Versailles #77: War or Shame
When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
Zack Twamley
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 21 June 2019
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
My agora friends and others are going to be in New York for a special conference on 29th June - meet Mike Duncan, Kevin Stroud, David Crowther and more! Search Intelligent Speech Conference now! Use the code WDF to get 5% off your ticket!
While the allied rejection of the Counterproposals seemed to signify that there was no going back for Germany, certain individuals within the German delegation in Paris, and the German government back in Weimar, were keen to try a few final desperate things. At the top of the list of these desperate men was Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, the German Foreign Minister and recipient of the allied terms on 7th May. BR was, incredibly enough, not just planning to reject these terms, he was also preparing for war with the allies. What was more, this German and many of his peers in the German delegation had become convinced that this was the only way to avoid the humiliation of defeat, whatever the cost may be.
So we examine here the forgotten story of Germany's planned resistance to the peace treaty, which the allies had made plain, could not be negotiated. To BR though, the apocalyptic vision of what would follow German rejection of the terms, complete with an allied invasion of German lands, soldiers in Berlin and maybe even the dissolution of the German Empire into individual German states, all this was worth it if it provided Germans with an opportunity amidst the carnage. As we will learn in this episode, BR was banking on noting less than an allied collapse in the midst of this invasion, which would enable Germans to bring the divided allies back to the negotiating table, and get a better peace. As we will also learn though, BR had it all wrong. So very wrong in fact, and the allies knew that at this point, it would have been the ultimate crime to hold back after coming this far...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, New York. How's it going? Make sure that if you are from New York or near New York or in the |
| 0:06.3 | Tri-Start area, which of course, we all know what that means, make sure you head on over to the |
| 0:10.8 | Intelligence Speech Conference on the 29th of June. Go to Intelligentspeechconference.com and get |
| 0:17.5 | 5% off your tickets by using the code WDF. |
| 0:21.9 | You'd be mad to miss out because we've got some podcasting greats attending, such as Mike Duncan, who needs no introduction, Kevin Stroud of Mr History of English, David Crowther, History of England, and many more besides. |
| 0:34.9 | Intelligent Speech is an Agora podcast network initiative |
| 0:37.7 | to try and get podcasts out into the public domain as much as possible. |
| 0:42.4 | We did it last year in November with the Sound Education Podcast Conference, |
| 0:46.7 | which was really cool because, well, first and foremost, |
| 0:51.6 | Mr. Hardcore History himself, Dan Carlin, was there. |
| 0:55.1 | And at one point, my podcast entered into his brain because Zachary Davis, the host of the podcast conference, was asking him questions, |
| 1:03.4 | and actually mentioned my question and my podcast's name, and even said, it's a really good podcast in reference to when diplomacy fails, |
| 1:10.7 | and that Dan |
| 1:11.3 | Carlin should check it out. I'm not sure if Dan Carlin has checked out my show, but if he has, |
| 1:16.8 | hello there, Dan Carlin, and I hope that you release the new episode soon enough. But yeah, |
| 1:22.1 | that's a bit of a weird segue, but you should know that podcast conferences, the more you support them, the more likely you are to see more of them in the future. |
| 1:31.1 | We all are really passionate about history podcasting, as I'm sure you are. |
| 1:35.3 | So if you want to see history podcasting succeed, if you want to make sure that history thrives, well, stick around at when diplomacy fails. |
| 1:42.1 | But if you want to go the extra mile, head on over to Intelligent Speechconference.com and buy your tickets to the show. |
| 1:50.3 | I won't be there, but hopefully next time one of these things isn't in the United States, |
| 1:54.8 | I will be. |
| 1:55.7 | Don't feel too sorry for me, though, because I'll be going to Sicily on holidays instead. |
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