WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.819 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We're so glad 00:00:02.819 --> 00:00:04.719 you could join us today because we have a truly 00:00:04.719 --> 00:00:07.379 fascinating journey ahead. We really do. Yeah. 00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:09.300 Whether you're prepping for a meeting, trying 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:12.960 to catch up on European history, or you're just 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:15.160 insanely curious about how the modern world got 00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:17.280 its shape, you are in the exact right place. 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:20.100 Absolutely. Today, we are immersing ourselves 00:00:20.100 --> 00:00:23.460 in a really comprehensive source, a detailed 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:26.100 historical breakdown of the Treaty of Saint -Germain 00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:30.679 -en -Laye from 1919. Right. It's such a crucial 00:00:30.679 --> 00:00:33.960 piece of history. It is. And our mission for 00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:36.740 this deep dive. We are going explore how the 00:00:36.740 --> 00:00:40.479 simple stroke of a pen can completely dismantle 00:00:40.479 --> 00:00:42.939 a centuries -old superpower. Just wipe it out. 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:46.159 Literally redraw the entire map of Europe and 00:00:46.159 --> 00:00:49.740 create these massive rippling consequences that 00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:52.100 will eventually lead to even darker chapters 00:00:52.100 --> 00:00:54.719 in global history. It is a profound topic to 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:56.299 unpack because, you know, when we think about 00:00:56.299 --> 00:00:57.859 the end of the First World War and the treaties 00:00:57.859 --> 00:01:00.140 that followed. We always think of Germany. Exactly. 00:01:00.219 --> 00:01:03.020 We almost always default to Germany and the Treaty 00:01:03.020 --> 00:01:05.099 of Versailles. Right. Yeah. But the dissolution 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:08.140 of the Austro -Hungarian empire is just as critical, 00:01:08.140 --> 00:01:11.200 if not more so, to really understanding the 20th 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:13.659 century. I totally agree. We're going to examine 00:01:13.659 --> 00:01:16.719 the historical stage and really frame this discussion 00:01:16.719 --> 00:01:19.260 around the theme of unintended consequences. 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:21.799 Which there are a lot of. Oh, massive ones. We'll 00:01:21.799 --> 00:01:24.719 look at the incredibly messy, often contradictory 00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:28.500 reality of trying to divide up a deeply integrated, 00:01:28.739 --> 00:01:31.280 multi -ethnic empire. From a negotiating table 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:33.989 thousands of miles away. Right. Exactly. OK, 00:01:33.989 --> 00:01:36.349 let's unpack this, because as you said, Versailles 00:01:36.349 --> 00:01:38.569 gets all the historical air time. It really does. 00:01:38.689 --> 00:01:40.930 Everyone learns about it in high school. But 00:01:40.930 --> 00:01:43.310 this treaty, Saint -Germain -en -Laye, is the 00:01:43.310 --> 00:01:45.569 one that literally wiped the Austro -Hungarian 00:01:45.569 --> 00:01:48.430 empire off the map. Gone. It left behind this 00:01:48.430 --> 00:01:51.530 massive grand capital city in Vienna that suddenly 00:01:51.530 --> 00:01:54.390 had, well, no empire to govern. Just stranded. 00:01:54.609 --> 00:01:57.370 Yeah. And to understand how we arrive at that 00:01:57.370 --> 00:01:59.870 treaty, we have to look at the sheer chaos of 00:01:59.870 --> 00:02:02.909 late 1918. The collapse was staggering. It really 00:02:02.909 --> 00:02:05.549 was. We have the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, and 00:02:05.549 --> 00:02:07.930 then that's followed by the Armistice of Villagieste 00:02:07.930 --> 00:02:11.210 on November 3rd, 1918. Right. So for the listener 00:02:11.210 --> 00:02:13.789 who might not be a military historian, what actually 00:02:13.789 --> 00:02:16.729 happens at Vittorio Veneto that breaks the back 00:02:16.729 --> 00:02:21.189 of this empire? So Vittorio Vendetta was the 00:02:21.189 --> 00:02:23.789 decisive clash on the Italian front. We're talking 00:02:23.789 --> 00:02:27.349 late October and early November of 1918. By this 00:02:27.349 --> 00:02:30.310 point, the Austro -Hungarian military was completely 00:02:30.310 --> 00:02:32.310 exhausted. I mean, they'd been at it for years. 