not go far enough. Following the conflagration of 1914–1918, the Allied powers ought to have broken "Germany" back up into the loosely confederated principalities it had been before 1871, perhaps with the League of Nations superintending (to replace the Holy Roman Empire). Maybe then we would have been spared the Second World War, the Cold War, and today's more peaceful project of German expansion, which we call the European Union.
After all, the perfidy of the unified German nation-state is not yet a matter entirely historical. Right now, Angela Merkel appears intent on making room for Vladimir Putin at the head table of European politics. And it hasn't been that long since Merkel's Germany used the European Union to cripple Greece and consign it to an economic vassalage from which it is unlikely ever to escape. The "loans" made by German banks to "bail out" Greece following its financial meltdown a decade ago were, as everyone now recognizes, simply a way of laundering German money through Greek institutions. German banks loaned money to the Greek government so that the Greek government could pay back its debts to German bankers, as the Greek taxpayer bore the crushing burden of it all.
All of this is to say that, as squeamish as their radical impulses make me, I can't help cheering on the would-be cancelers of the Iron Chancellor. The anti-Bismarckians ought not to waver in the execution of their principles. They should go the full nine yards and cancel the German state itself, Bismarck's most lasting legacy. Bring back the principalities, bring down the EU in the process, and make kleinstaaterei great again.
I don't entirely disagree with his premise that the unification of Germany, as it specifically occurred (especially the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine) lead to a world of trouble for humanity. But I think he ignores that a disunited Germany had led to lots of wars and troubles for a thousand years, and that while it'd have been preferable to have not had two World Wars (both of which can be lineally tied to German unification), if it had been done differently a united Germany was and now that it's a fait accompli is, a better result than the old order.
#MorgenthauPlanNow!
If this leads to the revival of low German I am all for it.
There is so much bad history in that article I wouldn't know where to start.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 17, 2021, 10:34:47 AM
There is so much bad history in that article I wouldn't know where to start.
You probably need to watch yourself, that's William F. Buckley Fellow you are criticizing.
I was not aware Bismarck hadn't been turned against in the past. Was he held up as some kind of hero until recently? I guess I figured the spirit of 1848 was more of the founder of the modern German state not the Kaiserriech.
But maybe I am a radical member of the woke left.
He claims that the Franco-Prussian war was a war of Prussian aggression. For someone who, I suspect, claims to be interested in history at dinner parties, he sure doesn't seem to be much aware of the Second Empire. An Empire that ev0l Prussia helped topple...
Quote from: The Brain on June 17, 2021, 10:37:31 AM
He claims that the Franco-Prussian war was a war of Prussian aggression. For someone who, I suspect, claims to be interested in history at dinner parties, he sure doesn't seem to be much aware of the Second Empire. An Empire that ev0l Prussia helped topple...
They aggressively insulted la Grande Nation!
Btw, isn't National Review like downtown Kooksville?
Quote from: Valmy on June 17, 2021, 10:38:17 AM
Quote from: The Brain on June 17, 2021, 10:37:31 AM
He claims that the Franco-Prussian war was a war of Prussian aggression. For someone who, I suspect, claims to be interested in history at dinner parties, he sure doesn't seem to be much aware of the Second Empire. An Empire that ev0l Prussia helped topple...
They aggressively insulted la Grande Nation!
Sacre donc! :angry: :frog:
Quote from: The Brain on June 17, 2021, 10:39:22 AM
Btw, isn't National Review like downtown Kooksville?
I thought it was supposed to be this big right wing intellectual thing.
So...probably headed that way.
NR was historically the educated right. Under Rich Lowry's direction in the era of Trump, they've staked out a position in which they worry a lot about cancel culture, the woke left, attempt to build a philosophical "justification" for American nationalism centered on the English language and Judeo-Christian ideals (even though Lowry himself is not religious), while trying to maintain cred as being the "educated right" by occasionally calling out the very worst and very dumbest of the modern GOP while defending 90% of their bad behaviors.
In short they're still more grounded in reality, and have higher quality writing than Fox News, Breitbart, Daily Wire, Daily Caller, but they're probably about on par with the Wall Street Journal opinion crew (which has moved a lot more towards disrepute in the last 5 years.)
It's a bad sign for the author' credibility when he claims that Bismarck's united Germany was "the First German Reich in 1871 (the first in a particularly inauspicious trilogy, one might add)." The term "Reich" was not used in Imperial Germany anyway.
