What would it have taken for the post-WWI peace settlement to be as long-lasting as the post-WWII peace settlement was?

[Carl Schwamberger]

... By contrast, Germany dragged its feet deliberately. Germany has actually paid many times more into the EEC/EU than it ever had to pay under Versailles. The will was simply lacking in the 1920s. ...

Something that needs to be understood in the context of interwar politics and Germany. The fiasco of the 1923 occupation of the Rhur and subsequent French military policy/doctrine was a major step in neutering the Versailles treaty. The English language histories tend to focus on German actions in the destruction of the Versailles system. That ignores how the US, Italian, & British failure to vigorously support the Franco Belgian action in 1923 was a large & destructive force in undermining the economic & political structure envisioned in 1919. The subsequent Dawes and Young Plans of 1924 & 1929 were not solutions but props to hold up the fiction of a effective ToV. The former Entente members needed to renegotiate a entire new structure post 1923 rather than cling to a failing system. Alternately they could have doubled down on enforcing the ToV and forced Germany to pay its reparations as planned. As it was they did neither & crippled along into the Depression & Conservative/ & Facist governments with little policy beyond rearmament.

[Peter89]

Hi Peter89,

You post, "The history of successful peace treaties in Europe were never built upon utter destruction, but rather on checks and balances, ie. "the concert of Europe". Perhaps, perhaps not. But remember, Germany had not itself followed this policy during the partitions of Poland. Itd biggest territorial losses at Versailles were the restitution of former Polish lands taken at that time.

The continous and reoccuring partition of Poland served the same interest as the splitup of the Habsburg Empire: there should never be a state between Germany and Russia that might resist them. Did it work well? It did not; it led to wars over and over again, it led to oppression, and not simply on the national scale, but of geopolitical scale as well.

You post, "After WW1 the peacemakers tried to annihilate the central powers, and make sure that they will never rise again, which was very much a stupid idea." I am not sure that the Slovaks, Czechs, Ruthenians, Romanians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes or Bosnians thought that the break-up of Austria-Hungary, never to rise again, was a "stupid idea", and they formed a significant majority of its population.

I think you are referring current-day countries, which are not the creations of the near-Paris treaties.

What was concieved near Paris were: Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Great Romania. Now these countries do not exist anymore.

We have Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, (Northern-)Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo (?), Czechia, Slovakia, Carpathian Ruthenia as part of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. In the past 100 years, these borders have led to ethnic conflicts with hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, robbed and raped, some of which issues persist even now, thanks to the peacemakers a 100 years ago near Paris.

The same goes with the Turks' Arab and other populations. In that particular case it might have been advisable to have gone even further and given the Kurds their own state as well!

I think it's kind of different, and that's exactly why I also think that the Kurds should have their own state.

In territorial terms, Germany got off relatively lightly, losing only 12% of its territory, in which areas Germans were in a minority. The Allies could have gone much further and, say, split Germany back into its constituent states of 1870, but they did not. Versailles was not the worst available outcome.

Ah-ha, maybe that's the difference between our point of views.
I for one, do not think that ethnic minority or majority areas are unquestionably "belong" to a nation. Ethnic composition of a certain area can change over time. Also, it is just an invitation of ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation. But first and foremost, why does anyone think that a certain nation can only flourish under their own rule? What I see in this region is the opposite; the golden age of both Czechia, Slovenia and Hungary was under Austrian / Habsburg rule, and it's also true for other parts of the Empire, like Triest or Cluj / Kolozsvár.

If it was right, the Germans had every right to push forward to the Volga, because the Wolgadeutsche lived around Stalingrad.

Germany decided early on not to co-operate with the reparations clauses of the Versailles Treaty, despite the fact that it had imposed similar penalties on France in 1871 and Romania and Russia only a couple of years before. The French thought the best to regain full freedom of action was to pay the reparations off ASAP and did so early. By contrast, Germany dragged its feet deliberately. Germany has actually paid many times more into the EEC/EU than it ever had to pay under Versailles. The will was simply lacking in the 1920s.

