the trilogy

So we didn't cover tons of the same material this week (Mia, Laura, and I that is). Mia responded to and agreed with me on my post about the Bolsheviks, while Laura responded to but did not totally agree, or at least that is what I gathered, with me about my blog on how blaming Germany was essentially a not-so-great move on the part of the Great Powers. Since this is all I really have to go off of at the moment, I will respond to Laura's response.

Laura asserts, "When the nations met at the Palace of Versailles in January 1918, they couldn’t afford to not find a scapegoat". I agree that it would have been very difficult for them to have done anything other than place the responsibility on Germany. Italy, France, and Great Britain were in no position to pay back any debts to the United States because they were all suffering mass unemployment when the soldiers returned from the war on top of all other sorts of issues. The US, wanting to solidify its position, refused to pardon the debts but agreed to let Germany take the fall so that they would get there money. In turn, they pumped finance (is that the correct way to phrase it?) into Germany so that they could actually pay the US back, but this made Germany incredibly dependent on the US economy. When the US economy went to hell in the Great Depression, Germany suffered incredibly. Now, no one could have predicted the Great Depression, but the fact that Germany was made to be so dependent on another nation shows a bit of irresponsibility on the US's part. It is possible that the US should have never allowed the Great Powers to place the blame and the debt on a torn-apart, fragile, Germany. Maybe they should have considered that at this point, Germany was very vulnerable to a revolution like the one that had happened in Russia, and, at the sign of an problems, Germany would have been very susceptible to one, which they were. That is why Hitler's regime was able to get so out of control. When the US failed, Germany really failed and thus the weak turned towards the only man who seemed to offer them a way out, much like placing the blame on Germany offered the Great Powers a way out of their debt. Like Laura said, what comes around goes around, and I think the West should have been a bit more savvy to this notion.