00:02:32.469 --> 00:02:35.909 Four years of brutal war, and you have this multi 00:02:35.909 --> 00:02:38.870 -ethnic army, Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, 00:02:38.969 --> 00:02:41.229 Croats, Poles. All fighting together. Right, 00:02:41.469 --> 00:02:43.909 fighting a grueling war of attrition in the Alps. 00:02:44.270 --> 00:02:46.479 Supply lines are completely broken. And back 00:02:46.479 --> 00:02:49.379 home, the civilian population is quite literally 00:02:49.379 --> 00:02:52.939 starving. Wow! So during this battle, the morale 00:02:52.939 --> 00:02:55.819 just shatters. Entire regiments of non -German 00:02:55.819 --> 00:02:58.080 soldiers simply refuse to fight. They just put 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:00.080 down their weapons. Or they refuse to follow 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:03.139 orders, they realize the empire is dying, and 00:03:03.139 --> 00:03:04.840 they just want to go home to form their own nations. 00:03:05.159 --> 00:03:07.719 That makes sense. The Italian army breaks through, 00:03:07.939 --> 00:03:10.620 and that forces the Austro -Hungarian High Command 00:03:10.620 --> 00:03:13.539 to sign the Arnestis of Villajuxti. Which effectively 00:03:13.539 --> 00:03:16.180 ends the fighting. It ends the fighting, but 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:18.939 it also signals the death knell of the imperial 00:03:18.939 --> 00:03:22.120 state itself. The speed at which it all unravels 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:24.659 from that specific moment is breathtaking. It's 00:03:24.659 --> 00:03:27.500 a free fall. Just days after that armistice, 00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:30.639 on November 11th, Emperor Charles I officially 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:33.900 declares that he is, quote, relinquishing every 00:03:33.900 --> 00:03:36.460 participation in the administration of the state. 00:03:36.740 --> 00:03:39.120 He basically steps back from power. Right. And 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:42.039 then, literally one day later, a provisional 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:45.400 assembly declares German Austria a democratic 00:03:45.400 --> 00:03:48.680 republic. It's a total vacuum of power and the 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:50.659 collapse is moving faster than anyone can actually 00:03:50.659 --> 00:03:53.979 manage. I really want you, the listener, to try 00:03:53.979 --> 00:03:55.819 and imagine this for a second. Imagine? Your 00:03:55.819 --> 00:03:58.199 entire corporate structure or the government 00:03:58.199 --> 00:04:00.919 of the country you live in just dissolving overnight. 00:04:01.139 --> 00:04:03.599 It's a great analogy. One day you have a CEO 00:04:03.599 --> 00:04:06.159 and a board of directors running a massive multinational 00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:09.800 conglomerate and the next day The CEO just walks 00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:12.659 out the door. Poof, gone. Suddenly, everyone 00:04:12.659 --> 00:04:14.580 in the building is scrambling. The accounting 00:04:14.580 --> 00:04:16.939 department declares itself an independent firm. 00:04:17.399 --> 00:04:19.680 The IT department locks the doors and claims 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:22.779 sovereign territory over the servers. It's absolute 00:04:22.779 --> 00:04:24.980 pandemonium. If we connect this to the bigger 00:04:24.980 --> 00:04:28.379 picture, the empire was already fracturing before 00:04:28.379 --> 00:04:31.019 the ink on any armistice or treaty was even dry. 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:33.660 It was already falling apart. Exactly. While 00:04:33.660 --> 00:04:35.500 the leaders in Vienna were trying to figure out 00:04:35.579 --> 00:04:38.100 what this new Republic of German Austria even 00:04:38.100 --> 00:04:41.699 was, new states were already proclaiming themselves 00:04:41.699 --> 00:04:45.620 on the territory of the former empire. Czechoslovakia, 00:04:45.860 --> 00:04:48.540 Poland, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and 00:04:48.540 --> 00:04:50.899 Slovenes. Which is what we later call Yugoslavia. 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:53.500 Correct. They were simply declaring their own 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:55.800 existence and setting up provisional governments 00:04:55.800 --> 00:04:58.600 on the fly. And this wasn't just politicians 00:04:58.600 --> 00:05:01.019 making grand speeches in city halls, right? This 00:05:01.019 --> 00:05:03.360 was physically playing out on the ground. With 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:06.199 actual military force. Very much so. Italian 00:05:06.199 --> 00:05:08.920 forces were aggressively pushing up and occupying 00:05:08.920 --> 00:05:11.639 South Tyrol and Trentino. Right. Yugoslav troops 00:05:11.639 --> 00:05:14.459 were pushing north into the former Duchy of Carinthia. 00:05:14.540 --> 00:05:17.759 Just grabbing land. Taking what they could. This 00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:20.560 led to violent bloody skirmishes on the ground. 