When Bismarck defeated the French in 1871, he did not even want to take Elsass-Lothringen, because he wanted France to make peace with the idea of the German reunification. He also opposed to have colonies. The problem with the Versailles Treaty was that it left Germany no room to breathe. Contrary to the common opinion, I think de de-armament of Germany was not as a big issue as its exclusion from Entente-dominated markets.

The French interwar policy was to strangle Germany, and the German policy after 1871 was to let France live. That's why a 40+ years peace, the golden age of European rule followed that war, and not the totalitarian states and national hatred.

You post, "What happened after WW2 was not successful because Germany was flattened, looted, raped and robbed,....." You are collating different things. The fact that Germany was flattened was a direct consequence of the war Germany had started and a key factor in impressing on Germans the fact that this time they really had lost overwhelmingly. In WWI Germany had almost entirely escaped any domestic damage. Looting, rape and robbery were never Western Allied policy and the Marshal Plan was implemented largely in their absence.

Deliberately targeting civilian population was a Western Allied policy; one that probably did not help the war effort. Not to mention the horrendous acts of the Soviets.

Don't get me wrong; I seriously think that Germany had to be defeated, and that the Nazi leadership made to stand before a court.

Had there been zero rapes, zero cities bombed to the ground and zero looting, the result would really be the same. The Germans did not need a lesson that "they were defeated big time". The political and military leadership was responsible for the idea of the "stab in the back" and its popularization. What do we see now? The Germans effectively rule the continent, but there is peace, because they are not armed and they can export. It has always been so; probably the most industrious nation of the continent with about 20-25% of its population and a way higher percentage of its economical and intellectual output cannot be cast to the backyard while its smaller, less populated and militarily weaker neighbours are flourishing. It was a wrong idea.

The peace that came into being in 1945 was simply a better peace than the ones in 1919/1920.

Even if Britain and France had shared US reconstruction theory, they simply did not have the resources to implement it, so US participation was undoubtedly vital after WWII. Perhaps if Germany had suffered the same combination of destruction, defeat, occupation, recuperation and US participation after WWI, then WWII might not have occurred.

My thoughts exactly.

I believe it's not a coincidence that Wilson has left the near-Paris treaties.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Sid Guttridge wrote: ↑14 Feb 2021 11:41
Even if Britain and France had shared US reconstruction theory, they simply did not have the resources to implement it, so US participation was undoubtedly vital after WWII. Perhaps if Germany had suffered the same combination of destruction, defeat, occupation, recuperation and US participation after WWI, then WWII might not have occurred.

I agree too, in principle. At a practical level Im skeptical the leaders, business as well as political, understood the economics of 1919 & the future 1920s well enough to execute anything like this. The late 19th Century model they were familiar with was DoA. The people who organized the post 1945 system had experience of a new and chaotic economy for 25 years & had a deeper practical and academic understanding of 20th Century economics. So much of what they had in 1945 amounted to a clean slate. Unlike in 1919 when the old system & all its baggage still dominated the landscape.

[Futurist]

If it was right, the Germans had every right to push forward to the Volga, because the Wolgadeutsche lived around Stalingrad.

On the Volga, the Germans had a territory where they were a majority, but it was surrounded by astronomically more populous Slavic-majority territory.

Also, the idea of a post-WWI alliance between a surviving Austria-Hungary and Poland in the East combined with this alliance allying with the Anglo-French in the West does sound like a rather good idea, no?

[Peter89]

If it was right, the Germans had every right to push forward to the Volga, because the Wolgadeutsche lived around Stalingrad.

On the Volga, the Germans had a territory where they were a majority, but it was surrounded by astronomically more populous Slavic-majority territory.

Also, the idea of a post-WWI alliance between a surviving Austria-Hungary and Poland in the East combined with this alliance allying with the Anglo-French in the West does sound like a rather good idea, no?

