Kissinger 11 – Stresemann and the Re-Emergence of the Vanquished.

Before we get started, take a moment and examine the title.  I think you can tell where Kissinger’s story is going.  Stresemann will try to bring Germany back to greatness.  But this makes understanding the cartoon below difficult unless you consider this quote from wikipedia;

“The conservative opposition criticized him for his supporting the republic and fulfilling too willingly the demands of the Western powers. Along withMatthias Erzberger and others, he was attacked as a Erfüllungspolitiker(“fulfillment politician”)”

The Republic to which they refer is the Weimar Republic which much of the German population felt had been imposed on them by the victors of WWI and much of that population refused to accept its legitimacy. The demands of the Western powers in quote of course refers to the Versailles system which he was willing to work with as he negotiated a billion dollar a year profit from the US in aiding these.  His critics did not seem to care and drew this;

.

Here Stresemann is portrayed rather villainously on the back of Deutschland, which is tied up with the Dawes plan.  This is def not how Kissinger portrays things.  Kissinger even brings up the great love of his life, Richard Nixon, alluding to how only a great conservative like Nixon could negotiate with Communist China, as the great conservative Stresemann was the only one who could negotiate with the hated “Western powers”.

I think the most significant thing to get out of this chapter is that the goals of Hitler (Anschluss /Union) with Austria, military parity with France, were the same as Stresemann and presumably the same as many Germans.  There is even open discussion of modifying the border with Poland here and even getting rid of Poland altogether.

Hitler will of course go about his goals in a decidedly militaristic way.  Maybe there was another way.  Maybe Germany could have been satisfied, France made secure (If GB would step up) and the Soviet Union isolated if it hadn’t been for the Series of Unfortunate Events outlined here.

Hitler will be described in the next chapter as a singular demonic personality.  Had Hitler been hit by a bus, or let into art school, would the war have come?

Kissinger 10 – The Dilemma of the Victors

The history of BMW is not mentioned here but it should be.  It’s a great example of the agreement at Rapallo in 1922.    At Rapallo as you read at the “conspiratorial hour” of 1:15 ATK,  the Russian Delegation that had been summoned to Genoa by the members of the Entente, Britain and France,  telephoned the German delegation.  An agreement of mutual assistance was met between the two “pariahs”, Russia and Germany.  In 1939 the infamous Nazi-Soviet pact made this official and quite public and as part of the agreement they shared production information on a number of things, including the monumental BMW R71, the immediate predecessor of the R 75, pictured here.

Hitler had commissioned the construction of a rugged motorcycle from BMW, which had produced airplanes in WWI but under the Versailles terms could no longer, and it’s now defunct rival Zundapp.  BMW produced the R71 “side valve” which won the contest with its novel tubular frame.  Later they shared the designs, parts, equipment and several completed motorcycles with the Russians.  (Though Stalin and others would reportedly later claim they were stolen in battle)

The Russians produced their copies throughout and beyond the war years.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union the manufacturing was privatized under the name “Ural” and you can buy new ones today.  In 1950 the newly formed People’s Republic of China was also in need of a rugged motorcycle for its light infantry and the Russians shared their design with their new ally the Chinese communists. The Chang Jiang 750 pictured

above was the result.

You can also still buy these though beware they cost a fraction of the original BMW for a reason and many of the Chinese and Russian versions have been rebadged as BMWs.

So back to the chapter.  Who is the one English person calling for an open British French alliance (though at the cost of being open and friendly with Germany) ?   Keep an eye on him.  Anytime you don’t know an answer on a quiz question he is a good guess.

The long and short of it was that Versailles sucked ATK.  He has next to nothing good to say about collective security and seems only to admire those statesmen that are not “philosophers” but keen strategists of their nation’s interests.  Collective security never worked for the League of nations, not for Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia or the German conquest of Austria and Czechoslovakia.  Even under the United Nations he argues it didn’t actually function in Korea or Iraq.  “We have no friends, only interests” Tom Waits, in one of his more political songs, quotes Henry Kissinger as saying.  Remember that as we get to know Dr. Kissinger better.

Kissinger Chapter 9 – The New Face of Diplomacy: Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles.

