Examining the past...The Treaty of Versailles...
David Andelman (editor, author, and correspondent) setting aside 'single causations'; views US interventions in the Middle East (today) as "undoing" the mistakes of the past...
That is: "Undoing" what Peacemakers did, almost 100 years ago.
Andelman (Executive Editor of Forbes.com ) speaks of his novel:
A Shattered Peace (Video below) with 'Digital Age' host Jim Zirin, Sidley Austin...The host asks:
"Would the Net have Prevented the Mistakes of Versailles?"
28 min 51 sec - Dec 23, 2007 Worth the view.
Excerpt from Book Interview:NOTE: While it is absurd to blame one country, for the fate of the world today... History affords us the opportunity to carefully examine the impact of all treaties which aim to achieve one result; yet hold potential of quite another. -M.B.
"My intention here is to lift the curtain on the undersides of Paris 1919--a crossroads of history. All the old assumptions of stability and security--the way we made war and guaranteed peace--began going out the window as we plunged pell-mell from the signing of the Treaty of Versailles through the rest of the 20th century."More.~~~~~~~~~~
From European History Experts:
An example of how treaties impact future...
Perhaps today’s elevated conflicts, owe more of their origins to this past treaty... None can argue that Versailles treaty might have suit the 1919 peacekeepers; but European Strategists examine its part in WWII, the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the civil war in Yugoslavia recently concluded, or at least in remission.
"The events that lead to such a treaty were generally a war much longer and costlier than any one had anticipated. This made the eventual victors much more hungry for and needful of spoils and reparations.Apparent changes occurred within the landscape:
Britain was the only power that brought significant force to bare against the Ottomans (not counting the Russians who made a separate peace and renounced the war aims of the tsarist state) and, as most of the spoils came out of former Ottoman territories; Britain took most of them.
Germany was less impacted compared to other defeated powers... Austria lost its entire empire. Hungary lost Transylvania (perhaps 1/3 of its territory.) Ottoman Empire was reduced to a few provinces in central Anatolia. (The Turks ended up with a lot more, but that was because they reorganized their state and continued to fight.)
The victors profited very unevenly. Serbia became Yugoslavia, probably more that doubling in size and population. Britain acquired Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq, as well as Southwest Africa (now Namibia). France would argue that they were cheated of spoils in the Middle East, getting only Syria and Lebanon, less that they were promised by Britain, but they also got two provinces in Europe, Alsace and Lorraine, which had been German for a generation.
In all, Middle eastern colonies proved completely unmanageable and unprofitable. Italy and Greece were supposed to get territory in Anatolia at the expense of the Ottoman Empire which instead was retained by the new Turkish state, so they got approximately nothing... Greece saw a lot of fighting. The Russians were promised the Straits. They dropped out of the war early (actually, were taken out by revolution and civil war) and got nothing.
The Arabs, who assisted substantially in their liberation, got nothing. The Kurds were divided among four states. None of the Slavic subjects of the Austrian or Ottoman Empires had any say in their disposition. Derived from: European Experts
More Versailles Treaty: to Polish Blitzkrieg
Listed are the main political and Naval events...(1919-1939)