Yes, I think that could have been a better solution.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Peter89,

You post, "I think you are referring current-day countries, which are not the creations of the near-Paris treaties." No, I was referring to the peoples, as my post says.

You post, "What was concieved near Paris were: Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Great Romania. Now these countries do not exist anymore." True, for much the same reasons as Austria-Hungary doesn't exist any more. What you omit to mention is that Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Greater Romania were set up at the time with the initial support of almost all their constituent peoples except their residual minority German-, Hungarian-, Bulgarian-speaking minorities. In none of them was there ever any popular movement to restore the Austro-Hungarian Empire, even amongst their German- and Hungarian-speakers.

You post, "We have Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, (Northern-)Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo (?), Czechia, Slovakia, Carpathian Ruthenia as part of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. In the past 100 years, these borders have led to ethnic conflicts with hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, robbed and raped, some of which issues persist even now, thanks to the peacemakers a 100 years ago near Paris." In so far as this is true, it has nothing to do with the peacemakers of 100 years ago. There comes a point where these peoples have to take responsibility for their own actions, and that point came when they achieved their desired independences, either post-1918, or post-1990.

You ask, "why does anyone think that a certain nation can only flourish under their own rule?" I am not sure anyone does. But that is to miss the point. The issue here is primarily self determination. People have a right to mess up their own lives. The UK knew it would take at least a short-term economic hit when it voted for Brexit. Scotland and Catalonia know the same is likely in the initial years of any independence. Peoples have always been prepared to make some sacrifices in efforts to achieve self-determination.

You post, "If it was right, the Germans had every right to push forward to the Volga, because the Wolgadeutsche lived around Stalingrad." That is an entirely different situation. The Volga Germans were not native to the area. They were settlers introduced by the Russians under terms and conditions mutually agreed.

You post, "When Bismarck defeated the French in 1871, he did not even want to take Elsass-Lothringen....." I don't know whether this is true or not, but good intentions butter no parsnips, as they say. Germany still took both and I don't recall him resigning in protest!

Cheers,

Sid.

[sailorsam]

after WWI the allies dismembered Austria-Hungary and punished Germany.
the world went into the great depression and both areas suffered greatly and demanded better circumstance.

after WWII the allies paid to rebuild Germany (and Japan)
and they were able to prosper, as was most of the world.

perhaps if the allies had been more lenient, and especially without the economic collapse, Germany (and the others) would not have been so martial and hostile.

[Peter89]

Dear Sid,

You post, "I think you are referring current-day countries, which are not the creations of the near-Paris treaties." No, I was referring to the peoples, as my post says.

You post, "What was concieved near Paris were: Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Great Romania. Now these countries do not exist anymore." True, for much the same reasons as Austria-Hungary doesn't exist any more. What you omit to mention is that Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Greater Romania were set up at the time with the initial support of almost all their constituent peoples except their residual minority German-, Hungarian-, Bulgarian-speaking minorities. In none of them was there ever any popular movement to restore the Austro-Hungarian Empire, even amongst their German- and Hungarian-speakers.

Ethnic borders - no such thing made much sense inthe Habsburg Empire anyway - were not respected, and fictional states were created, which led to more oppression and bloodshed.

In fact, the pre-1919 states were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. After 1919, there were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. What actually changed was that instead of a big, poweful empire, there became a dozen of small, relatively impoverished states which hated their neighbours more than ever before.

The poision of narrow-minded nationalism, of which this region hasn't got rid of ever since, was a useful tool for the divide et impera policy.

You post, "We have Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, (Northern-)Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo (?), Czechia, Slovakia, Carpathian Ruthenia as part of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. In the past 100 years, these borders have led to ethnic conflicts with hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, robbed and raped, some of which issues persist even now, thanks to the peacemakers a 100 years ago near Paris." In so far as this is true, it has nothing to do with the peacemakers of 100 years ago. There comes a point where these peoples have to take responsibility for their own actions, and that point came when they achieved their desired independences, either post-1918, or post-1990.

Wait a second. The new states and borders between 1919-1945 were commanded by the political deeds of the treaties near Paris, ie. a direct consequence of them.

