From the very signing most competent observers understood that the treaty guaranteed a second war. The tragedy is that it was undone by Hitler. History has plenty of bad deals undone in good order. so that was never an impossible option.
In fact it was largely accomplished with the ejection of the French from the Rhineland in the mid thirties. An assertive competent government would have done as much then as all the flaws of the treaty were then obvious and that it crippled everyone including the so called winners.
Churchill was one of the key promoters of British intervention in WWI. For that he should never be forgiven. Yet this mindset of power through WAR was the guide to his understanding of things and was surely inspired by his famous ancestor and too much imperial propaganda. The Second WAR was inevitable and he certainly promoted such a WAR, rather than any alternative.
The shock of all that led to the creation of what is a European economic confederation and a full military treaty in NATO. It also led to the complete dismemberment of all the European empires a decision forced by the USA who insisted on the end of the old mercantilism..
Time has allowed those lessons to be far better understood. It is not over yet and it will not be over until poverty is fully eliminated on a global basis.
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The Real Cause of World War II Was the Allies Deception of Germany with the 1918 Armistice and the Subsequent Versailles Treaty
The Real Cause of World War II Was the Allies Deception of Germany with the 1918 Armistice and the Subsequent Versailles Treaty
Paul Craig Roberts
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/01/14/the-real-cause-of-world-war-ii-was-the-allies-deception-of-germany-with-the-1918-armistice-and-the-subsequent-versailles-treaty/
John Wear and many other historians including David Irving have shown Churchill and Roosevelt’s guilt for World War II. Suvorov has made a strong case that Stalin also was guilty.
The guilt of these three notwithstanding, it was the allied deception
that coerced Germany into the Versailles Treaty that made WWII
inevitable. The British
economist John Maynard Keynes clearly understood this as did Lenin who
described the Versailles Treaty as a bomb waiting to explode Europe, an
event of which Soviet Russia intended to take advantage.
Germany did not lose WW I on the battlefield.
[ I disagree with this assertion. They had lost the ability to actually prevent a tactical breakout and were certainly in the midst of been rumbled back into Germany at the least and it is impossible to see anyway in which they could stop advancing allied forces. Arclein. ]
When the war ended, Germany occupied enemy territory. The
war ended when Germany, believing American President Woodrew Wilson’s
promise of no territorial loss and no reparations, asked for an
armistice. Germany requested an armistice for two reasons: The
entry of the US into the war, which brought fresh troops into the
conflict, and rebellion at home. German sailors mutinied and leading
German cities, such as Cologne and Hamburg established soviets demanding
the end of the war and the abdication of the Kaiser. The German
military concluded that these conditions precluded a successful
continuation of the war.
Once Germany put down her arms, the British used a food blockade to
force Germany into accepting the Versailles Treaty that violated
President Wilson’s promises or starve. Wilson was unable or unwilling to stand up to the British and French.
Suvorov and many other historians have reported the massive reparations extracted from Germany.
Here is Suvorov’s account:
Germany lost “one-eight of its territory with a population of 5,138,000 people. Germany lost all her colonies. All
merchant ships with a capacity over 1,600 tons displacement were
confiscated, as well as one-half of the merchant ships exceeding 1,000
tons displacement, a quarter of the fishing fleet, and one-fifth of the
river fleet. Germany was also required, for the next five years, to
build for the Allies merchant ships, totaling 200,000 tons dispacement
per year. Germany was obligated to supply France with up to 140 million
tons of coal, Belgium 80 million tons, and Italy 77 million tons. Also,
Germany was required to transfer half of its paints and non-military
chemicals and to provide up to a quarter of the future production
through 1925. The Allies
received the right to use German ports, railroads, and waterways on very
beneficial terms. On top of all this, Germany was forced into paying
astronomical amounts of retribution.”
Germany was a new nation unified in 1871, and only 47 years later it
had ceased to be a sovereign state, denied an army, artillery, tanks,
submarines, and aviation, with German arms production placed under
international control. The country was dismembered with its territory
scattered into France, Denmark, Poland, and Czechslovakia. The immense
economic hardship imposed on the German people by reparations and the
abuse of Germans by the Polish and Czech governments produced the rise
of Adolf Hitler whose goal was to reunite Germany.
It was the greed and stupidity of England and France, and the
weakness of President Wilson, that created the conditions for the
personal ambitions of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin twenty years
later.
Corrupt and venal historians blame Germany for starting World War II
just as they blame Germany for starting World War I despite the
undeniable fact that Germany was the last combatant to mobilize for WW
I. Wars have never been started by the last country to mobilize.
Stalin militarized the Soviet economy years before Hitler militarized the German economy.
Churchill’s plan to use war as his path to power was put into effect years prior to Hitler’s reunification of Germany. Historians who overlook these facts, are not historians. They are propagandists.
Versailles Treaty: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-0043.pdf
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