World War II Forums - View Single Post - POLAND SAVED GREAT BRITAIN DURING WORLD WAR II

Friedrich · #16 (**permalink**) January 26th, 2004, 06:07 PM

No, Gordon. I unfortunately haven't even heard of the book...

But let me tell you that I strongly disagree. Versailles Treaty was a bad treaty. But not because it was unfair, because it was not unfair enough.

France's claims at the end of WWI were the right ones; making the Rhine her new defence against Germany would have made any invasion against France nearly impossible. And France had the right to do so.

The richest part of the country —2/5 by the way— were in ruins and 1,5 million of her men were dead, she was bankrupt and all because of German megalomania and ill-diplomacy.

President Wilson shouldn't have been seating there imposing terms in the first place. French and British wanted to make Germany a parliamentary monarchy like that of Great Britain and Italy, but the republican —let it be clear that I'm not talking about the party— bastards across the Atlantic were not going to tolerate a King (!) [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img] So they supressed the the Kaisers and left the Germans without their powerful leader, ephitome of Germany...

Wilson also made guarantees, treaties and agreements without consulting his congress back home first. Clemenceau was naïve enough to put French seccurity on the hands of a man as irresponsible as Woodrow Wilson, who even if an stateman and a great idealist was not cold enough for a politician. Result? The American congress simply refused to ratify those agreements whom they have being ignored and not even told.

Clemenceau and Lloyd-George's mistake lays there; thinking that Wilson could take decisions in the same way they could. They believed then in a Society of Nations and the ideals of 14 points... but ignored the advices of people with clearer minds like maréchal Foch.

War reparations were indeed a mistake. Where was Germany going to get the money to pay? She was even worse than the Allies financially. But France had a destroyed country and a bankrupt state the rebuild by any means possible. And after such an agony, I think it was logical to make the Germans pay for what they started and did. Harsh? Yes, but the Germans showed no mercy in 1870, nor in 1916 with Romania nor at Brest-Litovsk in 1918. How could Germany expect tolerance?

Lord Keynes suggested that German men should have been sent to France to rebuild her. Impossible. France had millions of de-mobilised and unemployed workers of her own. Rebuilding Germany into an industrial and market nation so she could export, make money and then pay? We know it was the right thing to do. But then, how could you give money and see the authour of the war strenghten again before your eyes?

The Treaty of Versailles was decided by the victorious nations and imposed to the defeated Germany. A decade later Germany ratified the same treaty at Locarno and was democratically accepted that she gave up her colonies and everything else Versailles said. After the nightmare of 1914-1818 got further and further into the past, then peace came and Europe saw a period in which Germany gained prosperity without being a treat to anyone and in which she was paying her reparations.

But German megalomania was sleeping. Another huge world war was necessary to get that tumour definately out of the nation and make her a nation completely peaceful and democratic, full of virtues.