Was Wilhelm Just Another “W”?
The latest issue of The American Conservative (July 14) includes a provocative symposium on whether World War II should be considered “the good war” and, no less significant, whether Winston Churchill deserves the adulation that the media have accorded him as “man of the century.” The contributions are all well documented and boldly framed, and it would be hard to find a passage in any of them that seems stereotypical or not worth stating. Of the published commentators I personally learned the most from Christopher Layne and Michael Vlahos. Both make useful observations that Churchill’s most lasting achievements have yielded dubious benefits. These results include by now outmoded rules of statecraft that have sometimes been applied indiscriminately, and what became the authorized narrative for The Second World War, Churchill’s multi-volume text which continues to shape the popular perception of the last European war. The conclusion that Layne, Vlahos, and several of the other contributors suggest, is that for all his talents and his willingness to stand up to Hitler, Churchill might have left behind a troubling legacy, and particularly for those who are unwilling to assess his catastrophic mistakes and self-interested historiography.
More troubling for me than these commentaries are Scott McConnell’s introduction, or, to be more accurate, his concluding remarks. There Scott expresses the probable views of his esteemed former professor Fritz Stern. For those who don’t know, Stern is the New York Times’s favorite German historian and his intellectual historical study The Politics of Cultural Despair remains a classic for politically correct, antinational Germans. In line with his mentor’s spirit, Scott offers this portentous lesson from the German imperial past:
Look instead [of to the Munich meeting in 1938] to German conduct in the prelude to the First World War, when the Reich, the most powerful state in the world, felt itself encircled, while its military and diplomatic leaders grotesquely exaggerated the threats they faced. If Germany didn’t confront tsarist Russia then, the opportunity would be lost: preventive war was the much-discussed option. Learned men in the thrall of worst case thinking were blind to the ways Germany’s outward thrusts of power were perceived by others.
Scott ends his somber reflection by expressing this pious wish: “We might pray that analogies to Wilhelmine Germany never fit too well.”
The problem with these warnings is they have no real connection to the present American situation. Moreover, they don’t even offer an accurate picture of Germany’s political and military history a hundred years ago. The U.S. is far more powerful economically and militarily than any other world power, and it was on the verge of becoming this by 1914, as British historian Niall Ferguson reminds us in several of his books. Incidentally, in 1914 Germany was not the “most powerful state in the world.” The U.S. was already overtaking it industrially and had a far greater military potential, and because of its navy and overseas empire, England enjoyed a power comparable to that of Wilhelmine Germany, which had only recently forged ahead of England industrially. Until the eve of the Great War, when the Germans worked to increase the size of their army, France had a land force that was numerically comparable to Germany’s. Because of the foolish distraction of its naval buildup, which intensified the anti-German animosity of Churchill without allowing the German Empire to get ahead of England as a naval leader, imperial Germany thrust itself into harm’s way.
The German government’s fear of being encircled was anything but “grotesquely exaggerated.” Since the 1890s France and Russia had built an alliance that was aimed at the Germans and Austrians; and as late as the summer of 1914, the Russians and English, as German historian Egmont Zechlin has documented in detail, were negotiating a naval alliance that was emphatically directed at the Germans.
No one is claiming that the last German emperor was a skilled or prudent diplomat. His intermittent bluster, maladroit attempts at playing off the British against continental powers, and his naval build-up, which Wilhelm presented as a defensive measure but one which understandably unsettled the English, all serve to underscore his lack of diplomatic finesse. But the Germans were not alone in that department. Most of Europe’s prominent statesmen in the years preceding World War One seem to have been almost equally tactless. Wilhelm exemplified the political style of Europe’s major powers in his age, a widespread flaw that contributed to the Old World’s undoing. While the German emperor did his share of mischief, given the location of his country and the recentness of Germany’s rise to world power, there is abundant evidence of hasty, bombastic speech among his opposite numbers elsewhere in Europe.
