It's sad to see TIK has not relented from his radical takes on economic history. He was an entertaining WWII youtuber at first, who did good work. I unsubscribed after his breakdown where he began insisting Nazis and socialists are one in the same.. sad to see he's continuing down this path.

Putting "TIK's" somewhat amusing hate boner for Keynes aside is he right about the financial burden actually being significantly exaggerated by many historical sources?

For me it's not amusing.. his radical economic views lead him to absurd claims such as Keynes being a 'proto-Nazi', among a ridiculous amount of ad hominem arguments. There are correct and incorrect things TIK says here about the treaty. TIK has a tendency to quote mine. He's keen to take just a few quotes and treat them as representative of a complex event. That misses, though, what good historians should do. A good historian doesn't look for a few quotes in primary documents to confirm their biases about a topic, they take a holistic approach, taking all possible sources for an event, weighing each source against another, and only after combining the different perspectives do they start to form a conclusion.

One of the more eye-rolling things TIK does here is diminish Keynes's role in the war as apparently no more than a conscientious objector. I suppose the implication TIK is going for was that Keynes was just some weird hippy, one who was too cowardly to fight. But.. Keynes was not even called on to serve in the army. Instead, he was requested by the government for help managing Britain's finances during the war, and shortly after the war started took up a position within the treasury. Keynes was noted for his extremely admirable performance in his role, was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath for his work, and would be sent as the financial representative for the Treasury to the Versailles peace conference.

And yes, that means Keynes wasn't a passive observer from afar of the peace conference. He was an attendee, and his writings, regardless of their contents, are more than just commentary. They are the observations of a direct observer of the events. Of course, admitting that Keynes was both respected, helped the government's war effort, and was highly involved in the Versailles proceedings would work against TIK's ad hominem here. In fact, if anything, recognizing Keynes's position would tend to support his ability to foresee such events.

As to the meat of TIK's arguments. For the "war guilt myth" section, TIK correctly argues that the Treaty of Versailles did not treat Germany as responsible for the whole of the war. Neither did Keynes. Other observers certainly did, but the quote TIK cites does not support the conclusion of this section that TIK comes to. This is the quote TIK cites from Keynes, which is the only time Keynes mentions article 231 in the entirety of his book:

This is a well and carefully drafted Article; for the President could read it as statement of admission on Germany's part of moral responsibility for bringing about the war, while the Prime Minister could explain it as an admission of financial liability for the general costs of the war.

TIK says, quote, "No Keynes, you're wrong. There was no moral responsibility or war guilt built into the treaty." I'm not sure if TIK has troubles with reading comprehension, because that's not what Keynes is saying. Keynes is talking about what people, in this case the President of the United States, can read into it. This is a diplomatic analysis. Keynes knew that people read what they want to see in text, even if it's not explicit.

TIK then rightly comments that the German government mislead its people about what the treaty says, and that a cadry of German nationalists would later come and promote the idea of war guilt. In this regard, his take on "war guilt" being a myth is correct: it was a myth that originated with German nationalists, for German nationalist, by German nationalists. From all this, TIK concludes:

So, by pretending that there was a 'war guilt clause', Keynes has helped the Nazis to justify what they did.

Not only did Keynes not propose a war guilt clause existed, Keynes would have had no way of knowing that the Nazi party would rise, that German nationalists would interpret article 231 as it did. TIK even tries to link Keynes to holocaust denial. This reading of TIK about Keynes's role in this is bad history.

Okay, onto TIK's claims about the economic effects of the treaty. TIK's arguments here are so confusing and contradictory, it's hard to find where to start. The Economic Consequences of the Peace both lays out its complaints and solutions clearly. So let's summarize that.

In Chapter 5.3 § III, "GERMANY'S CAPACITY TO PAY", Keynes explains why Germany would not be able to pay the large amounts of gold demanded. He does so by calculating current gold reserves, all external holdings of Germany, and concluding how short they are. But this, despite being the focus of TIK's argument, isn't what stands out about Keynes's argument. What stands out is how this gap would be covered. For Keynes, the problem wasn't that the accounting did not match, he wanted Germany to pay the full amount! What Keynes argued was that the terms would make it hard for Germany to have a full economic recovery. Items he mentions are how the treaty confiscated most of Germany's merchant vessels, and how Germany's balance of payment for imports and exports lied more heavily for imports. Since balance of payments flowed out of Germany in 1913, the only way to raise revenues on this would be to create a tariff, but tariffs are seen as hostile to the very nations they're raising money to pay! This is Keynes first point in the summary of his problems with the treaty:

First: if the Allies were to "nurse" the trade and industry of Germany for a period of five or ten years, supplying her with large loans, and with ample shipping, food, and raw materials during that period, building up markets for her, and deliberately applying all their resources and goodwill to making her the greatest industrial nation in Europe, if not in the world, a substantially larger sum could probably be extracted thereafter; for Germany is capable of very great productivity.

Now this may sound suspiciously fond of Germany. And indeed it is much preferable to Germany than what many wanted. But it has a logic to it. Keynes also proposes in his texts many remedies for the Treaty of Versailles, one of which includes:

Tariffs.—A Free Trade Union should be established under the auspices of the League of Nations of countries undertaking to impose no protectionist tariffs whatever against the produce of other members of the Union, Germany, Poland, the new States which formerly composed the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish Empires, and the Mandated States should be compelled to adhere to this Union for ten years, after which time adherence would be voluntary. The adherence of other States would be voluntary from the outset. But it is to be hoped that the United Kingdom, at any rate, would become an original member.

This is consistent with Keynes's other complaints about the post-war peace. For Keynes, the goal was to rebuild and integrate Europe in trade. To him, this provided the best opportunity for peace. We might recall that, after some initial harshness, this is the same tactic the US would use post-WWII to reintegrate Germany, England, Japan et al into the global economy, with great success. So, in short, Keynes was aiming for a more post-WWII style form of economic integration, and one that would allow, ironically, for Germany to actually make payment reparations.