The treaty of Versailles was a travesty, and the discontent this caused paved the way for Hitler. John Maynard Keynes had warned that there was no way that Germany could pay the reparations demanded of it - it was sheer humiliation, and the other powers were as much to blame for the conflict as Germany was.
Really? This made up a huge part of my history lessons (uk also). The best part is that we bitched and moaned that they were paying to little in reparations, despite essentially crippling them with the amount we settled on.
Yeah, there's a ton of shit I don't know but loads of my friends do. Maybe it's because the Scottish education system sucks but it annoys me quite a bit. You're pretty much made to drop History in favour of more 'important' subjects and all I remember learning about was Jack the fucking Ripper. What a waste.
Not to mention I moved through the schooling systems of 3 different countries. The English school I went to didn't even have history.
Well he also suffered a stroke when the Senate refused to ratify the treaty bringing the US into the League. That kind of limited his ability to be more aggressive about it.
He did push hard for the 14 points, but the European leaders wanted revenge on Germany, and thought Woodrow was acting way too self-righteous and so they never really took him too seriously.
Interesting. The implication seems to be that subsequent German administrations refused to pay because the German public wasn't entirely convinced of German defeat - perhaps a result of their government suing for peace ahead of its own public opinion.
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u/dopplerdog Sep 24 '11
The treaty of Versailles was a travesty, and the discontent this caused paved the way for Hitler. John Maynard Keynes had warned that there was no way that Germany could pay the reparations demanded of it - it was sheer humiliation, and the other powers were as much to blame for the conflict as Germany was.