Anti-German German historians Fritz Fischer, Immanuel Geiss, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Wolfgang Mommsen, and Fritz Stern have all focused specifically on German diplomatic faux pas in the early twentieth century. These critics then undertake to link these real but exaggerated blunders to some peculiarly Teutonic “culture of illiberalism.” Because of its undemocratic, sexist, patriarchal and nationalist culture, we are told, Germany’s bid for power in the twentieth century became an inevitable development. This perspective assumes a causal link between an ominously depicted social culture and exclusive responsibility for the disastrous conflict in 1914. But it is not clear why the Germans’ failure to move toward a currently enshrined liberal model would create the necessary conditions for a German bid for world conquest in 1914 or the atrocities of the Third Reich. It is even hard to show that the Germans in 1914 were more anti-Jewish than most of their European neighbors, a contention that most German Jews of the time would have vigorously disputed.
Indeed this view of a German “special path” into modernity is based on a special German provincialism, one that has caused anti-German historians to treat as peculiarly and dangerously Teutonic what were European-wide values a hundred years ago. German society in 1900 looked much more like French or English society than like our own late modern one. Moreover, there was nothing peculiarly German about the lack of measure shown by the Germans in dealing with other European powers. Churchill was at least as truculent in his statecraft as the German executive before the First World War, and he represented a country that has been generally spared the critical responsibility its leaders had for the magnitude of the war that broke out in 1914.
Of course we are talking here about the war that no one wanted, that is to say, not in the destructive form in which it came. Most European statesmen of the time had nothing against some limited hostilities to achieve their geopolitical ends, and since they could not imagine the possibility of the bloodbath unleashed, they were willing to pursue their parochial advantage through military means. The French were more than open to a struggle against Germany during the two Balkan Wars, but they expected the Russians to do the fighting for them. Once the Germans and Russians had proceeded to take up arms against each other in the east, or so went the desired scenario of French ambassador to Russia, Maurice Paléologue, French troops could then enter the struggle from the west, by occupying Alsace and Lorraine, the two provinces that France had lost to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
Despite their impetuousness, however, early twentieth-century European leaders might have been less, not more, prone to rhetorical excess than the present US leadership. With due respect to Scott, it does not seem that U.S. is now inching slowly toward the noisy boastful example of imperial Germany. The Kaiser’s speeches about Germany’s right to “a place in the sun,” meaning a few colonies in Africa, sound almost schoolmarmish, when compared to W’s sweeping references to an American imperial mission, as set forth in his Second Inaugural and fifth State of the Union addresses. In these elocution exercises, our president explained that we could only be a moral nation, by bestowing our form of government on the rest of the world. W’s would-be successors Senators McCain and Obama are planning to bestow on the world more of the same, McCain by creating a Union of Democracies, which, for all we know, may be the neocon equivalent of the Warsaw Pact, and Obama by sending our inspectors across the globe to make sure that elections in foreign countries occur “democratically.”
In Germany the Kaiser received from the Reichstag sharp reprimands in 1908 for saying stupid things about the German navy to the British Daily Telegraph, in an interview in which the German ruler asserted that his navy was being expanded to counter Japanese expansion in the Far East. German elected officials thought that Wilhelm, who was then ineptly trying to appease British public opinion, had spoken indiscreetly, and his subjects didn’t hesitate to let him know. In our country, by contrast, the president receives congressional applause when he rhapsodizes about universal crusades for democracy.
I wish that someone could explain to me why our leaders are thought to sound more prudent when they talk about Weltpolitik than did the architects of imperial German foreign policy. Moreover, if one reads the collected speeches of American religious leaders about our providential role on the eve of America’s entry into World War One, speeches that are cited at length in Richard Gamble’s The War for Righteousness, European jingoist rhetoric produced by Wilhelm or Churchill pales by comparison. None of this Old World bluster even approximates the millenarian lunacies exhibited by Wilson’s clerical cheering gallery.
But the difference is the U.S. can afford to be righteous and arrogant without having to pay the price that Europeans did in 1914. Our economic and military strength, our isolation from other lesser powers, and by now the clear disparity between our menacing moralizing and the limits of what we can actually accomplish by force all protect us against our folly. We are fortunate not to have to operate in the narrow spaces and almost claustrophobic diplomatic circles in which European tensions festered at the beginning of the last century. Our present leaders can afford to sound obnoxious in a way that Europe’s political actors in 1914 could not. That having been said, it does seem a bit much to dwell on the verbal intemperateness of a particular German ruler a hundred years ago. What does the New Testament say about the beam in one’s own eye as compared to the mote in someone else’s?
