World War I

Discussion in 'West Mall' started by Chop, Jul 28, 2020.

  1. Chop

    Chop 10,000+ Posts

    There's been a good movie or two in recent years on the often-neglected WWI, peaking my interest and probably that of others. I think this was the war that gave us the 20th Century. Much of what came to be in the 20th Century (Communism, Fascism, massive genocides, the depression, the end of colonialism, the elevation of the USA to the top power, the end of non-figurehead monarchies, etc.) can be traced back to this event. WWI was probably the most important event in modern history. I was taught in school that the Allies were the clear good guys and the Central Powers the clear bad guys. After further study, I've concluded there was no righteous side or evil side in this one. Just a bunch of power hungry leaders looking for an advantage for their nation.

    As for Belgium's incessant whining and propaganda about the big bad Germans mistreating them, that was nothing compared to the massive genocide the Belgians committed in the Belgian Congo/Congo Free State.

    As for why we actually entered, apparently some of our largest banks had lent the Allies enormous sums of $$$. It was looking like the Germans and friends were going to win, so we intervened on behalf of the banks so they could be paid back. Wilson did a flip-flop. The Zimmerman telegram was laughable. Mexico didn't even entertain the idea of taking us on.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
    • Like Like x 1
  2. Austin_Bill

    Austin_Bill 2,500+ Posts

    Interesting...

    Hitler blamed the Jews for losing WWI, and he said they held a stranglehold on the banking industry. Now I really don't know if what he said was true or not, but from what you said, I'm thinking that maybe he was right and it was the Jews who controlled those banks that caused the US to get involved and ultimately beat the Germans.

    Two things I know for sure about the Great wars of the 20th century.
    France is Germany's *****
    Germany is our *****.
     
  3. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    Prussian Germany had a war culture and France had a civilization. Lots of Frenchmen got killed defending their civilization in both wars. Germans got Comancheed by the Russians in WW II
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  4. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    And Hitler was an idiot who circumstances put at the head of a great people and then wrecked them
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  5. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    Germans were pretty horrible during WWI, introducing gas as a war weapon... though not the nation capable of enormous atrocities committed during World War II. Jews were a scapegoat... nothing new in the world... There were some heroic Jewish soldiers and leaders for the Germans during WWII ... in fact Hitler's hero story was actually stolen valor from his Jewish superior. Simplistic hatred doesn't play well with critical thinkers... but in no country are critical thinkers anywhere close to a majority. Useful idiots armed for terror can overwhelm the good guys ... hence freedom of the press and an engaged public are crucial to continuation of freedom anywhere.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  6. Austin_Bill

    Austin_Bill 2,500+ Posts

    Now you sound like my Ex. She is Russian. Wait, are you my ex?
     
  7. Austin_Bill

    Austin_Bill 2,500+ Posts

    Words to live by right now. Too bad the major news networks are part of the propaganda machine of the left. Their job is to lul the middle to sleep and enrage the left into action.
     
  8. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    The right wing loves its propagandists as well. Not a lot of critical thinking coming from Trump, Hannity, etc
     
  9. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    It was hard to predict after World War I that the US would become the global economic superpower it became.

    Our rise from a second rate military power when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor to the world superheavyweight champion was about as an amazing rise of a world power as can be imagined.

    At the opening, our weapons, tactics and personnel in the Pacific were easy picking for the Japanese. Devoting 70 percent of our military resources in the European theater, we were still able to stop the Japanese juggernaut at Midway .... just half a year after our debacle at Pearl Harbor. By August we gained a foothold on Guadalcanal and were basically able to beat the Japanese with similar resources, but superior logistics and ground tactics. A year after Pearl Harbor we had the initiative. 18 months after Pearl Harbor we started whippiing *** with Hellcat fighters, Essex Class carriers, fast battleships and lots of cruisers and destroyers... great personnel, weapons and leadership. We started dealing with the Japanese Navy and aircraft like Alabama Football does New Mexico State. Our subs almost wiped out their merchant cargo fleet. Sure the Iowa Class fast battleships were dwarfed by Japan's two Yamato class battleships' bulk and 18 inch guns..., but with superior speed, firing range and radar guided gunnery, I think the Iowa or Missouri would have beaten them one-on-one or two on two. Of course, they never had to take that risk since our carrier based aircraft sent the big warships to Davy Jones ' locker.

