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Originally Posted by Richard J
So, now we come to your original question: What if America had stayed home? I think the Germans would not have had an excuse to abandon the war and the coup would not have happened.
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An important consideration. If we look at how the Weimar Republic was formed, how the German revolution took place, it was very much a product of the military defeat, but the question remains whether some sort of constitutional republic -- probably a constitutional monarchy similar to Great Britain rather than a full-fledged republic similar to France -- could have eventuated.
Weimar Republic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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From 1916 onwards, the 1871 German Empire had effectively been governed by the military headed by the Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, Supreme Army Command) with the Chief of Staff Paul von Hindenburg. When it became apparent that World War I was lost, the OHL demanded that a civil government be installed in order to meet a key peace talk condition from United States President Woodrow Wilson. Any attempt to continue the war after Bulgaria had left the Central Powers would have only caused German territories to be militarily occupied by the victors. The new Reichskanzler Prince Max von Baden thus offered a cease-fire to U.S. President Wilson on October 3, 1918. On October 28, 1918, the 1871 constitution was finally amended to make the Reich a parliamentary republic, which the government had refused for half a century: the Chancellor was henceforth responsible to Parliament, the Reichstag, and no longer to the Kaiser.
The plan to transform Germany into a constitutional monarchy similar to Britain quickly became obsolete as the country slid into a state of near-total chaos. Germany was flooded with soldiers returning from the front, many of them wounded physically and psychologically. Violence was rampant, as the forces of the political right and left fought not only each other, but among themselves.
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This chaos, which presumably wouldn't have happened absent the military defeat, led to the overthrow of the Kaiser, the abolition of the monarchy, and the creation of the republic which eventually became Nazi Germany -- one of many historical examples of a fledgeling republic suffering chaos and eventually a dictatorship after a revolution; the same thing happened in France at the turn of the 19th century.
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France and Germany would have been forced to negotiate. And as such, they would have come to more even terms. Reparations would not have been an issue and the depression would not have been or at least not have been as severe.
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I agree with everything here except that the depression wouldn't have happened. The Great Depression was a global breakdown of laissez-faire capitalism. The collapse of the U.S. economy dragged the world down with it. However, I do agree it would not have been as severe in Germany without the Versailles treaty. That's what led to the hyperinflation which was a specifically German outcome.
I don't think the Germans could have won overwhelmingly enough to impose similarly harsh peace conditions on France. But I could be wrong. Someone with better knowledge of military strategy might examine the situation. One way in which I might be wrong is this: mobility had been restored to the front by the development of new tactics and the invention of the tank, so the western front in 1918 did not bog down into trench-warfare stalemate the way it did in 1914-16. Suppose the German offensive, using troops released from the eastern front, had succeeded in breaking through? Could they have achieved a 1940-like outcome? If they did -- bear in mind these were not the Nazis -- would they have imposed such a harsh peace on France, or would they have settled for "Let's get this bloody mess over and done with and have peace on decent terms."
There is a
possible indicator in what was done in the peace negotiations with Russia. But not a certain one.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Peace negotiations began on December 22, 1917, a week after the conclusion of an armistice between Russia and the Central Powers, at Brest-Litovsk (modern Brest, Belarus, near the Polish border). The Germans were represented officially by Foreign Secretary Richard von Kühlmann, but the most important figure in shaping the peace on the German side was General Max Hoffmann, Chief of Staff of the German armies on the Eastern Front (Oberkommando-Ostfront). Austria-Hungary was represented by Foreign Minister Ottokar Czernin, and from the Ottoman Empire came Talat Pasha. The Germans demanded the "independence" of Poland and Lithuania, which they already occupied, while the Bolsheviks demanded "peace without annexations or indemnities" — in other words, a settlement under which the revolutionary government that succeeded the Russian Empire would give neither territory nor money.
It is important to note that these negotiations were taking place about nine months after the United States had declared war on Germany, but before the Americans were making a significant contribution on the Western Front. The Bolsheviks likely believed that the Germans would seize the opportunity to make a separate peace with Russia (even on moderate terms) so that they would have an opportunity to defeat France and Great Britain before the Americans arrived, even if this meant they would have to settle for less generous terms. What the Bolsheviks failed to realize was that the Germans had grossly underestimated America's military capacity and were not expecting the Americans to be able to make a meaningful impact in Europe until 1919 at the earliest. Had the Germans made a more accurate assessment of America's capabilities they may well have offered the Bolsheviks more lenient terms.
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Now, two important observations. First, while the Germans demanded substantial territorial concessions from Russia, the territories to be ceded were ones already occupied by German troops, and also ones that were not part of Russia proper; no actual Russian territory was demanded (nor ceded even in the harsher treaty that actually ended the war after Russia refused to make peace on the terms offered). And second, the Germans were negotiating probably without taking the threat of the United States into consideration, so that this may be taken as a genuine indication of what a victorious-but-weary Germany might offer in the way of peace terms.
