Quoted Text
Straying a little 
here
Germany got a very good deal out of Versailles, far better than they would have given had they been the victors. You only need to look at the treaty they pushed onto Russia (or the one with France after the Franco-Prussian War) to see that. Independent Belgium, and newly-indendendent Poland, Czechoslovakia and the other nations created post-WW1 would have had no place in a German peace.
As with the Japanese in WW2, propaganda on the home front disguised just how badly the war was going until it was too late, allowing those responsible (like Hindenburg) to pretend defeat was the result of factors other than their own political and military mistakes.
Straying even further....
Saying that Germany got a very good deal because it was comparatively better then the brest-Litovsk treaty is very bad reasoning. It is IMHO not even an argument... to give you a few of the pointers:
1). The war reparations demanded from Germany amounted to a bigger amount of money then was arguably in existance at that time. In fact, the annual amount demanded was so large that Germany could not rebuild its economy. It would prevent Germany from even feeding its population, let alone producing anything. Add to that the fact that much of Germanies industry was no longer under her control. large parts of the industries in the East were now Polish, while most in the West (Saarland and Rhineland) was under french control.
No country could afford them. It completely crippled Germany, was the cause of hyperinflation and made them dependent on American loans. Which came back to haunt them in late 1929.
2) The war guilt clause: Almost every country "wanted"
the war. And if you would have to finger two or three countries, the culprits would be Serbia, Austria-Hungary and Russia. In reality all but Belgium and Britain were the real culprits.
3) The new states you mention had been fighting loyally on the side of the Axis untill practically the day of the armistice. Their punishment was that they got whatever they demanded from Austria, Hungary and Germany at Versailles, and what they took thereafter. They not only gained their independence, they also gained much more territory then they could claim on ethnic and histrical grounds. Territory that happened to coincide with the economically most valuable sections of Hungary ie.
As far as your argument about the propaganda goes, that is true, largely... though the defeat was not so obvious. In fact, in the east the war was won, in the west continuing the fight was hopeless, but at first glance not lost. No German territory had yet been occupied, nor were most Grman troops captured... So for most of the population the war did truly not seem lost.
Cheers,
Harm
