Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
So then it appears the answer to your question is that the Versailles Treaty did not make conflict inevitable because, in your words, the "German people perceived themselves to have been betrayed by their own government and certainly not defeated by the Allies." What made conflict inevitable was this German perception.

In their defense, the Allies were aware of this problem, which is one reason why they pushed for the disarmanent of Germany after the war. So it seems that the perceived inevitably of conflict, at least in the European experience, is what created the Versailles Treaty, not the other way around.
You're like my dog playing tug of way with a knotted rope on this...

Why did the Germans feel betrayed? Because of the bait and switch that occurred between the armistice agreed to on 11/11/18 and the terms of the actual treaty that came several months later. Wilson's points were tossed aside and Britain, and primarily France, wanted revenge. The terms of the actual treaty were so onerous as to crush the German economy long before the Great Depression, and the German people did indeed feel betrayed by their national leaders who conceded to such terms.

If the ruling voice for crafting the treaty had been the US rather than France I suspect a far less provocative document would have emerged. For France, what went forward was perceived as reasonable, for Germany it was perceived as intollerable. The US had the lead following WWII, with very different approach with very different results based on our lessons learned from WWI

The military fights wars, but it is politicians and policy that both end and starts wars. Too often the policies designed to end one conflict become the seeds of the next.


But back to the purpose of this thread to explore the "resistance effect" within a population that is occupied, and to consider that one need not physically occupy to spark this effect, but that policy alone can be enough if those policies are perceived as excessively inappropriate and illegitimate in nature and execution.