Would members of the League of Nations or any other countries point out the harsh nature of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk when Germany would protest the onerous terms of the Treaty of Versailles?

by 585AM
DuxBelisarius

Clemenceau did; He also pointed out the Treaty of Frankfurt in 1871.

I answered a similar question a few weeks back:

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2x92cm/did_the_german_empire_have_a_similar_treaty_like/

The fact of the matter is, the Germans largely expected EVERYTHING they 'got' at Versailles; they only complained because of Article 231, and because they 'weren't involved in the negotiations'. In the end, they thought that if they could somehow make Article 231 be perceived as THE center of the Treaty, and prove Germany WASN'T solely 'guilty' of starting the war (which article 231 never says it was), then they could bring down the WHOLE Treaty.

This lead to a propaganda campaign by the Foreign Office's 'War Guilt Section', censoring, doctoring and omitting documents from publication, to create the myth of the 'slither into war': either EVERYONE was responsible, or NO ONE was! This was the dominant orthodoxy until Fritz Fischer wrote 'Griff Nach Weltmacht' (and thank God he did!); I'd argue it is STILL the dominant orthodoxy in popular discourse.

For further reading, I'd recommend Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919, Sally Marks' Myth of Reparations, Annika Mombauer's Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus, and Holger Herwig's article Clio Deceived: Patriotic Self-Censorship in Germany After the Great War. Also read the Chapters on War Aims and the Peace Treaties in David Stevenson's 1914-1918.