Posted on 11/10/2018 10:33:14 PM PST by Fai Mao
The eleventh, day of the eleventh month is either today or tomorrow depending on where you live.
I agree, though the program is still pretty good in detailing Ludendorf’s mental breakdown.
The seeds of WW1 go back to at least 1805 and probably 1796 as it was the French Revolution that led to Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars that were the Genesis of the Franco-Prussian War which was the precursor to both World War 1 and the Russian Revolution and then WW2
Not that I want to blame everything bad that’s happened in the last 250 years on the French but, well, there it is.
From the early part of the video, “Armistice: The End Game of WW1.”
“But the Armistice of 1918 went a lot further. The terms included not only evacuating all Germany’s conquest in France and Belgium, but also allowing the allied armies to occupy Germany west of the Rhine. The Germans also had to surrender 30,000 machine guns, 5,000 cannon, 1,700 planes and all their u-boats. In effect, their entire German capacity to wage war. These were exceptionally harsh terms.” —Professor David Reynolds
Interesting vid — there are some useful truths in there, along with some pretty heavy handed quasi-globalist propaganda, including among other goodies, the inclusion of the Soviets in the “peace loving nations of the world”. Uh-huh.
Still, as I consider the Germans, and I’m of German ancestry who fled Germany several generations ago to come to the US... Modern Germans are defanged from military conquest, but I surmise their “tradition of freedom”, despite our efforts after WW2, is weak indeed. This weakness just manifests itself a bit differently, in the people, and government, now.
You are confused, did you even watch the video?
There was nothing "anti-American" about it.
familyop: "The origin of the wars with the same enemy goes back at least to the 1800s and probably long before."
The video does not discuss the First World War's beginnings, only its ending as prelude to the Second World War.
No, those terms were exceptionally easy compared to the terms Germans themselves imposed on, for examples, defeated Belgium and Russia.
They were only "harsh" in comparison to what Ludendorf thought he would get from US President Wilson, in effect, "peace without victory".
Ludendorf wanted "peace without victory" so he could keep the conquered territory in Belgium and France.
That's what he thought he could get in October 1918.
But US President Wilson proved slipperier than Ludendorf expected and the end result was somewhere about half way between "peace without victory" and the terms Germans imposed on their own defeated enemies.
Well... let's put it in the broadest possible context: it is the very nature of empires to fight wars and expand their territories.
It's what empires do, it's what they've always done, they don't need excuses, reasons or justifications of any kind, wars are part of the very definition of "empire".
In 1914 Germany was an empire which saw an opportunity to expand its holdings through war, period.
familyop: "Oh, the French..."
In 1914 the French were also an empire, who would like to recover their lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, but they did not initiate the events which lead to the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in August 1914.
Total rubbish, this video says nothing of the sort.
It simply recounts the end of the First World War as prelude to the Second.
You must have watched some other video.
It was Europe’s obsession with constantly teaming up with each other, trying to “balance” the various powers.
It goes back to all of those wars of succession as well.
The only thing keeping WW1 from being 30 years earlier was Europe being distracted with forging colonial empires overseas.
By “defanging” Germans, the Allies set the stage for Bolshevism.
No that comment was totally bogus, apparently neither one of you actually watched the video, but both have very overactive imaginations.
familyop: "It seems that some cultures continue to feel more comfortable with some form of empire while broadcasting through media that the people of each of those cultures are opposed to empire."
"Empire" like "nationalism" is a matter of definitions.
Both can have a benignly positive penumbra, but also a darkly malignant side -- all depends on how the words are used.
For one example, George Washington talked of the 13-state USA as "our empire" and New York as the "seat of empire" (hence Empire State), both intended and heard at the time as within the context of our constitutional guarantees of liberty and representation.
However, historically empires are a matter of military conquest and subjugation.
They were pursued by countries because, obviously, they paid rich dividends -- think of India, the UK's "jewel in the crown", highly profitable.
For over 100 years the USA has opposed empires and supported self-government with elected representatives.
But in the long arc of human history, that is a very recent phenomenon.
familyop: "Granted, those nations have constructed narratives to say that we somehow conquered them in the past, even though we didn't try to keep their lands or peoples.
China is suspicious of us for several irrelevant reasons "
Some people accuse the USA today of being a global empire, but that is only valid if we metaphorize the word "empire" to mean the same things as in "media empire" or someone's "business empire", or even "fashion empire", etc.
In reality, by historical standards the US is not an "empire" in any traditional sense.
No, Germans imposed what they called the "bacillus" of Lenin's Communism on Russia, in 1917.
In 1941 Hitler's National Socialists invaded Stalin's International Socialists and guess what?
Socialists won.
Had not the Germans been subject to the imperious Versaille Treaty, Hitler and his NSDAP would not have had such a fertile petri dish to grow in. Nor would the mini Bolsheviks and assorted German Communist groups had an “in” to infect the national fabric.
Sorry pal, but that's just propaganda, the real truth of the matter is totally clear if you simply imagine Adolf Hitler for what he figuratively was: Eric Ludendorf's son.
Watch the video -- Ludendorf joined Hitler's party and marched beside him in his 1923 Putsch.
Hitler's WWII military policy was simply to achieve what Ludendorf tried & failed in WWI.
So, if German victory in 1918 would prevent the rise of Hitler, it's only because Hitler would have been unnecessary -- small consolation to the millions enslaved in Eastern Europe.l
"Had not the Germans been subject to the imperious Versaille Treaty, Hitler and his NSDAP would not have had such a fertile petri dish to grow in. Nor would the mini Bolsheviks and assorted German Communist groups had an “in” to infect the national fabric."
Don't comment on was not said.
But you're talking gibberish, I'm merely hoping to impose a rational thought on what is otherwise nonsense:
How do we know this?
Because that's exactly what Germans did to nations they defeated, such as Belgium and Russia.
By the Germans own standards for defeated nations, Versailles was a mild slap on the wrist.
And your problem with this is what, exactly?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.