    By the end of WWII, American GDP was half of the world's GDP.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2020
  10. Horns11

    Horns11 10,000+ Posts

    The aftermath of WWI was too pie-in-the-sky with the mandates and treaties and conventions to formally denounce war. They should have done what eventually became the outcome of WWII - democratization, demilitarization, a process to decolonize, etc. Everyone was so pissed at Germany that they couldn't see the alternatives around the corner.
     
  11. mchammer

    mchammer 10,000+ Posts

    You were correct above except that our carrier force was better than the Japanese from the outset. It’s no coincidence they avoided embarrassment in the first 6 months of the war. They earned themselves time for Midway and beyond.
     
  12. Austin_Bill

    Austin_Bill 2,500+ Posts

    Before WWI, European countries thought very little of the US. To them we were like China, just a place where a lot of their goods came from. Uncouth, uncivilized, and without history or proper upbringing. After WWI, we were a superpower. After WWII we were the Superpower of the world.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  13. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    It's a bit simplistic to call the US a second rate military power. We weren't prepared for a major global war in 1941 against Japan and Germany, which had spent the previous 5-10 years arming themselves. That's true, but for most of the early 20th century, our military (especially the US Navy) was pretty strong. It had slipped some for two reasons. First, the Depression had caused the government to direct federal resources to social programs and less toward defense. Second, prior to WWII, the US didn't have a permanent war economy, so the military didn't keep a large, ongoing military and defense industry during peacetime. However, the general rule after the Spanish - American War was a relatively strong military even if it wasn't always fully active.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  14. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    We did those things to Germany to a point. The Kaiserreich had been replaced by the Weimar Republic, which was democratic. As part of the post-war treaties, they lost their overseas colonies and had some significant changes to their own boundaries - lost Alsace-Lorraine to France and lost parts of Eastern Prussia to Poland. Their military was greatly reduced. (Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were obviously ripped up into a million pieces.)

    The big difference is that the Allies didn't force their will on Germany after WWI like they did after WWII. The occupation was much narrower, wasn't followed up with a permanent troop presence, and didn't force major cultural changes. And of course, nobody was willing to go enforce the post-WWI treaties. Germany remilitarized the Rheinland, grossly exceeded the limitations on their military, annexed Austria, and took the Sudetenland. The response from the Allies was all talk and no real action. By the time the Allies got serious (the invasion of Poland), Germany was a military colossus that was amped up for war.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  15. Chop

    Chop 10,000+ Posts

    After WWI, our Navy went in big with carriers and submarines. The old guard battleship admirals still held some power, but not like in the British Royal Navy where they predominated. The technology and tactics of the coming war (WWII) favored carriers for battles and submarines for destroying merchant ships. Only us and Japan were more-or-less prepared for what was to come (though Japan couldn't get submarines right).

    The Royal Navy was utterly dominated by surface ships, especially battleships and cruisers. In WWII, their carriers performed well (Taranto, Bismarck sinking), but they built so few of them. Germany did very well with submarines but never bothered with carriers. The surface ships they built were exceptional (Bismarck, Tirpitz, Prince Eugen, etc.), but they didn't have many of them. In WWI, a mutiny on a German ship in port helped put an end to the Kaiser late in the war. I think German leadership through Hitler distrusted their Navy and questioned their loyalty (possibly for good reason).
     
  16. Chop

    Chop 10,000+ Posts

    I would consider both France and Germany to be great civilizations, and (at different times) top-notch military powers. In my personal opinion, France leads in cuisine, architecture, sculpture, ballet, chemistry, and wine, while Germany leads in music, paintings, opera, mathematics, physics, festivals, and of course beer. France catches a lot of crap for their very poor performance in WWII, but they were previously the bullies under Napoleon and they performed well in WWI. France and Germany took turns attacking and bludgeoning each other.

