WW2 - the Brits fault

[Nicholas]

Pat Buchanan is obviously very ignorant of history. History may not be as simple as most people make it out to be, but blaming the British for WWII shows a blatant ignorance of history.

[Augustine2004]

Pat Buchanan is obviously very ignorant of history. History may not be as simple as most people make it out to be, but blaming the British for WWII shows a blatant ignorance of history.

To be sure, the onus is not totally on the British. I don't think Pat said that only the Brits are to blame. I doubt you've read his book. You probably didn't look at the documentation for it.

[Nicholas]

To be sure, the onus is not totally on the British. I don't think Pat said that only the Brits are to blame. I doubt you've read his book. You probably didn't look at the documentation for it.

Perhaps I was overzealous in my original response. Political decisions played a major role, but whether you consider WWII an unecessary role depends on where you start looking. In a sense, WWII was inevitable at the end of WWI, even before the teaty of Versailles was written, since none of the major powers had any real plans for how to deal with the fragmentation of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.

[Augustine2004]

Perhaps I was overzealous in my original response. Political decisions played a major role, but whether you consider WWII an unecessary role depends on where you start looking. In a sense, WWII was inevitable at the end of WWI, even before the teaty of Versailles was written, since none of the major powers had any real plans for how to deal with the fragmentation of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.

I think Pat is correct that the British including Churchill was going to fight to keep their dominance (world empire). They made mistakes, so in the end they lost all that.

You have to show me why you think the 'fragmentation' (not just decline?) would have made such a huge difference to world history.

[Nicholas]

I think Pat is correct that the British including Churchill was going to fight to keep their dominance (world empire). They made mistakes, so in the end they lost all that.

You have to show me why you think the 'fragmentation' (not just decline?) would have made such a huge difference to world history.

The fragmentation of the Austro-hungarian Empire was a pretty big thing, it encompassed alot of territory and a large number of different peoples.

[Augustine2004]

That's not what I meant. Apparently your point is that the British would have been sucked into World War I against their will.

[Nicholas]

That's not what I meant. Apparently your point is that the British would have been sucked into World War I against their will.

No, that isn't my point at all. I have no clue where you got that idea.

[Augustine2004]

Sorry. So you think the Brits would have started Word War I deliberately. Isn't that what Pat has been saying all along? However, you seem to think that it would be for a different reason. I don't understand why the breakup of the Ottoman empire and the AH empire would lead the Brits to start World War I, unless they wanted to add to their empire or keep the Germans from grabbing parts of the AH empire and/or the Ottoman empire.

[Nicholas]

Sorry. So you think the Brits would have started Word War I deliberately. Isn't that what Pat has been saying all along? However, you seem to think that it would be for a different reason. I don't understand why the breakup of the Ottoman empire and the AH empire would lead the Brits to start World War I, unless they wanted to add to their empire or keep the Germans from grabbing parts of the AH empire and/or the Ottoman empire.

No. The break up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire happened after WWI. I was saying that the results of the end of the First World War led to the Second World War. I have said absolutely nothing about the causes of the First World War, I have only been discussing the causes of the Second.

[Augustine2004]

Again, sorry. I still don't understand your reasoning. Pat said that the Brits tried to destroy Germany as a world power. What do the O and AH empires have to do with causing WWII?

[Nicholas]

Again, sorry. I still don't understand your reasoning. Pat said that the Brits tried to destroy Germany as a world power. What do the O and AH empires have to do with causing WWII?

As a cause of WWII, the fragmentation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was far more influential than the Ottoman Empire, so I will focus on the former. Although the Russian Empire was also up there with Austria-Hungary as an important factor.

You only need look at a map of the various nationalities that made up the Austro-Hungarian (See link for the source of this map and others): Empire to see the problems that arose following it's collapse. Basically, every single country that arose from the Austro-Hungarian Empire contained alot of unhappy minorities who didn't like being ruled by other groups. Combine this with the rise of ethnic nationalism and the results aren't going to be pretty. The same happened in both the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

[Augustine2004]

OK, I could understand Germany and Russia getting involved in fighting to grab pieces of the AH empire. But, why did the Brits and France get involved? Couldn't they stay out?

[Nicholas]

OK, I could understand Germany and Russia getting involved in fighting to grab pieces of the AH empire. But, why did the Brits and France get involved? Couldn't they stay out?

No, Russia wasn't trying to grab peices of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia lost large chunks of their Empire as well, which was what became Poland, the Baltic States, and others.

[Cyrus Johnson]

OK, I could understand Germany and Russia getting involved in fighting to grab pieces of the AH empire. But, why did the Brits and France get involved? Couldn't they stay out?

Germany and Russia were not in a position to grab anything after WWI. Russia had been defeated by Germany and concluded a separate peace by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks thought they could get off OK when they started negotiations in December of 1917 because the Germans would be keen to make a peace with them quickly to be able to focus on the west, before the Americans could make big trouble there.They were wrong, and the Germans attacked in Urkraine and elsewhere, eventually forcing the ceding of Finland, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and the Baltics as basically Geman controlled states. When the Germans were later defeated, they lost these states who either gained independence (for Poland after a war against Russia) or were subsumed back into Russia (Urkraine, Belarus).

The AH empire was broken up, with the constituent pieces becoming independent (Austria, Hangary, Czechoslovakia, Slavic States) or subsumed into the mother country as Polish Galatia. Neither England or France took any part of them. They could not stay out of the war itself because for one thing they had interlocking alliances that made it inevitable that a European war could not be localized. Germany had an alliance with the Austro-Hungarians so that war with Serbia would bring them in...but the Serbs an alliance with Russia that would bring them in, and Russia had an alliance with France and France with Britain. And so like a chain reaction alliances that were supposed to prevent war in fact made the situation much worse, and the war began.

[Augustine2004]

Yet another review of the Buchanan book. http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_07_14/cover2.html