Pan-Germanism existed well before Bismarck, and the idea that, absent Bismarck, there would be no united Germany is absurd. What Bismarck did was ensure that a united Germany would have a staunchly conservative constitution (which you'd think that the National review would be applauding). It wasn't about Bismarck's "megalomania" at all. The megalomania was on the part of the Austrian and French leadership, who thought that they could crush Prussia and so avert German unification. Both declared war on Prussia, rather than the reverse.
And the idea that Germany could have been permanently divided in 1919 is equally absurd. It might have delayed WW2, but would also have made the US Congress even more unhappy and unwilling to support Britain and France when the time came for them to pay the piper (remember that the US did not sign the Versailles Treaty because US diplomats were fully aware of the stupidity of it).
Hilditch's claim that "the landed nobility in Prussia who ran the country" were "technocrats" is so absurd that I am surprised the editors of NR allowed him to keep it in the article. Germany's technocrats were largely middle-class and from the Rhineland. The Junkers were the very opposite of technocrats.
The National review lost very little credibility by publishing this article, but it did lose all that it had.
Quote from: The Brain on June 17, 2021, 10:37:31 AM
He claims that the Franco-Prussian war was a war of Prussian aggression. For someone who, I suspect, claims to be interested in history at dinner parties, he sure doesn't seem to be much aware of the Second Empire. An Empire that ev0l Prussia helped topple...
On the other hand, he believes that Frederick II's Prussia was an exemplar of a "militarily, economically, and geopolitically unthreatening" "quaint principalit[y]"
NR also has taken to letting a few of its writers spend inordinate amounts of time vaguely writing about Covid conspiracy theories. Like they aren't out there going full Facebook crazy covid conspiracy, but it's basically the same mentality under a prettied up veneer.
I found his reference to the German Empire as the "First Reich", my understanding is the "numbered Reichs" (which was a retrospective Nazi thing), considered the HRE the First Reich, the German Empire the 2nd Reich, and obviously Hitler's empire the third reich.
A little knowledge from the back of a cereal box is a dangerous thing.
No mention about Bismarck creating the first modern social/welfare state? :hmm: :D
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on June 17, 2021, 11:00:18 AM
No mention about Bismarck creating the first modern social/welfare state? :hmm: :D
That would be a factual statement, and so inappropriate for this shitpost article.
QuoteWe also have Bismarck and his fellow Prussians to thank for America's incurably dirigiste and ineffective progressive government education system, geared as it is more toward social engineering than to the ennobling of the human spirit. Horace Mann, the godfather of American public education, was totally enamored of the Prussian education model. . . .From Bismarck's Prussia flowed the current of modern state technocracy that eventually swelled into the deluge that would consume much of the 20th century.
OK I can't resist on this one. A quick google search reveals that a right-wing meme seems to have developed ascribing the "socialistic" ills of American education to Horace Mann's alleged Prussophilia. I have no idea where this absurd idea got started but its propagation relies on unwavering obliviousness to fact.
Again where the problem of where to start presents itself. Does one first address the inanity of positing Frederick William IV's Prussia as the cradle of progressivist socialism; a hotbed of cyrpto-Marxist indoctrination? Or does one begin with the simple chronology lesson: that the observations taken by Horace Mann from his 1843 visit to Prussia were unlikely to have been heavily influenced by Bismarck, who was then a gentleman farmer in his late 20s with no government experience?
Let's take Mann's 1843 report to the Mass Board on his visit to Europe. He did have many good things (and a few bad things) to say about Prussian education. These can be summarized as follows:
+ Mann praises the Prussian system of keeping kids of the same age and ability in the same classroom with a dedicated teacher instead of lumping large masses of kids together and/or giving teachers responsibility for multiple classes
+ Mann touts the fact that the Prussian schools emphasize encouraging conversation and the use of all senses instead of rote memorization
+ He praises the Prussian teachers for their active engagement of students instead of passively sitting and hearing recitations: "the power of commanding and retaining the attention of a class is held to be a sine qua non in a teacher's qualifications"
+ He cites approvingly the fact that he did not witness a single instance of physical punishment of students.
+ He strongly approves of the incorporation of musical education for both pedagogical and recreational purposes.
