WesWorld

[SIZE=3]Whereas[/SIZE] the disarmament of Germany under the Treaty of Versailles, Part V, was intended to be the first step in global disarmament;

[SIZE=3]Whereas[/SIZE] the world has thus far failed to reduce the size or quality of armed forces employed on land, at sea, or in the air;

[SIZE=3]Whereas[/SIZE] Germany has unfailingly honoured the Treaty of Versailles for over five years;

[SIZE=3]Whereas[/SIZE] Germany has successfully adopted a democratic form of government and normalized relationships with its neighbours, including former opponents in the Great War;

[SIZE=3]Whereas[/SIZE] the unilateral disarmament of Germany poses a threat to the security of Germany, a threat to German democracy, and thus a threat to peace,

[SIZE=3]So now[/SIZE] does Germany propose to the Contracting Powers of the Treaty of Versailles revisions to arms control measures and diplomatic initiatives intended to bolster the prospects of long term peace in Germany, Europe, and the world.

1. The Treaty of Versailles

1.1: Clauses 159 - 213 of the Treaty of Versailles are repealed.

2. Army:

(OOC: Expect a long section, which essentially says that Germany can use whatever weapons the rest of the world can, and can maintain an army of a certain proportion compared to France, Poland, Russia, and Denmark. Since this is outside the scope of the sim, I’ll leave it at that)

3: Air Forces:

(OOC: Much the same as the Army section, with the same idea - size proportional to the neighbours, the right to use all the same weapons).

4. Navies:

4.1: The Republic of Germany shall have the right to employ weapons legally in service with other nations, including submarines, aircraft, and mines.

4.2: The Republic of Germany, in view of the existence of large naval powers, some in alliance, on its borders, shall be admitted to the Cleito Treaty with allowances equivalent to those agreed to by the Republic of France.

5. Diplomatic Measures

5.1: The Republic of Germany shall petition for admission to the League of Nations, and, once admitted, shall be subject to its laws and regulations as other civilized nations currently are.

5.2: The Republic of Germany shall not become part of any military alliance that would require Germany to intervene in a dispute between third parties.

5.3: The Republic of Germany shall undertake to conclude treaties of non-aggression with any nation seeking such assurances.

5.4: The Republic of Germany shall not permanently station military forces outside its borders.

5.5: The Republic of Germany shall be entitled to deploy military forces to foreign territory for the purpose of exercises, reviews, diplomatic missions, or as required by the League of Nations; in the case of a major deployment of capital ships or submarines or regiment-sized units, such deployments shall be made publically known in advance of the departure of said units.

The Government of Germany swears to be bound by the provisions of this document upon approval by the Contracting Powers of the Treaty of Versailles.

Issued this twenty-sixth day of October, nineteen hundred and twenty-five.

(Signed)

Otto Braun, President

Wilhelm Cuno, Chancellor

Gustav Stresemann, Foreign Affairs Minister

Quoted

4.1: The Republic of Germany shall have the right to employ weapons legally in service with other nations, including submarines, aircraft, and mines.

No-no on those submarines or mines.

The Italian government is pondering the other clauses.

BTW, to whom is this addressed? The Entente Powers? Please state which countries.

I would assume all the nations that signed the Treaty of Versailles.

And I might be wrong, but the nations that signed the treaty would be at the bottom of the page here

Except in the Wesworld universe, the US apparently sat out WW1, so it wouldn't have signed the treaty.

No, Walter's correct - the treaty also created the League of Nations, and those last few bits also note how amendments are to be dealt with.

So essentially, every player and non-player nation that is a League of Nations member is being consulted by Germany, even if they didn't fight in the war.

In character:

"In view of the likelihood that some nations may disagree with aspects of this proposal, the Government of Germany requests that the nations present some clarification on the reasons for their disagreement, so that Germany may attempt to address them."

The government of the Republic of the Philippines believes the proposed regulations are beyond fair, and perhaps even still too restrictive. We have no concerns or problems with the adaptation of these modifications to the Treaty of Versailles.

We note that the Italians have already questioned permitting Germany to possess submarines and mines. While we can understand some reluctance on the first point, given the remarkable performance of the U-Boats in the war, we wonder why they would be opposed to mines, primarily a defensive weapon.

(ooc: yes, mines can be used offensively...but the Filipinos have seen fit to ignore that fact in this little bit of Banana Republic propaganda. )

Netherlands' point of view, already stated several times, is that the Versalles treaty has lost any reason to be kept in force after the German sucessful transition into a modern democracy. We also think, and has been stated several times by us aswell, that putting such a ridiculous top limit to German's army increases ,not decreases, the danger for European stability in the foreseeable future.