The whole region became occupied afterwards, and subjugated by Moscow.

Afterwards, most of the national energies came forward and led to the Yugoslav wars and the Czechslovak splitup. We are talking about event from 100 years ago, but actually the continuity exist from much, much later on. In Serbia, for example, national continuity does not even exist this very day, and the Western powers directly interfered with their national existence.

You ask, "why does anyone think that a certain nation can only flourish under their own rule?" I am not sure anyone does. But that is to miss the point. The issue here is primarily self determination. People have a right to mess up their own lives. The UK knew it would take at least a short-term economic hit when it voted for Brexit. Scotland and Catalonia know the same is likely in the initial years of any independence. Peoples have always been prepared to make some sacrifices in efforts to achieve self-determination.

And the results of that are, indeed, spectacular.

To think that Catalonian or Scottish "independence", or the "Brexit" will last, is an illusion; somewhat like the Munich Agreement or the Vienna Awards or other similar changes in international relations.

You post, "If it was right, the Germans had every right to push forward to the Volga, because the Wolgadeutsche lived around Stalingrad." That is an entirely different situation. The Volga Germans were not native to the area. They were settlers introduced by the Russians under terms and conditions mutually agreed.

Our ancestors came from somewhere. Some of them via agreements or concessions, as most of the ethnic Germans in 1940's Romania and Hungary.

A few centuries ago the European settlers came to America.

A thousand years ago Hungarian settlers came to the Carpathian basin.

Where's the point where we can call a nation "native"? Most of the Wolgadeutsche lived there for a longer time than most of the Europeans in America.

In my understanding, the right to rule a land comes from the actual benefits for the land's population. If the people are doing good under the leadership, then it's a good and lasting leadership. If they don't, then it is not. Forming of functional, competitive national states with impoverished 1-20 million nationalities is absolutely not possible, and it was clear in 1919 and it is clear now.

Kind regards,

Peter

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Peter89,

You say "fictional states were created". Which were they? Some may have been transient, but none were fictional. (The record holder must be Ruthenia, whose independence in March 1939 was so short that it merited a book entitled Republic for a Day!)

You post, "In fact, the pre-1919 states were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. After 1919, there were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. What actually changed was that instead of a big, poweful empire, there became a dozen of small, relatively impoverished states which hated their neighbours more than ever before." You miss the important point that far more people were in states of their own choosing than before and that the number of people in states not of their own choosing was far smaller. Besides, absolutely no one was advocating a return to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not even the Austrians.

You post, "The new states and borders between 1919-1945 were commanded by the political deeds of the treaties near Paris, ie. a direct consequence of them." This is surely an argument that the Versailles-related treaties did not go far enough in breaking up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not that they went too far. History seems to have proved that point.

You post, "To think that Catalonian or Scottish "independence", or the "Brexit" will last, is an illusion; somewhat like the Munich Agreement or the Vienna Awards or other similar changes in international relations." No political solutions last forever, but those based on the will of the populations concerned are likely to prove the more enduring against internal upset.

You post, "Most of the Wolgadeutsche lived there for a longer time than most of the Europeans in America." Yup, but the difference is that they arrived on terms agreed with the Russians and have not, as far as I am aware, ever expressed a national consciousness of their own, or challenged the terms of their presence. They are not, for instance, the Chechens.

You post, "In my understanding, the right to rule a land comes from the actual benefits for the land's population." That was the reasoning behind imperialism's "white man's burden" justification - to bring the benefits of civilization to poor, benighted heathens, by force if necessary. I am a child of the British Empire. I was born in it and spent most of the first ten years of my life in what remained of it (Jamaica, British Guiana, Malta, Kenya, Malaya) and later served in the Rhodesian Security Forces. However, even I can't go along with, ".....the right to rule a land comes from the actual benefits for the land's population.". Ultimately it is down to self determination, not some outsiders' estimates of what might be "best for their own good".

Cheers,

Sid.

