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Entry: Frum's Mishagas Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/frums_mishagas#9447 Post contents: One of the causes of the perennial wars between Germany and France that seems to be overlooked from the American and British perspective is the fight over Elsass Lothringen, which is the remnants of Lothar’s kingdom - itself the result of the partition of the Frankish kingdom. Sandwiched between the new emerging kingdoms of France and Germany, it was bound to be sooner or later absorbed into one of them. Since the majority of people in Elsass Lothringen was German, it was only understandable that, with the emergence of the German nation state in the 19th century, Germany felt an obligation to bring these Germans “Heim ins Reich”, which was successfully accomplished in 1871. So there was no reason for Germany to enter into a war, as opposed to France, which was looking to regain that province. Speaking with my grandfather, a WWI veteran of the Kaiser’s army, his reason for supporting Hitler was that Adolf promised to free the Germans in Elsass-Lothringen from the French yoke, (besides the Sudeten Germans from the Czech one, the people of Danzig from the Polish rule and atrocities, and allow the Austrian’s to join their brethren in Germany), all a result of the loss of WWI. So war between France and Germany was a foregone conclusion as long as there was a German population under French rule, and hence the willingness for Germans to go through another horrific war experience in WWII to rectify the perceived wrong of the Versailles treaty.. Looking at the aspirations of other people – especially in the Austria-Hungarian – multinational empire, in 1914 to look for self-rule, WWI as well as its continuation in WWII, seem inevitable. A look at most other conflicts since those two great wars point to these aspirations as the main reason for people to pick up arms. It is in artificially created state constructs – like Iraq, Sudan and Yugoslavia – where we see unrest. The hype about “war of civilizations” and “ideologies” is mainly hype, fanned by those who make good money in wars. Common people like to be ruled by their own kind and otherwise just want to be good neighbors. Sent at: 2008 09 06