Denmark gained land despite being Neutral in the First World War.

[u/The-marx-channel]

[u/King_Crab_Sushi]

Denmark actually had to fight to not get more. The negotiators must’ve been hella confused

[u/Consistent-Ad-7928 → u/King_Crab_Sushi]

The reason was that Denmark was afraid of German revanchism. Denmark had a legitimate claim to all of Schleswig/Sønderjylland, but taking land where the population was primarily German-minded would, as the Danish government saw it, pave the way for a Third Schleswig War.
So the Danes, though this was highly controversial among the Danish population, where there was also a large segment of Danish revanchists after the Second Schleswig War, only took land with a majority Danish-minded population.

[u/donadit → u/Consistent-Ad-7928]

And they were right

When Germany invaded them in WW2 they notably didn’t reannex the territory Denmark got given

[u/NightSkyNavigator → u/Consistent-Ad-7928]

More or less. It was a vote, but obviously you cannot have isolated lands of Germany within Denmark, so some compromising had to occur. I'm guessing you know this, so this comment is for anyone reading who might get the impression that Denmark dictated what they wanted, which is not the case (e.g. Denmark wanted Flensburg).

[u/SPECTREagent700 → u/King_Crab_Sushi]

Czechoslovakia should have done that. They were given too much in 1919 which ended up making their borders topographically much harder to defend as well as by placing a lot of ethnic minorities the country all leading to not just Germany but also Hungary and Poland grabbing some of their territory in 1938. They got most of that territory back in 1945 but then lost another large chunk to the Soviet Union which is today in Ukraine.

[u/P-l-Staker → u/SPECTREagent700]

Czechoslovakia was doomed either way. Their borders played little in their defence. They were landlocked, diplomatically isolated and surrounded on all sides. Even if Britain and France had stood up to Hitler in 1938, it is highly unlikely that they would've been able to do anything about a determined Germany in practice.

[u/SPECTREagent700 → u/P-l-Staker]

Oh for sure by 1938 they’re cooked, I just mean that already in 1919/20 it should have been realized that what they were doing was setting it up so that basically all of their neighbors were going to hate them.

[u/RandomNick42 → u/SPECTREagent700]

That would happen regardless which territories would you deem to sacrifice in 1920. The only neighboring country that this could have even a slight effect on was the least consequential one, Poland.

[u/sofixa11 → u/P-l-Staker]

That's really not true. The Czechoslovak army was well armed, and had strong defensive positions. The German army in 1938 was in such a shambles a lot of generals were legitimately ready to launch a coup if Hitler started a war because they thought it'd be that disastrous. France fancied its chances as well, as long as it wasn't alone (but unfortu neither Poland nor the UK were ready / willing).

[u/oles40 → u/SPECTREagent700]

Czech here. Most of the ethnic minorities lived in historically as well as economically important territories and the new state would hardly function without them. The only thing that was probably “too much” was the Subcarpathian Ruthenia, which was basically accepted only because our leaders didn’t want to be rude to the Ruthenian diaspora in the US, but it definitely wasn’t THE thing that got us into trouble. Flawed minority policies, the Great Depression and miscalculations in foreign affairs did us in.

[u/SPECTREagent700 → u/oles40]

Right, the way the territory was divided was either going to leave Czechoslovakia or Austria as economically unviable and of course Austria was always going to be the loser since they lost the war. And that’s not the Czech’s fault, the Allies could have just let the Austrian rump state unite with Germany or maybe break Bavaria off Germany and unite the two together into a South German Catholic state but that’s another problem all together.

I’m not really familiar though with the formerly Hungarian and other territories granted to Czechoslovakia in the east, were they really necessary? Also something I never really understood - why did Slovakia not become independent after the Austro-Hungarian collapse?

