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In this video I talk about some of the Post-War plans that were made, but never followed - find out why!
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War. The number of armed and military conflicts that there have been throughout history is immense
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Many of them were caused by the desire of one side conquering lands from the other
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And even if that wasn't the cause for the war to start, territorial changes were many times the consequence of the war
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For instance, in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, the German Empire acquired Alsace-Lorraine from France
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After World War 1, the same German Empire lost both Alsace-Lorraine, but also all of its colonial lands
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Territorial changes are a big part of military conflicts, but very often after a war, there have been proposed territorial changes that ended up not taking place
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Either because they were quickly reverted as a new agreement was reached, because they were deemed too unfair, because they didn't have the agreement of all winning parties
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or simply because the losing side refused to keep them. So in this video, we're going to take a look at a few of the post-war plans that were never kept
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trying to understand what the world would look like if they had, and also understand why it was
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they ended up not happening. First, a Greek and Italian occupation of Turkey. After World War I, the Ottoman Empire
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a member of the defeated Central Powers, was dismantled, being reduced to Turkey. Its loss
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of territories was established by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. However, before this treaty
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a very different one was signed, the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. Through it, the Ottomans would
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also see its empire collapse, being divided between the British, the French, and the Italians a little
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bit. But the newly established Turkish Republic would not keep all of its territories in Thrace
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nor all of Anatolia. Through the Treaty of Sèvres, all islands of the Aegean Sea would be given to
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Greece, along with all of its territory in Europe, with the exception of Constantinople
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Roads would also be granted to Italy, as well as other territories, along the southern coast of
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Anatolia. The zone of the Straits, which included Constantinople, would remain Turkish, but under
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heavy international rule and influence. Smyrna would initially be under Greek control, then
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subject to a referendum. Armenia would expand its territory tremendously to include the cities of
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Trebizond and Erzerum and Kurdistan would likely be created with a referendum being mandatory for the area
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The terms of this first treaty stirred a lot of hostility from the Turkish
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In fact, one of the triggers for the Turkish War of Independence was when the treaty signatories were stripped of their citizenship by the Grand National Assembly led by Mustafa Atat The Turks attained significant victories against the combined armies of the signatories of the First Treaty and in 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne replaced the Treaty of S
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ending the conflict and establishing the Republic of Turkey as we know it today
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Should the First Treaty be put into effect, Turkey would be a lot smaller today
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Next, a proposed division of Japan. This plan also existed during the end of World War II, even though it never took place
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The idea that Japan would be occupied and divided in the same manner that Germany ended up being
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The US, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union agreed on a potential division of Japan
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at the Potsdam Conference in July of 1945. Under the occupation plan that was discussed, Kanto and Kansai were to be occupied by the US
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Hokkaido and Tooku by the Soviet Union, Kyushu and Shugoku by the UK, and Shikoku by China
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while Tokyo was to be split four ways, just as had happened to Berlin. The US State Department
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even drew up a plan for the forces required for each occupation zone. So why didn't this happen
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Well, some people say that this plan was intended for a scenario where a full-scale invasion of the
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Japanese archipelago took place by the Allies. Instead, the Empire of Japan surrendered to the
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United States after the dropping of the two atomic bombs. The full-scale invasion was no longer needed
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and because of this, the division of the occupation wasn't needed as well. Although another theory is
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presented that it wasn't just the dropping of the two bombs that sped up Japanese surrender
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but also the entry of the Soviet Union in the war and the prospect of a Soviet invasion
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preferring to surrender to the US in an attempt to preserve some of their sovereignty and system
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in the long run, then risk its entire collapse by having to also surrender to the Soviets
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The surrender enabled Japan to avoid the partition and occupation of the Japanese home islands
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The initial plan for Smirna was for it to be under temporary Greek rule and then have
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a referendum happen. One similar situation was the French occupation of the Sarlan, also after World War 1
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Many of the examples used in this video refer to post-World War 1 and World War 2 plans
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They are the most recent major conflicts and it's difficult to find information of
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this type about older wars, but if you know of any, let me know in the comments
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Saarland was a region of Germany occupied and governed by the United Kingdom and France
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from 1920 to 1935 under a League of Nations mandate. It had its own flag, a blue, white
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and black horizontal tricolor. The blue and white stood for Bavaria and the white and
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black for Prussia out of whose lands the Saar territory was formed The French wanted the territory to be held by them in perpetuity And when in 1935 a referendum took place for the people to decide whether they would remain French or go back to being German
