tlb wrote:Among the variety of reasons for WW2, the yearning of the Germanic people for someone to rip apart the shameful Versailles Treaty was rather high on the list of how the National Socialist German Workers' Party and Adolf Hitler came to power. The hurt feelings and conspiracies also directly fed the anti-Semitism that helped fuel that rise.
If you want to point to the Great Depression as a contributor, that is fine; but it helped the process along, rather than starting something new.
Maldorian wrote:The german people know that they have lost the war, but the point in the Treaty of Versailles what make them upset and open a way for Hitler was, that the Treaty declares, that the war was Germany´s fault and only Germany.
It was NOT Germany, who starts the war, it was Austria. The austrian throne heir was assasinated in Sarajevo / Serbia. Does Austria give the shame the the incompetent body guards? No! The whole country should pay for the live of one men.
Germany was allied with Austria and the stupid german emporer jumped imediatley the side of the austrian emporer and also declare war at serbia.
Serbia was allied with Russia, Russia was allied with France, France was allied with great Britain - Hello world war!
In an documentation about World War One they said, that Austria had the second most incompetent army of the war, only the later joined Italian Army was more incompetent. So, in the end Austria start the war, but Germany had to carry most of the weight of the war at all front lines, because the Austrians couldn´t do their job.
So, another country starts a war and you get all the blame for it. That was more important for the normal people then the high reparation payment and the Army limits in the Treaty of Versailles.
So, for Honorverse, don´t underestimate the Ego of a nation, especially if the media put gasoline into that fire.
Modern historians say there is enough blame to go around and so do not point specifically at Germany; but there is a case that can be made that Germany bears some extra blame.
After Germany foolishly got out of The League of the Three Emperors (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia), Russia signed a pact with France that enabled French investors to contribute to the modernization of Russia. After a few years, German planners realized that they were now faced with the possibility of a two front war and more importantly the modernization of Russia meant that before many decades the enormous Russian Army would be equipped in a way comparable to their Army. Factions began gossip about the need for a preventative war before parity was achieved, however that would require Austria-Hungary to join in order to counter the disparity in manpower.
Meanwhile Austria-Hungary, a multi-ethnic nation, was having trouble with Serbian dreams of a "reunited" nation. The Austrian Chancellor dreamed of a war with Serbia that would squash those dreams and protect his country from the nationalistic forces that could tear it apart. The problem was that Russia and Serbia shared a Slavic nature and any war might not be limited unless Germany could keep Russia from becoming involved.
Despite provocations and minor conflicts, Kaiser Wilhelm and Archduke Ferdinand (who were friends) had acted to prevent any major war prior to 1914.
With the assassination of the Archduke, the Kaiser would no longer act as a peacemaker because regicide must be punished. Germany gave Austria-Hungary the "blank check" to act against Serbia and may have promised to keep Russia from interfering.
The situation at that point was that Austria-Hungary was hoping for a limited war against Serbia alone. Meanwhile some in the German General Staff felt that this was the time to strike Russia before a two front war became unwinnable.
Now comes the part for which I blame Germany: the General Staff never developed plans to defend on one front and attack on the other; the only plan (which may not have been feasible with WW1 technology) was to go on the offensive on both fronts. When Russia started a partial mobilization (something Germany could not do), Germany felt it had to strike.
In the absence of a German mobilization and strike, Austria-Hungary (which proved incapable of conquering Serbia) would have had to back down and the war would have been limited. But instead the German Army tried to implement its plan: to strike hardest through neutral Belgium, hoping to knock France out of the war and then release units from the Western front to join those in the East to fight Russia.
By attacking France prior to meeting Russia, by violating Belgium neutrality, by telling Austria-Hungary to go to war with Serbia and not to worry about the consequences Germany managed to turn a limited regional conflict into a war across the globe.
PS. When we look on it now, we wonder how people could mess up so badly. We need to keep in mind that these countries did not have large professional foreign services; instead there might just be a handful of people at each location (or not if it was vacation time) trying to communicate over the telegraph, while also trying to get am erratic ruler to make a firm decision. The effort Germany made to keep Russia from getting involved was mainly the Kaiser writing notes to his cousin, the Czar (who had gotten bad advice from him in the Russo-Japanese conflict).
