I thought there was a military revolt and the Kaiser fled before negotiations became formal.
Yes, that’s what I was saying. Sorry if I wasn’t clear. The people who actually surrendered were Friedrich Ebert and Matthias Erzberger - two people who had nothing to do with starting or running the war. Wilson should have made Wilhelm and Hindenburg and Ludendorff and Falkenhayn publicly sign the surrender and assume the weight of defeat. Such an acknowledgement that the military had led Germany into the war and then into defeat would have had a salubrious effect on German politics in the postwar years.
Since we’re laying out what a total doob Wilson was here, might as well add that the peacful, democratic paradise he demanded was for whites only. The only Black US troops sent to Europe were war-only volunteer units: the “Colored” regulars stayed in the Philippines because everyone understood they’d do best there as a “tropical sub-species.” And the Filippinos themselves or other people like those Vietnamese slave laborers who were hauled away to defend liberté, égalité, fraternité, and had ID numbers painted on their backs in acid? Fuck 'em.
I don’t think that this is a fair statement. Germany gave support to its ally, Austria-Hungary, much as Russia gave support to Serbia. Had not Russia egged on Serbia against AH, it is doubtful that hostilities would have spread outside the Balkans. It should be noted that Russian mobilization preceded the German declaration of war.
Personally, I don’t think that were any “good guys” in that war. Certainly not to any extent such that one side can be neatly labelled as the aggressors.
Russian mobilization preceded the declaration of war because had they waited until afterwards there would have been no Russian army. It takes a while to assemble in a country that big.
More importantly, where were the battles fought? The Somme, Ypres, Mons, Verdun etc weren’t in Germany. I’ll accept the blame for starting the war can be spread, but Germany was spoiling for a fight, and once it got one, rolled happily into Belgium/France.
Oh, I understand the constraints that mass mobilizations placed upon the dilpomatic flexibility of all the powers. IIRC, that was one of the justifications that Germany presented to the UK for its violation of Belgian territory - essentially “the war plans made us do it”.
*** cough *** Tannenberg *** cough ***
Moreover, Germany had much of their eastern lands overrun by the Russians, while the Austrians lost Galicia, for over a year. Also, don’t forget that while the Germans went through Belgium, the French were driving into Alsace-Lorraine, also German territory at the time.
I think pretty much all the European powers were spoiling for a fight in 1914 (with the possible exception of the UK).
Yes Tannenberg was on German soil, and A-L was (just) German by then. But… the Russians weren’t present at Versailles. The settlement at Versailles was the response of the Western part of the Triple Entente to the Germans. And when the Germans had fought a four year war on the territory of one member of that alliance, without its home land being sullied, the imposition of reparations seems understandable, if not necessarily smart when looking with hindsight.
And yes, there is plenty of blame to go round. But take Prussian militarism out of the equation and modern Europe looks very different.
I agree with your points. I still think, however, that Versailles (and St.Germain, etc.) were unduly punitive. But you’re definitely right about Russia - their exclusion from the peace process was probably the second biggest blunder of the immediate post-war period (after the peace treaties themselves).
Just like Versailles fed Hitler’s paranoia and resentment, the post-war bungling of Allied-Russian relations fed Stalin’s as well.
I shouldn’t have said “Polish Corridor”; I was thinking of the areas transferred from Germany to Poland in their entirety, especially the province of Posen/Poznan. The “Corridor” properly refers only to the northern part of the cession, along the Baltic, which separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany.
Even within the Corridor itself, however, if one excludes the Free City of Danzig, it appears that Poles were a majority–Wikipedia and Britannica both say so. Granted, the “free city of Danzig” was almost entirely German, and the Germans had a legitimate gripe when it was separated from Germany and made independent. But, stuff happens when you lose a war.
And it was Austria-Hungary who started the war-NOT Germany.
WWI was a hell of a lot more complicated than WWII. There weren’t as clear cut good guys and bad guys. As a friend of mine pointed out, it was a 19th century war, fought with 20th century technology. The Russians weren’t innocent, nor the French. The Kaiser was more ignorant than evil. He certainly wasn’t Hitler.
I recalled that the Polish Corridor was mostly German but it appears I was wrong. According to Wikipedia, the population of the corridor was 922,476 of whom 175,771 were German (just over 19%). On the discussion page for that article, some people are disputing these figures, claiming that Germans were a majority. But these arguments appear to cherry pick places and dates to arrive at these figures.
I think the problem was that Poland had been split up for so long, people had comingled and it was near impossible to find the right borders.