Was the Treaty of Versailles a success or a failure?

[Old_Fart]

What I see going on with the * administration and the war on oil brings back memories of Germany. Hitler brainwashed his people by using the media. I keep having nightmares about this subject because when you compare it everything is in place with * and the brainwashing of the Walmart cookie cutter people.

This statement made by Wilson fits in today with what is going on in Iraq. Wilson said that it was a war to end wars, * is claiming that it is a war on terrorism to end terrorism.

Is * following a playbook that has already been used?



If the treaty is not ratified by the Senate, the war will have been fought in vain, and the world will be thrown into chaos. I promised our soldiers, when I asked them to take up arms, that it was a war to end wars...

-Pres. Woodrow Wilson

[merbex]

1. If B* doesn't get his way do you think his blood pressure will go

high enough to give him a stroke?

He's been so Wilsonian after all

[Old_Fart]

2. Stroke

:evilgrin:

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Treaty of Versailles was an abject failure on many levels.

1. It didn't end a war to end all wars. Rather, in the future, the World Wars will be thought of as combined with a pause of 20 years between them.

2. The purpose was of the Treaty was not a roadmap to peace. It was to satisfy bankers and the countries who had "won", who needed repayment of their debt incurred for making war in the first place. The plan was designed to bleed Germany dry of its assets and to humiliate it. In this respect, Hitler wasn't far off the mark. The Deutschmark started out at 4 Marks to a dollar and within 5 years, it balooned to thousands of Marks to the dollar. The Weimar Republic in Germany allowed the inflation as it would have "the last laugh" of repayment to the Allies with worthless money. In the meantime, its citizens lost their jobs, their property, and starved.

3. Wilson had the opportunity to prevent the Vietnam War, believe it or not. A young lawyer named Ho Chi Minh came to see him in Paris to discuss independence of Vietnam from France, and he was rebuffed by Wilson. Wilson was keen on helping the Balkans get their independence, but not Vietnam.

4. One more thing. Wilson was obsessed with his idea for the League of Nations and could only focus on that goal. Meanwhile there was so much else that had to be decided and he just wasn't "there" to help forge an equitable treaty with respect to all parties. And he wasn't well, thus preventing him from attending all sessions and meetings. And he didn't delegate authority to proxies.

Oh well.

[Old_Fart]

4. Prescott Bush made money off of the war

n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Oh yeah, I forgot. A lot of American investment banks that lent money

TO BOTH SIDES cashed in on the end of the war, extorting unreasonable repayment terms and usury interest rates, thus assisting the descent of Germany into abject poverty. Brown Bros. practically owned Germany after the first World War, confident that they'd be making new loans in the future.

[DemoTex]

6. Meanwhile, back at the Flughafen ...

The Treaty of Versailles proscribed Germany from training any airplane pilots (to emasculate a future Luftwaffe). So Herr Hitler began training young men in gliders. These power-less pilots mastered basic airmanship and, by the time Hitler fully abrogated the treaty, became excellent fighter and bomber pilots. The Luftwaffe was back in business, all too soon, with a vengeance.


Messerschmitt ME-109

[Thrasybulus]

7. Wilson himself stated that if America failed to ratify the treaty

that America would find itself fighting another European war within a generation.

I agree with Page Smith's assessment of Wilson in his "History Of America," that it's less surprising that he did not achieve all he wanted at Versailles as that he accomplished as much as he did against such odds.

As you say the economic interests were against a lenient peace as were the European politicians who had to justify their enormous blood sacrifices to their people.

As for Vietnam, Wilson is hardly to blame. His aim was to set up the machinery that would allow the freedom of such as the Vietnamese through the League.He had not the power to set the world free at the stroke of a pen.

But to set up the League of Nations he needed the support of the colonizing countries. Truman made the same trade off after WWII of allowing continued French colonization of Indochina in return for French support of NATO. Truman's act had more direct bearing on our tragic involvement in Vietnam.