Why Only Germany Paid Reparations After World War I

In the years following the end of the First World War, Germany's reparations often take center stage, with the amount to be paid, who would get what, and how, if at all, Germany could ever cover the costs being the most pressing question in European foreign relations at the time. But Germany wasn't alone in its defeat and had of course fought World War I alongside AustriaHungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. However, unlike Germany, these states, or at least their successors, weren't ordered to pay huge sums in reparations over the following decades, which raises the question, why not? Why didn't the rest of the defeated central powers have

to pay up too? So during the Paris Peace Conference, the victorious powers were trying to look out for their own best interests while negotiating the terms of surrender. Besides things like disarmament and territorial losses, one of the major stumbling blocks was the matter of financial reparations and importantly how much each of the defeated parties would pay and to whom. This was sorted via five treaties, one for each of the defeated central powers. Because remember, AustriaHungary was technically two states just with the same monarch and some unified ministries. The first and most important of these treaties was obviously the

Treaty of Versailles, which stripped Germany of all of this territory, severely restricted the size and capabilities of its armed forces, and notably forced it to pay massive reparations with the exact amounts being decided at a later date. Note, this will be a running theme. Now, for Germany, this was a relatively simple thing to enforce because Germany was well still Germany. Its government and institution still remained intact. And whilst the people in charge were different, Germany now being a republic didn't mean that it was a different state. And in fact, the official name for Germany at this time was still the German Empire. Anyway, for the other defeated Central Powers, things weren't so simple, with the

notable exception of Bulgaria, who had joined the Central Powers in 1915 to avenge their losses in the previous Balkan War in 1913. Bulgaria did fairly well at first, expanding to this. But in 1918, the on managed to push up into the Balkans from Greece, and realizing that further resistance was pointless, the Bulgarians asked for an armistice in September. Now, obviously, the first thing that Bulgaria had to do was give back the lands that they'd seized from the Anton. and the onant then had to decide on what it would lose further. In the treaty of Noisia Sen, the Serbians ended up gaining these lands. The Greek thieves and much like the Germans, the Bulgarians were forced to limit the size

of their military. And like Germany, Bulgaria was also made to pay some reparations, but the amount was only a very tiny fraction of what the Germans had to pay. Unlike the Germans though, the Bulgarians also had to pay restitutions in kind for damages inflicted during the war. This was a set amount of coal, cattle, and other goods which were to be delivered to its neighbors. And when combined with the financial damage of the war and most notably the loss of these ports, it all had a major negative effect on Bulgaria's economy and people. These problems were exacerbated by the population transfers from its neighbors, as well as the hundreds of thousands of now unemployed soldiers. And as a result, Bulgaria became a poorer and much more radicalized, unstable state.

Bulgaria's path was similar to that of Germany in that theant soon lowered its total load before just ending the fast of Bulgarian payments altogether in the 1920s. Whereas for AustriaHungary, the idea of reparations was much more difficult. The first issue for the onant was that the empire had just fallen apart. And figuring out who there had any authority to actually sign the peace treaty wasn't easy. As the dust settled, the German speakers had formed a semi-informal German Austria, which they claimed controlled these lands. But realistically, its authority was quite limited. Whereas Hungary was an even bigger mess, which was fighting wars with both Romania and the newly founded

Czechoslovakia, as well as dealing with communist revolution and royalist countercuss, which meant that negotiating with them wasn't exactly easy. The second issue was deciding how the break up of the dual monarchy would be achieved. and the representatives of the former empire's ethnic minorities had strong opinions on what they should get and what they already held. Whilst the disillusion of AustriaHungary itself wasn't seen as a terrible thing for the allied great powers, it did make aortioning blame and thus reparations incredibly difficult. For example, the checks and slovacs upon their independence took a sizable chunk of the dual monarchy's industrial output with them. And so those factories and the

workers in them that had helped fuel the Hapsburg war machine couldn't exactly be punished. It would be a hard sale to the Czechoslovakians that they could have their independence but that they also owed Italy, Serbia and Romania money for their part in the war. In the end, the treaty of Sanjgerine onlay saw Sislethania, the Austrian half of the empire broken up into this with the newly created Austria being nominated as the successor state to that half of the empire and thus inheriting the blame. Its representatives also managed to upset the Anton by asking for territorial concessions from its newborn neighbors under the guise of Wilson's 14 points. And they really struck a nerve when they proposed that Austria be

allowed to unify with Germany. To the victorious onant, the idea that Germany could gain such a large chunk of territory after the devastation of the war was insulting. And as a result, Austria was prevented from referring to itself as German Austria, and it was forbidden from ever uniting with Germany. Its army was also limited in size, but on a brighter note, it was given these lands from Hungary. So, what about reparations? Well, the Austrians were told that they would have to pay up, but it was in more of a hopefully maybe one day sense, and officially the on would decide the exact amount at a later date. However, they knew this would never happen because Austria was