The Dutch government, after close examination of the proposals submitted by germany, finds all of them appropiate. As a member of the League of Nations, we think they should be accepted by the great war's victor nations, or, at the very least, negotiated to solve any possible inconvenients.


Regarding the U-boat issue, we think that placing a special clause to the Cleito Treaty for the submarines Germany can build would solve the issue for everyone.

Maybe setting a top number of hulls for german submarines,and of restricted tonnage to keep them as coastal-class defensive-only submarines should suffice to give Germany a credible self-defence submarine force without threatening other nations...

Quoted

Maybe setting a top number of hulls for german submarines,and of restricted tonnage to keep them as coastal-class defensive-only submarines should suffice to give Germany a credible self-defence submarine force without threatening other nations...

Perhaps a combination of the rules:

16 hulls, 20,700 tons, none larger than 450 tons standard with maximum gun caliber 105mm

?

I do not know if this is accurate or not for WesWorld, but it is a good starting point. I don't know if Chile is in the League in WesWorld. The United States is another issue, as there would be no League without the United States, yet the United States did not really join the League of Nations. Such is reality...


THE COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS...

...I. ORIGINAL MEMBERS OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS SIGNATORIES OF THE TREATY OF PEACE.

ATLANTIS, BELGIUM, BOLIVIA, BRAZIL, BRITISH EMPIRE, (CANADA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND), CHINA, FRANCE, GREECE, HEDJAZ, INDIA, ITALY, JAPAN, NORDMARK, PERU, POLAND, ROUMANIA, SERB-CROAT-SLOVENE STATE, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA, SOUTH AFRICAN EMPIRE.

STATES INVITED TO ACCEDE TO THE COVENANT.

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, CHILE, COLOMBIA, DENMARK, IBERIA, NETHERLANDS, PARAGUAY, PERSIA, PHILIPPINES, RUSSIAN FEDERATION, SWITZERLAND, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Add the Philippines to that list.

Basically, Chile's in the League if you want it to be...

Quoted

Add the Philippines to that list.

Done....don't know how I missed that....oh I know I didn't scroll my map over enough. Speaking of a map, will we be sent an updated one soon?

I also don't know where the nations should really be on that list, so I guessed. The Russian Federation was one of those I wasn't sure about since no one invited the Russians because they were still in the middle of a civil war. There are other things that could be wrong considering that I just added everyone in that is on the map that is involved with the sim and was not a "Central Power" like Turkey, in this case.

Also there are issues about the British Empire...like how indepenant is Australia, Canada, and New Zealand from the crown? In the early days of the sim, two of those were a single nation apart from the crown while Canada was going to be separate but part of the Commonwealth, but get a collection of battleships.

"Chile feels that the Germans have suffered long enough, but as we were not an injured party, we do not have full right to deturmine that. We do not have many objections to Germany removing the military and political burdens from itself, save on the issue of submarines and mines.
The German use of submarines as an effective offensive weapon was demonstrated during the Great War, even to some of our ships. We would like to reduce the effectiveness of such a weapon if it were to be placed back into the hands of a master.
Eventually the Germans will gain more trust in the world and even these restrictions will be lifted.
But Chile is against mine warfare at the present time, so cannot see allowing a nation to use something it would not, nor would want others to use, itself."

Quoted

Done....don't know how I missed that....oh I know I didn't scroll my map over enough. Speaking of a map, will we be sent an updated one soon?

Send me a note of your email via PM.

Quoted

"In view of the likelihood that some nations may disagree with aspects of this proposal, the Government of Germany requests that the nations present some clarification on the reasons for their disagreement, so that Germany may attempt to address them."

When fighting the Austrians in WWI we were unpleasantly surprised to find that they had been equiped with German U-boats and mines. As a result, a large number of ships and Italian sailors were lost. Submarines for Germany are offensive weapons. If you look at the geography around Helgoland then it is just impossible to use a submarine for defense; sandbanks and shallow channels are abundant. There is no job here that cannot be done with a torpedo boat.

"Submarines and mines can be offensive weapons when used by any nation, not merely Germany. They can also be used in defensive roles, in the form of cruiser submarines, defensive minefields around one's home port, and so forth.

The introduction of German submarines or mine-warfare vessels, in the limited numbers we propose, can hardly change the overall threats that already exist worldwide. If Italy or Chile are uneasy with either weapon, we recommend that they refer it to the League of Nations and seek a general restriction on their usage.

