Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [299]
Like many of his compatriots in 1919, Brockdorff-Rantzau put his faith in the Americans. He thought that, in the long run, the United States would see that its interests, economic or political, lay with a revived Germany. The two might work together with Britain, perhaps even with France, to block Bolshevism in the east. And if the British and the Americans fell out, as they almost certainly would, the United States would see the value of having a strong Germany on its side. Like so many Germans, Brockdorff-Rantzau thought President Wilson would ensure that the peace terms were mild. After all, Germany had done as Wilson himself had suggested and become a republic. That alone showed its good faith.
Their country, most Germans believed, had surrendered on the understanding that the Fourteen Points would be the basis for the peace treaty. “The people,” reported Ellis Dresel, an American diplomat sent to Berlin, “had been led to believe that Germany had been unluckily beaten after a fine and clean fight, owing to the ruinous effect of the blockade on the home morale, and perhaps some too far reaching plans of her leaders, but that happily President Wilson could be appealed to, and would arrange a compromise peace satisfactory to Germany.” The country would undoubtedly have to pay some sort of indemnity, but nothing toward the costs of the war. It would become a member of the League of Nations. It would keep its colonies. And the principle of self-determination would work in its favor. German Austria should be allowed to decide whether to join its German cousins. German-speaking areas in West Prussia and Silesia would, of course, remain German. In Alsace-Lorraine, the predominantly German parts would also be able to vote on their future. 5
In the first months of the peace the Germans clutched the Fourteen Points like a life raft, with very little sense that their victors might not see things the same way. So many of the familiar landmarks—kaiser, army, bureaucracy—had been obliterated. That brought unsettling hopes and fears. The country was less than fifty years old; why should it continue to exist? Bavarians, as well as Rhinelanders, contemplated regaining the independence they had lost in 1870, when Germany was created. On the far left, revolutionaries dreamed of another Russian revolution and for a time, as insurrections flared up unpredictably in first one city and then another, it looked as though they might get their wish. Thomas Mann talked of the end of civilization with something close to exhilaration. Political parties across the spectrum floundered as they tried to redefine themselves. There was a widespread fear that German society was done for; the old moral standards had dissolved. There was also, perhaps understandably, a reluctance to think seriously about the future, especially the one that was being shaped in Paris. “The people at large,” according to Dresel, “are strangely apathetic on questions connected with peace. A feverish desire to forget the trouble of the moment in amusements and dissipation is everywhere noticeable. Theatres, dance halls, gambling dens, and race tracks are crowded as never before.” A distinguished German scholar remembered “the dreamland of the armistice period.”6
A few Germans made it their business to find out what was going on in Paris during the months of waiting. The Foreign Office studied the Allied press, looking for divisions among the victors. There were some direct contacts with Allies, in the negotiations over the lifting of the blockade or over the terms of the armistice. From time to time, Allied representatives talked about the larger issues. An American intelligence officer, a Colonel Arthur Conger, hinted that he was acting for a higher authority in Paris. A Harvard graduate who had specialized in classics,