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If people know only one thing about the Treaty of Versailles, they know that it imposed heavy reparations payments on Germany.

In this episode, we look at why the Allies made these demands and whether they were as big a burden as the German government made them out to be.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Intermezzo No. 2
Composed in 1892 by Johannes Brahms. Public domain.
Performed by Markus Staab, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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After the German Revolution, the new democratic government was feeling pretty good. Woodrow Wilson had said America’s quarrel was with the Kaiser, not the German people, and they were the representatives of the German people.

They looked forward to a generous peace offer, based on the Fourteen Points. They were dreaming.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 2
Composed in 1802 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Following the abdication (or deposition) of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany was declared a republic. But what kind of republic would it be?

In a split reminiscent of Russia in 1917, the central government was in the hands of Reichstag deputies, who administered the old Imperial bureaucracy, while across the country, workers’ councils, like the Russian soviets, were taking power locally.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 1
Composed in 1800 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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With no end in sight to the fighting, the British government and the Irish Republic negotiate a compromise solution.

But the peace agreement is itself controversial in Ireland and sparks further bloodshed and a bitter legacy.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Limerick Jig”

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Over the years 1919 and 1920, the fighting between Crown forces and IRA fighters in Ireland became increasingly bitter.

“Bloody Sunday,” November 21, 1920, saw the worst violence yet, and sparked still more reprisals.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“The Wearing of the Green”
Traditional. Public domain.
Performed by Trypod. Licensed by arrangement with Pond5.com.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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In Dublin, Sinn Féin MPs, elected in the 1919 UK general election, meet to declare Irish independence.

That same say, members of the IRA attack and kill two Irish police officers and steal 168 pounds of gelignite, in an incident widely regarded as the beginning of the Irish War of Independence.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“‘Tis Not Your Gold Would Me Entice”
Traditional. Public domain.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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The US government was leaderless during the period of Woodrow Wilson’s recovery from his stroke, and even afterward, he showed signs of not thinking clearly.

Meanwhile, the prospects for Senate approval of the Treaty of Versailles evaporated in the face of Republican opposition and John Maynard Keynes’s unflattering account of Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Anchor and Star”
Composed in 1918 by John Philip Sousa. Public domain.
Performed by the United States Marine Band, directed by Col. Jason K. Fettig. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Woodrow Wilson returned from Paris in the summer of 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles, but found it more difficult than he expected to win approval from Senate Republicans.

Wilson went on a nationwide tour to “sell” the Treaty to the American public, but his travels were cut short when he suffered a stroke. Wilson’s illness put the future of the Treaty in doubt and presented the US government with an unprecedented dilemma: what to do when the President is experiencing a long-term medical impairment.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony no. 9 in E minor, “From the New World“
Composed in 1893 by Antonín Dvořák. Public domain.
Performed by the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, Barbara Schubert conducting. Used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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In addition to the First Red Scare, discussed in the previous episode, the year 1919 saw the worst racial violence in US history. Hundreds were killed.

Some attempted to pin the blame on Bolshevik agitation of African Americans, although there was no evidence of that. Also, African Americans were far more often the targets, rather than the perpetrators, of the violence. Who was agitating white Americans to violence against their African-American fellow citizens went strangely unaddressed.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“U.S. Field Artillery March”
Composed in 1917 by Edmund Gruber and John Philip Sousa. Public domain.
Performed by the United States Marine Band. Public domain recording. Source.

Goldberg Variations No. 25
Composed in 1741 by Johann Sebastian Bach. Public domain.
Performed by Shelley Katz. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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The year 1919 saw unprecedented levels of unrest and violence in the United States, as it did in many other places.

The continual outbreaks of strikes, rioting, labor unrest, and anarchist terror made it easy to believe that behind it all was a Bolshevik plot to undermine the US government.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“The Memphis Blues”
Composed in 1912 by W.C. Handy. Public domain.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.