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The Defeat of Germany in 1918 and the European Balance of Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Gerhard L. Weinberg
Gerhard L. Weinberg
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

Fifty years ago Germany and her allies were crushed in war. The armistice and peace that followed defeat were held to be ruinous for her by many both inside and outside Germany. One might have expected Germany's removal as a major power in the European balance. Perhaps the time has come to take another look, and to examine how factors that operated to remove from the scene Germany's Austro-Hungarian ally had the opposite effect of maintaining and even strengthening Germany's position.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , September 1969 , pp. 248 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1969

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References

1. Mayer, Arno J., Wilson vs. Lenin. Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917–1918 (Meridian Books, Cleveland and New York, 1964).Google Scholar

2. The texts of the relevant secret agreements were originally published by the Soviets in November 1917. They may be found in Stieve, Friedrich, ed., Iswolski im Weltkriege. Der diplomatische Schriftwechsel Iswolskis aus den Jahren 1914–1917 (Berlin, 1926), pp. 212–15.Google Scholar

3. Brügel, Johann W., Tschechen und Deutsche, 1918–1938 (Munich, 1967).Google Scholar

4. The best treatment is still Burnett, Philip M., Reparation at the Paris Peace Conference, (2 vols., New York, 1940), especially pp. 142–57.Google Scholar See also Dickman, Fritz, “Die Kriegsschuldfrage auf der Fricdenskonferenz von Paris 1919,” Historische Zeitschrift, CXCVII (08 1963), 1–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. For summaries of the Fischer controversy, see Lynar, Ernst Wilhelm Graf, ed., Deutsche Kriegsziele 1914–1918. Eine Diskussion (Berlin, 1964),Google Scholar and the discussion at the XII. International Congress of Historical Sciences in Vienna, in Comité international des sciences historiques, Actes, V (Vienna, 1967), 717–48.Google Scholar

6. Professor Piotr S. Wandycz suggested in his commentary on this paper that still another factor in the German reaction was the product of a sense of national mission, developed in Germany before 1918, and affronted by the circumstances, terms, and repercussions of Germany's defeat.