Comments
“I wish that someone could explain to me why our leaders are thought to sound more prudent when they talk about Weltpolitik than did the architects of imperial German foreign policy.”
.... ummmm ..... this is america - the land of mtv and saturated fat.... it shouldn’t surprise that the lowest common denominator has come to dominate.... america is an ignorant entity
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“I wish that someone could explain to me why our leaders are thought to sound more prudent when they talk about Weltpolitik than did the architects of imperial German foreign policy.”
The same reason Churchill can be praised for postulating “Should the British Empire last a thousand years”, while Hitler is deemed mad for aspiring that the Third Reich should last—as the First Reich did—the same one thousand years. Because people generally don’t try to weigh the statements of those who are “on our tesm” equally with those who are not. Logically, that is wrong, but in particular instances, including the one I’ve cited, it is quite defensible. That the Kaiser should be lumped together with Hitler in this regard is grossly unfair, but that of course goes beyond the narrow question of war guilt.
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I have always enjoyed the brilliance of Paul Gottfried’s in Chronicles Magazines and
most of his work here in online but this one I particularly enjoyed. Here’s a quote I’d
like to repeat: “The problem with these warnings is they have no real connection to the present American situation. Moreover, they don’t even offer an accurate picture of Germany’s political and military history a hundred years ago. The U.S. is far more powerful economically and militarily than any other world power, and it was on the verge of becoming this by 1914, as British historian Niall Ferguson reminds us in several of his books. Incidentally, in 1914 Germany was not the “most powerful state in the world.” The U.S. was already overtaking it industrially and had a far greater military potential, and because of its navy and overseas empire, England enjoyed a power comparable to that of Wilhelmine Germany, which had only recently forged ahead of England industrially. Until the eve of the Great War, when the Germans worked to increase the size of their army, France had a land force that was numerically comparable to Germany’s. Because of the foolish distraction of its naval buildup, which intensified the anti-German animosity of Churchill without allowing the German Empire to get ahead of England as a naval leader, imperial Germany thrust itself into harm’s way.” -Paul G. (end quote) I personally look
at culture which I perceive is the most subtle and so perhaps one of if not the most
powerful influences on human policy as a political matter. Germany, like America once
is a normal not a putsch nation/culture more normal than not. Paul notices her naivete thus in
thrusting herself into harm’s way. As always or usually or most often Paul finds the
salient and overlooked point which is so close to the bone the simple eludes. Without
predjudice, or malice or even blame I notice putsch cultures are usually found in island
nations/cultures like Japan or England, or moving island nation/cultures like the judaic,
and are therefore in terms of human policy as a political matter usually in Fact the
most dangerous. Conversely of course they also have many salutary things they’ve learned
and so have to teach and make us aware of - though self-disclosure to ‘outsiders’ wouldn’t
necessarily be one of them. Way it is.
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Excellent post. Perhaps the ease with which American liberal Protestants could view German Lutherans as warlike “pagans” in 1917-18 foreshadows the equally absurd view, held by many US evangelicals today, that the enemies of America today are “fascist.” It seems that the American imperium could not succeed without the scandalous anti-intellectualism and ignorance of the churches.
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The statement about how America is far more powerful militarily and economically than anyone else is an example of America’s imperial hubris. Our power is becoming illusionary, just like the Wizard of Oz. Behind the curtain stands a shriveled-up Uncle Sam who mindlessly spends our strength and means warring in foreign lands, has an annual budget deficit of near $450 billion, and a national debt of nearly $10 trillion. Meanwhile, a cahs-flush Russia is rebuilding its military, and sending bombers on provocative Cold War-style flights probing pur borders once again. I would also add that we’ve fatally weakened ourselves demographically by allowing immigrants from all over the Third World to pour in here, bringing their problems and diseases. If this is “strength”, God forbid we should ever see weakness.
