The First World War!

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Woodrow Wilson is an interesting figure. After all, I firmly suspect that the reason he created the Shatterzone, was not so much out of love for Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, or Slovaks as the case may be, but simply out of hatred for Russia and Germany. He was a big fan of The British Empire, and its efforts to play Continental Europeans against each other, in their sick little divide and conquer schemes. Russia and/or Germany, he feared, would rival said British Empire.

Having said that, I would even go so far that by doing so, he-- whether he meant to or not-- led straight to the rise of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, in Russia and Germany respectively. And notice, I said British Empire, rather than British Commonwealth. For what is the British Commonwealth but the British Empire renamed? And what are the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, but basically Colonies, which, were given some token autonomy?

Pondering this, I decided to no longer be an Anglophile anymore. I feel, instead, I should be a Russophile and/or a Germanophile instead. One could say, I had an epiphany!

If you decide to be a Russiaphile or a Germanphile just on that basis, I would say you haven't read enough history.

There are many nice things about Russia and Germany. Not many of them occurred between the World Wars, though.

I do have retrospective sympathy for Germany because of the Reparations demanded by the Versailles Treaty,

Well, perhaps I will be an Anglophile for a bit longer though. Still, Woodrow Wilson is pretty much swept under the rug, as it were. He was also into racism too.
I am still trying to find out what my actual worldview is.

I thought it a given that the abusive Versailles Treaty was the direct cause of the second world war by creating a climate which allowed the rise of Nazism, but there seems to be some debate about it...

I need to revisit the subject...

It was an indirect cause of the Second World War.

A more direct cause was allowing the Germans to militarize, and attempting to appease the Nazis.

The Treaty of Versailles freed Poland from Russia, but it did not free Ireland from the British Empire.

That much is true.

How much of that is the fault of Wilson is debatable. Wilson had to bend to the wishes of his allies, France, and Britain.

Probably, ultimately, the main culpability lies in forcing the Germans to pay reparations, I feel.

What would have happened had the US joined the League of Nations? Probably not much.

You can't free Ireland from the British Empire in 1918. It isn't in the Empire, it's in the United Kingdom!

Are you just inanely nit picking?

Or do you have an actual point to make?

Okay, why would ANYONE writing the treaty of Versailles even MENTION Ireland?

I try really hard to be a humanphile, but so many people make that really hard to do.

The Irish were already screaming for freedom from long before.

On the very day the Archduke was shot in Serbia the front page news of the London Times was filled with the story about Parlaiment voting about Ireland. The Serbian assassination that would trigger what was to become the First World War did not even make it to page one to compete with the story about Irish legislation. Lol!

If you're gonna break up Russia, and you're gonna break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire into little nations then why not set Ireland free too?

(this is not actually my axe to grind. Had a history teacher in 1970 in highschool who was Irish American, and had a perverse thing about disliking president Wilson. And that thing about Ireland turned out to be why. That seems to be a thing among "professional Irishman". Not my axe, but I do admit that there is a certain logic to seeing it as inconsistent. But "to the victors go the spoils". Austria-Hungria lost. Russia was on the winning side, but left the war early, and was taken over by the Bolsheviks.So its not surprising that Britain and France got to keep their Empire when the other powers did not).

Thank you ever much. I never quite thought about it, precisely that. Still, i decided to be an Anglophile again, in any event.

The “Irish Question” was a really big deal then.

Great Britain didn’t recognize the Irish Free State, declared around 1916, for a long time.

The Irish had a strong historical axe to grind.

But had there not been the need to take back an extremely important economic region in the first place, the loss of which greatly crippled the economic health of Germany, the animosity wouldn't have been in evidence in the first place...
It also was part of the cause of the collapse the working conditions in Germany and lead to hyper inflation, I believe (at this time)...
I suspect that was the allies intention...

I don't think this example can be put into the appeasement basket...
It was an abuse by the victorious allies which lead to the bitterness...
The appeasement issue, in my mind at least, only became manifest when Germany invaded other sovereign countries...

The hyperinflation was germany devaluating its currency to be able to pay the reparatioms at all. Quantitative easing.
It destroyed everything for people who didn't own capital and property. ... Beware of quantitative easing.