Originally Posted by
zedcars
Bob & Gentlemen of this ALRU
As a boy growing up in England and going to a grammar school in the 60's we almost universally concluded that when reading the Classics, the Greeks were all good, and the Persians were all bad!
However in my adult life I worked in Iran and saw and studied something quite different.
Why you might ask, Well to summarise its easy, the victors write the history books!
Again at school we read the tales of heroism of the 1st World's War and rightly so, but what about the peace! And the statement "A war to end all wars"!
What of the the politicians that carved out the reasons to go to war with Germany in the first place? A flimsy argument if you take the time to read & study it
A very like minded nation are Germans with common values in 1914 to those in our British Isles and Commonwealth countries. Indeed the Kaiser and the Royal families of Europe were all related from their Sax Cohburg roots. Nevertheless a very competitive country (still is) & one that prompted a Cold War of sorts enacted by Britain ten years or so before the outbreak of war in 1914.
The Treaty of Versailles was really the precursor of conditions to the events leading up to outbreak of war in 1939 amid Nazi Germany's expansion east into what was then Poland & the Danzig Gap, but was formerly a part of Germany cut up as a result of this disastrous treaty. Which incidentally was written up by the victor powers of France, Britain, and the new found power in the making the USA!
What about the distrust the UK Gov had of France in 1918 and its feared sequestration of the Ruhr at the time leading up to the treaty's enactment and the scenarios that played out between these two wily old foxes David Lloyd George , Georges Clemenceau, and the somewhat passive Woodrow Wilson of the USA. This unhappy compromise was in many ways the reason the masses voted for Adolf Hitler and his socialist party which incidentally was a popular political movement even in Britain with Oswald Mosley and his British National party.
Having read his (A Hitler) address at his first conference 1934, he might have been a good appealing orator today amid Europe's and Britain for that matter's, financial/economic woes!
Had this treaty had be more equitable with defeated Germany, and the members of the former Austro Hungarian empire as treaty participants, it might have looked quite differently it can be argued. Indeed the Austrian corporal (a war time messenger boy) might have simply gone back to painting small pieces of art in Munich, which he did before the 1st World War!
Without going into great depth the history books and the politics of the 1920/30's are difficult at best extract the real facts and truth about the power-plays going on within the three victor countries.
From what is available by great research it is possible to credibly argue that the USA set the two leading empirical powers up at the time to take the path to eventual war and economic & Empire dissolution leaving it (USA ) and Russia the ONLY two real World Powers in 1945.
Certainly the conferences of Yalta and Tehran show Churchill of the UK and his French counterpart in a much more servant like position and vassals to the conference outcomes.
In Britain we have to ask what prompted the use of amendment 18B to be implemented against some members of the British parliament. No credible arguments can be given by the UK Gov (secrets) apart from those expounded by the late A J P Taylor.
Why did Laurence of Arabia shortly before he was killed send a communique to Germany from his RAF base? Witnesses stated quite clearly that a black van was involved in that fatal motorcycle accident, but that evidence was omitted from the inquest testimony.
In my youth I discovered a lot about this by research at school, reference libraries etc . At he time I questioned both my parents who had less of a grasp of worlds politics as working class people. But my school masters had not only fought in the second world war but were university academics before 1939.
Questioning them led only to mis-information or simply wouldn't be drawn into specifics. Leading one teacher to state that I was asking about things that were tantamount treasonous or I was questioning my betters about things a no concern to a boy like me!
Fortunate with the laconic eye of age and the internet, there is much to read from German news media at the time and press archives from the Library of Congress.
There is much yet to know what really went one behind the scenes in this terrible era of Western modern history.
Cheers Dennis
zedcars