A similar offer on the western front -- the cession by France of territories occupied by German troops and not part of France proper -- might include the reaffirmation of German ownership of Alsace and Lorraine (which Germany had controlled before the war started, seized in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870). Reparations might also have been demanded, since otherwise Germany would be coming out of the war with no gains at all to show for it. I cannot imagine Germany in 1918 demanding continued occupation of half of France as was imposed in 1940, nor France accepting that condition. But again, I could be wrong, if the German victory were truly overwhelming. I invite other thoughts on the subject.
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So, in some regard our intervention did more harm than good. We lost a lot of good men, and didn't really resolve anything. But who's to say they would not have gone to war again at a later date, but this time without the leadership of Adolf Hitler.
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Possibly, but the question of "why" emerges. In the case of Nazi Germany, we know why. Germany was angry about the harsh peace terms and the collapse of the German economy; the Germans threw their support to Hitler, who restored the economy and rebuilt the military, and Hitler had an amazingly ambitious and brazen goal of conquest to the east. It's something rather unique in modern history. His intention was to conquer European Russia, murder all the Russians living there (I'm not making this up, it's in
Mein Kampf), and fill the empty territory with German colonists who would in one generation breed a vast and powerful German nation, which could then dominate the world. This is such a weird goal that no normal government would aspire to it, any more than the equally weird ambition to annihilate all the Jews.
Given that Germany would not be run by a lunatic, and that she would be fairly satisfied with her situation having won the last war, what reason would she have had to go to war again so soon? Well, it's hard to predict these things. And we may also extend the "what-if" a bit further. Suppose she did not? Suppose there was no European theater of World War II. Would Europe today be as peaceful as it is? Was it the appalling bloodletting of the two World Wars together, back to back within a single lifetime, that finally convinced that most bellicose of all corners of the globe to adopt the ways of peace? Would it be more like its old fractious self today without that experience?
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They might have actually made some sane decisions at crucial times such as not attacking Russia. In times of defeat, a good leader would have saved his army rather than let it be annihilated at Stalingrad. A good leader would have sued England for peace right after Dunkirk and played on the anti-war sentiment in England at that time. They would have used the anti-war sentiment against the allies just as it was used against them in WWI.
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I agree with all of this except that Hitler DID sue for peace with England after Dunkirk. Actually, he never wanted to go to war with England at all. He considered the English to be ethnic Germans, and had an idea of ceding rule of the seas to the British while the Germans would be the dominant power on the European continent. That the Anglo-German war went on after that was due to Churchill, not Hitler. For the rest, you are right; The idea of "lebensraum" in Russia was Hitler's particular monomania and a more rational warmonger wouldn't have tried it, and it's true that Hitler's stupidity is primarily responsible for the disaster at Stalingrad.
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Let me make a current observation based on a historical perspective. First, we see that meddling with good intentions doesn't always work. If we have faith in ourselves to be self-governing, we should have faith in others to make their own decisions. In that regard, we needed to restore some order to the Middle East for our own security. Our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq was nothing like our involvement in WWI. But we see politicians using anti-war sentiment very effectively to gain political advantage. Unfortunately the citizenry doesn't have the historical perspective of some and can fall prey to an anti-war emotion appeal. We have to be prepared to see our actions through to a successful conclusion, whatever that is and however long it takes. If we don't, we risk fomenting future problems of those who distort history like Hitler did regarding the Versailles Treaty.
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Well, I think here you're drawing an unwarranted parallel. You are quite right that our involvement in the Middle East is nothing like our involvement in World War I. The war in Afghanistan is to some extent more like our involvement in World War II (with some important differences involving the nature, strength, and potential threat of the enemy), while our invasion of Iraq was more like Germany's involvement in World War II. And of course, I completely disagree with your "stay the course" argument. If I had been president when 9/11 occurred, after discovering that al-Qaeda had been responsible for the attack and that the Taliban government was supporting that organization, I would have obtained a war declaration, invaded Afghanistan and overthrown the Taliban, and concurrently mounted a full-force international manhunt to capture Osama bin Ladin and destroy al-Qaeda completely. This accomplished, I would have pulled our troops out of Afghanistan with an offer of aid to the new government for rebuilding from any damage we had caused, recognizing that aside from this we had no further responsibilities there. And I would not have invaded Iraq at all, since that country had nothing to do with 9/11 whatsoever.
However, as you say, there are really no parallels with our involvement in World War I, so that has no bearing on the current topic. Except perhaps this. The results of our getting into World War I certainly demonstrates the law of unintended consequences, and the proper lesson to be learned from that is caution when it comes to an action as potentially cart-upsetting as war. There are times when war is necessary. But we should find ways to avoid it whenever we can.