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France campaigned for its permanent annexation of the territory. However, they were vastly
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unsuccessful as over 90% of the people voted to reunite with Germany, and so the French post-war
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plan of permanently conquering this part of Germany did not come to fruition. After World War II
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the same situation took place again, with the Sarlan being made into a French protectorate from
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1946 to 1956. France even proposed the creation of an independent Sarlan, which would have created
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a new country in Europe. But the locals rejected it through a vote, with 67% being in support
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once again, to reunify with Germany. The next example is one I mentioned in a previous video
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about Germany's territorial evolution. After reaching a separate peace with the Bolshevik
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Russians due to the Russian Revolution, Germany would have acquired, through the peace treaty of
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Brest-Litovsk, a status of protector over the three Baltic nations. Being victorious in the
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Eastern Front of World War I, Germany forced Russia to cede a great part of its territory
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in Eastern Europe. According to it, all of Russia-occupied Poland would have been annexed by
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Germany, along with Lithuania. Meanwhile, Latvia and Estonia, in the map at the time called Livonia
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would have become their own states, but existing as protectorates of the German Empire. Because
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Germany lost the war in the Western Front, this treaty ended up not being implemented
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and Germany's expansion into Poland and the Baltic was stopped. Another unkept plan was another
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proposed division of Germany itself. As we know, post-World War II, Germany was in fact divided
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into East and West, but there was a different idea previously thought of, the Morgenthau plan
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It was first proposed by United States Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, from who it got its name
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Winston Churchill was initially very much against it, but on the second Quebec conference in September of 1944
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US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry Morgenthau persuaded Churchill to agree to the plan
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likely using a $6 billion Lendley's agreement to do so. The plan itself had one main objective, to completely eliminate Germany's military capacity
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and to achieve it, it proposed, among other things, the following territorial reorganization
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Germany would lose all its eastern territories to Poland and the USSR, as in part it did
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Some northern territory would go to Denmark, and the Sarlan would once again be given to France
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An international zone would be created, here depicted in green, which would include most of
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the Rhineland the Ruhr region highly industrialized and according to the plan memorandum the heart of German industrial power Two German states would be created one in the south made up of Baden and Bavaria and another in the
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north. Eventually, the plan was deemed unrealistic and impractical by the Americans themselves
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and so it wasn't followed. One post-war plan that never happened, although it was supposed to
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as opposed to other ones that weren't applied because of their proponents giving up
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was the return of Olivenza from Spain to Portugal. Olivenza is a small municipality on the Portuguese-Spanish
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border, it was under Portuguese sovereignty almost always since 1297 up until 1801 when it was
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occupied by Spain during the War of the Oranges and ceded that year under the Treaty of Batajoz
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However, this treaty was later revoked through the 1850 Treaty of Vienna in which it was stipulated
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and agreed upon by both parties that Olifensa would be returned to the Portuguese. However
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this return never took place and today the territory remains under Spanish rule. The
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Portuguese don't officially recognize it, but have effectively let go of the land and
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implicitly accepted Spanish sovereignty over it. And finally, one more plan that didn't, at least to its fullest extent, take place after
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World War II was the proposed annexation of German territories by the Netherlands
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At the end of World War II, plans were made in the Netherlands to annex German territory
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as a compensation for the damages caused by the war, through what became known as the
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Bakarschut Plan. In its most ambitious form, this plan included the cities of Cologne, Aachen, Munster, and
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Oznabruck, and would have enlarged the country's European territory by 30-50%. The local population would have to either be deported or, when still speaking the original
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German dialects, be Dutchified. There were three plans with the same idea, A, B, and C, each with different areas being
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annexed and each with less ambition than the one before. The plan was eventually abandoned after the US rejected it. Eventually, a much smaller area of
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around 70 square kilometers was allocated to the Netherlands, almost all of it being returned to
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West Germany in 1963, after they paid the Netherlands 280 million German marks. So
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those are some of the post-war plans that were never kept regarding territorial changes
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from treaties that were replaced by other treaties, to temporary situations that could
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have been made permanent to full-on plan divisions or occupations of entire countries that ended up
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not taking place or taking place in a different manner. Are there any other interesting post-war
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plans that were proposed but then never followed? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks so much
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for watching this video, subscribe if you want, and I will see you next time for more general knowledge
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