“It’s not difficult to get the Germans to give up some of their land, but it’s much more difficult to break up Germany!” We must use overwhelming force to completely annihilate all resistance in Germany.
This process could take several years.
Given that the German Army still has nearly 3 million combat-ready troops, to completely annihilate them, our army would need to deploy at least 5 million troops, and be prepared to sacrifice at least 1 million!
General Douglas Haig’s words brought silence to the room.
Even French Prime Minister Clemenceau, who had the toughest stance on Germany, frowned and remained silent at this moment.
When Haig made these remarks, he looked at Foch, Pétain, and Joffre to confirm his statement.
None of the three generals objected to Haig’s claim, proving that the British were not exaggerating.
In fact, the actual difficulty may be even greater than they imagined.
With the added pressure of fighting on home soil and defending the country, no one could predict the combat effectiveness that the German Army would unleash.
It’s easy to talk big, but hard to put it into action.
Despite the French’s pronouncements about completely annihilating Germany, they themselves would not be willing to go to war with such immense resources and casualties.
Given the attitudes of Britain and the United States, it is clear that neither country is interested in completely eliminating Germany, nor would they agree to send troops.
If the French insist on doing this, they can only act alone, at most bringing along Belgium as a subordinate.
If it were 1914, the French, with gritted teeth, might actually be able to mobilize an army of 5 million men, including their homeland and colonies, to fight this war.
But now it was 1918, and after four years of fighting and suffering nearly 5 million casualties, France no longer had the capacity to mobilize such a large army.
Even if we were to mobilize such a large army by exploiting them to the fullest extent, the quality of the soldiers would certainly be extremely poor.
After all, those high-quality young men had already been swept away in previous rounds of conscription.
Since completely dismantling Germany was unrealistic, the French opted for a less ambitious approach, seeking to limit and weaken Germany’s power in other ways as much as possible.
In addition to reclaiming Alsace and Lorraine, the French also demanded the Eupen and Salmedi regions of Germany for their vassal state of Belgium.
It secured for Poland parts of West Prussia, Posen Province, East Prussia, and Upper Silesia.
In the Central European direction, under the insistence of the French, Upper Silesia and the Sudetenland region were granted to Czechoslovakia.
As for Germany’s overseas colonies, they were all naturally divided up by Allied Powers.
As a result, Germany not only lost all its colonies, but also its mainland area shrank by one-third, losing approximately 200,000 square kilometers of land and 15 million people.
But the French weren’t satisfied.
They went further, making territorial claims to the Rhineland region and demanding that troops be sent to take over Germany’s Ruhr Industrial Area, dismantle and destroy Germany’s industrial system, and deindustrialize postwar Germany.
The French had a shrewd plan: without industry, Germany would no longer be able to pose a threat to France.
Without overseas colonies and having lost a large amount of land, Germany, with its large population crammed into just over 300,000 square kilometers of land, simply could not support itself.
The French won’t even need to lift a finger; the Germans will implode on their own sooner or later!
The French people’s strong demands caused British Prime Minister Lloyd George to frown.
He felt the French were too greedy, and that ceding a portion of Germany’s territory as war reparations was perfectly acceptable.
But if Germany were truly deindustrialized and the French seized the Rhineland, then the Germans would be no different from a nation that had perished.
At that time, France will once again dominate Europe, which is something the British do not want to see.
What the British wanted was a weakened Germany that wouldn’t directly challenge British naval supremacy, but still possessed sufficient strength to contain France, rather than a completely destroyed Germany.
Therefore, the British did not agree to the French occupying the Rhineland, and even less allowed the French Army to deindustrialize Germany.
However, in order to appease the French and reduce their concerns and worries.
The British proposed demilitarizing Germany after the war.
Strictly limit their military size, keeping the German Army’s strength to no more than 100,000 men.
The German Army is not permitted to produce or equip itself with offensive weapons, including heavy artillery and tanks.
