So, is it 1919 or 1938? Which lessons from history should the European Union be keeping in mind in its negotiations with the UK, the dangers of imposing a humiliating settlement on a defeated enemy which leads to the rise of resentment, dangerous populism and violence, or the dangers of abandoning one’s ideals and giving in to aggressive and unjustifiable demands in the hope of keeping the peace, which fuels ever greater demands and does nothing to stop the rise of resentment, populism and violence? Or maybe it’s all about the Holy Roman Empire instead. Thank you, Timothy Garton Ash, your valiant efforts in trying to drum up support for the Chequers compromise when everybody else hates it will not be forgotten.
It’s the usual problem with historical analogies; you can pick whichever one you like (yes, some are much more familiar than others and hence may have more traction) depending on the lesson you intend to teach with it. You can always build a case for resemblances – just as someone else can always build a case for differences (“How dare you suggest that we’re the Germans! We have not been defeated, nor are we dominated by aggressive xenophobic nationalism and a sense of grievance and entitlement!”), or just as effectively argue that in any case there’s no reason to assume that things will turn out the same way. History doesn’t repeat itself in the way such articles imply – but historians continue to be regarded (and to present themselves) as people with special insight into the present because they know lots about things that happened in the past.
This isn’t to say that historical knowledge is useless; it’s a question of how you use it, and what you think it can tell you. It offers a range both of possibilities (what might happen in more or less similar situations) and, arguably more important, of counterfactual possibilities (what could have happened in a given situation, rather than assuming that what actually happened was the inevitable or even most likely outcome). It offers a basis for critique of over-confident predictions; and, most importantly, it offers a means of understanding the dynamics of situations, the multiple intersecting underlying causes, both material and ideological.
This is the particular genius of Thucydides: he doesn’t offer a load of information about past events as an end in themselves, nor does he offer abstract universalising theories (even if that’s how he often gets read by modern political theorists and IR types). Rather, he narrates concrete historical events in a manner intended to provoke reflection, including about possible resemblances to the present. His account of the Corcyrean stasis, for example, is an account of the breakdown of civil society in a particular city at a particular time under particular external circumstances – but it is also a paradigm for thinking about the dynamics of factionalism and the collapse of common political culture, that has seemed to generations of readers to speak to their own situation, and currently feels all too horribly familiar. Escalation of rhetoric, truth subordinated to partisan advantage, hollowing out of the ‘moderate’ centre ground, accusations of bad faith on all sides, impossibility of any reasoned dialogue: Brexit Britain in general, the internal politics of both Labour and the Tories, Trump’s America, any number of European countries facing the rise of populism – it’s all here.
And then there’s the Melian Dialogue, which really should have been required reading for Brexit negotiators (is it too late, or pointless, to write to Dominic Raab?). The familiar – well, should be familiar but probably isn’t – point is that we’re not intended to take the claims of the Athenians as true statements about the world (or as Thucydides’ own view of the world), but as an expression of their mindset. This tells us something about both past and subsequent events in the Peloponnesian War (this is why they attack Syracuse…), but also, like Corcyra, it is at the same time a paradigm for situations of unequal power: the dynamics of the relationship, the different rhetorics and psychologies of strength and weakness. It doesn’t tell us what’s going to happen; it does help us understand what is happening, and can potentially help us guard against less desirable outcomes.
Brexit has of course added the interesting spin that at various points the UK has acted as if it’s Athens confronting a weaker force, rather than the Melians faced with a united EU27. This has probably not been an advantage in adopting the correct tone… Admittedly, Yanis Varoufakis recognised that Greece was playing the Melian role, and that didn’t seem to help much either.
The crucial question – which is something I’m actually working on at the moment, in the context of the next iteration of my ‘choose your own adventure’ version of the Dialogue – is whether there is a realistic way for the Melians to ‘win’. Part of the answer, relevant to Brexit and other attempts at applying this to modern situations, is that it depends on whether you think your opponent will go Full Athenian – the EU isn’t an aggressive empire, but does actually have an interest in reaching a long-term mutually beneficial compromise.
But it also depends on how you choose to define ‘winning’. Even in the original situation, the Melians could have had peace, if their leaders had not chosen to define that as a loss if it entailed the loss of sovereignty. In a similar manner, the Brexit ideologues seem determined to see any compromise as an unacceptable defeat – this is the obvious flaw in Garton Ash’s plea to the EU not to impose a settlement that leaves the UK (or its extremist elements) feeling humiliated, because anything short of the total surrender of the EU to all British demands will be presented as humiliating and used to fuel resentment.
In other words, the E”R”G fanatics at least seem ready to go Full Melian without a moment’s hesitation, trusting in the support of old allies, in (their conviction of) the justice of their cause, in the gods (magic technology) and in hope (you just have to believe in Britain…). History suggests that this probably won’t end well…
Sphinx 
That the Peace of Versailles was punitive is a myth that needs to die. The reparations were smaller than those Germany had imposed on France in 1870, the loss of territory relatively small (again, not greater than what France lost in 1870), the military provisions would clearly be negotiated away over time (as those imposed on Russia after Crimea were). The German elites – and in particular the German military – chose to portray the treaty as torture, just as they deliberately constructed the myth of the stab-in-the-back (and they laid the groundwork for this even before the war ended – just as soon as defeat looked inevitable).
In this case, history points to the need to convince your enemies that their cause is hopeless – that there will be no rising again if they persist in the same behaviour.
Those who compromise on everything never realise their true potential. Nicely written.