+ He is critical of the lack of female teachers (Mann is famous for advocating the superiority of women as primary school teachers)
+ He strongly approves of formal education and qualification of school teachers
+ He notes approvingly that Prussian education is universal and that attendance is compulsory
It is not clear what Mann's critics find objectionable here. I suppose a conservative could criticize the apparent lack of corporal punishment but somehow I don't think that critique here was supposed to denigrate 19th century Prussian schools for insufficient discipline.
Quote from: grumbler on June 17, 2021, 10:44:46 AM
It's a bad sign for the author' credibility when he claims that Bismarck's united Germany was "the First German Reich in 1871 (the first in a particularly inauspicious trilogy, one might add)." The term "Reich" was not used in Imperial Germany anyway.
Pan-Germanism existed well before Bismarck, and the idea that, absent Bismarck, there would be no united Germany is absurd. What Bismarck did was ensure that a united Germany would have a staunchly conservative constitution (which you'd think that the National review would be applauding). It wasn't about Bismarck's "megalomania" at all. The megalomania was on the part of the Austrian and French leadership, who thought that they could crush Prussia and so avert German unification. Both declared war on Prussia, rather than the reverse.
And the idea that Germany could have been permanently divided in 1919 is equally absurd. It might have delayed WW2, but would also have made the US Congress even more unhappy and unwilling to support Britain and France when the time came for them to pay the piper (remember that the US did not sign the Versailles Treaty because US diplomats were fully aware of the stupidity of it).
Hilditch's claim that "the landed nobility in Prussia who ran the country" were "technocrats" is so absurd that I am surprised the editors of NR allowed him to keep it in the article. Germany's technocrats were largely middle-class and from the Rhineland. The Junkers were the very opposite of technocrats.
The National review lost very little credibility by publishing this article, but it did lose all that it had.
For someone calling out bad history you've made an error of your own. The US certainly did sign the Treaty of Versailles - rather it was that the Senate refused to ratify it.
I don't see the difference between "ennobling the human spirit" and "social engineering"
One man's "ennobling" is another's "social engineering". They strike me as differing words one might use depending on how one feels about the ennobling going on.
It seems like "raising our children to adopt our noble values" vs "childhood indoctrination"
Quote from: Valmy on June 17, 2021, 12:08:05 PM
I don't see the difference between "ennobling the human spirit" and "social engineering"
One man's "ennobling" is another's "social engineering". They strike me as differing words one might use depending on how one feels about the ennobling going on.
It seems like "raising our children to adopt our noble values" vs "childhood indoctrination"
Right - there is not such thing as a "values free" education (and if there was one would expect a conservative to oppose it).
Ironically if the ideal is a technical focus on teaching job-relevant skills, the modern German educational system probably does that as well or better than any.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on June 17, 2021, 10:43:55 AM
NR was historically the educated right. Under Rich Lowry's direction in the era of Trump, they've staked out a position in which they worry a lot about cancel culture, the woke left, attempt to build a philosophical "justification" for American nationalism centered on the English language and Judeo-Christian ideals (even though Lowry himself is not religious), while trying to maintain cred as being the "educated right" by occasionally calling out the very worst and very dumbest of the modern GOP while defending 90% of their bad behaviors.
In short they're still more grounded in reality, and have higher quality writing than Fox News, Breitbart, Daily Wire, Daily Caller, but they're probably about on par with the Wall Street Journal opinion crew (which has moved a lot more towards disrepute in the last 5 years.)
National Review is the conservative magazine that put out an issue in early 2016 entitled "Against Trump", filled with nothing but articles about why Trump was a terrible candidate.
(https://i.insider.com/56a21e51c08a80431d8b8f42?width=750&format=jpeg&auto=webp)
Trump of course won, and then took over the hearts and minds of a significant percentage of the conservative movement. Which put the magazine into a bind, as there is only a limited audience for anti-Trump conservatives. Some of their better (and most anti-Trump) writers David French and Jonah Goldberg left to form their own thing, The Dispatch. Writing now for NR they have some full-throated Trumpists (like Victor Davis Hanson or Conrad Black) mixed with some anti-anti-Trumpists who avoid talking about Trump but focus like a laser on everything "the left" does wrong. Even writers who are more openly anti-Trump (like Kevin WIlliamson or even Rich Lowry I think) try to avoid talking about the man if they can.
Anyways... I would disagree it's trying to form any kind of coherent narrative anymore, either around American nationalism or anything else. It just presents a wide range of centre-right to hard right viewpoints, and the quality of its pieces varies greatly.
