by qittenpie » Sat May 21, 2011 12:04 pm
Are you all so certain that you want to read it? Kesesesese. Since it's a speech, it's slightly more spazztic than I would normally write about WWI (because it's more about how I say it than correct grammer, so don't expect much. x3 Also, I'm not sure how much I dumbed it down for my classmates, but I know it's not as in-depth as I might have gone.)
All wars have to have a winner and a loser, as in most wars there is little to no room for compromise. This was the case in World War One, with the Allied Forces being the victors and the Central Powers coming out of it as the losers. However, Germany was the one forced to take all the blame for the war, even though they didn’t start it. The German people were the true losers of WWI, as their nation suffered dramatically for being dragged into a war by one of its closest allies.
It’s not true to say that Germany did not share some of the blame for what happened in the war. They were a military powerhouse that just happened to be unwise in choosing its friends. At this time, the Austria-Hungary Empire was storming around doing its empire thing and just generally being a jerk to the people it ruled over. Serbia had already gotten tired of this and revolted, winning its freedom in 1876. Then, Austria-Hungary made the ill-informed decision to send its Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, on a tour of Bosnia. When Serbian nationalists heard about this, they decided it was the perfect opportunity to execute their plan, along with the Archduke. Snipers shot and killed the Archduke and his wife, triggering what would become World War One. Austria-Hungary was quite naturally not about to tolerate someone killing their Archduke, so they called upon their ally, Germany, to make sure they would have backup if it came to war. Austria and Germany have always had a close history, as both are German-speaking countries. There’s no good reason for Austria not being part of Germany, in fact, except that back in the day Prussia had not deemed it worthy of being part of the new German state. (Prussia even fought Austria to win lands for Germany, but neglected to actually add the country to its holdings.)
With a pledge of support from Germany, Austria-Hungary sent an ultimatum to Serbia, demanding that the assassins be punished, along with any officials that had helped them. Serbia was unwilling to meet all of the terms, so Austria-Hungary was more than happy to declare war. Enter Russia. Russia had a grand plan in mind to unite all of the Slavs under its banner, including the people of Serbia. Therefore, they moved to back up Serbia, to protect their own interests. This brought France into the fray, as they had formerly signed the Triple Entente with Russia and England. Germany warned France to keep their noses out of it, France disobeyed, and Germany declared war on France as part of its military assistance. This is where we sort of lose Austria-Hungary for the rest of the war, they just run around like headless chickens fighting Italy and a few other countries.
Germany, being the military superpower they were, started owning everyone and anyone that they could possibly fight. Unfortunately, in their haste to knock out France before Russia could mobilize, they crossed through Belgium. Great Britain came in, indignant over Belgium’s neutrality being violated, and joined France on the Western Front. Meanwhile over in Russia, they were moving much faster than the Germans had expected. Faced with being crushed from behind while fighting the war on the Western Front, Germany diverted some of its troops back to face Russia on the Eastern Front. This ended up leading to a stalemate, as no one could do anything as the situation was. Lots of people died, new military technologies were unveiled, in short it was a very bloody war that didn’t seem to have an end in sight. Russia got into trouble back at home, as their tsar was weak-willed and didn’t really want to lead the country. They pulled out at this point, as soldiers deserted from lack of supplies, figuring they’d rather starve at home than on the battlefront. Germany, desperate, sent a telegram off to Mexico pledging to restore what they had lost if they would only attack the United States. England intercepted this and gleefully passed it along to America, which got Americans up in arms. To top it all off, the aforementioned desperate country rescinded its limitations on the submarines, returning to unrestricted warfare. America got really, really mad at this and joined in just to teach Germany a lesson. Germany said “Oh, verdammit!” and tried to dig in to resist this fresh wave of troops from America, but failed miserably. The tired German soldiers just weren’t a match for the newly bolstered Allied forces, and were forced to wave their white flag and surrender.
After the war ended, all of the Allied forces got together in Versailles to decide what the losing side would have to pay. England just wanted to make themselves a fit home for heroes, America would have been happy with just ending the war (Which, really, seem like something America would do. They come in at the end of the war, don’t suffer much damage, and just want to call it a day and go home). France, meanwhile, had had the entire Western Front and some of the bloodiest battles unfold on its own soil, and wanted to make Germany pay until they begged for mercy. The reason for this goes all the way back to when Prussia (remember them? I mentioned them earlier, when I was going off on my tangent about Austria) had dealt them a rather embarrassing defeat. France, being part elephant or something, still remembered this and was still just a bit angry over it. That’s what we call understatement. So, with the French ready to just ditch the peace talks, and leap over the table to strangle the Germans (figuratively, of course, as there wasn’t even a German delegation in attendance), the Treaty of Versailles ended up placing all the blame for the war straight on Germany’s shoulders. The German delegation was summoned and ordered to sign, so they did, and the ghost of the Versailles treaty hung around all the way into World War Two.
In short, the Germans wouldn’t have gotten all the blame if it weren’t for Austria-Hungary. None of this war would have happened, in fact, if Austria-Hungary weren’t a jerk of an empire. The Serbians threw a torch onto the pile of kindling, to be sure, but it was Austria-Hungary that chopped the wood. All the Austrians got was a slap on the hand and a bit of land given away to freeloading nations like Italy.
(And I think I might have slipped a few Hetalia refrences in there. Maybe. *shot*
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