[kearnyirish2]

I believe the Allies preferred handing the former Ottoman lands to an ally (Serbia, creating Yugoslavia) rather than leave them in the hands of a German ally.

Democracy was never the goal in either the Balkans or the Middle East; some former Hapsburg lands ended up under a monarchy (King Peter of Serbia) or a military government (Poland). Arabs were transferred from colonial rule to monarchs or dictators as well.

Ho Chi Minh realized Versailles was a lie when he went hoping to secure independence for Indochina; he was ignored, and thirty five years later obtained independence at gunpoint.

[ishmac]

Point granted on "Uncle Ho," and the outlying areas of the empire. My focus was, however, on Central Europe. That's where Hitler's first aggressions took place, right? Austro-Hungary had, for all it's faults, functioned as a power center in that region. When the empire disappeared, a power vacuum arose. Hitler exploited that vacuum.

The goal of establishing democracy in central Europe was totally serious for men like Masaryk, Benes, et al. The problem was, the geographically crucial area (Bohemia) was now included in the new state of Czechoslovakia. The creation of Czechoslovakia basically recreated a small-scale version of the old empire--with all it's ethnic strife, pettiness, and brittleness. The new Czechoslovakia had none of Austro-Hungary's counterbalancing strengths. Czechoslovakia was bound to break up, but its dissolution was more consequential given its central location.

The rickety Czechoslovakia was tailor made for dismemberment. Don't forget that the second largest minority group in the new country was German. That's right, there were more Germans in the new Czechoslovakia than there were Slovaks. Those Germans were also in the most industrially developed areas of what we now call the Czech Republic. The Sudeten Germans were never going to be happy as citizens in a Czech majority state. In addition, the Czechs were at times ungracious victors, and although hardly oppressors, they gave the unhappy Sudetens enough to complain about. Hitler and his propaganda machine used these slights to great effect.

But back to Wilson. Astonishingly, he was unaware of the ethnic composition of the proposed Czechoslovakia when he started pushing for democratization. When he found out, he is said to have cried, "But Masaryk never told me that!" He was completely oblivious to the facts on the ground when he started pushing to redraw the borders of Central Europe.

Again though, I grant your point about the fringe areas of the empire. No one really cared about them, much less areas like Indo-China.