Glen Beck makes an odd anti-Trumper.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 17, 2021, 12:28:53 PM
Glen Beck makes an odd anti-Trumper.
After being quite vocally anti-Trump for a few years, he flipped and kissed the ring, and is now a staunch Trumpist.
Quote from: Barrister on June 17, 2021, 12:32:23 PM
After being quite vocally anti-Trump for a few years, he flipped and kissed the ring, and is now a staunch Trumpist.
That sounds more like the Glen Beck we know and love.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 17, 2021, 12:47:06 PM
Quote from: Barrister on June 17, 2021, 12:32:23 PM
After being quite vocally anti-Trump for a few years, he flipped and kissed the ring, and is now a staunch Trumpist.
That sounds more like the Glen Beck we know and love.
Apparently he just lost his audience, so he had to give them what they wanted.
Yes, he had no option. Definitely couldn't have just retired or kept his show small with his many, many millions.
Quote from: Barrister on June 17, 2021, 12:55:29 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 17, 2021, 12:47:06 PM
Quote from: Barrister on June 17, 2021, 12:32:23 PM
After being quite vocally anti-Trump for a few years, he flipped and kissed the ring, and is now a staunch Trumpist.
That sounds more like the Glen Beck we know and love.
Apparently he just lost his audience, so he had to give them what they wanted.
Pathetic. Bill O'Reilly used to do the same shit. He would take a stand and when his audience disagreed he would do a 180. What is even the point of listening to those guys if you know they aren't saying what they actually think?
Quote from: Valmy on June 17, 2021, 01:06:00 PM
Pathetic. Bill O'Reilly used to do the same shit. He would take a stand and when his audience disagreed he would do a 180. What is even the point of listening to those guys if you know they aren't saying what they actually think?
To have your tastes and predilections held up as the truth, to be reassured that you have a crowd with you, and as a convenient way to find out what the majority of your compatriots think and align with them when you're the odd one out.
Quote from: Barrister on June 17, 2021, 12:05:18 PM
For someone calling out bad history you've made an error of your own. The US certainly did sign the Treaty of Versailles - rather it was that the Senate refused to ratify it.
Wilson signed it under the condition of "ad referendum," meaning that the signature was not definitive until confirmed by the Senate. It merely obligated Wilson's government to seek ratification and not take actions contrary to the treaty while awaiting ratification. Only in the narrowest possible sense can it be said that "the US signed the Versailles Treaty."
Quote from: Habbaku on June 17, 2021, 01:05:29 PM
Yes, he had no option. Definitely couldn't have just retired or kept his show small with his many, many millions.
Okay, so while I read National Review fairly regularly I do not follow Glenn Beck or his operation The Blaze. By it's a company he founded and sunk many of his millions into. My understanding is it did very well for several years but has fallen on hard times. He's had to sell assets and lay off staff.
So while not feeling sorry for him I can understand why he did the flip. I'm more surprised he took a stand on principle in the first place.
The sad truth is that despite being a long-standing card carrying member of the Gaviidae family, Glenn Beck just isn't crazy enough to sustain mobilized interest from the GOP rank and file anymore. He cant compete with the Sidney Powells and the Taylor-Greenes.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 17, 2021, 10:34:47 AM
There is so much bad history in that article I wouldn't know where to start.
You hate America.
I'm in favor of, as a long term goal, to split the current nation states into regions and subsume them under a European federal government, but I feel that's not what the article suggests. :P
Quote from: grumbler on June 17, 2021, 01:18:27 PM
Quote from: Barrister on June 17, 2021, 12:05:18 PM
For someone calling out bad history you've made an error of your own. The US certainly did sign the Treaty of Versailles - rather it was that the Senate refused to ratify it.
Wilson signed it under the condition of "ad referendum," meaning that the signature was not definitive until confirmed by the Senate. It merely obligated Wilson's government to seek ratification and not take actions contrary to the treaty while awaiting ratification. Only in the narrowest possible sense can it be said that "the US signed the Versailles Treaty."
I mean "signed" in the sense that Woodrow Wilson picked up a pen and signed his name to a piece of paper entitled "Treaty of Peace with Germany (Treaty of Versailles)" on behalf of the United States.
