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Western Civilization · Chapter 13

Versailles: Four Dials, No Safe Setting

Paris in 1919 had to answer four separate questions, and the answers pulled against each other. Move the dials and watch German grievance, German capacity and the durability of the settlement respond — then try the presets to see where the real negotiators, and their critics, would have put them.

The four questions of 1919

There is no combination that scores well on everything. That is the argument of the chapter: the peace was harsh enough to enrage Germany without being harsh enough to disable it, and it was never consistently enforced.

Try a real position

Every one of these was seriously advanced in or about 1919.

Where your settlement sits

Severity against enforcement A quadrant chart. The horizontal axis is how much the treaty takes from Germany; the vertical axis is how far the victors will go to enforce it. A marker shows your current settlement and a second marker shows the treaty as actually signed in 1919.
Chance the settlement is overturned by force
51

German grievance0
German war-making capacity retained0
Cost of enforcement to the victors0
The trap in one line
Grievance is driven by what you take. Capacity is only reduced if you are willing to police what you took. A treaty can therefore be extremely painful and militarily almost pointless at the same time — which is roughly what Germany experienced between 1919 and 1935.