The “white colonies” all had self-government by WWI, the last in 1910. The exception, Ireland, gained it in 1921. The Balfour Declaration was in 1926, and was implemented in 1931, adding Newfoundland to the list. You’re a few decades off.
Were they going to pay for it?
Well, in the long run and with the benefit of hindsight, it probably would have been cheaper - stopping Germany earlier.
Anecdote alert - I visited the Czech Republic once just after their revolution and made friends with a German couple while there. We’d go off and do our separate things during the day and meet back up on the campsite in the evening. I noticed the Czechs were (even now) a bit sniffy toward me, being British - coz they think we should have defended the Sudetenland. But I got it easy - the German couple were absolutely hated wherever they went. One night the girl came back in tears because people had been so rude to her.
They haven’t forgotten, over in Czech Republic.
Who did pay for it later? Would the price have been cheaper then?
I was taught it in college 30 years ago. 
The reparations were horrible.
I don’t think so, but even if materially this were true, psychologically I don’t think it was. The German high command really REALLY did not want a confrontation with you Brits (let alone the French), and I think they would have backed down at even the hint of a serious confrontation.
Because in hindsight it’s pretty much obvious?
Yeah…and Germany completely collapsed at the end of the war economically, militarily and socially. They were harder hit by the Great Depression, the reparations, and just about everything else. They had resorted to secretly re-militarizing, and their efforts in '36 were far from complete. They were much less prepared for war than the French or the Brits alone, let alone combined.
Yeah, it was. In context and in hindsight, it was completely vindictive, especially given the murky reasons the war started and the fact that the allies (not including us Yanks, of course) were on the verge of collapse at the end as well…it could have gone either way with who fell apart first.
That’s not really much of a fact. I seriously doubt the allies (less the US, who rapidly became disillusioned with the whole thing) COULD have occupied Germany in the immediate post war period, so it’s pure fantasy to posit that they could or would have been able to spit it up into fragments, or if they had that they would have been able to occupy and govern those fragments. Face facts…the treaty was entirely punitive, and it was, at heart, the thing that set the stage for WWI, V2.0.
-XT
If you stand by and allow other countries to be conquered you can’t expect anyone else to step forward in your defense. A collective defense may be a better strategy than isolationism.
Thank you for the correction. Attlee/Chamberlain, thats a pretty serious error there, I am somewhat humbled :smack:
Wrong!
Germany started from a much lower point than France and the UK. They’d been banned from having any air-force or tanks and the size of their military was kept small. This took time to change.
Waiting just gave Germany time to catch up.
A war in 1938 would have faced a smaller German army than in 1940, one which wouldn’t have learned lessons from Czechoslovakia and Poland. In 1938 Germany had very, very few tanks with a proper gun. Most were just armed with machine guns. By 1940, the majority of German tanks were armed with heavier armament.
The air-force in 1938 would have been smaller too, and used earlier versions of the Bf-109. The Bf-109C that Germany was using in 1938 had a top speed of 290mph, compared with 350mph that the Bf-109E. The Germans hadn’t got all the bugs out of the 20mm cannon they were developing either, so in 1938, most Bf-109s would have been armed with machine-guns only, compared to 1940 when they were cannon armed.
I seem to recall that Hitler wanted a free hand in Europe with Britain staying out of it; while Britain concentrated on its empire.
I can see **The Flying Dutchman **s point that purely on the grounds of self interest and economically, that it would have been much better to stay neutral throughout the war, as did Sweden, Spain, Portugal and Eire.
Not so good for the Jews, Gypsies and the nations of Europe though.
The Wehrmacht was already numbering 700,000 personnel in 1938. After the Munich Crisis in 1939 the British Army was still only numbering 525,000, of which 300,000 were reservists. You talk about the Germans having few real tanks. Did you know the last cavalry regiment in the British Army only converted from horses to tanks in 1941? Britain was extremely slow in mechanising the army throughout the 1930s.
Great! Perhaps we could have put our Gloster Gladiators up against their Bf-109s.
Well, the fact that the American economy wasn’t on the verge of collapse as a result of WW1 is kind of relevant in assessing whether Versailles was vindictive, isn’t it? Britain went from being the largest lender to being a net debtor, inflation doubled, the pound lost 60% of its value, 40% of the merchant fleet was lost, a whole generation of men was wiped out, in many cases whole villages being without men, etc. etc.
Yet, we’re still only talking about the UK. France’s northern territory was completely destroyed, and faced a similar economic burden.
I can’t speak for the other ‘white colonies’ but even though Australia was self governed in 1901, we were very much still a ‘vassal’ state right up to the later part of WWII and for a few years after.
Throughout most of WWII Australian troops still went where Britain commanded. So much so that even with the Japanese on our doorstep in PNG, our top troop formations where being kept in the Middle East at Britain’s orders. The clincher was a decision that Britain was pretty much out of the power business in the Pacific and we decided to hitch our star to the US rather than the Britain’s.
I’m no historian, but someone thought so:
And, given the heinousness already known about Hitlerism, may I express surprise no one in the thread defends Britain’s role as savior?
Well, that’s begging the question.
How long do you think an unopposed Hitler would have allowed Sweden, Spain* and Portugal to remain neutral and independent? It wasn’t like there was anyone to stop him from annexing them, other than Britain and the Free French.
The US certainly wouldn’t have entered the war if Britain had remained neutral. Apart from anything else, they’d have had nowhere to stage from.
*Well, maybe Spain, given that Franco was something of a German puppet anyway.
Not at all obvious. Germany started the war and then lost it. Versailles was mild compared to the peace Germany would have imposed had it won?
How do we know this? Look to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk it imposed on the Russians. This removed 25% of Russian territory, 25% of its industry, and 90% of its coals. This is what Germany would have done to the West, and rather than seeing Versailles as vindictive, it should be seen as moderate.
Meh - Germany lost, so they suffered more. It collapsed because it lost a war it started. Other countries certainly played their roles in the build up, but Germany and its Allies started the damned thing.
Now you’ve done it. The Franco apologists will be in to defend their poor, misunderstood hero, the defender of Catholicism against the evil lefties.
As someone born in Holland, I understand your sentiment.
But then, I thought that Bush, committing fellow Americans to save the Shiites and the Kurds from Saddam was a good thing. No more.
Oh, I wouldn’t call it over until we’ve got a couple hundred years of peace. I suspect that economic conditions or demographic changes or some other resource contention could very easily break the EU and set Europe back to the way things have traditionally been.
This is especially true once the WWII generation and their children die off and their grandchildren who have never known war get into positions of leadership.
As for the OP, I think that Britain didn’t have much choice- the Germans were very aggressive at that point, and were making aggressive moves toward their allies and friendly nations. Combine that with the atrocious nature of the Nazi regime, and I can’t see how the British would have sat it out.
Saying Germany started WW I trivializes the web of treaties and alliances that caused a local problem to spread across Europe. Things aren’t nearly as clear as they are for WW II.