Post by M I WakefieldPost by A Moose in Lovehttps://spectator.org/after-a-century-of-chaos-totalitarianism-and-war-versailles-treaty-still-haunts-the-world/
A most shameful treaty shoved down the throat of the Germans at
bayonet point. Was it really a treaty, or a provocation for a
continued war?
Time to draw out the haters and bigots. In other words, the filth.
- Allied occupation of Germany, so that everyone got the point that they
had lost;
- Trials for war crimes, with exiles, imprisonments, and executions to
follow;
- Partition of Germany into several independent, demilitarized, states
... the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires disintegrated, and the
German Empire had been around for less than 50 years.
Poor Moose is still whining about a treaty that was enacted 100 years
ago. It has been pointed out to him more than once that the treaty was
no harsher on the Germans than the one that Germany had imposed on
France at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Nor was it harsher than
the terms they had forced in Russia when it backed out of the war.
It was also pointed out that Germany was responsible for that war
after having worked out a plan with Austria Hungary to strengthen its
position in The Balkans.
AH was worried that the Russians would intervene in their power grab and
Germany offered to help them out. France was treaty bound to help
defend Russia in case of invasion, so Germany tried to force them to
renege on that promise. Germany then devised a plan to invade France
through neutral Belgium and force them into submission, England was
treaty bound to defend neutral Belgium. After a quick win in France
Germany would then turn on Russia which they figured would not have had
enough time to mobilize its army.
The plan failed when the Germans discovered that some people actually
honour treaties. Germany and AH were definitely the aggressors and bore
responsibility for the millions of deaths and huge costs.
Germany ended up getting out of most of the terms of the treaty. It lost
some of the territory it had previously taken.
Some of this authors claims are BS. He says that it made no pretense of
apply Wilson's 14 points. I guess he was counting on people taking his
claim as gospel without actually considering the points and how they
were applied. He neglected to mention the Zimmerman telegraph that was
an offer of German support if they were to attack the US to regain its
lost territories.
Perhaps the defeat would have been clearer if the Allies had marched
right into Germany and occupied it. That was how they dealt with them in
WWII.