History Time: The Atrocity at Versailles

Years ago I was seeking my triple in History, Psychology and Sociology. I never did complete them but the classes I took helped to shape my interest in them and have even lent themselves greatly to my stances on government and society. In one of my history classes, we had studied the Great War, as anyone who has studied basic world or American history have. At the end of the semester, we were to write a paper about whatever we wished. I wrote about the Treaty of Versailles and how I believe it has affected the world ever since.
This paper was turned in late, written on a post it note in Sharpie and contained the following words:

"The whole of the turmoil in the Middle East as well as the rise of Hitler in Germany may be attributed in great part to the actions and decisions of England and France prior to, during and following the Treaty of Versailles."

I received a B. To be fair, I had that History professor for all of my classes in History and he and I spoke to great lengths throughout my time in that school and so I was able to sit down with him and defend my statement, thus eliciting his giving me a B, mostly because it wasn't in proper format.

I'd like to share with you my entire thought on this statement and why I believe it to be true.

Let's begin with an overview of what happened in Versailles. The armistice was called and all the warring nations attended in order to come to an accord. At the end of the peace talks, it was finally settled: Germany would be known as the instigator and as guilty of war crimes. They would pay for the damages, forfeit great tracts of land and could no longer have a standing army. Hooray! The war was won!

In 1914, a Serbian national shot and killed the Archduke of Austria, in line of succession for the crown. As a result of this, Austria declared war on Serbia. Now, at the time, 'Defence Pacts' were all the rage in Europe. They were secret agreements to come to the defense of the ally should war be declared upon them. Serbia had such a pact with Russia and so Russia declared war on Austria in order to honor their pact with Serbia.
Are you following so far?
Now, Austria also had a defence pact, with Germany. And so Germany declared war on Russia. Fast forwarding, I think we can get the general idea of how nearly the whole of Europe got into this beef that was, essentially, between Serbia and Austria. But, did you notice something?
In my little synopsis, didn't I mention that Germany was declared an instigator? Now, yes, there are arguments to say that Germany encrouaged the Austrians in retaliating and all of that. I won't even say that it is wrong. I don't doubt there were some very shady politics going on there. But the question remains, why is Germany named as the instigator of the war despite the fact that Austria is the one who pulled the trigger? More than that, we need to look at what happened just before the armistice was called and then ask some questions.
So Germany encouraged Austria to push Serbia into a war. Let's concede to that. I personally don't doubt it. But some interesting politics were in play in Germany toward the end of the war that don't seem to be taken into account.
Over the course of the fighting, even with the addition of America coming in to attack Germany, no one was really winning the war. It was a ceaseless back and forth with no real gains on either side. It was a quagmire and it sucked more and more lives into it as the months dragged on. Back in Germany, the people were livid. They saw their young men going to war and not coming back and it was taking a toll on the nation. The Kaiser refused to consider ending the war and so the people rebelled. They overtook the crown, dimantled the monarchy and established a democracy in its place.
And it was after this, after the destruction of the instigating German government, that the newly established German government called for an armistice. So, let's think about this for a moment. The Kaiser wanted war and he got it by influencing Austria. Austria makes their moves and declares war on Serbia. Then, near the end, Germany destroys the monarchy and deposes the warmongering Kaiser, establishes a democracy and calls for an armistice in order to end hostilities.
And so Germany was to be the instigator of the war, even despite the fact that the Germany that had done any instigating was no more. More than that, however, they were also charged as war criminals. Now why was that? Aside from the fact, that, again, the Germany that had been warring was defeated and replaced with a new Germany, there were a number of 'reasons' given for this.
The most interesting and, I posit, the most relevant reason, however, had to do with their U-boats. You see, in the 'laws' of war, you aren't allowed to simply sink non-combat vessels. You must give warning and time to the crew to disembark. What Kaiser's Germany was doing was telling the world(they announced this) that any ships headed for England would be sunk. In the U.S., the Lucitania was preparing to head to the U.K. Germany informed the U.S. that, if she set sail, she would be sunk upon approach to England. They also ran an ad in the New York Times warning people not to board the Lucitania if it set sail for England. All of these warnings were disregarded and so the Lucitania was sunk, as promised.
Now, you might wonder why Germany would think this is okay. Well, they wanted to restrict supplies and aid to England in order to weaken her. Which is perfectly acceptable tactics in warfare. By their announcing their intent to sink any approaching ships, they were giving ample warning to any civilian or merchant ships and, thus, logically, it can be assumed that any other ships were to be regarded as combatants as they were willfully entering a theatre of war despite warnings given.
And, in defense of this assumption, it was found, just in regard to the Lucitania, that they weren't wrong on these assumptions. When we found the Lucitania, it was found to have its cargo hold filled with weapons meant to be given to England in order to aid them against the Axis. "Neutral" America was anything but. The Lucitania was a civilian vessel used to smuggle aid to a warring nation. It was, in fact, a combat vessel. And this means that, aside from the fact that the world, and America, and the Lucitania's passengers had warning of what would happen, that it's being attacked was justified.
The Lucitania is what ultimately got the U.S. into the war as the 'Associated' in the Allies and Associated.

Now, here's where we get a little conspiracy minded. During the presidential elections in America in 1916, the American people had one thing on their mind: the Great War. They wanted nothing to do with it and so it was asked of Wilson and his opponent, Hughes, if they would allow the U.S. to go to war in Europe. Hughes, a moderate, said that while he would wish and strive to keep us out of the war, he could make no promises about the future of such things. A very honest and understandable answer. Wilson, however, committed to not going to war in Europe and so gained enough support to retain office.
Meanwhile, following the creation of the Federal Reserve and the IRS with Wilson's blessings, the monies that be had a vested interest in the war and were funding both sides. Having been able to sway Wilson into supporting and signing the Fed and the IRS into creation, is it so hard to imagine that they swayed Wilson into downplaying and ignoring the threat of the Lucitania being sunk in order to give the U.S. entry into the war and paving the way for those monies to take a more direct role in the profits to be had in Europe? I wonder.

