tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11628754.post1947923115253027570..comments2024-03-28T08:46:15.009-04:00Comments on Fat in Indiana: Reflections on the Great WarJoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269114655802698386noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11628754.post-87337838835320654842011-08-23T08:02:13.839-04:002011-08-23T08:02:13.839-04:00...after they made the French surrender in the sam......after they made the French surrender in the same boxcar!<br /><br />Somewhere in the archives is an unread post about the Franco-Prussian War and how it lead to WWI and the aftermath of WWI led to WWII.<br /><br />None of my post is brilliant scholarship on my part, but stuff I find interesting. There can be no doubt the French insistance of the very harsh penalties led to the rise of Hitler. By the late 1920's everyone, especially the Brits, admitted the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were too harsh, but the French would not relent.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17269114655802698386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11628754.post-32268867643669330352011-08-22T22:21:39.031-04:002011-08-22T22:21:39.031-04:00The German surrender, at the time, was probably th...The German surrender, at the time, was probably the one sensible thing to come of the war; as you mention it, German command saw the futility of throwing it all for a victory. Hey, we have our untouched country, let's cut bait and recover as best we can - we need those men in the fields planting crops, not another year in the trenches.<br /><br />The problem is, for the victors, they lost so many millions of men that for them to simply call it quits and leave Germany alone at the border would be to have won little for the sacrifice. We hear it in this country that once you spilled blood on the field of battle, to stick it out so you don't dishonor the sacrifice of those who died and were injured; they cannot be allowed to have died in vain. Remember how dissatisfied it felt when we stopped Desert Storm without storming Baghdad and taking Saddam?<br /><br />And so hence you got the onerous Treaty of Versailles. Could the British and French diplomats go home to Parliament and the National Assembly with a simple "all's over?" But then Germany had a legit beef to say wtf when they deposed the Kaiser, took ownership of a war that had a dozen fathers, became a republic like Britain and France, then still got beaten to a pulp in reparations as if they did go ape and tear everything up and go for broke.<br /><br />When newly unified Germany (this occurred in the Palace of Versailles of all places) defeated France in the Franco Prussian War, they got reparations, occupied France until these payments were made, then took ethnically German Alsace Lorraine, which was a thorn in France's side until they were able to get them back after WW I. France kept its empire, and the Germans trained in boxcars of food to relieve starving Paris the moment armistice was declared. And Germany made a point to get the heck out of Dodge and back over the border once all was settled and made no claim on French GDP outside of their 70m Francs.<br /><br />Germany lost all of its non-European possessions, its non-German national holdings, was saddled with reparations they finally paid off in 2010, disarmed, and pretty much castrated. No wonder once they got back into France in 1940, a star goal of theirs was to blow up the boxcar where the armistice was agreed.mts1http://mts1.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com