[Peter89]

Hi Peter89,

You say "fictional states were created". Which were they? Some may have been transient, but none were fictional. (The record holder must be Ruthenia, whose independence in March 1939 was so short that it merited a book entitled Republic for a Day!)

You post, "In fact, the pre-1919 states were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. After 1919, there were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. What actually changed was that instead of a big, poweful empire, there became a dozen of small, relatively impoverished states which hated their neighbours more than ever before." You miss the important point that far more people were in states of their own choosing than before and that the number of people in states not of their own choosing was far smaller. Besides, absolutely no one was advocating a return to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not even the Austrians.

You post, "The new states and borders between 1919-1945 were commanded by the political deeds of the treaties near Paris, ie. a direct consequence of them." This is surely an argument that the Versailles-related treaties did not go far enough in breaking up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not that they went too far. History seems to have proved that point.

You post, "To think that Catalonian or Scottish "independence", or the "Brexit" will last, is an illusion; somewhat like the Munich Agreement or the Vienna Awards or other similar changes in international relations." No political solutions last forever, but those based on the will of the populations concerned are likely to prove the more enduring against internal upset.

You post, "Most of the Wolgadeutsche lived there for a longer time than most of the Europeans in America." Yup, but the difference is that they arrived on terms agreed with the Russians and have not, as far as I am aware, ever expressed a national consciousness of their own, or challenged the terms of their presence. They are not, for instance, the Chechens.

You post, "In my understanding, the right to rule a land comes from the actual benefits for the land's population." That was the reasoning behind imperialism's "white man's burden" justification - to bring the benefits of civilization to poor, benighted heathens, by force if necessary. I am a child of the British Empire. I was born in it and spent most of the first ten years of my life in what remained of it (Jamaica, British Guiana, Malta, Kenya, Malaya) and later served in the Rhodesian Security Forces. However, even I can't go along with, ".....the right to rule a land comes from the actual benefits for the land's population.". Ultimately it is down to self determination, not some outsiders' estimates of what might be "best for their own good".

Cheers,

Sid.

Hello Sid,

thanks for your answer, and I truly see your point.

Maybe its a different lesson, then.

However, your views are not in line with what happened near Paris after WW1.

Obviously, the relation between the parts of the former British Empire and the nations of the Habsburg Empire was very much different, not even relatable. The Austrians never carried a Cislaithean Burden, a mission to enlighten Bukovina.

If it was really about self determination, then first we ought to take a look about the local plebiscites that took place. Because you surely agree, that self determination must come from the people's will. Even where Hungarians were a minority, the population voted to remain, thus your idea that connects ethnicity to the people's opinion as a law, is false. See the plebiscite of Sopron in 1921.

A lot of people, like me and the better part of my family had dual or fluid identities, thus they'd favor the rule that profited them. Much like the socialist intelligentsia who fled the white terror in Hungary and went to establish the Serbian-Hungarian Baranya-Baja Republic, effectively a Yugoslav puppet state, with Hungarian and German majority.

But even if I take a look at the self-determination as a value, and, let's say, draw a line from village to village where a specific ethnicity lived as a native, majority population (and assuming that I accept that ethnicity equals opinion), the borders of the treaties near Paris were not good at all.

I also don't know whether such thing can be done at all. When does the opinion shift enough to ask the people again?

Does it not invite oppression and forced assimilation?

How about gerrymandering? The former Habsburg Empire, and the Hungarian part of it had a slight Hungarian / German majority. If Germany takes France, the country will be still a majority German state.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Peter89,

You make many valid points.

This is clearly not a science!

Cheers,

Sid.

[Futurist]

Hi Peter89,

You say "fictional states were created". Which were they? Some may have been transient, but none were fictional. (The record holder must be Ruthenia, whose independence in March 1939 was so short that it merited a book entitled Republic for a Day!)