So, now, we've established that, though Germany was declared the instigator, it was, in fact, the now deposed government of Germany that had a hand in the instigation of the war and that, though the new German government had nothing to do with it, they were accused of war crimes to include their sinking of the Lucitania, even despite their warnings to the world, the U.S. and the Lucitania and despite the fact that the Lucitania had, in fact, been a combat vessel under cover of civilians.

The punishments for these 'crimes' were harsh. Large tracts of land were taken from Germany, they were to pay damages to the world and they could no longer have a standing army.

But why, if not because it was deserved, would they be punished so harshly?

Well, that requires a look at the socio-economic and military status of the world, Germany, England and France. England and France had long been contending as the superpowers of the world, both financially and militarily, particularly regarding their Navies. But in the latter part of the 19th century and into the early 20th, Germany had been gaining ground in money and power. They rivaled both of the Old World Superpowers and stood to gain the edge in time. Is it too much to think that, perhaps, feeling threatened by this new power, England and France sought to detroy them with the stroke of a pen, having seen they could not defeat them monetarily or militarily during the course of the Great War? I don't know.

What I do know, however, is that England and France conspired on a great many things in that time. While Wilson, feeling guilt for his part in 'selling' the U.S. into the hands of the few and, in general, being a decent person(I think), sought to come to a peacable and amicable accord, England and France rallied hard for more devastating and dramatic actions. And they had a crony to help sway the votes in their favor. Italy. Italy, fearing the Axis would lose and realizing how separated they were from their allies, switched sides and essentially became the whipping boy of the Allies. They had little to do with the war, aside from losing battles with Ethiopia. But now, during the peace talks, they were a voice that could be used to garner support for England and France's wishes. Wislon's proposals about demilitarizing and signing pacts to engage with any aggressive nation were shot down while the proposals of England and France were pushed through.

So, how does any of this have to do with Hitler and the Middle East. Well, there's still more to tell but I can make the Hitler connection at this point.

Imagine you live in a country that had been devasted by war only a couple decades earlier. That, after the war, you were further destroyed through sanctions against your country. The nation was poor, tired, not recovering well at all. They had no real way to protect themselves, they had lost much of their prized land, their economy was tanked from paying all the damages. And here comes a man saying that he will stop at nothing to return your land, your pride, to return the nation to the golden age it had been in only years before. You're mad at how you were treated after the war and you feel as though you have been cheated. But this man is taking steps to right those wrongs. He gives you hope for a brighter future, the future you saw before the Great War.
Hitler was a beacon in a dark time in Germany. He didn't talk about exterminating Jews or conquering the world. He talked about restoring Germany. And he had the charisma to convince people he was the man to do that. He was hope.
The decisions against Germany, doggedly pursued by England and France, paved the way for a social climate that would embrace a young Hitler and make it easy for him to take control of that country.

But, what about the Middle East?

When war broke out, the Middle East was just that. The Middle East. No nation states. It was a land unto itself. It was also a vassal of the dying Ottoman Empire, allies of Germany and Austria. In 1916, England sent men to the Middle East to parley with the defacto Arab leaders. Among them was the now great, then irrelevant, Lawrence of Arabia. The English wanted to conscript the Arabs, ie, the Middle East, in the war against the Axis. They made an agreement that should the Arabs help in disrupting Ottoman supply lines to the front, once the war was over, the Middle East would have its sovereignty and be free to rule itself.

There are two documents of note that should be considered here. The Balfour documents and the Picot-Sykes agreement.
The latter was a secret missive between England and France regarding plans to colonize and divide up the Middle East between them.
The former was a discussion about the creation of a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. This came to light during the treaty talks. Wilson, being unsure of the 'rightness' of taking a piece of the region away from its natives and those promised sovereign rule of it, sent an exploratory committee to the Middle East before he would make a decision. The committee was to get a sense of the reaction of the Arabs to the idea of a Jewish homeland. Before the committee could return with their results, Wislon took ill while in America trying to sell the idea of the League of Nations to the U.S. He wouldn't hear about the findings.

What the committee found however, was that the Arabs, Muslims, Christians AND Jews felt that it was ridiculous. The Jews had a home, the Middle East. To section off part of it exclusively for Jews would only create strife in the region. This finding was not taken into consideration and so, the creation of Israel would begin.

Returning to the Picot-Sykes documents, following the treaty signing, England and France divided the Middle East into several colonies. In fact, they look much as the borders today look as they established those borders during their attempts at colonization. The Arabs had intended to reform the Caliphate and reunite the 'tribes', as it were. Instead, England and France colonized and tried to suppress the Arabs when they revolted against their new owners. The very people that had promised them sovereinty and freedom from their previous masters in the Ottoman Empire had become the tyrants to control them.
England and France could not hold their colonies in the region and so they pulled their people out, but not before being there long enough to establish in the society there the boundaries of the colonies. This resulted in multiple power vacuums in the region. The men who took control of these subdivisions then warred with one another in order to establish who would become the new Caliphate and unite the Middle East. All while Israel was being formed in the West of the Middle East.

And there you have it. Because of the actions taken by England and France, prior, during and after World War One, we saw the rise of Hitler and building turmoil in the Middle East.