00:05:21.300 --> 00:05:24.399 Local militias fighting regular army units over 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:27.389 towns and valleys. Wow. The reality on the map 00:05:27.389 --> 00:05:30.410 was moving much, much faster. than the diplomats 00:05:30.410 --> 00:05:32.750 in Paris or Vienna could comprehend. Which brings 00:05:32.750 --> 00:05:35.290 us to the actual treaty negotiations. So we're 00:05:35.290 --> 00:05:38.829 in May 1919. Right. The dust is somewhat settling 00:05:38.829 --> 00:05:41.990 and Austria elects a social democrat named Karl 00:05:41.990 --> 00:05:44.730 Renner as state chancellor. Yes, Renner. He packs 00:05:44.730 --> 00:05:47.589 his bags, gathers his Austrian delegation and 00:05:47.589 --> 00:05:50.410 heads to the Chateau de Saint -Germain -en -Laye 00:05:50.410 --> 00:05:53.610 in France to negotiate the peace. That was the 00:05:53.610 --> 00:05:55.329 plan anyway. But wait, this is the part from 00:05:55.329 --> 00:05:57.370 the source material that completely blew my mind. 00:05:57.750 --> 00:06:00.209 They travel all the way to and they are completely 00:06:00.209 --> 00:06:02.670 excluded from the negotiations. They were quite 00:06:02.670 --> 00:06:05.589 literally locked out of the room. That is insane. 00:06:05.990 --> 00:06:08.290 The French Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau, 00:06:08.569 --> 00:06:10.850 was leading the talks alongside the other allied 00:06:10.850 --> 00:06:13.829 powers. The Austrians were not given a seat at 00:06:13.829 --> 00:06:15.870 the table. To negotiate their own borders. Not 00:06:15.870 --> 00:06:18.050 for their borders, not for their economic future, 00:06:18.269 --> 00:06:20.069 nothing. They were kept waiting in the wings 00:06:20.069 --> 00:06:23.350 for months. Months. Relegated to passing written 00:06:23.350 --> 00:06:26.149 notes until they were simply handed an allied 00:06:26.149 --> 00:06:29.240 ultimatum to sign on September 10th. To travel 00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:32.339 to a peace conference and be treated like a courier 00:06:32.339 --> 00:06:35.740 for your own nation's execution order, the psychological 00:06:35.740 --> 00:06:38.660 impact of that exclusion must have been devastating. 00:06:39.139 --> 00:06:41.060 You have to remember the historical context here. 00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:44.379 For centuries, the Habsburgs and the Austrian 00:06:44.379 --> 00:06:47.040 Empire were at the absolute center of European 00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:48.980 diplomacy. Yeah, they hosted the Congress of 00:06:48.980 --> 00:06:51.860 Vienna. Exactly. Yeah. Now, their representatives 00:06:51.860 --> 00:06:54.600 are isolated in a French chateau while their 00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:57.079 fate is dictated by the victors. A massive fall 00:06:57.079 --> 00:06:59.699 from grace. It established from day one that 00:06:59.699 --> 00:07:02.439 this was not a negotiated peace. It was a punitive 00:07:02.439 --> 00:07:05.939 dictation of terms. Wow. And there is a fascinating 00:07:05.939 --> 00:07:08.120 diplomatic wrinkle to this treaty that often 00:07:08.120 --> 00:07:10.560 gets overlooked. Like the Treaty of Versailles, 00:07:10.980 --> 00:07:12.720 this treaty included the Covenant of the League 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:15.500 of Nations, baked directly into its text. The 00:07:15.500 --> 00:07:17.699 League of Nations, so the precursor to the United 00:07:17.699 --> 00:07:20.259 Nations, why was that a problem? Because that 00:07:20.259 --> 00:07:22.800 covenant was integrated directly into the treaty, 00:07:23.319 --> 00:07:25.800 it caused a massive political crisis in the United 00:07:25.800 --> 00:07:28.560 States. Oh, right. The U .S. Senate, which was 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:31.920 tilting heavily toward isolationism, fiercely 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:34.939 opposed joining the League. They wanted no part 00:07:34.939 --> 00:07:38.230 of it. None. But because they couldn't untangle 00:07:38.230 --> 00:07:40.170 the League Covenant from the peace terms, they 00:07:40.170 --> 00:07:42.930 were stuck together. The U .S. Senate outright 00:07:42.930 --> 00:07:45.930 refused to ratify the Treaty of St. Germain online. 00:07:46.009 --> 00:07:48.410 Wait, so the U .S. technically remained at war 00:07:48.410 --> 00:07:50.889 with Austria? Officially, yes, for a few more 00:07:50.889 --> 00:07:53.540 years. That's wild. The United States didn't 00:07:53.540 --> 00:07:55.959 actually make peace with Austria through this 00:07:55.959 --> 00:07:58.199 treaty. They had to go back to the drawing board 00:07:58.199 --> 00:08:01.339 and sign a completely separate U .S.-Austrian 00:08:01.339 --> 00:08:04.600 peace treaty later in 1921. That is a massive 00:08:04.600 --> 00:08:06.959 administrative headache. But an administrative 00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:08.920 headache for the U .S. Senate was absolutely 00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:11.639 nothing compared to the nightmare handed to Austria. 00:08:11.949 --> 00:08:14.209 Let's talk about the bill coming due. The punitive 00:08:14.209 --> 00:08:16.810 provisions. Yeah, they were brutal. First up 00:08:16.810 --> 00:08:20.829 is Article 177. This forced Austria, along with 00:08:20.829 --> 00:08:23.589 the other central powers, to accept full responsibility 00:08:23.589 --> 00:08:26.230 for starting the war. The infamous war guilt 00:08:26.230 --> 00:08:28.550 clause. And that guilt was not just symbolic. 00:08:28.610 --> 00:08:31.709 It came with a very real, very steep price tag. 00:08:32.070 --> 00:08:35.289 The treaty imposed massive war reparations directed 00:08:35.289 --> 00:08:38.110 toward the allies to pay for the damages of the 00:08:38.110 --> 00:08:41.009 conflict. But here is the craziest part to me. 00:08:41.070 --> 00:08:43.750 The exact amount of those reparations was never 00:08:43.750 --> 00:08:46.210 actually defined in the treaty. No, it was left 00:08:46.210 --> 00:08:49.470 open. Imagine being handed a bill for a destroyed 00:08:49.470 --> 00:08:52.350 continent and the bill just says, you owe us 00:08:52.350 --> 00:08:54.889 an astronomical amount of money. We'll let you 00:08:54.889 --> 00:08:58.330 know the exact figure later. It's absurd. How 00:08:58.330 --> 00:09:01.350 does a brand new struggling nation even begin 00:09:01.350 --> 00:09:04.429 to budget for a blank check of debt? They couldn't. 00:09:04.570 --> 00:09:06.450 I mean, the historical record shows that the 00:09:06.450 --> 00:09:08.730 full amount was never actually collected from 00:09:08.730 --> 00:09:10.919 Austria. Because they were broke. Because the 00:09:10.919 --> 00:09:13.059 country was teetering on bankruptcy from day 00:09:13.059 --> 00:09:15.860 one. But just having that undefined crushing 00:09:15.860 --> 00:09:19.279 debt hanging over the new nation's head was economically 00:09:19.279 --> 00:09:21.840 paralyzing. No one would invest in them. Exactly. 00:09:22.139 --> 00:09:24.879 No one would invest. And the dismantling didn't 00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:28.139 stop at money. Right. The allies mandated the 00:09:28.139 --> 00:09:30.259 liquidation of the Austro -Hungarian bank. So 00:09:30.259 --> 00:09:32.919 they wiped out their central financial institution. 00:09:33.299 --> 00:09:36.159 Yes. They abolished military conscription completely. 00:09:36.379 --> 00:09:39.100 And they capped the entire Austrian army and 00:09:39.100 --> 00:09:42.480 a mere 30 ,000 volunteers. 30 ,000 volunteers 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:45.659 for a country that used to field an army of millions. 00:09:45.820 --> 00:09:49.340 What's fascinating here is how incredibly methodical 00:09:49.340 --> 00:09:52.220 the Allies were in dismantling the mechanics 00:09:52.220 --> 00:09:54.899 of the old empire. Tearing it down piece by piece. 00:09:55.019 --> 00:09:57.240 They were trying to ensure, beyond a shadow of 00:09:57.240 --> 00:09:59.700 a doubt, that Austria could never project power 00:09:59.700 --> 00:10:02.100 or threaten the stability of Europe again. Wow. 00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:04.639 But the treaty didn't just cap the army and demand 00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:07.360 money. It got down into the bureaucratic weeds. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:10.299 It included numerous provisions dealing with 00:10:10.299 --> 00:10:13.080 the navigation of the Danube River, the transfer 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:15.659 of railway networks, telegraph lines. Wait, I 00:10:15.659 --> 00:10:17.480 really want to dig into that. How do you even 00:10:17.480 --> 00:10:20.840 divide a deeply integrated railway system overnight? 00:10:21.139 --> 00:10:23.340 I mean, who gets the trains? Who gets the tracks? 00:10:23.480 --> 00:10:26.059 It was an absolute logistical nightmare. I can 00:10:26.059 --> 00:10:28.500 imagine. The Austro -Hungarian Railway Network 00:10:28.669 --> 00:10:31.809 was built like a giant spider web radiating outward 00:10:31.809 --> 00:10:34.350 from Vienna to the far reaches of the empire. 00:10:34.990 --> 00:10:37.750 Suddenly, you draw arbitrary lines across those 00:10:37.750 --> 00:10:40.990 webs. A train full of coal might leave a mine 00:10:40.990 --> 00:10:44.110 in Bohemia heading for Vienna. Right. But halfway 00:10:44.110 --> 00:10:47.230 there, it crosses a brand new international border 00:10:47.230 --> 00:10:51.009 into the new nation of Czechoslovakia. Oh, no. 00:10:51.090 --> 00:10:53.509 The new Czechoslovak authorities would literally 00:10:53.509 --> 00:10:57.399 stop the train. uncouple the cars and confiscate 00:10:57.399 --> 00:11:00.299 the rolling stock as their own sovereign property. 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:03.620 You're kidding. Just taking the train. Just taking 00:11:03.620 --> 00:11:06.840 them. River traffic on the Danube came to a standstill 00:11:06.840 --> 00:11:09.340 because nobody knew whose barges belonged to 00:11:09.340 --> 00:11:11.899 whom. That's a mess. The allies were trying to 00:11:11.899 --> 00:11:14.559 unweave a deeply interconnected economic and 00:11:14.559 --> 00:11:17.440 physical infrastructure with a pen, and the immediate 00:11:17.440 --> 00:11:20.259 result was paralysis. Which perfectly transitions 00:11:20.259 --> 00:11:22.860 us to the map. The geography lesson here is staggering. 00:11:23.070 --> 00:11:25.009 Let's look the territorial losses. They were 00:11:25.009 --> 00:11:27.470 vast. The records state that Cislethanian Austria 00:11:27.470 --> 00:11:30.110 lost over 60 percent of its pre -war territory. 00:11:30.889 --> 00:11:33.129 More than half the country just erased. Yes. 00:11:33.350 --> 00:11:35.269 But before we list where it went, I keep seeing 00:11:35.269 --> 00:11:37.690 this word Cislethanian in the text. What does 00:11:37.690 --> 00:11:39.690 that actually mean for the listener who is a 00:11:39.690 --> 00:11:42.090 neocartographer? It sounds incredibly academic, 00:11:42.090 --> 00:11:44.529 but it's actually just a geographic reference. 00:11:44.669 --> 00:11:48.610 OK. The Letha is a small river. that formed part 00:11:48.610 --> 00:11:51.289 of the historic border between Austria and Hungary. 00:11:51.769 --> 00:11:54.730 Got it. Cislithanian literally just translates 00:11:54.730 --> 00:11:57.710 to the lands on this side of the Letha River, 00:11:58.269 --> 00:12:00.649 meaning the Austrian half of the dual monarchy. 00:12:00.769 --> 00:12:03.299 And the Hungarian half. That was Trans -Lithuanian. 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:05.720 So when we say since Lithuania and Austria lost 00:12:05.720 --> 00:12:08.860 60 % of its land, we are talking specifically 00:12:08.860 --> 00:12:11.419 about the Austrian administered territories being 00:12:11.419 --> 00:12:13.779 completely carved up. OK, that makes so much 00:12:13.779 --> 00:12:16.659 more sense. So where did all this land go? Break 00:12:16.659 --> 00:12:19.379 down this map for us, because the sheer scale 00:12:19.379 --> 00:12:21.399 of the redistribution is hard to wrap your head 00:12:21.399 --> 00:12:23.899 around. It was a total geographic dismantling. 00:12:24.299 --> 00:12:26.460 To the north, the historic lands of the Bohemian 00:12:26.460 --> 00:12:28.720 crown, which included Bohemia and Moravia. Right. 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:31.399 Those were carved out to form the core industrial 00:12:31.399 --> 00:12:33.940 and economic base of the new state of Czechoslovakia. 00:12:34.159 --> 00:12:37.379 A huge loss. Massive. To the northeast, the massive 00:12:37.379 --> 00:12:39.820 region of Galicia was ceded to the reestablished 00:12:39.820 --> 00:12:42.659 Polish Republic. Okay. Further east, the region 00:12:42.659 --> 00:12:45.259 of Bukovina was absorbed by the Kingdom of Romania. 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:48.019 And the South was just as drastically altered. 00:12:48.279 --> 00:12:50.539 Exactly. The southern half of the Tyrolean crown 00:12:50.539 --> 00:12:52.679 land stretching all the way up to the Brenner 00:12:52.679 --> 00:12:54.879 Pass and the Alps was handed to Italy. Which 00:12:54.879 --> 00:12:57.600 had a lot of German speakers. A massive blow 00:12:57.600 --> 00:12:59.779 because yes, it included predominantly German 00:12:59.779 --> 00:13:02.159 speaking areas like South Tyrol and Trentino. 00:13:02.679 --> 00:13:05.799 Right. Italy also took territories around Tarvisio 00:13:05.799 --> 00:13:09.360 and the Austrian littoral. That meant Austria 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:12.159 lost the critical port city of Trieste on the 00:13:12.159 --> 00:13:14.559 Adriatic Sea. Oh, wow. So they lost their ocean 00:13:14.559 --> 00:13:16.899 access. Completely. They went from a major naval 00:13:16.899 --> 00:13:20.500 power to a landlocked nation in an instant. Meanwhile, 00:13:20.860 --> 00:13:23.919 the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovene's Yugoslavia 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:26.539 took a massive chunk of the southern imperial 00:13:26.539 --> 00:13:30.379 holdings. Dalmatia, Craniola, Lower Styria. And 00:13:30.379 --> 00:13:33.399 the highly contested region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 00:13:33.740 --> 00:13:36.679 The empire was so vast and globally connected 00:13:36.679 --> 00:13:38.980 that they even lost an overseas concession they 00:13:38.980 --> 00:13:41.200 held all the way in Tianjin, China. They were 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:43.860 quite literally picked apart piece by piece until 00:13:43.860 --> 00:13:45.860 only the mountainous German -speaking corps was 00:13:45.860 --> 00:13:48.940 left. But there is one quirky detail here that 00:13:48.940 --> 00:13:51.899 stands out. Austria didn't just lose land, they 00:13:51.899 --> 00:13:55.000 actually gained one region. They did. The predominantly 00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:57.679 German and Croatian -speaking western parts of 00:13:57.679 --> 00:14:00.659 some Hungarian counties were awarded to Austria. 00:14:00.820 --> 00:14:02.820 Which eventually became the state of Bergenland. 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:05.639 Right. Though even that was messy because the 00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:08.419 major city of Sopron ended up going back to Hungary 00:14:08.419 --> 00:14:10.940 after a local plebiscite. And that mention of 00:14:10.940 --> 00:14:13.759 a plebiscite, a local vote where the citizens 00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:16.639 get to determine which country a territory belongs 00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:20.559 to, is a perfect transition. into perhaps the 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:23.019 most contentious part of this entire historical 00:14:23.019 --> 00:14:25.460 event. Here's where it gets really interesting. 00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:28.700 Because the Allies, particularly the Americans, 00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:31.519 had been preaching this incredible ideal of self 00:14:31.519 --> 00:14:33.759 -determination. The Wilsonian ideal. Yeah, they 00:14:33.759 --> 00:14:36.879 made a big public promise that the minority peoples 00:14:36.879 --> 00:14:39.460 of the old empire would finally get to choose 00:14:39.460 --> 00:14:41.980 their own destiny. Yes, U .S. Secretary of State 00:14:41.980 --> 00:14:44.980 Robert Lansing. essentially told the leadership 00:14:44.980 --> 00:14:47.899 in Vienna that granting political autonomy to 00:14:47.899 --> 00:14:50.659 the nationalities within the empire was no longer 00:14:50.659 --> 00:14:52.899 enough. They needed full independence. The Allies 00:14:52.899 --> 00:14:55.460 were fully committed to the Czechs, Slovaks, 00:14:55.799 --> 00:14:58.259 and South Slavs having their own fully independent 00:14:58.259 --> 00:15:01.159 states. But the reality of implementing self 00:15:01.159 --> 00:15:03.799 -determination was deeply flawed. And highly 00:15:03.799 --> 00:15:06.080 selective. Because people don't live in neat 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:08.259 little geographic boxes. No, they don't. You 00:15:08.259 --> 00:15:10.159 can't just draw a clean line and say all the 00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:12.320 Czechs live here and all the Germans live here. 00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:15.500 Precisely the problem. The ethnic groups of Central 00:15:15.500 --> 00:15:18.580 Europe had been intermingling, migrating, and 00:15:18.580 --> 00:15:20.840 settling across the region for centuries. Right. 00:15:21.080 --> 00:15:23.539 But because the victorious allied powers were 00:15:23.539 --> 00:15:26.580 drawing the lines, the new successor states were 00:15:26.580 --> 00:15:29.600 allowed to absorb massive blocks of territory 00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:32.299 that were actually inhabited by ethnic Germans. 00:15:32.600 --> 00:15:35.740 Like the Sudetenland. The Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia 00:15:35.740 --> 00:15:38.820 is the prime example of this. You have millions 00:15:38.820 --> 00:15:40.879 of German speakers who had been the dominant 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:43.500 cultural group, suddenly finding themselves as 00:15:43.500 --> 00:15:45.600 second class minorities in brand new nations. 00:15:45.700 --> 00:15:47.960 And when we mentioned that vote in Sopran earlier, 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:49.919 that was the exception, not the rule. Right. 00:15:50.440 --> 00:15:53.500 exception. Only a few carefully selected plebiscites 00:15:53.500 --> 00:15:55.899 were allowed in disputed areas. So people didn't 00:15:55.899 --> 00:15:58.399 get a say. For the vast majority of the population, 00:15:59.039 --> 00:16:01.100 local communities were simply informed that the 00:16:01.100 --> 00:16:03.539 borders had moved over them. That's incredible. 00:16:03.799 --> 00:16:06.019 They went to sleep in the Austrian Empire and 00:16:06.019 --> 00:16:09.039 woke up in Czechoslovakia or Italy without ever 00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:11.240 casting a ballot. You really have to think critically 00:16:11.240 --> 00:16:14.759 about the fallout of trapping intermingled nationalities 00:16:14.759 --> 00:16:18.059 behind arbitrary new lines on a map. It is dangerous. 00:16:18.179 --> 00:16:21.480 It fueled intense irredentist claims, people 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:24.139 arguing that certain territories rightfully belong 00:16:24.139 --> 00:16:26.320 to them based on shared language and ethnicity. 00:16:26.840 --> 00:16:29.179 It was a powder keg just waiting for a match. 00:16:29.500 --> 00:16:32.460 A massive geopolitical powder keg. And that pressure 00:16:32.460 --> 00:16:36.120 was magnified exponentially by the forced identity 00:16:36.120 --> 00:16:39.159 crisis imposed upon what was left of Austria. 00:16:39.360 --> 00:16:41.700 Which brings us to Article 88 of the treaty. 00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:43.940 This is such a crucial piece of the puzzle. Very 00:16:43.940 --> 00:16:47.100 crucial. Article 88 explicitly required Austria 00:16:47.100 --> 00:16:50.539 to refrain from directly or indirectly compromising 00:16:50.539 --> 00:16:53.179 its independence. But what that actually meant 00:16:53.179 --> 00:16:55.679 in practice was that Austria was strictly forbidden 00:16:55.679 --> 00:16:58.080 from entering into any political or economic 00:16:58.080 --> 00:17:00.730 union with the Weimar Republic. Germany, yeah, 00:17:00.870 --> 00:17:03.009 without the unanimous agreement of the League 00:17:03.009 --> 00:17:06.630 of Nations. They were isolated by design. The 00:17:06.630 --> 00:17:10.369 Allies, particularly France, were terrified of 00:17:10.369 --> 00:17:13.630 a unified larger German state emerging from the 00:17:13.630 --> 00:17:15.750 ashes of the war. So they kept them separated? 00:17:16.150 --> 00:17:18.309 They even heavily policed the country's name. 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:21.180 The New Republic initially wanted to call itself 00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:24.460 German Austria to reflect its linguistic and 00:17:24.460 --> 00:17:26.579 cultural ties to the broader German speaking 00:17:26.579 --> 00:17:29.779 world. Makes sense. But the treaty explicitly 00:17:29.779 --> 00:17:32.859 forced them to drop the German prefix. They had 00:17:32.859 --> 00:17:35.039 to just be Austria. I was trying to think of 00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:36.880 a way to describe this to the listener. It's 00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:39.619 almost like going through a brutal ruinous divorce 00:17:39.619 --> 00:17:42.579 where you lose your house. your bank accounts 00:17:42.579 --> 00:17:45.079 are frozen, and then the judge legally forbids 00:17:45.079 --> 00:17:46.740 you from moving in with your rich older brother 00:17:46.740 --> 00:17:48.920 to get back on your feet. That's a really vivid 00:17:48.920 --> 00:17:51.000 way to put it. And on top of that, the judge 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:52.839 says you aren't even allowed to use your own 00:17:52.839 --> 00:17:55.319 maiden name anymore. The psychological toll of 00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:57.480 that on the population must have been intense. 00:17:57.960 --> 00:18:01.630 It was a deep national humiliation. Many Austrians 00:18:01.630 --> 00:18:04.430 found this incredibly harsh, especially since 00:18:04.430 --> 00:18:06.589 Austrian Germans were the vast majority of the 00:18:06.589 --> 00:18:09.130 new state. Right. And a massive portion of the 00:18:09.130 --> 00:18:11.730 political spectrum supported the idea of a single 00:18:11.730 --> 00:18:15.009 German nation state. But the crisis wasn't just 00:18:15.009 --> 00:18:18.170 psychological or cultural. It was an absolute 00:18:18.170 --> 00:18:21.430 immediate economic nightmare. Let's talk about 00:18:21.430 --> 00:18:23.710 Vienna because the imagery here is striking. 00:18:24.029 --> 00:18:27.700 Think of Vienna before the war. A grand, bustling 00:18:27.700 --> 00:18:30.859 imperial capital built with the wealth and resources 00:18:30.859 --> 00:18:34.059 to administer a vast, sprawling empire across 00:18:34.059 --> 00:18:36.299 Central and Eastern Europe. Palaces everywhere. 00:18:36.599 --> 00:18:39.039 It had the massive railway hubs, the central 00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:41.319 banking headquarters, the enormous bureaucratic 00:18:41.319 --> 00:18:43.960 ministries, and the population of a superpower's 00:18:43.960 --> 00:18:46.339 heart. A giant head without a body. Exactly. 00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:48.779 But how did the city not just instantly collapse 00:18:48.779 --> 00:18:50.720 financially? You have a city built for an empire 00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:53.579 of over 50 million people suddenly trapped in 00:18:53.579 --> 00:18:55.859 a country of just six million. Well, it very 00:18:55.859 --> 00:18:57.819 nearly did collapse. Yeah. You have to picture 00:18:57.819 --> 00:19:00.839 these massive imperial ministries in Vienna with 00:19:00.839 --> 00:19:03.079 thousands of clerks and administrators. Their 00:19:03.079 --> 00:19:05.799 entire job was to manage taxation in Galicia 00:19:05.799 --> 00:19:09.279 or naval logistics in Trieste. Right. Suddenly, 00:19:09.339 --> 00:19:12.190 those places belonged to Poland and Italy. But 00:19:12.190 --> 00:19:14.529 those thousands of clerks are still sitting at 00:19:14.529 --> 00:19:17.769 the desks in Vienna, needing to be paid in a 00:19:17.769 --> 00:19:20.430 country that has no money. What a disaster. The 00:19:20.430 --> 00:19:22.789 city was starving. They were cut off from the 00:19:22.789 --> 00:19:24.990 agricultural bread baskets of Hungary and the 00:19:24.990 --> 00:19:27.630 coal mines of Bohemia. People were literally 00:19:27.630 --> 00:19:29.829 ripping wood out of the Vienna woods just to 00:19:29.829 --> 00:19:32.079 heat their homes during the winter. Wow. The 00:19:32.079 --> 00:19:34.940 vast reduction of population, territory, and 00:19:34.940 --> 00:19:38.359 resources wreaked such havoc on the economy that 00:19:38.359 --> 00:19:41.160 for a time the international community seriously 00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:45.400 questioned if this new, truncated Austria could 00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:48.529 even survive as an independent state. This raises 00:19:48.529 --> 00:19:51.049 an important question, and it's one where history 00:19:51.049 --> 00:19:53.549 provides some pretty dark foreshadowing. Yes. 00:19:53.710 --> 00:19:56.230 We have a humiliated population, an economy in 00:19:56.230 --> 00:19:59.029 complete shambles, forced territorial isolation, 00:19:59.210 --> 00:20:02.069 and a deep treaty -mandated identity crisis. 