Just for you I even tracked down a copy of the original: you can see his signature line on pp194: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043.pdf (other than Wilson it was signed by Secretary of State Robert Lansing, Tasker Bliss (retired general and Plenipotentiary at the peace talks), Henry White (basically a career diplomat), and Edward House (Wilson adviser).
You can try to argue that even though you said "signed" you meant "ratified", but that would go counter to the words you typed:
Quote from: grumblerAnd the idea that Germany could have been permanently divided in 1919 is equally absurd. It might have delayed WW2, but would also have made the US Congress even more unhappy and unwilling to support Britain and France when the time came for them to pay the piper (remember that the US did not sign the Versailles Treaty because US diplomats were fully aware of the stupidity of it).
The diplomats literally did sign it, and what's more were mostly in favour of it (which makes sense since they negotiated it). Wilson was certainly in favour if it. It was again the Senate that refused to ratify.
Edit: in fact the US has a long history by now of signing, but not ratifying, international treaties. This is a well-known distinction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_treaties_unsigned_or_unratified_by_the_United_States
OK, OK. i hereby condemn Otto von Bismarck for infecting the United States with Critical Race Theory. Despite his wooly-headed liberalism, Woodrow Wilson understood that the defense of civilization depended on crushing the Junker cultural Marxists and stopping Kaiser Wilhelm II before he could force every Belgian bathroom to force to permit entry by transsexuals pre and post surgery.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 17, 2021, 01:40:13 PM
OK, OK. i hereby condemn Otto von Bismarck for infecting the United States with Critical Race Theory. Despite his wooly-headed liberalism, Woodrow Wilson understood that the defense of civilization depended on crushing the Junker cultural Marxists and stopping Kaiser Wilhelm II before he could force every Belgian bathroom to force to permit entry by transsexuals pre and post surgery.
Bismarxsism?
Quote from: grumbler on June 17, 2021, 11:07:23 AM
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on June 17, 2021, 11:00:18 AM
No mention about Bismarck creating the first modern social/welfare state? :hmm: :D
That would be a factual statement, and so inappropriate for this shitpost article.
Well, they are not exactly known for their support of welfare as well, but it could have been used a example of a conservative, ultra-reactionary, being more social and pragmatic than the Left back then. Not interesting enough I guess.
What about the Kulturkampf then? Anti-Catholic policies which were used more often than not against certain minorities. Could be interesting for them, but factual again. :hmm:
Quote from: Barrister on June 17, 2021, 01:39:54 PM
Quote from: grumbler on June 17, 2021, 01:18:27 PM
Quote from: Barrister on June 17, 2021, 12:05:18 PM
For someone calling out bad history you've made an error of your own. The US certainly did sign the Treaty of Versailles - rather it was that the Senate refused to ratify it.
Wilson signed it under the condition of "ad referendum," meaning that the signature was not definitive until confirmed by the Senate. It merely obligated Wilson's government to seek ratification and not take actions contrary to the treaty while awaiting ratification. Only in the narrowest possible sense can it be said that "the US signed the Versailles Treaty."
I mean "signed" in the sense that Woodrow Wilson picked up a pen and signed his name to a piece of paper entitled "Treaty of Peace with Germany (Treaty of Versailles)" on behalf of the United States.
Just for you I even tracked down a copy of the original: you can see his signature line on pp194: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043.pdf (other than Wilson it was signed by Secretary of State Robert Lansing, Tasker Bliss (retired general and Plenipotentiary at the peace talks), Henry White (basically a career diplomat), and Edward House (Wilson adviser).
You can try to argue that even though you said "signed" you meant "ratified", but that would go counter to the words you typed:
Quote from: grumblerAnd the idea that Germany could have been permanently divided in 1919 is equally absurd. It might have delayed WW2, but would also have made the US Congress even more unhappy and unwilling to support Britain and France when the time came for them to pay the piper (remember that the US did not sign the Versailles Treaty because US diplomats were fully aware of the stupidity of it).
The diplomats literally did sign it, and what's more were mostly in favour of it (which makes sense since they negotiated it). Wilson was certainly in favour if it. It was again the Senate that refused to ratify.
Edit: in fact the US has a long history by now of signing, but not ratifying, international treaties. This is a well-known distinction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_treaties_unsigned_or_unratified_by_the_United_States
To add to your point BB, the reasons the Senate did not ratify has a lot to do with the internal politics of the US, including a lively conflict between the Senate and the President, rather than US diplomats being "fully aware of the stupidity" of the treaty. As you point out, the US diplomats and Wilson himself played a significant role in crafting that "stupidity".
