The interwar years saw incredible hardship that didn't end with WWI. Initially America seemed to be in good shape. The homefront was stable and wasn't ravaged like Europe, the economy seemed to be in a good place, there were many countires that owed money, everything was going to be fine. The problems started when countries couldn't pay what they owed, the Depression followed shortly after.
In Europe the Depression hit as well, at this point Germany couldn't pay the extensive reparations they owed, so the Allies decreased their payments. This pattern continued until the reparations were entirely erased, and Germany was off the hook.
Later, when Hitler rose to power and began rebuilding Germany's military, clearly violating Versaille, no one said a thing. One could argue that economic factors were the cause of the allies not backing Versaille, but the poor light shed on these powers seems undeserved when the punishments they gave were entirely withdrawn.
I agree with what you said about how the punishments were withdrawn because no one wanted to get in a fight. Also, I think it's interesting that when Wilson created his 14 Points all the other countries were upset that he wasn't being harder on Germany. But later, when Germany started gaining power again, no one was willing to step up and they just let the punishment go. That seems really ridiculous to me.
ReplyDeleteThis bothered me too! For real, Germany didn't just build up their military, they violated almost every condition of the treaty of Versailles. They annexed all kinds of territory that was forbidden and they completely stopped paying their war reparations in 1933. I don't know, I guess that most political leaders were probably just really really hesistant to say anything because of the shock of World War 1 and the fear of a second World War. Not to mention, everyone called World War 1 the "war to end all wars", so probably they didn't worry that much about Germany's militarization, seeing as they thought there was never going to be another large-scale war.
ReplyDeleteSo what do we think should have been done at this time? What would have been the correct steps taken to halt the militarism that had began by Germany. An argument teachers have in their back pocket for the "reasons we study history" is so we learn from our mistakes so history doesn't repeat itself. So my question to you is, what have we learned? What would we do differently next time? What would it look like?
ReplyDelete(Great reflections Kate- keep up the good work!)