00:20:02.289 --> 00:20:04.630 Where does that lead a nation? It leads to a 00:20:04.630 --> 00:20:07.329 very dark, very dangerous place. The historical 00:20:07.329 --> 00:20:10.450 reality is chilling. Because of this harsh treatment, 00:20:10.950 --> 00:20:14.150 the loss of historic lands, and the ensuing economic 00:20:14.150 --> 00:20:17.430 desperation, the idea of an anxious A political 00:20:17.430 --> 00:20:20.390 union with Germany never went away. It just sacked 00:20:20.390 --> 00:20:22.910 there. In fact, as the decades progressed, it 00:20:22.910 --> 00:20:25.529 became highly popular among the Austrian majority. 00:20:26.630 --> 00:20:29.670 This top -down suppression and economic starvation 00:20:29.670 --> 00:20:32.430 directly contributed to the appeal of uniting 00:20:32.430 --> 00:20:34.970 with Nazi Germany in the years leading up to 00:20:34.970 --> 00:20:37.490 World War II. Unbelievable. It is the ultimate 00:20:37.490 --> 00:20:40.890 tragic unintended consequence. The Allies tried 00:20:40.890 --> 00:20:43.730 to weaken Austria to prevent war, but the method 00:20:43.730 --> 00:20:46.309 they used helped pave the way for a conflict 00:20:46.309 --> 00:20:48.829 far more destructive than the first. So what 00:20:48.829 --> 00:20:51.049 does this all mean for us today? Why should a 00:20:51.049 --> 00:20:53.529 listener care about a treaty from 1919 right 00:20:53.529 --> 00:20:55.940 now? It's a great question. When we look at the 00:20:55.940 --> 00:20:57.559 Treaty of Saint -Germain -en -Laye, we aren't 00:20:57.559 --> 00:20:59.740 just looking at an old dusty piece of paper. 00:20:59.779 --> 00:21:01.920 We are looking at a cautionary tale. Definitely. 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:04.940 This was a surgical dismemberment of a superpower 00:21:04.940 --> 00:21:08.460 that left deep festering economic and psychological 00:21:08.460 --> 00:21:11.519 scars. It is a stark reminder to you the listener 00:21:11.519 --> 00:21:14.539 about the extreme dangers of top -down solutions. 00:21:15.039 --> 00:21:18.380 When outsiders impose strict punitive reorganizations 00:21:18.380 --> 00:21:21.660 without actually considering the complex intermingled 00:21:21.660 --> 00:21:23.839 realities of the people living on the ground, 00:21:24.079 --> 00:21:26.559 the train lines, the food supplies, the local 00:21:26.559 --> 00:21:29.359 cultures, the system usually breaks. Always. 00:21:29.519 --> 00:21:32.019 And when it breaks, the fallout is devastating. 00:21:32.599 --> 00:21:34.319 I want to leave you with a final thought to mull 00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:36.599 over long after we wrap up today's discussion. 00:21:36.740 --> 00:21:40.079 OK. We've spent this time exploring how arbitrarily 00:21:40.079 --> 00:21:42.839 drawn borders trapped millions of people in new 00:21:42.839 --> 00:21:46.599 nations, humiliated a populace and fueled the 00:21:46.599 --> 00:21:49.279 deep desperate resentments that eventually paved 00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:51.799 the way for the Second World War. Yeah. Now, 00:21:51.839 --> 00:21:54.539 step back and look at our modern world. Think 00:21:54.539 --> 00:21:56.599 about the international treaties, the border 00:21:56.599 --> 00:21:59.460 disputes, and the peace negotiations being heavily 00:21:59.460 --> 00:22:01.420 debated on the global stage right now. It's all 00:22:01.420 --> 00:22:04.019 connected. If history definitively shows us that 00:22:04.019 --> 00:22:06.740 punishing a defeated nation by erasing its identity, 00:22:07.140 --> 00:22:09.599 trapping its minorities, and starving its economy 00:22:09.599 --> 00:22:12.700 only guarantees a more explosive conflict a generation 00:22:12.700 --> 00:22:15.740 later, we have to ask ourselves, are there peace 00:22:15.740 --> 00:22:18.279 treaties and top -down border solutions being 00:22:18.279 --> 00:22:21.019 crafted in our modern era that are actually just 00:22:21.019 --> 00:22:23.420 planting the seeds for the next great war? Exactly. 00:22:23.640 --> 00:22:27.259 That is a heavy but incredibly necessary question 00:22:27.259 --> 00:22:29.960 to ask. Thank you so much for joining us on this 00:22:29.960 --> 00:22:31.960 deep dive into the Treaty of Saint -Germain -en 00:22:31.960 --> 00:22:33.960 -Laye. Keep questioning, keep learning, and we'll 00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:34.700 catch you next time.