World War I Officially Over

[Smaland]

The First World War will officially end on Sunday, 92 years after the guns fell silent, when Germany pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies. The final payment of £59.5 million, writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another.

Link to article (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8029948/First-World-War-officially-ends.html)

[Svanhild]

Wonderful, WW1 is over! Now we can continue to pay for WW2, huh?

Truth be told, the obvious stupidity of our FRG regime can be seen in cases like this one: Only treacherous statesmen would pay for a war we haven't begun after almost 100 years, blaming the guilt solely on the own people to comfort foreign lobbies. Neither me, nor my parents, nor my greatparents had anything to do with WW1. How foolish to believe hereditary guilt is nonexistent. Now we've only to pay for WW2, for the EU, for the NATO, for the UN and hundred other crappy supranational organisations. Peanuts, because as you all know we Germans poo money.

[Wyn]

If I was a German I think I'd probably be perpetually angry.

[Groenewolf]

The case that Germany has the sole guilt for WOI is a clear case of the victors writing the history books. And that is something that probably would take a long time to correct. And it is unlikely that any German government in the foreseeing time would be willing to do that. Maybe one that would want to restore the Kaiserreich and want to clear the reputation of kaiser Wilhelm II.

[Svanhild]

Even our own experts in history know that WW1 was the consequence of various treaty obligations by different countries. No one's solely responsible for WW1. Serbia provoked the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (the murder of the successor to the Austrian throne in Belgrad was only one part of the story) and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia. Germany had an alliance with the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and had to join the war to stick to the treaty. Same goes for Russia, England, France...who all had treaties with each other to help and engage in war if war errupts.

Competing treaties where responsible for WW1. No one's solely guilty and no one's completely innocent.

[Smaland]

It's water under the bridge now, but I wish that the U.S. had stayed out of the war. Something I once read said that, if America had stayed out of World War I, a negotiated settlement might have been reached in 1916-17. On the whole, the European combatants would probably have been much better off under such an arrangement.

[SwordoftheVistula]

Wonderful, WW1 is over! Now we can continue to pay for WW2, huh?

AND all the people who bet on Uruguay to place third in the World Cup.

[Debaser11]

^They cheated! (Not really.)

And W. Wilson did indeed set a bad precedent. He was a terrible president in many ways. That war was NONE of our business.

[poiuytrewq0987]

^They cheated! (Not really.)

And W. Wilson did indeed set a bad precedent. He was a terrible president in many ways. That war was NONE of our business.

I think Wilson showed that American presidents could be pressured into getting involved with wars that had nothing to do with America.

[Debaser11]

...even when they win an election partly due to extolling the virtues of isolationism.

[Psychonaut]

And W. Wilson did indeed set a bad precedent. He was a terrible president in many ways. That war was NONE of our business.

Aye. And, how many further wars whose occurrences were contingent on our involvement in WWI would we have been spared had Wilson not fucked up so badly? I'm thinking all of them.