I highly recommend to Languish MacMillan's Paris 1919 if you want the blow by blow gory details.
If you want to listen to an excellent podcast which does something similar the When Diplomacy Fails podcast did a very commendable job.
The US delegation went to Versailles to implement the Fourteen Points on which peace had been agreed. They succeeded with only one of the fourteen and failed with thirteen. Wilson himself walked out of the Versailles Conference in disgust. He did try to get the League of Nations ratified by the US Senate, which meant that he had to present all the rest of the treaty with which he (and the rest of the US delegation) disagreed. As it turned out, the mandate of the League of nations was enough to get the treaty in trouble, and Wilson eventually told the Senate Democrats to vote against the treaty's ratification.
Margaret Macmillan's Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (published in the UK as Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War) lays this all out in detail.
Quote from: grumbler on June 17, 2021, 09:31:03 PM
The US delegation went to Versailles to implement the Fourteen Points on which peace had been agreed. They succeeded with only one of the fourteen and failed with thirteen. Wilson himself walked out of the Versailles Conference in disgust. He did try to get the League of Nations ratified by the US Senate, which meant that he had to present all the rest of the treaty with which he (and the rest of the US delegation) disagreed. As it turned out, the mandate of the League of nations was enough to get the treaty in trouble, and Wilson eventually told the Senate Democrats to vote against the treaty's ratification.
Margaret Macmillan's Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (published in the UK as Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War) lays this all out in detail.
Ok well the situation was impossible. And how were these 14 points even supposed to solve the situation? And besides Wilson gave them in January of 1918, it is not like the situation had not changed since then.
France and Russia were both ruined, for awhile anyway, as great powers. France was just barely being propped up by her empire. But the US and the UK couldn't wait to GTFO of Europe and Germany was pretty much the only European Great Power still reasonably intact...I mean by the standards of the others. The only sustainable situation was for France to basically buddy up to Germany and let her run things or the UK and US were going to need to make serious military commitments neither wanted to make. France was left just kind of praying that if it got into trouble again that the UK and US would be there to help, or grasp at straws like the Little Entente. I know that what ended up happening makes this all clear but even at the time French leaders were well aware that they were much weaker in 1918 than they had been in 1914 plus they lost their ally Russia which made it feasible to go toe to to with Germany in the first place.
So what is this non-stupid treaty that could have addressed that issue? I mean if I was a French leader in 1919 I would have pulled Scheidemann aside and basically worked it out with the Germans directly. "The UK and the US are going to leave and we have Russia collapsing and the small nations of Europe bashing each other over the head, we need to figure out how to keep the peace in Europe together." But that was probably impossible in the political atmosphere of the time.
As far as the 14 points themselves how many could even be in the treaty?
"I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view."
Ok so from here to forever all diplomacy shall be done without any secrecy at all? And how was Wilson proposing on enforcing that? The Senate was going to vote to declare war every time China and Japan have a secret agreement? How exactly could this insane provision be in the treaty?
"II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants."
Ok. How exactly could this guarantee by every country in the world be done in the Treaty of Versailles? And even if it was does anybody expect countries to just stand aside while weapons and munitions and troops and war supplies are transported across the seas to their enemies? I mean yeah it is not exactly your territorial waters but pretty important for your security. Can countries just not defend themselves?
"III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance."
So we are going to abolish all tariffs in the Treaty of Versailles? Is it reasonable or intelligent to expect this to be in a peace treaty?
"IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety."
How many countries claim they are spending more than is required for their domestic safety?
"V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable government whose title is to be determined."
And how exactly would we know we did this or not? I kind of feel like the mandate system was an attempt to do this.
"VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy."
Obviously this was made to try to keep Russia in the war. By 1919 I don't think Wilson was acting with this agenda in mind. It was definitely made with early 1918 in mind. So I think it would be unfair to think the Treaty of Versailles could address this point.
"VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired."
Well this was done, was it not?
"VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all."
Well this was done, was it not?
"IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality."
This is a completely insane and delusional statement that reflects general ignorance of the situation on Italy's borders. There was no clearly recognizable lines of nationality, hell people are STILL grumpy about Tirol and Fiume. But Italy's frontiers were adjusted, so I am not sure what more could be expected.