"There is no doubt that the use of unrestricted submarine warfare and offensive minefields were sources of considerable bloodshed. There should also be no doubt that Germany has learned the consequences of those decisions - other nations entered the war against Germany, and contributed to our defeat and the severe terms of peace that ensued. The democratic government of Germany has no desire to see these mistakes repeated, and has respect for international law that the monarchy did not. Judging our future conduct based on past performance is, in the long term, no more productive than judging the future conduct of France based on the Napoleanic Wars.

"Germany has not asked for comment on how best to allocate its limited resources to defend its waters and interests; it only asks that it have the right to employ any weapon already employed in far greater quantities by other nations."

Quoted

16 hulls, 20,700 tons, none larger than 450 tons standard with maximum gun caliber 105mm

Hmmm....
16 * 450 = 7,200
So why 20,700 tons? You'll never get anywhere near that number.

Just lifted the 'category A submarines' restrictions for France from the treaty, but with the category B tonnage limit. Now that it's not oh-dark-thirty, I can see that won't work so well...

/French hat on

This French government came to power on the platform of seeking reconciliation with Germany, to put behind both the dreadful experience of the Great War, and to ensure against its repetition by fostering friendship between our two countries. This friendship has borne fruit, in our cordial relations, our growing trade, and our new cooperation in solving a problem in a remote part of the world. We note and commend the forthrightness of the German government's comittment to abide the present Versailles Treaty terms until their relaxation is agreed. We also note that the provisions on general disarmament in the Versailles Treaty show no indication of being heeded. Therefore, both logic and our policy incline us to accept this initiative on the part of the German government

/Russian hat on

Former President Kerensky notes: Since Russian Federation was not a signatory to Versailles Treaty, but joined League of Nations subsequently, I am sure that her government has no official position on acceptance of Frankfurt Amendments. However, I must express my satisfaction at positive response of many countries to this German initiative, seeing it as a development of my thoughts, expressed years ago, on need for revising unsustainable postwar Treaty System.

The Atlantian government finds itself in a similar possition as that of the Russian Federation, having not been a dirrect signatory of the treaty of Versailles but joining the league of nations. We too have felt the sting of German subs and while Atlantis has its own fleet of subs they are seen as a defensive weapon so we can understand the concern expressed by other nations.

It is our veiw however that Germany should be allowed to operate the same naval assets as any other nation so long as those assets are used in a defensive manor. As such we feel that restrictions on the aquisition and usage of Submarines and mines sould continue to be restricted in some form to reflect the defensive employment planned by Germany.

There has been some concern expressed not only of Germany employing the use of mines and submarines but also the general use of mines by other nations. The idea of an international ban on mines has been suggested on several occations and is favored by several nations.

Considering these developements we feel that Germany should be allowed to employ the use of mines, but only in Geman territorial waters, in limited quantity's and only in area's of extreme sensitivity.

Given Germany's forthright adhearance to the treaty of Versailles we beleive that this is a goal possible of acheiving and could lead to a strict set of rules on the employment of mines internationally, as a compromise to the all out ban on mines sought by several nations.

Finnally it is our view that the only way to ensure that Germany refrains from its former distructive behaviour is to welcome them with open arms into the international community, to allow them to sign the Cleito Treaty, join its signatories in premoting the very spirit of the treaty which is to limit naval expansion internationally and to willingly, openly and in a forthright manor adhere to the treaty's rules.

Berlin - 20 December 1925

Foreign Affairs Minister Gustav Stresemann says that Germany would be willing to accept a voluntary building holiday on Class A submarines. "Whether or not we are all agreed on the utility of Class B submarines for defensive missions in German waters, the only nations that have objected to our using them are far outside the operation radius of such boats. So we don't see a real problem there.

"However, we recognize continued apprehension at the notion of Germany regaining even the smallest group of true ocean-going U-boats. We propose, then, that the treaty still allow us the tonnage and hull numbers proposed earlier for Type A submarines - but that we pledge to honor a voluntary building holiday on Type A submarines for a period of five years from the day we are admitted to the Cleito Treaty. This gives the world ample time to draft measures restricting their use in general, and not just with respect to Germany"

Minister Stresemann was less optimistic about resolving the deadlock on mines. "We're really not sure what to offer here. Yes, Germany could use mines in an offensive manner. Any nation could, and many are prepared to do so right this minute. But - we have also offered to sign treatys of non-aggression with any nation that so asks, in which case those nations have nothing to fear even if we did have mines. Perhaps we should pledge to be at the table for any treaty talks aimed at eliminating naval mines as a weapon in general?"