Versailles #80: OTD 23rd June 1919 - Ayes to the Right
When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
Zack Twamley
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2019
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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On This Day a century ago, the Germans finally accepted the unacceptable. They finally arrived at the point where they determined that enough was enough. Or, to be more accurate, they exhausted their appeals, and realised that the choice between war or shame was not much of a choice at all. They would pick shame, with several caveats. They had tried everything else - their final appeal was one requesting another 48 hours delay, which the allies refused, likely because of the events at Scapa Flow 48 hours before.
Now there was truly no going back. They would have to accept the peace treaty, warts and all, the same peace which Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau had so spurned on 7th May. This treaty was virtually unchanged, as was the allied determination to press home their considerable advantages if it proved necessary. No, the new Chancellor and his President said, they could not risk the fate of Germans by a refusal. So it was that the German assembly voted explicitly to outlaw the use of this moment for political gains in the future - a seriously significant moment which was later subsumed under Nazi propaganda. It could not be denied that the German statesmen, from virtually all parties, had assented.
The Ayes to the right were legion, and nobody could be quite sure what would happen next. First things first though, they needed to find some Germans wiling to journey to Paris and sign - this proved to be the next trying phase of the peace conference, but back in Paris, the celebrations were beginning early. After so many months of work, it was finally time to revel in the fact that it was over, and soon they would be going home...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, history friends. You're about to listen to the 80th episode of the Versa Inaiversary project, and I'm very happy that you are. |
| 0:06.9 | Thanks very much for joining me for all of these episodes. If this is your first time listening, you're going to have pretty much no idea what's going on. |
| 0:13.7 | But if you've been following us since the very beginning, I just wanted to say thanks so much for making this project possible. |
| 0:20.2 | The reason why I'm able to spend so much |
| 0:21.7 | time on projects like these is because this podcast is my job. If you weren't aware, I basically |
| 0:26.8 | make my income from this podcast. And the best way to support this income is by going over to |
| 0:32.5 | Patreon and pledging some money every month and getting some pretty sweet stuff in return. |
| 0:37.2 | Patreon.com forward slash when diplomacy fails is where you should go if you want to get an hour |
| 0:41.9 | of extra content every month and so much more goodies. |
| 0:45.5 | At the moment, while we are in the twilight era of the Versailles Anniversary Project, |
| 0:49.2 | we're also winding down our Suez Crisis Examination too. |
| 0:53.5 | But after that, from September September we're going to be |
| 0:56.5 | looking at something very exciting indeed. Poland is not yet lost. It's something that I'm really |
| 1:01.0 | looking forward to covering a project which has really never before been done and something which |
| 1:05.9 | for many people is very mysterious to them. The idea that Poland could even have been a major power is |
| 1:11.6 | seriously hard to imagine. But it's also hard to imagine how it went from being a pretty |
| 1:17.3 | powerful state in the year 1700 and 95 years later essentially disappeared from the map of Europe. |
| 1:23.6 | The story of how that happened is a really fascinating one and I cannot wait to bring it to you. |
| 1:27.6 | So if you would like to be there and ready when it lands, make sure to go and visit our Patreon page |
| 1:32.8 | and see if that story is worth $5 a month to you. |
| 1:36.6 | Maybe instead of buying that overpriced Starbucks coffee or that sandwich you didn't even really like, |
| 1:40.7 | you'll go and support this podcast instead. |
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