[Sarge]

I think WW2 was directly borne out of Versailles. However, the blame for WW1 can be seen as a direct consequence of The German Empires desire to challenge the British at Sea.

Before the Germans decided to build a Navy that could challenge the Royal Navy in the North Sea relations between the two states were extremely amicable. Indeed the Royal families of both were intermixed. The British regarded the Germans as fellow entrepenuers and people.

However the minute that Germany started to encroach on the one thing that held the british Empire together (Sea Power). Relationships turned sour. Britian was forced into an alliance that she had never needed for hundreds of years, with France and its old enemy Russia.

If Britian had stayed neutral in WW1, it would never have become a World War and more than likely France and Russia would have been defeated with results similar to the Franco-Prussian war just 4 decades earlier. Without Britian therefore the war would have ended much sooner and the US would never have become involved as the Germans wouldnt have been sinking ships off the coast of Ireland and in the Atlantic.

It follows then that there would have been no Versailles and no Hitler and no WW2.

Thats for another What If though.................

In sum, Germany challenging Britian on the Sea = WW1.