"X. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development."
I mean they got it. For all the good it did them.
"XI. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into."
I mean the treaty restored those countries. Lots of guarantees were made. Of course there had never been "historically established lines of allegiance and nationality" which was the whole fucking problem. The Treaty of Versailles was not a magical spell.
"XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Ottoman rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees."
Well none of that shit happened, either for the Turks or for the other nationalities...so yeah that went badly. Wilson didn't get his Kurdish state, too bad for the Kurds. So yeah that sucked. I fully recognize what happened in Anatolia and the Middle East after WWI was a clusterfuck. But also not the Treaty of Versailles.
"XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant."
Ok and that was done.
"XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."
Ok and that was also done.
So besides the fumbling on the Ottoman stuff everything Wilson failed to get in the Treaty of Versailles was either insane or impossible or both. I don't see how only one provision of the fourteen points was accomplished. It seems several of them were accomplished to what seems to be a reasonable degree. What exactly was the problem?
So while Versailles was supposed to work magical spells and make an impossible situation manageable it failed to do so. And indeed probably could have been better designed in hindsight. But not abiding by the Fourteen Points is certainly not why it failed.
Besides we demanded everybody band together to protect the independence of Poland in our glorious 14 points and then when it came time to do so it was the supposedly stupid and cynical and backstabbing French and British who actually did so. Not us the nation with these high ideals who claimed to be fighting with this as a war goal in 1918.
Quote from: grumbler on June 17, 2021, 09:31:03 PM
The US delegation went to Versailles to implement the Fourteen Points on which peace had been agreed. They succeeded with only one of the fourteen and failed with thirteen. Wilson himself walked out of the Versailles Conference in disgust. He did try to get the League of Nations ratified by the US Senate, which meant that he had to present all the rest of the treaty with which he (and the rest of the US delegation) disagreed. As it turned out, the mandate of the League of nations was enough to get the treaty in trouble, and Wilson eventually told the Senate Democrats to vote against the treaty's ratification.
Margaret Macmillan's Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (published in the UK as Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War) lays this all out in detail.
So I so happen to have a copy of Margaret Macmillan's Paris 1919.
It doesn't have quite so neat a quote as "and then Wilson signed the treaty", but in the paperback edition, page 477, it makes it quite clear he was present at the signing ceremony as it recounts "Wilson was nearly pushed into a fountain". Wilson then left that night "for Le Havre and the United States".
On page 489 in the conclusion it reads:
Quote from: Margaret MacmillanThe president arrived back in Washington at midnight on July 8, 1919. A crowd of 100,000, enormous for those days, waited at the train station. Two days later he presented the Treaty of Versailles, with the League covenant at its start, to the Senate in person. "Do we dare reject it", he asked them, "and break the heart of the world"? His speech, it was generally considered, was poor.
I've read further, and see no suggestion that Wilson (who by then had had a stroke) ever invited anyone to vote against the Treaty. Nor do I see any suggestion that Wilson (or his diplomats) disagreed fundamentally with the treaty. I await any correction on this point though as I am far from an expert.
Just to remember though, your line (which I simply called an error) was
Quote from: grumblerremember that the US did not sign the Versailles Treaty because US diplomats were fully aware of the stupidity of it
Quote from: grumbler on June 17, 2021, 09:31:03 PM
The US delegation went to Versailles to implement the Fourteen Points on which peace had been agreed. They succeeded with only one of the fourteen and failed with thirteen. Wilson himself walked out of the Versailles Conference in disgust. He did try to get the League of Nations ratified by the US Senate, which meant that he had to present all the rest of the treaty with which he (and the rest of the US delegation) disagreed. As it turned out, the mandate of the League of nations was enough to get the treaty in trouble, and Wilson eventually told the Senate Democrats to vote against the treaty's ratification.
Margaret Macmillan's Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (published in the UK as Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War) lays this all out in detail.
Wilson said he would not support the treaty with the Senate reservations because he was very stubborn that treaty be ratified without the reservations.
Stating that he was against the treaty's ratification very much misunderstands what he was trying to do. He fully supported the treaty. MacMillan's very is he did not deal with this internal political issue very well and that well and that is why the treaty was not ratified. Not that US diplomats viewed the treaty as containing "stupidity" as you have suggested.
But if you can cite a page where your view is supported in her book, please let us know where it is.