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Poor Kaiser Bill had the regrettable habit of getting carried away and putting his foot in his mouth. The British press did a masterful job of mistranslating and exaggerating the kaiser’s overwrought statements to make him look bad and build xenophobic dislike and distrust of Germany throughout the English-speaking world. A British biographer noted a few years ago that the contemporary head of state Wilhelm II most closely resembled was Theodore Roosevelt, whom the English-language press adored. Compare and contrast the way Bush II and Ahmadinejad are portrayed by the mainstream media today. Creepy if you think about it, no?
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I, too, was struck by that strange comment of Gottfried’s re America’s alleged economic and military strength. Respecting the latter, we have great technological military strength (we can annihilate the earth x number of times with nuclear bombs, destroy life with so many tons of defoliants, etc.), but our fighting men today, heavily nonwhite and dysgenic white, would get their clocks cleaned by the German or American armies of yesteryear. National character is finally decisive in military conflicts, and ours today is especially weak and corrupt. Our physical power is mostly illusory or useless.
Our economic situation is even worse. has Prof. Gottfried learned so little from his friend Rothbard, the Misesians, Ron Paul, etc.? Our parasite rewarding government has been destroying the US economy in one sense since the Progressive Era, but in a much more comprehensive way in the past five decades. The chickens of socialism, wefarism, globalism, union syndicalism, affirmative actionism, high time preference, low quality national character, diversity, etc., are starting to come home. Their effects would have been felt two decades ago, except the US continued to profit from the global financial architecture it imposed at Bretton Woods. But that game is nearly up. And that is without mentioning the unfunded liabilities crisis awaiting its $47 trillion “Boomsday”. No, our nation is structurally weak, and set to get much, much weaker in the relatively near future. That, incidentally, will put an end to the much discussed warmongering of Gottried’s neocon nemeses.
Finally, it should be briefly noted that Scott McConnell is hardly what one could call a real conservative. In The American Conservative he invariably finds a way, on every issue, to reach the leftmost conclusion ostensibly still acceptable to conservatives. He is very weak on race, not very un-PC otherwise, always softening rightist opposition to this or that leftist outrage, and invariably leftist in his voting choices (except in 2000).
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One of my readers mistook what was a factual statement about the US’s standing as an
industrial power in 1914 for an endorsement of the current American welfare state. This
position does not follow from the mere recognition that the US by the early twentieth
century was poised to be the major economic-military power of the century. What might
follow from the fact of America’s longtime economic dominance was the possibility
of creating our current managerial, multicultural government without having suffered
greater material hardship than has been the case up to the present moment.
material hardship than
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Paul Gottfried understands little of war, but is not reluctant to comment. American participation in World War I has been exaggerated to satisfy American egos. When speaking to an audience celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Armistice of World War I in 1938, George Marshall gave the listeners the caveat that he was presenting the problem of going to war from the aspect of the professional soldier. The General told the knowing audience of the American problem of unpreparedness. General Marshall mentioned the part the United States did play in the war was well known, but many blundering steps by America were not known to the general public. Painfully remembered by Marshall was sailing to Europe with the First Division in June, 1917 in the first convoy shortly after America declared war. Some 80 percent of the men in the ranks were recruits who got their rifles on the train between the Mexican border and Hoboken. Marshall admitted all the men were good Americans, but they were not soldiers.
The listeners were reminded from the day his ship landed in France on June 26, 1917 to September 12, 1918 when the American Army deployed in battle in divisional size, the Allies protected the American Army in the rear. American units did engage in some combat duty, but not in divisional size. American forces were protected on the field for a over a year while the vaunted American Army got ready. George Marshall thought Americans who were quick to remember Valley Forge and the American Revolution did not realize that in France of 1917 the American Army was in a similar situation. Marshall saw troops of the First Division without shoes and with feet wrapped in gunnysacks march 10 or 15 kilometers through ice or snow. The strength and sacrifice of the Allies held the enemy at bay for a year. This great effort enabled the fighting of battles which ended the war. David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister at war’s end, in his memoirs remembered with deserving petulance the concession to General Pershing on maintaining American divisional formations and Pershing’s refusal to merge American infantry with British force. Pershing relinquished American command temporarily only for training. Could Pershing have imagined the reaction of the British and French to having untried American formations fighting adjacent to their men while facing a formidable enemy like the Germans? Did he have much concern for the risk he was placing Allied troops under? The American army copied the British rifle and did not make any weapon used by our troops in that war.
