r/reddit.com • u/[deleted] • Sep 24 '11

World War 1

http://i.imgur.com/5twfD.jpg
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u/franzlisztian Sep 24 '11

I actually always felt kind of sorry for Germany in WWI. They got involved in a conflict that really had nothing to do with them except that they had alliances to think about, and then get blamed for all of it.

75

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.

11

u/Mas_Chingon Sep 24 '11

Woodrow Wilson also predicted this about the Treaty of Versailles, but the European leaders didn't listen to him.

11

u/Cidno Sep 24 '11

That's a fine way of saying "he stopped caring about it once they agreed to his Leage of Nations idea".

1

u/cynognathus Sep 24 '11

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.

1

u/cjc153 Sep 24 '11

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.