Both World Wars Were Started By Some Austrian Guy Being In The Wrong Place

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Germans First Hear Peace Terms

Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, Germany’s Foreign Minister for much of the first half of 1919, pictured the year before.

May 7 1919, Versailles–The Germans had been summoned to the peace conference in late April.  They had hoped, as had originally been anticipated by all parties, that the last few months had been the Allies preparing their peace terms, and now would come the time for the actual peace negotiations.  The German delegation brought with it crates upon crates of material to back up these negotiations that they were never to have.

On May 7, the German delegation was brought to the Trianon Palace Hotel.  Clemenceau told them: “The hour has struck for the weighty settlement of oura account.  You asked us for peace.  We are disposed to grant it to you,” before outlining the major features of the peace deal: Germany would lose her colonies, parts of Silesia, and the Polish Corridor.  Danzig would become a free city, the Saar would be effectively a French protectorate, the Rhineland would be occupied for over a decade, Germany would owe a large reparations bill, the League of Nations would not include Germany among her initial members, and that the war had been “imposed upon [the Allies] by the aggression of Germany and her allies.”

The head of the German delegation, German Foreign Minister Brockdorff-Rantzau, gave an angry speech during which he insisted on remaining seated; it did not help that his interpreters did a poor job of translating his words.  In particular, he rankled at “the demand…that we shall acknowledge that we alone are guilty of having caused the war….Such a confession in my mouth would be a lie.”  His words misrepresented the treaty (which never used the word “guilt”), and had almost certainly been prepared before he had even seen the text of the treaty. Lloyd George snapped an ivory letter-opener in two during the speech; Wilson called it “the most tactless speech I have ever heard.  The Germans really are a stupid people. They always do the wrong thing.”  Balfour was more generous, saying merely that “I make it a rule never to stare at people when they are in obvious distress.”

The mood among the German delegation, and back in Germany, was that of shock and anger, especially at the Americans, whom they had hoped would spare them.  In the final weeks before the terms of the treaty were published, an American observer noted: 

The Germans have little left but Hope.  But having only that I think they have clung to it–the Hope that the Americans would do something, the Hope that the final terms would not be so severe as the Armistice indicated and so on.  Subconsciously, I think the Germans have been more optimistic than they realized….When they see the terms in cold print, there will be intense bitterness, hate and desperation.

Sources include: Gregor Dallas, 1918: War and Peace; Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919.

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