Lloyd George swore American troops in battalion strength had expressed satisfaction at suggestions of being incorporated into British formations. Moreover, he quoted Pershing writing at the end of February, 1918 of Pershing’s disappointment at American progress and the possibility of having to stand by almost helplessly while the Allies were assaulted by the Germans and were suffering losses in the hundreds of thousands while struggling against defeat. Lloyd George noted a high proportion of American troops as of February 28, 1918 were non-combatants and the rest were poorly trained.
The acerbic Thorsten Veblen attributed any utterances by the patriotic types as to how America won the war in Europe as “stage bravery”. Professor Veblen attributed the puerile blood lust of Americans to dementia praecox, an affliction of distemper of early manhood. Prince Max, cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm, observed the American war machine started with much publicity, but very slowly for Americans with their false pretense felt the only way they could learn was not by the mistakes of their Allies, but only by bitter experiences of their own. The cold fact was that America did not get an army into the field until 17 months after declaring war, and the American army only fought as an integral unit for all of two months. During the Second World War Churchill’s scientific advisor Professor F.A. Lindemann reminded George Marshall that America had to fight knowing that British losses during World War I had severely affected their ability to fight.
From Baltimore H.L. Mencken blamed American entry into that war on the management of news by the British ably assisted by Jews. He had been in Basel and Copenhagen in 1917 and found the news had been shaped by Jews ostensibly employed by American newspapers, but whose primary loyalty was to British interests. American readers never got a firsthand presentation of the German side. Mencken assigned that grave error to publishers who chose to print British interpretations. American academics who should have been available to interpret the German argument had spent years studying in Germany without picking up enough German to read a newspaper. Germany, since the Middle Ages had been surrounded by powerful and unconscionable enemies. Germany had been provoked and had fought magnificently. Even in 1918 exhausted by war for four years and badly outnumbered, the army of the Kaiser would have mauled the American army in the fair fight so beloved by American patriots. Mencken stated his opinion was shared by French officers who had seen four years of war. The sage of Baltimore regarded the belief of the American populace that one of “Our Boys” taken at random could fight 10 Englishmen, 20 Germans, 30 Frogs, 40 Wops, 50 Japs or 100 Bolsheviki was the faith of little children
After remarking on the use of enemy propaganda and how it should not be undervalued, Ludendorff ruefully stated “available space does not allow me to dive into the matter”. He noted especially well trained and well composed Australian and Canadian troops who had suffered little in past battles. Then he noted the American soldier had “fought unskillfully, but bravely, and in full control of his fresh nerves”. At the end of the essay Ludendorff concluded the Americans had enough common sense to know that lucky circumstances favored them greatly. He was unkind to point out American intervention occurred some four years after the war began.
Professor Gottfried and his fellow writers should confine themselves to such forbidding topics as to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. His incompetence about wars is almost total.
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I don’t quite understand eddie Gibbons post above. It seems Gottfried is in agreement
with him while the latter has some kind of chip on his shoulder? Yes due to the Balfour
Agreement jews slanted the news to support England v. Germany since if their efforts
brought america into the war, jews would be ‘given’ Palestine in return, by England. And
yes doesn’t everyone know that germans historically have made (among other things) some
of the best soldiers on the planet?! From my read Gottfried was just pointing out that
as of 1914 (and not necessarily today) America was the nascent industrial giant and due
to its size (that of the entire European Union today) also the military golem on the
horizon. And that France in 1914 on the ground, rivaled or exceeded German military force
while England exceeded her as well on the high seas even with Germany’s attempts at
naval build-up at that time. Where is all of the confusion coming from, the
non-sequiturs with regard to the above article. I suspect gibbons is purposefully
manufacturing them relying on the author’s busy schedule not to reply in kind? Are you
a neocon and proud war monger mr. gibbons throwing another distracting wrench into
the works, to keep things ajar and slightly off track toward your own ends and those of
your employers? Do you only, really have a fiduciary responsibility to the military insudrial
complex here in the u.s. today and keeping those all important dividends up for stock-
holders, like yourself? What else is new? Got to keep that war mongering narrative
intact ‘just so’, right?!
