Sto Lat, Polska!
Posted on 11/05/2018 2:38:49 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I on French soil, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will be in London at a ceremony in Westminster Abby with Queen Elizabeth II.
But while the leaders visit the capitals of Germany's wartime enemies, at home there are no national commemorations planned for the centenary of the Nov. 11 armistice that brought an end to the four-year war that killed more than 2 million of its troops and left 4 million wounded.
Next week, German parliament is holding a combined commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the first German republic, the 80th anniversary of the brutal Nazi-era pogrom against Jews known as the Night of Broken Glass, and the 29th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Almost as an afterthought, parliament notes there's also art exhibition in the lobby called "1914/1918 - Not Then, Not Now, Not Ever."
More than just being on the losing side of the World War 1, it's what came next that is really behind Germany's lack of commemorative events.
For Germany, the Nov. 11 armistice did not mean peace like it did in France and Britain. The war's end gave rise to revolution and street fighting between far-left and far-right factions. It also brought an end to the monarchy, years of hyperinflation, widespread poverty and hunger, and helped create the conditions that brought the Nazis to power in 1933.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
World War I ended in 1945. There was just a 21 year intermission. Ferdinand Foch was only off by one year.
Although, in fairness, the terms of of the Versailles Treaty were no harsher than what Germany planned to do to France when it won.
However, I’ve often made the rest of the points you make in your post- sending Lenin into Russia and the carving up of the middle east into irrational and perpetually warring ‘nations’ that bore no resemblance to tribes or history, to that most damaging president we ever had, Wilson’s ascendancy and turning a Japan that should have been a natural ally into a hostile...
The love of money is the root of *all* evil.
The generals ordering men into the path of machine gun fire. Seeing 10’s of thousand s killed and ordering the same again and again. Dig a trench and wait till the million shells land on you. Sit there and be gassed. What a stupid way to wage war and over what because some cousins on a throne are upset with each other?
Yes, and the Treaty of Versailles led directly to WWII,
less than 2o years later.
It seems to me that all of Europe should be on their knees and bowing to the West to show homage to the good ol’ U.S. of A. for bailing them out the first time!
Ungrateful, fatherless children which they are!
The first didn’t need to happen ...it was a collective failure.
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The second didn’t need to happen either if the British and the French didn’t betray the Czechs.
“The “War To End All Wars” ended ...
at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918“
And when the hour struck a German soldier apparently raked off a full belt from his machine gun, stood up, bowed towards the enemy lines, and walked from the battlefield.
WWI Germany was a much different Germany than many people understand. As many have noted here, WWII Germany (read Hitler) forever changed that country and soured it to this very day.
Many wonder why Germans do not stand up to the muslim horde in their country, Hitler and the stain on Germany is why imho.
What little I know about WWI suggests to me that it was at least as ugly as WWII...and maybe even uglier.
Yep. If you're an inhabitant of Earth, and if you have any freedoms, you can pretty much thank the U.S.
Also, the 2nd Amendment protects the entire free world because if a totalitarian government (Think unrestrained Mrs. Bill Clinton) comes to power here the rest of the world is also in deep doo-doo.
We lost 116,000 men in WWI and we weren’t invited to the ceremonies????
“We lost 116,000 men in WWI and we weren’t invited to the ceremonies????“
While I share your thoughts, just to put it in perspective, the French lost 1.3 million, the British 3/4 of a million and the Germans just north of 2 million.
Our deaths were but one battle for the major players. Heck I think on the first day of the first encounter between the French and Germans the French lost 27k killed.
WW 1 was much more brutal than WW 2.
20th century weapons against 19th century tactics.
Poison gas, trench warfare and the Spanish flu were also factors.
Why should anyone remember that war except for the stupidity of it and the hubris of the world leaders who started it? What a colossal waste of human life!
Yup. Think about a world that did not lose that European generation. Maybe no WWII? Who knows?
Sto Lat, Polska!
I think any civil people remember history but do not hold in higher esteem the negatives. They cherish and celebrate the positives. They hold no grudges and welcome positive change.
Germany has done much for the modern world. Their technological inventions and their people that contributed worldwide are to be celebrated.
The idiots dooming Germany to socialism and invasion ought to shot. Yes, I am still being civil. I didn’t say drawn and quartered.
The French lost around 500,000 in the first six months—much of it because the politicians stupidly refused to replace the “pantalons rouges” (Red Pants) uniform, topped with a nice shiny brass belt buckle, that belonged back in Napoleon’s era. In an age of long-range, flat-shooting Mauser rifles and Maxim machine guns, it was a literal bullet magnet.
And the British lost around 60,000 troops in one morning at the Battle of the Somme.
I still think things might have been better off had Britain (and subsequently the US) had stayed out of the conflict. Germany wasn’t going to threaten the British Empire, and if France went down, so what?
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