broke. One in three Austrians at this point lived in the capital and there wasn't enough agricultural workers to feed them and thus it wasn't long until mass impoverishment hit the country. As such, the Anton recognized that Austria was not only never going to pay anything back, but that it would be lucky to even survive as a nation state. And so they just sort of agreed to forget about the whole thing because putting more stress on Vienna didn't seem like a recipe for success. Now, as for Hungary, its problems were similar to those of Austria. Its war with Romania and Czechoslovakia continued despite the Habsburg surrender and the Romanians advanced deep into the country and soon helped to overthrow the Hungarian

government. However, the great powers intervened and the Romanian puppet government was removed and replaced with another one, thus giving them someone to actually negotiate with and sign the peace treaty. In this, the Kingdom of Hungary was reduced to this, losing 70% of its land and 65% of its population. Its military was also severely limited, and the Budapest government also had to send natural resources to its neighbors as compensation. Much like Austria, the Hungarians were told that they'd have to pay reparations to the victors, too. And also like Austria, it was to be determined at a later date. Of course, Hungary was such an economic mess that the Anton knew that they wouldn't get

anything from them. And Hungary's neighbors would simply have to be happy with the territorial gains instead. Not that they were, and fears of Hungary trying to reclaim those lands led to the creation of an alliance between them, just to make sure that could never happen. The last central power was the Ottoman Empire, which had surrendered in October of 1918. Its capitalist Ambul was soon occupied and the two sides began to negotiate the Treaty of Sea to end the conflict formally. To the surprise of nobody, the terms of this were harsh and it saw Ottoman territory reduced to this and its military massively restricted. This came alongside the Anton basically taking over the Ottoman economy and carving out

zones of economic influence for themselves. And it was ordered that the Dardinels would become an international zone outside of Ottoman control. And as for reparations, well, much of the territory taken from the Ottomans was now under the control of either Britain or France. And so the idea of those two powers paying reparations to themselves or to their allies was silly. Furthermore, the Anton considered that the Ottoman economy would be so utterly broken by the loss of its imperial holdings that they would actually have to loan money to Istanbul to stop the state from falling apart and that

reasonably the odds of said money being paid back was slim. Now the Ottoman leadership had accepted its defeat and was begrudgingly willing to agree to the Anton demands. The Ottoman Parliament, however, was not. Not only did it fiercely refuse to ratify the 1920 treaty and pass bill stating that the Ottoman Empire was a fully independent state and that they wanted their occupiers gone. With this in mind, the Anton hoped that the Greeks with designs on large swaves of Ottoman territory would do the heavy lifting. However, there was a snag. A rival government to the Ottoman one in Istanbul was created in Ankara led by a certain Mustafa Kamal Pashia and it refused to accept any

terms. The Anton now enjoying not being at war didn't want to send masses of troops to Anatolia. And in Britain's case, its dominion simply refused to help, except for one that is good old trustworthy faithful New Zealand. And this caused a major crisis in London, bringing down the government there. The Turkish nationalists took up arms and after a few years were able to defeat the French, the Armenians, and the Greeks and forced them to negotiate. The Antonune recognized the Ankara government as the legitimate government of the Ottoman Empire, which led to the last Ottoman Sultan leaving Istanbul and thus sending a monarchy which had stood for over 600 years. In the following treaty of Laan, the Ottoman Empire was

formally abolished, and Turkey took its place with these borders. The Antonant also agreed that Turkey would be a blameless party in World War I. And obviously with this, any notion that Turkey would ever pay reparations whatsoever was well and truly dead. And so these factors combined meant that when a later date arrived and the Anton had to decide how much they were owed, the figure they arrived at was almost exclusively Germany's problem. Meaning that besides the poultry sums that Bulgaria handed over and the very limited and shortlived shipments of raw materials from Hungary, the burden of reparations fell entirely in Germany. whilst the others due to either massive losses in territory, resources and population or due to simply being

Bulgaria avoided crippling repayments. I hope you enjoyed this episode with a special thanks to my patrons James Bizernet, Sky Chappelle, Katoitzka, Winston Kwood, Marvin Cassau, YN Hockey, Michael Hullbrook, Paul H, Castle, Bravo, Shuenin, Alex Schwin, Gustav Swan, Andy McGee, Lester Diamond, Uduan Wang, Anthony Beckett, AF Firefly, Respectable Level of Chaos, Captain Sydog, The Flying Deutschand, Spencer Lightfoot, Robert C. Perkins, The McWer, Rod D. Martin Kimmoon Yun Dr. Frederick Dan Lyman, the Jim Stannom, Remco Hoistman, Jim Sternberg, and Lord Beak.