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I am not quite certain, Mr. Gottfried, that our American politicians are so immune from consequences as you suggest. The freedom to be everlastingly idiotic and blithely partisan is fast coming to a close. If you want to guage the speed of this impending transformation, look at the growth of the Money Supply, the pre Clinton-adjusted rate of inflation and the tanked value of the dollar. Spice this with the accelerating decline of oil production, an increasingly security-mad government and the amount of American debt held by Foreign entities and voila!......you will quickly arrive at a space with all the charms of an ill-maintained outhouse.
It is akin to those old sailing ships silently weakened by woodworms. they looked stout but the hull would stove on a floating log nonetheless and it was over almost before it began.
Look in any direction and one can find historic parallels for the fate of our once fine Republic but we will put our own unique stamp on this old parable. One can expect our media to breathlessly declare that even our decline is more exceptional than all previous declines. We already flock to movies about our self destruction like it were a light hearted lark and so one can assume that there are detailed marketing plans gleefully awaiting the real thing. Thorsten was an optimist.
The cheerful Obama Lawn Sign exhorts “Got Hope”...and it makes me want to reach for my knife and I don’t really have much negative to say about him over any of our other essentially useless candidates for office. Whoever takes the keys to this gutted house fire better have a finely tuned sense of the humor in tragedy.
But this is the good news because Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and I dare say Spain and Italy are far more enjoyable nations since they lost their imperial mindset. The caveat this time though concerns the nettlesome fact that the rising global empire is the Orient and they are truly in a professional class all their own. We can only hope that they will withdraw inward again, as they so often have done in the past. But I doubt it on the face of population growth alone.
We will come to rue the day we thought isolationism was perhaps a pejorative and a simple byproduct of geography rather than something to be enjoyed and cultivated with non-interventionism and strong local economies of scale.Romantic hell! it’s pragmatism informed by history.
Our pudgy Neo-Con marauders are a New Age Hun without the edifying qualities of Attila and certainly none of the common sense God gave the average Mule. They think Empire can be achieved by yakking alone. If that were the case, I’d be in charge.
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Dirk W. Sabin your post directly above is almost, or is liteature. Cudos and as for content
I couldn’t agree with you more. Jews never were able to arrive at a civilization for
themselves and never will be able to because their culture is exclusive (*good for
families) but insufficient to the larger community. xianity on the other hand is
sufficent culturally… you know when in china jews became chinese since there was not
space for them *otherwise, in that older civilization even the size of an unkempt
outhouse. the west has always thanks to the greeks been much larger than even the usual
civilization and more so again thanks to christianity - Though at that [civilizational]
level, space just means - *no thanks, and no good deed in that regard goes unpunished.
We’re too liberal. We don’t even know that. In the west (unlike when in china)… jews
*don’t assimilate, they become bankers (and twist even that) e.g. rothschild. Why? It’s
not their fault, it’s like the mountain - because they can...because it’s there. It’s not
even that they ‘twist’ it, they make it like themselves i.e. *unsustainable ... and that’s
what *we all are today now that they’ve taken over. They’ve got to bow out for their own
good so that everyone including themselves can survive. The Balfour Agreement was the
scourge of modern times. But then again so was the drunk, Winston Churchill as well.
Make no mistake the west and even mankind is young but even adolescents have to grow up.
No? Yes.
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RE; jeff w
Try as I might, I cannot discern any connection whatsoever between my post and your references to “the jews”. The Balfour Agreement may certainly have been the scourge of a number of Turkish and Egyptian landlords and certainly effects the modern era but I would find it low on the list of so called “scourges” I don’t even think it rates above phone solicitation or computer virus tinkerers.