You post, "In fact, the pre-1919 states were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. After 1919, there were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. What actually changed was that instead of a big, poweful empire, there became a dozen of small, relatively impoverished states which hated their neighbours more than ever before." You miss the important point that far more people were in states of their own choosing than before and that the number of people in states not of their own choosing was far smaller. Besides, absolutely no one was advocating a return to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not even the Austrians.

You post, "The new states and borders between 1919-1945 were commanded by the political deeds of the treaties near Paris, ie. a direct consequence of them." This is surely an argument that the Versailles-related treaties did not go far enough in breaking up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not that they went too far. History seems to have proved that point.

You post, "To think that Catalonian or Scottish "independence", or the "Brexit" will last, is an illusion; somewhat like the Munich Agreement or the Vienna Awards or other similar changes in international relations." No political solutions last forever, but those based on the will of the populations concerned are likely to prove the more enduring against internal upset.

You post, "Most of the Wolgadeutsche lived there for a longer time than most of the Europeans in America." Yup, but the difference is that they arrived on terms agreed with the Russians and have not, as far as I am aware, ever expressed a national consciousness of their own, or challenged the terms of their presence. They are not, for instance, the Chechens.

You post, "In my understanding, the right to rule a land comes from the actual benefits for the land's population." That was the reasoning behind imperialism's "white man's burden" justification - to bring the benefits of civilization to poor, benighted heathens, by force if necessary. I am a child of the British Empire. I was born in it and spent most of the first ten years of my life in what remained of it (Jamaica, British Guiana, Malta, Kenya, Malaya) and later served in the Rhodesian Security Forces. However, even I can't go along with, ".....the right to rule a land comes from the actual benefits for the land's population.". Ultimately it is down to self determination, not some outsiders' estimates of what might be "best for their own good".

Cheers,

Sid.

Hello Sid,

thanks for your answer, and I truly see your point.

Maybe its a different lesson, then.

However, your views are not in line with what happened near Paris after WW1.

Obviously, the relation between the parts of the former British Empire and the nations of the Habsburg Empire was very much different, not even relatable. The Austrians never carried a Cislaithean Burden, a mission to enlighten Bukovina.

If it was really about self determination, then first we ought to take a look about the local plebiscites that took place. Because you surely agree, that self determination must come from the people's will. Even where Hungarians were a minority, the population voted to remain, thus your idea that connects ethnicity to the people's opinion as a law, is false. See the plebiscite of Sopron in 1921.

A lot of people, like me and the better part of my family had dual or fluid identities, thus they'd favor the rule that profited them. Much like the socialist intelligentsia who fled the white terror in Hungary and went to establish the Serbian-Hungarian Baranya-Baja Republic, effectively a Yugoslav puppet state, with Hungarian and German majority.

But even if I take a look at the self-determination as a value, and, let's say, draw a line from village to village where a specific ethnicity lived as a native, majority population (and assuming that I accept that ethnicity equals opinion), the borders of the treaties near Paris were not good at all.

I also don't know whether such thing can be done at all. When does the opinion shift enough to ask the people again?

Does it not invite oppression and forced assimilation?

How about gerrymandering? The former Habsburg Empire, and the Hungarian part of it had a slight Hungarian / German majority. If Germany takes France, the country will be still a majority German state.

There were some plebiscites after the end of World War I, but when countries such as France were unwilling to hold a plebiscite in Alsace-Lorraine, it was sort of hard to, for instance, expect the Poles to agree to hold a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor or to expect the Romanians to agree to hold a plebiscite in Transylvania. This isn't to say that more plebiscites would not have been a good idea--simply that some countries would have felt that as the winners of World War I, they should be entitled to more territory than they are guaranteed to win by plebiscite. Else, all of their extremely massive sacrifices as a result of this war would have been more in vain.

[Futurist]

Hi Peter89,

You say "fictional states were created". Which were they? Some may have been transient, but none were fictional. (The record holder must be Ruthenia, whose independence in March 1939 was so short that it merited a book entitled Republic for a Day!)

The only reason that Ruthenia didn't last is because Hungary swiftly conquered it!

