" Despite the disaster unleashed by Bismarck’s creation of 1871, an integral and sovereign German nation state was taken for granted as a basic element in the new order. For Bainville this assumption was the hallmark of sentimental nineteenth-century liberalism.5 The bizarre mixture of cruelty and kindness that characterized the peace was the direct result of Clemenceau’s effort to reconcile the security needs of France with his romantic attachment to the principle of nationality. Whatever we may think of Bainville’s politics, the force of his point can hardly be denied. Across the sweep of modern history since the emergence of the modern nation state system in Europe in the seventeenth century, the assumption of German national sovereignty marks the treaty of 1919 as unique. Most, if not all, of the problems peculiar to the Versailles Treaty system arose from it. "

― Adam Tooze , The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931