The Israelis have done something quite remarkable with that dry patch of the Levant, with a lot of American money to be sure but it is one of the true sorrows of the age that geo-political chicanery....ALL AROUND...... taints it so.
Count me out of your animus to the jew alone, I prefer to indict everybody freely as we all so richly deserve.
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Jeff W. wrote: “Are you a neocon and proud war monger mr. gibbons throwing another distracting wrench into the works, to keep things ajar and slightly off track toward your own ends and those of your employers?”
Not at all. I am a realist who believes American policy should be based on American priorities. It was not in American interest to invade Iraq.
Jeff W. further wrote: “ Yes due to the Balfour Agreement jews slanted the news to support England v. Germany since if their efforts brought america into the war, jews would be ‘given’ Palestine in return, by England”
American interest does not require the existence of Israel. Why would Jeff W. have Americans involve themselves in a war that cost over 100,000 American lives just for the sake of Jewish interests.
I weaken sometimes and believe I can get some people to question what they believe to be true. I have failed with Jeff W. Americans despite what we like to believe did little in World War I to win the war. In fact in many ways we made things much worse.
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I think you guys are arguing past each other at this point, and I don’t think Eddie Gibbons’ point about American contribution to the war being the last and possibly least of the participants necessarily contradicts Dr. Gottfried’s point.
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I will take Wilhelm over W. any day. Wilhelm led his country peacefully and with much prosperity for 25 years. He was a bit of a blowhard but no real warmonger. He didn’t really want to fight but was pushed by circumstances and idiotic guarentees which pushed Europe to disaster. He offered peace in 1917 at the original borders. The only thing that stoped peace in 1917 was America’s entry into the war. Gen. Pershing saved many Americans from the meat grinder by demanding separate American units. The French and English would have used the Americans as cannon fodder like they did with their own men.
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we are arguing past one another slightly. Except mr. Sabin has demonstrated he neither
understands history nor war for that matter, and yet did not seem to merit a
remonstration or scolding for it from mr. gibbons like he so generously heaped
upon mr. gottfried. On he other hand the original jack has placed his finger on the
pulse of this matter at its inception. Are we all richly to blame? Of course, jew and
gentile alike, and as in all things when it comes to the particulars, some more than
others. It is a world of inches and of degrees of difference, wherein some things are
the same but not identical. We LOST our media in America as a result of the Balfour
Agreement on account of what it taught our plutocrats about how easily maleable public
opinion really is. And our entry into world war one gave birth to the bloodiest century in
the history of the world. I think that rates above phone solicitation and possibly even
computer hacking itself, in the world of degrees of difference. No? Sorry I did throw a
wrench into the discussion but only to find out what a wrench would do to this machinery. … At least the wrench’s purpose is pacific in attempting to stop not start world war III. one wonders whether that is even possible or not at this point. mr. gibbons if the tail wags the dog, sadly the tail wags the dog. that is the power of media since newspapers and the mass society and as *exponentially amplified by moving pictures. cheers. but you know this, right? p.s. mr. Sabin probably you’re a landlord and so you know then you lease to real
people with kids and families presumably like yourself. you’re ‘real’ aren’t you? now go
take that phone solicitation at least will you?
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Just one question, granted some leftists here and in Germany place undo blame on Prussia, but why do people on this site and Chronicles generally take the side of Germany over England in WWI and even WWII if in fact both are Western powers, and we should instead lament that there was a war and place due blame on both?
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whatwemaybe: i don’t see us placing ‘blame’ - but attempting to undo the propaganda
of the past & approximately balancing it out with some facts. you’re going to have
‘enemies’ even in your own camp. you seem to be saying or thinking out loud ‘why can’t
we all just get along, we’re on the same team.’ whatwemaybe, is it even that way in
your own family? your name ‘whatwemaybe’ is essentially pacific (desirous of peace) &
that is good, and in the tradition of the CHRISTIAN west. And, we tend to be too liberal
at our own expense when we make that our ‘god’. you’re always going to have enemies,
that’s reality. living with it is having grown up.
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