Great wars past and present.

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Oh but it does. In WW1 defeat was not brought home to Germany - almost none of the war happened on German soil. Towards the end of the war, Germany had the Novemberrevolution. Communist groups such as the Spartacists seized power in several cities and caused a number of mutinies in the navy and land forces. The government was toppled but as in the Russian revolution, this did not immediately translate into communist seizure of power, but rather a new governing assembly was formed by liberal democrats. Unlike in Russia, this one - the Weimar Republic - was stable enough to last, and was able to put down the Spartacist uprising.

The Weimar Republic signed the peace. These were liberal democrats who had come to power as a result of a communist uprising. The right wing came up with what is called the Dolchstoßlegende (literally, "Stab in the Back Legend") which claimed that the Germans would have won the war if it weren't for the Jews and communists and other doves who had signed the peace treaty. A political cartoon from 1919:



These kinds of ideas eventually crystallized into Nazism. This would not have been possible, had the Allies done what they did in WW2 and demanded unconditional surrender and occupation of Germany, instead of signing a peace as soon as the conclusion became inevitable. Because commanders knew the details of that conclusion and how the war must turn out, but the man in the street did not. Right wingers in Germany could not understand why the peace had been signed when their armies were still fighting on French territory and the Allies had not yet penetrated the German borders signifigantly.

WW1 is always fun, As far as I can tell it didn't accomplish anything other than causing lots of death and destruction and even laid the foundation for the problems that led to WW2.

WW1 is always fun, As far as I can tell it didn't accomplish anything other than causing lots of death and destruction and even laid the foundation for the problems that led to WW2.

It was unnecessary. Slavery would have died of its own inefficiencies in another generation. The Abolitionist Crazies provoked an unnecessary war, the bloodiest war in American history.

ruveyn

It was a war fought over more issues besides slavery.

Slavery was the core issue.

ruveyn

Kraichgauer wrote:
The Greek and Persian wars.

enrico_dandolo wrote:
However, after Hitler was defeated, he was also recognized as the criminal he had been, and Germany had to recognize it had been his accomplice.

But directly after the war many germans tried to forget their guilt. They recognized that Hitler and his friends were criminals. But they displace their guilt. They tried to rebuilt their divided country. Some old Nazis get important positions in the government.
But later around the year 1968 the next generation asked their parents what they had done in the war.

enrico_dandolo:
Sure, it took some time. In the end, however, the Germans today give much better war movies than the Americans, which I think is a fairly good barometer of historic memory. Compare, for example, the recent American and German movies on the July 20 plot (Stauffeberg and Valkyrie -- there might be others, but I haven't seen them). The American one has Tom Cruise, whose motivation is to kill a criminal, and is all heroic and optimistic; the German one has an ambiguous and pessimistic Stauffenberg, convinced the ultimate failure of what he will do, but knowing also that something must be done to cleanse Germany's honour. The German one start with a scene in 1933, when Stauffenberg is delighted of a new German leader who "loves the army", which brings forward some of the ambiguity.

In general, of the movies I have seen, the German ones see the war as a huge, useless butchery, and the American ones as a heroic deed on foreign soil, against Germans and Japanese which can be killed freely.

ruveyn wrote:
My only complaint is that 90 percent of Germany and Japan survived the war. It it had been ten percent the world would have been a better place.

I don't know if war is something i would ever describe as 'great' from what I hear it tends to be more horrible, hellish and well maybe funny if you have a dark sense of humor about things like peoples heads getting blown off. Or do you mean great as in large?

Have you read Herodot?



But directly after the war many germans tried to forget their guilt. They recognized that Hitler and his friends were criminals. But they displace their guilt. They tried to rebuilt their divided country. Some old Nazis get important positions in the government.
But later around the year 1968 the next generation asked their parents what they had done in the war.

Oh but it does. In WW1 defeat was not brought home to Germany - almost none of the war happened on German soil. Towards the end of the war, Germany had the Novemberrevolution. Communist groups such as the Spartacists seized power in several cities and caused a number of mutinies in the navy and land forces. The government was toppled but as in the Russian revolution, this did not immediately translate into communist seizure of power, but rather a new governing assembly was formed by liberal democrats. Unlike in Russia, this one - the Weimar Republic - was stable enough to last, and was able to put down the Spartacist uprising.

The Weimar Republic signed the peace. These were liberal democrats who had come to power as a result of a communist uprising. The right wing came up with what is called the Dolchstoßlegende (literally, "Stab in the Back Legend") which claimed that the Germans would have won the war if it weren't for the Jews and communists and other doves who had signed the peace treaty. A political cartoon from 1919:



These kinds of ideas eventually crystallized into Nazism. This would not have been possible, had the Allies done what they did in WW2 and demanded unconditional surrender and occupation of Germany, instead of signing a peace as soon as the conclusion became inevitable. Because commanders knew the details of that conclusion and how the war must turn out, but the man in the street did not. Right wingers in Germany could not understand why the peace had been signed when their armies were still fighting on French territory and the Allies had not yet penetrated the German borders signifigantly.

The Cuban Revolution changed the world when Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara ovethrew Cuban Dictator Fulgencio Batista that the US put into power.

The Laotian Civil War. Was a fight between Communist Pathet Lao often North Vietnamese of Lao ancestry, and the Royal Lao Government in which both the political rightis and leftists received heavy external support for a proxy war from the global Cold War superpowers.

Congo Crisis. (1960-1966) was a period fo turmoil in the First Repubic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belguim and ended with seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu.

War over Water. refers to a series of confrontations between Israel and Abrab neighbors from Novermber 1964 to May 1967 over control of available water sources in the Jodan River drainage basin.

I could go on and on their has been so many great battlaes their out history.

I couldn't help but notice - the Jew in the cartoon has b***h tits.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer