How fair was The Versailles Treaty?

by ThatOneArcanine

How fair was The Versailles Treaty? As in, was it fair to punish Germany as much as it did, were its terms too radical, and did each term of it have appropriate justification?

Thoctar

While "fairness" is an inherently subjective metric, this post might help provide context and a base for your own judgement.

DuxBelisarius

I've answered similar questions on this subject (one of which someone has linked below), so there should be some on my profile and inn the FAQs section.

With regards to your question:

How fair was The Versailles Treaty?

While fairness in this case might be more of a subjective question, I would say that the Treaty was "fair" based on it's contents and in proportion to German actions in WWI.

As in, was it fair to punish Germany as much as it did, were its terms too radical, and did each term of it have appropriate justification?

The territories Germany lost in the Treaty were either largely non-German, or could be justified in their removal, or both. Alsace-Lorraine had a substantial French and French speaking population, while the population as a whole was extremely ambivalent about 'unity' with Germany. This can be seen by the success of the separatist party in the provinces, and that the provincial government petitioned France for reunification at the time of the Armistice. Plus, the return of Alsace-Lorraine was promised in the 14 Points. Territories like Hultschin and Eupen-Malmedy were incredibly small, hardly significant losses. Besides, Hultschin's population was majority Czech, and a small sliver of territory was the least they could do for Belgium after it had been devastated by the war. Northern Schleswig was majority Danish, taken by force in 1864-66, while a plebiscite in 1920-21 saw a sliver of majority German territory returned to the Weimar republic. Posen was majority Polish, and actually rose up against German rule in 1918. Poland was promised access to the sea, and the "Polish Corridor" was 55% Polish and Kashubian (Western Slavs), with an 'ethnic' corridor running up to the Baltic at Gdynia. This was a small fishing village, so Danzig was made a League of Nations territory so as to give Poland proper access to the Baltic. Pre-war censuses showed that 2/3rds of Upper Silesia's population were Polish or Silesians (Western Slavs), and was only voter fraud and harassment, combined with the wish for Germany to have a viable economy, that prevented the Allies from giving almost all of Upper Silesia to the Poles. Memelland was majority Lithuanian, protestant and catholic, with the largest concentration of Germans in Memel itself, and this territory was recognized as part of Lithuania. Saarland was made a league of nations territory, and it's industry was placed at the disposal of the French, as compensation for the ruin of France's economy as a result of WWI. The Germans destroyed almost half of the mines in Briey-Longwy and dismantled factories, depriving France of much of her industrial capacity. They also left France with a 4 Billion Franc occupation debt, and hundreds of square miles of now-ruined farmland near the former frontline. For the same reasons, ie Germany's wanton destruction of French and Belgian lives and property, a demilitarized zone was established on the Rhine, and even this was limited to 1935-36, or whenever Germany paid it's reparations.

/u/Thoctar linked my answer regarding Reparations, and stance to those is similar to my stance on territorial loss and de-militarization.

Kitarn

Adding to this, French field marshal Foch famously claimed afterwards that the Versailles treaty would only be a twenty-year truce and not a definite peace. I always thought he said that because of the harsh conditions of the treaty, but I recently found out that Foch believed the treaty was not harsh enough. Was he alone in this? Or was there a faction in French politics which pushed for even harsher terms? And if so, how big was this group?