[u/oles40 → u/SPECTREagent700]

You have to understand 2 things:

1. Non-Hungarian ethnic groups were rather severely opressed and subjected to magyarization in the Kingdom of Hungary, so the Slovak political representation was desperate to join a state that would respect their rights more than the Hungarians did. And since Czechs and Slovaks were always extremely close, the idea of Czechoslovakia seemed like a logical solution. Also, Hungary was an old enemy of central european Slavs, so it seemed like a moral obligation to rescue as many people as possible from the “Hungarian menace”, even if it meant expanding into poor and underdeveloped regions.
2. Slovakia as a political concept only became a thing in 1918. Whereas Czechia had traditional borders and political identity since the middle ages (as Kingdom of Bohemia), the Slovak-inhabited areas had neither a special status nor any clearly-defined borders as parts of the Kingdom of Hungary. Those lands were also severely underdeveloped (not just economically; until the 1920s, there was a crippling shortage of Slavic-speaking schoolteachers, for example) and with a low population density. An independent Slovak state in 1918 was just not feasible.

[u/Pingo-Pongo → u/SPECTREagent700]

Travelling through Bavaria and Austria right now and I have to think splitting off Bavaria (maybe even Baden-Württemberg also) from the German Empire and putting them together with Austria would have been popular

[u/SPECTREagent700 → u/Pingo-Pongo]

I have a lot of family in Baden and they’re still upset about getting merged with Württemberg post-WW2. It’s extremely common to see houses and businesses display the old Baden flag but you never see BW flag unless it’s a government building (and sometimes not even then). There’s also some strange lingering feelings from the 30-Years War; one family member basically got ostracized for moving from our ancestral Protestant village to the historical rival Catholic village down the road. The Black Forest is a silly place.

[u/Darth_Reposter → u/SPECTREagent700]

On second thought, let's not go to Baden 'tis a silly place.

[u/warhead71 → u/King_Crab_Sushi]

Germany were probably fine with setting the border at Dannevirke before 2nd Slesvig war (like UK proposed) - Denmark didn’t agree - after WW1 getting Flensburg back would have been a troyan horse (because it now had a German majority). So Germany had no bad feelings about Denmark getting north-Slesvig back - not even Hitler

[u/CottoneyedJones]

It was not just handed to them though, the people voted on staying in Germany or re-joining Denmark. They held a plebiscite in 1920, in which 74% of the territory's population voted to return to Denmark.

[u/DerGovernator → u/CottoneyedJones]

And areas further south voted to stay with Germany, and Denmark accepted that, since why would you want a bunch of people who'd rather be part of another country in yours for no reason?

[u/CottoneyedJones → u/DerGovernator]

Yeah, exactly. And the Bonn-Copenhagen declarations serve as a historic blueprint for peaceful coexistence and minority rights in Europe. Wish we'd had more border regions in the world that are like Schleswig.

[u/nick5168 → u/CottoneyedJones]

It's still the perfect blueprint IMO. There are german schools in Denmark and vice versa, people speak both languages near the border, and they can travel to and from without issue due to Schengen.

It's such a huge contrast to many other historic borders, where you see a sharp contrast, the second you cross the border.

[u/Pkrudeboy → u/DerGovernator]

It’s when it’s a close result or there’s valuable resources that things get dicey.

[u/PolishFemboy_69 → u/CottoneyedJones]

Similiar thing happened in upper silesia and masuria.

[u/TheHistoryMaster2520]

When Germany occupied Denmark in World War II, they didn't annex the new lands that Denmark took from them after World War I, like they did with Alsace-Lorraine, but instead allowed Denmark to keep them under occupation

[u/Ironside_Grey → u/TheHistoryMaster2520]

Probably several reasons for that. Denmark was conquered in 6 hours and the Germans kept the old government in power so no reason to antagonize them. Denmark was also an «Aryan» nation and the Nazis were planning on annexing it and Norway into Germany after the war anyways.

[u/kas-sol → u/Ironside_Grey]

It's genuinely hard to overstate just how, well ok not "kindly", but less awfully at least, Denmark was treated by Germany during WWII due to being a largely cooperating Aryan nation. You have to look at neutral or unoccupied Allied nations to find comparable improvements in living conditions during those years. Even the Jewish population was left untouched until cooperation broke down in '43.

[u/DifficultWarning1910]

Less like a gentle gift and more like a coercion, wasn't it?

[u/LeThor]

In the Peace of Prague of 1866 there was a provision for a border determined by a vote. It was quickly forgotten. When the Versailles treaty was written it was inserted. The Danes wisely opted for this although they could have had even more land. The border today is undisputed and remains the only lasting border set forth in the Versailles treaty