In terms of the navy, to avoid a repeat of the High Seas Fleet situation that threatened the British Empire’s maritime dominance, the German Army prohibited the production of capital battleships and submarines.
The number of destroyers, cruisers, and even torpedo boats must be strictly limited.
The Paris Peace Conference lasted for several days, and the discussions focused almost entirely on how to divide and restrict Germany, which left the Americans with little interest.
Both Britain and France are European countries and were very concerned about how to deal with Germany, which was on their doorstep, after the war.
But the United States is not in Europe, and rather than how to divide up or disintegrate Germany, they are more concerned with the new international order after the war.
As early as 1898, the United States’ industrial capacity had already surpassed that of the British Empire, making it the world’s largest industrial nation.
Seven years later, in 1905, the United States surpassed Britain in total economic output, officially becoming the world’s largest economy.
However, the United States, as the world’s largest industrial nation and largest economy, has not gained a position in the existing international order commensurate with its strength.
The current international order is still based on the colonial system established by old European countries such as Britain and France from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
These established developed countries, having started early and developed rapidly, have occupied vast territories around the world and established countless colonies.
For late-developing countries like the United States and Germany, by the time they completed their nation-building and unification and began to look towards the world, they found that countries like Britain and France had already divided up most of the world’s available land.
The colonial markets of Britain and France were only open to their own countries, making it difficult for industrial products from emerging countries such as Germany and the United States to enter these markets.
By plundering the wealth of their colonies, Britain and France continued to live very comfortably, despite their own industrial strength lagging far behind that of the United States and Germany, and firmly maintained their dominance in the existing international order.
This naturally aroused strong dissatisfaction from Germany and the United States, and breaking the existing international order became a common goal for both countries.
However, there are also differences between Germany and the United States.
Compared to Germany, which has a small land area and few and barren overseas colonies.
The United States has a much larger land area, and even if the East is developed, there is still the West to be developed.
Its domestic market is far larger than that of Germany.
Furthermore, during the Spanish-American War, the Americans drove out Spain, annexed its interests in Central America, and then, through the Monroe Doctrine, defined South America as their sphere of influence.
Their living space was much larger than that of Germany.
Thus, in this contest of endurance, Germany, with its inferior conditions, was the first to lose and became cannon fodder for the Americans.
As a potential ally of Germany, and given shared interests, the Americans should have stood with Germany and joined them in overthrowing the rule of Britain and France.
But the Americans did not do that.
Instead, they chose to side with Britain and France, who seemed to have a better chance of winning, and help them fight against Germany.
Americans dream of establishing a new international order based on economic and industrial strength, which is more in line with their own interests, from the perspective of a victor.
However, once at the negotiating table, the Americans discovered that Britain and France didn’t take them seriously at all and had no intention of conceding any benefits to the United States.
Before defeating Germany, the Americans had great value in winning over the United States, and Allied Powers made many promises to them in order to win them over.
But now that the Germans have been defeated, the United States’ value in winning over the world has rapidly declined, and it is no longer worthwhile for Britain and France to concede interests in order to win them over.
President Wilson, who traveled all the way to Paris, put forward a fourteen-point plan at the peace summit, but it received no response from either Britain or France.
Britain and France showed absolutely no interest in the American ideas of open diplomacy, national self-determination, and free trade.
If trade is free, how can they still monopolize the interests of the colonies?
If they achieve national self-determination, they won’t even be able to keep their colonies.
How can they then continue to exploit their colonies?
In their view, the Americans had ulterior motives and were trying to dismantle their colonial system in various ways.
As beneficiaries of the existing system, Britain and France naturally would not agree to give up their colonies.
Therefore, despite their significant differences on other issues, they were surprisingly united in their attitude towards the United States.
With the combined opposition of the two countries, most of the Americans’ claims were not realized.
Even the League of Nations, which they advocated for, deviated from the Americans’ original intentions and became a tool for Britain and France to dominate the world.