**
The leadership in the last half of the twentieth century has been a great improvement over the leadershiop of the first half, but that’s not really saying much. And frankly, there’s an interregnum period from the end of WWII to the early 60s where Europe couldn’t really do much because they were recovering from the effects WWII.
a nice high school recap of the events of the first half of that century…
Look, jerk, I’m not planning on spending hours going into details for the sake of a post on some message board that will disappear into cyberspace in a matter of days or weeks. FYI, much of my impression about WWI and WWII were formed from reading popular histories by writers like Barbara Tuchman and Alan Moorehead. Got a problem with that? It’s all yours.
**Unfortunately your labelling these events as being caused by stupidity is just the usual one stroke modern view of history that neglects all of the small middling little details and actual events that took place. **
This is just the usual cheapshot debating tactic used by smarmy nigglers who like to imply that there are infinite subtleties to be considered in any assessment of history, and that any failure to go on about them at great length is evidence of ignorance and stupidity on their opponents’ part. Piffle. Prior to WWI, the European nations were the Great Powers. Now they’re a bunch of second-rate has-been nations. Some of this can be ascribed to the growth and development of Asia and the Americas. But a lot of it is a direct result of the devestation wrought by the World Wars, in which the nations of Europe blew it, big time. It’s not one of those things that’s subtle or hard to understand, it’s right there, powerful and obvious. They pulled the pin on the hand grenade and then did not throw it away. There might be infinite subtle reasons why they did that, but none of it changes the fact that it was a really stupid thing to do, from the viewpoint of their own self-interest.
Versailles was only one small part of the Nazi parties rise to power. you completely over look the Successful years of the Weimar Republic where Nazi support was small. Yes they were still paying the Reparations and yes the economy was picking up.
Only when the depression finally tanked that economy did Germans go looking for something to blame, the Nazis provided three scapegoats which appealed to many voters.
**I’ll grant you the depression combined with the Versailles reparations combined to make the Germans resentful and stupid enough to go for the Nazis. But something like a Marshall Plan might have left the Germans a lot less willing to find scapegoats. And when we defeat an enemy, we have to change their culture.
Well like you many British and French thought Versailles "placed such onerous burdens on Germany " that they believed Hitler’s initial requests (Remilitarization of the Rhine land, rebuilding the army, reacquiring lost German territories) seemed reasonable.
Man, you are so full of cheap debating tactics, to coin a euphemism. Versailles was onerous. that doesn’t mean it therefore becomes reasonable to allow Germany to remilitarize. I’ll advance my own ideas, you don’t have to do it for me, thank you very much.
** In fact the Nazis rise to total power was not facilitated by the German belief that Versailles was hurting them but the British belief that it was not fair. By the time Hitler viewed Czechoslovakia Chamberlain had to use diplomacy to slow him down and give the Brits a chance to rearm themselves.**
Nah, German bad feelings about WWI and its aftermath had NOTHING to do with the Nazi rise to power … riiiight. Now I see our disagreement’s source: we’re living in parallel worlds!
By 1914 the weapons became even more advanced especially the machine gun, which was not a civil War weapon (No the Gatling gun doesn’t count as a teacher as its use was not that great in the 1860s) causing anew rethinking.
Your notion that the Gatling gun doesn’t count as a teacher directly contradicts my sources. In any event, the development of rifle shells permitting much higher rates of fire during the Civil War was also part of the hard “lesson” that was learned about mass attacks and modern weaponry, that seems to have been entirely ignored in WWI.
You shouldn’t. It is as broad a brush as saying those African’s or Those Asians. Europe is quite diverse and the fact that there are several European Nations which support Bush’s war should be proof enough.
When a picture is simple enough, a broad brush will do. I stand by my statements.
