“Many readers are no doubt familiar with the Treaty of Versailles’ war-guilt clause, which shifted blame for a pointless, expensive autopilot of a war entirely onto Germany and its allies…Abused by the vengeful victors, the Germans turned to abusing (and slaughtering) themselves.”
Rampell does acknowledge that Germany, had it won the war, intended to crush its opponents (plans included inflicting huge monetary penalties and glomming onto foreign territory). What she seems to have forgotten (or is unaware of) is that the “vengeful victors” were deep in debt due to a war Germany and its allies provoked and launched, and that France in particular suffered great economic losses (not least of which due to the scorched earth tactics the Germans used as they retreated from French lands, which they’d exploited and devastated for four years).
Finally, the Germans demanded and received enormous indemnity payments from the French (and seized Alsace-Lorraine) after their victorious war of 1870, but the French did not collapse into recriminations and fascism.
Enough of the Poor Germans and Everyone Was Guilty revisionism.
You are correct-the Kaiser provoked the war, and did everything he could to provoke his subjects to fight fiercely. That said, he was crazy-Germany wanted colonies (ä place in the sun"). That meant taking them from France. But these colonies were worthless, and had the Kaiser realized his dream, he would have been reviled by the German people (once the costs of his African Empire become known).
In short, WWI was a war planed by an idiot 9the Kaiser), with no discernible payoff.
The real reason is because Conroy is selling a book to predominantly American readers and wanted to have a alternate-history scenario that involved the United States.
But in the book, the reason was that with Britain, France, and Russia all knocked down by their defeat in the Great War, the German government saw the United States as its only remaining potential rival. So they wanted to launch a pre-emptive war against America and defeat it while it was still relatively unarmed. They could then impose a peace upon the United States that would prevent it from building up its military for the foreseeable future.
Ahh yes the pickelhaube helmet, the quintessential symbol of the Kaiser’s Germany, and for militaristic Germans in pop culture…I’m surprised it took this long for someone to think of that point (no pun intended).
A little off-topic info…the point was detachable. Though it was worn attached by front-line troops early in the war, it was removed once trench warfare evolved - too easy to see over the parapet. The only time it was worn attached was on dress occasions, or by rear echelon officers.
Also, the pickelhaube was made of boiled leather with reinforcing metal strips. It didn’t give much protection to the head during an artillery barrage, which is why it was replaced in 1916 by the Stahlhelm.
FYI…the basic design of the Stahlhelm has been in use worldwide in one version or another since 1916. The US M1 helmet, which was used from 1941 until 1985, bore a resemblance to the Stahlhelm in part because of criticisms of the World War One helmet that it didn’t protect the lower head and neck - something the Stahlhelm did quite well. The current US military helmet got the unofficial nickname “the Fritz” because of it’s even more striking resemblance to the Stahlhelm.
With regards to the other major global power, Russia, the lineage of it’s current helmet goes back to the 1930s, and bore even more of a resemblance to the Stahlhelm. The modern version has been changed somewhat, and looks more like a hybrid of the M1 and the Stahlhelm.
Apologies for bouncing off-topic…get me started on military uniforms and I can’t shut up lol.
I haven’t read Conroy’s book, but there is some historical basis for the hypothesis. The US and Mexico were engaged in a low-level conflict at the time, with Black Jack Pershing hunting Pancho Villa for his cross-border raids. There was considerable anti-Mexican sentiment in the US, and conversely, anti-US and anti-European sentiment in Mexico - something the German government was ready to exploit should the US enter the war on the side of the Allies. Germany was already providing arms and military advisers to the Mexican government. It was hoped that a war between Mexico and the US would slow down deliveries of arms and men to the European theater.
The Zimmerman Telegram outlined just such a scenario to the Mexican government - that Mexico join the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey) if the US joined the Allies. It was intercepted by British Intelligence, and passed on to the US. The existence of this telegram, along with other factors such as the declaration of “unrestricted” U-boat warfare and the deaths of US civilians on British ships, drew the US into the war. (The Mexican government, btw, rejected the proposal from Germany.)
The historical background in Conroy’s book is different than our reality. In his book, Germany won the Battle of the Marne and World War I was a short war that ended in 1914 - essentially a larger replay of the Franco-Prussian War. So the Germans in 1920 in his book are still thinking with the mentality based on the Danish War, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Spanish-American War, and the 1914 War - they expect the war with America to be a short campaign that will beat the Americans in a few months and then end. America is demilitarized (there was no American involvement in WWI or American military expansion in this history) so Germany discounts American industrial potential - they assume the war will end before America can build new forces.
Realistically, Conroy should have written a couple of volumes and shown America being beaten in the first year of the war and then building up its army and coming back to win the war in the second or third year. That’s probably the way Harry Turtledove would have written it. But Conroy doesn’t write series so he has America beating the Germans after only a few months of fighting. (I’d spoiler this but does anyone really think the United States was going to lose in a book like this?)
I’d recommend the book July, 1914, by Sean McMeekin, which takes a look at the month between the shooting of the Archduke and the outbreak of war. He argues that primary “war guilt” if you want to use that term, belongs with the Russians and the French.