Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarge
You read in most books relating to the aftermath of WW1 that the treaty of Versailes was so harsh that it led directly to WW2.
A counter to this is I believe that the treaty was indeed too lenient and led the Nazis to come to power userping the Democratic process that was still very much in the embryonic stage.
What should have happened in 1919 was for the Germans to know they had been beaten and have had their country forcibly occuppied by the Allies for at least 20 years. Together with this they would have been allowed no armed forces.
Any thoughs? Was Versailles to soft, or too hard.
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It's an interesting argument, but...would this not have made the German people even more angry and feeling more shame and humiliation? Imagine being subject to foreign occupation for 20+ years.
Might this simply have put back the start of World War II by 15-20 years, and now the battle would be fought with nuclear weapons? And perhaps Germany would have acquired them first.
I don't know the answers to those hypotheticals, but I would rather like to think that had France enforced the treaty as written and acted against Germany when they re-militarized the Rhineland, and had not Britain and France again enforced the treaty rather than appease Hitler and let him gobble up Czechoslovakia things would certainly have been different. Remember, the troops entering the Rhineland had orders to retreat if the French reacted, but the French blinked and Hitler knew he had them.