In class, we watched a documentary about Americans entering the war. It seemed that war was somewhat glorified and seemed as an interesting activity to take part in. Many Americans entered the war because they didn't have anything more important to do, they wouldn't be broken up from their friends, and they would be committing a heroic act. In addition, Americans also saw many propaganda posters that also seemed like they needed to be in the war. Some posters were innocent, like showing dogs on the poster and asking people to join, while others were not so innocent. Americans who didn't enter the war also felt the need to be patriotic which included them not wasting any food because it could have gone to the soldiers. This resulted in too much food in America. Additionally, Americans could now be put in jail for disagreeing or critiquing the US Government and at this time there couldn't be any strikes.
Looking at data, after the war the US lost significantly less lives than other countries such as Germany and France, which called for 'revenge'. what might this 'revenge' be?
While Germany and the Unites States both wanted two follow Wilson's 14 points for peace, the other countries did not agree. They wanted this because Germany had lost the war and wanted some mercy on them, and the US had way fewer casualties than the other countries. The countries which won the war, but at a high cost, wanted revenge because they wanted to be repaid for all of the losses they had. They fought long and hard, and they wanted a victory, not "peace without victory."
ReplyDeleteThe main revenge that the allied countries such as Britain, France, and Italy wanted to get from Germany after the war consisted of economic reparations and a reduction in military size. Because all of these nations had significant losses in the war in comparison to the US, they were much more demanding of the Germans and wanted to hurt them as badly as possible so the allied countries could have their revenge, and to eliminate the possibility of a second war with Germany occurring (which clearly did not end up working). So, these countries forced Germany to pay them in millions of dollars for compensation for the war, and made them reduce their navy and armies to be significantly smaller. As a result, Germany went into debt and (that they weren't able to completely pay off for nearly a century) and had an extremely weak military, meaning that most of the allies had gotten the revenge they wanted.
ReplyDeleteWe learned in class today that this "revenge" eventually came in both military limits and reparations. Most of this vindictiveness came from France, one of the Big Four, whose main goal was to hurt Germany and make sure they paid them back well ($33 billion USD); after all, France was essentially the country that was hurt the most from the war. Though Germany seemed like they tried their best to achieve their requested reparations, they eventually took revenge again in World War II.
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