You post, "In fact, the pre-1919 states were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. After 1919, there were multiethnic states with considerable amount of oppression. What actually changed was that instead of a big, poweful empire, there became a dozen of small, relatively impoverished states which hated their neighbours more than ever before." You miss the important point that far more people were in states of their own choosing than before and that the number of people in states not of their own choosing was far smaller. Besides, absolutely no one was advocating a return to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not even the Austrians.

Yep, excellent point!

You post, "The new states and borders between 1919-1945 were commanded by the political deeds of the treaties near Paris, ie. a direct consequence of them." This is surely an argument that the Versailles-related treaties did not go far enough in breaking up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not that they went too far. History seems to have proved that point.

Smaller states would have been more problematic in the interwar era since larger states tended to harbor aggressive designs on their neighbors more actively in the interwar era than in the post-World War II era. For instance, an independent Slovenia and Croatia would be MUCH more vulnerable to both German and Italian pressure in the interwar era than if they would have remained within Yugoslavia.

You post, "To think that Catalonian or Scottish "independence", or the "Brexit" will last, is an illusion; somewhat like the Munich Agreement or the Vienna Awards or other similar changes in international relations." No political solutions last forever, but those based on the will of the populations concerned are likely to prove the more enduring against internal upset.

Yep, absolutely correct--which is why national self-determination proved such a popular and enduring concept over the last 100 years.

You post, "Most of the Wolgadeutsche lived there for a longer time than most of the Europeans in America." Yup, but the difference is that they arrived on terms agreed with the Russians and have not, as far as I am aware, ever expressed a national consciousness of their own, or challenged the terms of their presence. They are not, for instance, the Chechens.

There's also the fact that for Germany to actually get to the Volga Germans, they would have to annex Slavic-majority territories that contain astronomically more people than the Volga Germans themselves make up. It's not like the Volga German territories are right next to Germany, after all! This isn't Crimea, which was of course right next to Russia.

You post, "In my understanding, the right to rule a land comes from the actual benefits for the land's population." That was the reasoning behind imperialism's "white man's burden" justification - to bring the benefits of civilization to poor, benighted heathens, by force if necessary. I am a child of the British Empire. I was born in it and spent most of the first ten years of my life in what remained of it (Jamaica, British Guiana, Malta, Kenya, Malaya) and later served in the Rhodesian Security Forces. However, even I can't go along with, ".....the right to rule a land comes from the actual benefits for the land's population.". Ultimately it is down to self determination, not some outsiders' estimates of what might be "best for their own good".

Agreed. Though to be fair one could distinguish Austria-Hungary from these cases by arguing that Austria-Hungary actually granted citizenship to all of its colonized subjects whereas Britain didn't.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Peter89]

Hi Peter89,

You make many valid points.

This is clearly not a science!

Cheers,

Sid.

Indeed it isn't, and your argument that my opinion and thesis (about what would be good for the Central European nations) was and is against the majority's will, is true and decisive. Ultimately, your main line of thought is what determined the history, and no armchair-philosophy of mine would change that. Or the future, for that matter.

Respectfully yours,

Peter

[Peter89]

Hi Peter89,

You say "fictional states were created". Which were they? Some may have been transient, but none were fictional. (The record holder must be Ruthenia, whose independence in March 1939 was so short that it merited a book entitled Republic for a Day!)

The only reason that Ruthenia didn't last is because Hungary swiftly conquered it!

No, not really.

"Ruthenia" was a fragment. Its borders with Hungary were not belonging to it in any ethnographic or cultural way (towns like Beregszász or Nagyszőlős).

They had little to no commonality with the Ukranians or the Czech. They had some commonality with the Slovaks, though.

They also had no natural "self-identity" or "self-determination"; I guess, one must accept that not every fragment of ethnicity or territory had its own national state goals in the region. For example, the csángó / Csango minority in the Romanian Old Kingdom (Moldavia) had no national state aspirations; they just wanted to exist under Romanian rule (as long as it allowed them the Catholic faith), and in peace with their neighbours.