Posted on 07/21/2023 10:40:19 AM PDT by DallasBiff
Under the Treaty of Versailles, the German emperor was supposed to be tried as a war criminal. Why wasn't he?
The accusations were explosive: a head of state had not only begun an illegal war but egged his troops on to a series of horrific atrocities that left thousands dead and an entire continent in ruins. By then, the accused was one of history’s most hated and debated figures, a monarch known for making erratic decisions and doubling down on his sometimes inexplicable actions.
There was just one problem: The accused, Wilhelm II of Germany, couldn’t testify. The accused had been dead for 75 years
It could have been the trial of the century—if it had been conducted a century before. The trial of Wilhelm II, Germany’s emperor between 1888 and 1918, was a moot one, conducted by historians and legal experts grappling with one of the great mysteries of 20th-century history. Was Wilhelm II guilty of war crimes?
It’s a question that was never answered during Wilhelm’s lifetime. Though the Allies accused him of starting one of history’s bloodiest wars and violating international law, and his troops of committing barbaric acts, he never stood trial. Today, these accusations are remembered as the first stirrings of a modern conception of war crimes. But at the end of World War I, Wilhelm’s responsibility for the bloodshed was a hotly contested—and ultimately unresolved—issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...
Wrong.
The British forced the Serbs to reject the Ultimatum, written by Austria-Hungary. The British started WWI, forced it in fact.
What about Austria-Hungary annexing Bosnia in 1908?
Read Max Hastings book Catastrophe, it is about the origins of war war one. The Kaiser was not the only one at fault. In some ways it was an actual comedy of errors. Once all of these countries started mobilization, it took on a life of its own, and the war ensured.
As I said, as the US expanded in the Pacific, we needed the Royal Navy to help guard the Atlantic, so we were kind of obligated to help them out.
“And our conflict with Japan in WWII, came from our continued support of French and British colonialism in Asia.”
In part yes, but also because Japan went beyond rectifying that in too many too big ways and herself became the biggest bully in Asia.
Of course, we must also understand that Japan was just about the only Asian industrial nation in Asia and just what “idependence” in many parts of Asia would have meant at the time. It would not have meant freedom from foreign powers vying for influence and or control, as independence for non-industrial contries did not necessarily mean security at the time. If Japan had not made colonies in may places, most likely westerners would have reestablished those places as colonies for themselves again. NONE of that is to defend Japan’s militarism. But it can help explain what a Japanese kid looking out at the world saw.
I highly recommend “The Great War” series on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB2vhKMBjSxO1lsrC98VOyOzfW0Gn8Tga
I do wonder if somehow the US and Japan could have partnered against the Soviet Union, in exchange we allow Japan control of their Eastern Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Would we rather have Imperial Japan, or Communist China?
The Serbs originally accepted the ultimatum.
Britain wanted to mediate. Grey saw himself as the arbitrator of a grand peace conference.
Source pleade?
Somebody said that if Austria had just invaded and conquered Serbia without an ultimatum, there would have been no wider war. But the Austrian army wasn’t strong enough to do that, so I guess they should have just taken what they could get from Serbia.
Maybe there’s a parallel between that war and the current one. You can assign a lot of blame to Germany because of the blank check and the Schlieffen plan, but all the powers were so drenched in blood that war crimes trials would have been a sick joke.
Absolutely agree!
-and Teddy Roosevelt desperately want ed to go to Europe with a group of cowboys and charge p a hill, as in in the Spanish American war--
Just finished a book called “Icebreaker”, available on amazon, on the origins of not only W.W. II but the real reasons Hitler attacked Russia. It is well documented and puts and entirely new slant on the War and how it started. And it is not what we learned in school in history.
I suppose it was only a matter of time. Something was going to set it off.
And Europe will never recover from it.
At that time voting rights were more widespread in Imperial Germany then in the UK.
My understand is that Hitler knew, as in 1914, that Russia was only getting stronger with each passing day, and the only chance was to attack as soon as possible.
But the thing is, in the end Mussolini’s botch in the Balkans may have saved the Russians, because Hitler had to delay Barbarossa for 6 critical weeks to bail out Mussolini.
I still say, if the Nazis reach Moscow, the Soviet government falls apart, and Russians start fighting amongst themselves. Hitler failed to understand how he easily could have forced civil war amongst the Soviets and “divide and conquer”.
I agree with your statement about TR. I alluded to that in regard to the Anglophile behavior of American grandees. Your statement about NY banks loans before 1914 or after?
“I do wonder if somehow the US and Japan could have partnered against the Soviet Union, in exchange we allow Japan control of their Eastern Co-Prosperity Sphere.”
We might have made an alliance with Japan against the Soviet Union, but most likely not while agreeing to Japan’s colonial control of so much Asian real estate. If WWII had not ended Japan’s empire in Asia, I think time would have because economic and industrial development in Asia - which Japan was doing in her colonies - was going to create moves for independence in all of them. Japan had over reached.
But then why did we suddenly care so much about Asia?
Trade & souls !
Of course, had we not gained The Phillipines via The Spanish-American War, I wonder how different things might have turned out.
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