    France--Napoleon, WWI
    Germany--Franco/Prussian war, WWII
     
  17. Chop

    Chop 10,000+ Posts

    Our large banks are, and were, owned by many shareholders. As for their leadership, I think JP Morgan was a Presbyterian.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  18. OUBubba

    OUBubba 5,000+ Posts

    Good read here guys. It's nice to read smart stuff sometimes.
     
    • Funny Funny x 2
    • Like Like x 1
    • Agree Agree x 1
  19. Monahorns

    Monahorns 5,000+ Posts

    World War 1 was the more important war. It was actually a culmination of things than a start. World War 1 was the natural outcome of the Enlightenment. Stripping reason and science away from traditional Christendom effectively ended Western Culture. Post-modernism and all the silliness we are still living through was because of Enlightenment and its tragedy, World War 1.
     
  20. Chop

    Chop 10,000+ Posts

    Beginning, ending, or both, WWI was the most important event in modern history.

    It was the start of the downfall of Europe. The hope, optimism, goodwill, and belief in institutions (secular and religious) had been sucked out of a whole generation of Europeans. This produced some nasty consequences.
     
  21. Chop

    Chop 10,000+ Posts

    Hindsight is 20/20, but the world would have been better off if, after WW1, Germany had been split into many parts (a smallish Prussia only around the Berlin area, Rheinland/Westphalia, Hesse, Bavaria, Hamburg, Saxony, Baden, Pomerania, etc).

    While today’s Germany lacks a strong military, my sense is that many other Europeans resent the Germans’ financial bullying and dominance of the EU.
     
  22. OUBubba

    OUBubba 5,000+ Posts

    Would we be the military superpower that we are?
     
  23. Austin_Bill

    Austin_Bill 2,500+ Posts

    My guess is that it would have changed nothing. Nazis would have still gained power and Hitler would have won elections in every separate German country. Just like they took back the land taken from them in the Versailles peace treaty.

    What would have changed the outcome would have been a Marshall plan for rebuilding Germany after WWI then there wouldn't have been all the suffering and the Nazis wouldn't have gained the foothold they got.

    Imagine our world today if we had a Marshall plan for Russia in 1992. Putin never comes to power and we aren't in a new cold war.

    Suffering after a war causes resentment which sometimes leads to bigger problems.
     
  24. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    But it just got dumber with a Sooner joining in. Lol
     
    • Funny Funny x 3
    • Like Like x 1
    • poop poop x 1
  25. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    I'm just not so sure how feasible that would have been. First, at the end of WWII, the Allies had just beaten the hell out of Germany and had millions of troops in the country ready to basically kill everybody. They would have done whatever we demanded. That wasn't true after WWI, and their national pride would have meant putting up a lot of resistance to being broken up. Second, the Allies just didn't have the will to force something like that after losing huge casualties in what was essential a stalemate.

    To really change the game, it would have taken a big occupation and shift in the German culture as well as an economic plan for Germany. That likely would have prevented the rise of the Nazis.

    No question about it. Most of Europe resents the hell out of Germany. The EU has enabled them to do economically what the Nazis couldn't do militarily.
     
  26. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Probably so. We chose to become a military superpower because of WWII (didn't want to have to fight anything like that again) and the rise of the Soviet Union.

    Had Germany been broken up after WWI (which I don't think could have been done), it may have prevented Hitler from coming to power and prevented another war in Europe. (I say "may" because other wars could have arisen concerning the remaining German states or by Mussolini.) However, it wouldn't have stopped Japan from attacking Pearl Harbor. They were allied with Germany, but their ambitions in the Pacific were independent of Germany.

    In addition, though the USSR obviously invaded the West after being attacked by Germany, they had an agenda of expanded influence independent of that. They supported communist movements in Europe long before Germany attacked them, and of course, they supported them all over the world long after Germany was defeated.

    The point is that we were in for a big, nasty war no matter what Germany did. We were also in for a Cold War. It may have looked different because it wouldn't have been in the context of a jointly- occupied Germany, but it still would have happened. Accordingly, we still would have built ourselves into a big military power.
     

Share This Page