Compare and contrast the maps above. Kissinger makes many claims in this chapter. That the absence of Russian and German participation in the Treaty of Versailles doomed it to failure. That Democratic nations would have no reason to go to war or oppress others. In the Era of the Jim Crow south this latter claim seems hopelessly naive. That America’s criteria for International order were democracy, self-determination and collective security also seems naive. Remember in this age women are still fighting for the right to vote as are disenfranchised persons of color across the country. So Democracy itself in this time is something of a sham. National self-determination will, according to your next author, Stephen Ambrose, be THE cause of all of the 20th century conflicts to come. Collective Security (International law) will utterly fail in the League of Nations and will rarely be employed by its successor, the United Nations.

One of the most interesting claims I think is that the architects of the Treaty of Versailles unwittingly made Germany geo-politically stronger. Looks at maps above. Germany used to have two potentially hostile borders. After 1923 its on the western French border that could possibly pose any threat. Poland and especially Czechoslovakia, with multitudes of German speaking citizens, will never pose any threat to Germany. And now we know Germany and Russia are secretly helping one another develop their militaries (against the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles vis-a-vis Germany) is it any wonder a second world war was around the corner. Russia of course is now the post-Revolutionary Soviet Union and not party to the Treaty of Versailles because in signed a separate treaty with Germany, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

Kissinger 8 – The Military Doomsday machine

Lena Peterson, from the class of 2010, shared with me, “if WWI were a Bar Fight”.  Google it.  Its pretty funny.   It nicely illustrates the absurdity, or as Kissinger calls it, the Greek tragedy that unfolds after the assassination of the Archduke.

Why WWI becomes WWI is ascribed by the popular British historian AJP Taylor, to the “long dead hand of Schlieffen pulling the trigger on the first WW”.  For, as Kissinger quotes Obruchev as noting, “mobilization means war”, was only really true, according to Taylor, of Germany.  Germany’s mobilization of mechanized and troop forces on its vast Railroad system demanded, under the Schlieffen plan, an invasion of Belgium, a quick decisive victory of France and then an all out effort brought to the Russian front.

It should’ve looked like this;

But it didn’t.  German troops get bogged down, entrenched, in the western front in France, and Germany is then forced to divide its forces to defend against Russia in the East.  At the same time the Germans are of course funding Lenin hoping to start a revolution in Russia to get them out of the war.  We know what happened there.

Taylor also points out that mechanization and mobilization in this era, really led to defensive strength, not an offensive one.  The troops could be brought to the front lines but once in enemy territory, they moved as slow as ever.  That coupled with the newly invented barbed wire and machine gun, and given that planes and tanks were insufficiently advanced to make a real difference, led to the inevitable trench warfare.

Another book (besides “All Quiet On The Western Front”) that I highly recommend from the immediate post-war era is “Johnny got his gun” by Dalton Trumbo, later blacklisted by McCarthy.  Haunting imagery of a man destroyed in so many ways by war.  Read by and inspiring to  ”Born on the 4th of July” author (another great book!) Jon Kovitch, later leader of Vietnam Veterans against the war.

For your comments you can throw down anything of note.  Why do you think Russia wanted a general war?  Why did Austria press their demand against Serbia?  Was the war at all avoidable?

Kissinger 7 – A Political Doomsday Machine

Let’s look at a map.  Maps are helpful.  Germany, in the center of all that has enemies all around.  France is all upset about the Alsace-Lorraine, the land in between them which Germany took during its independence, Russia is very concerned about Germany’s interests in the “Balkans” which is that area Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia are in, and England is wary of Germany’s power especially vis-a-vis the “low countries” of the Netherlands and Belgium.

A little background.  Germany was only united, and then only allowed to exist in relative peace, according to Kissinger, because of the singular brilliance of Bismark.  I wish I had time to still ask you to read that section. Its really wonderful.  His admiration of Bismarck and his Realpolitik knows no bounds.  Though Bismarck’s Germany dominates the map, through secret agreements, like the Reinsurance treaty mentioned here which keeps France and Russia simultaneously at bay, Bismark is able to maintain order.

Then Kaiser Wilhelm II becomes the monarch of Germany (Bismarck was chancellor a political not a royal position) and the kaiser is described elsewhere thusly;

“An inheritor of privilege, this leader of a superpower was impatient, reckless and vulgar. He was capable of insulting even his country’s closest global allies and viciously attacking his domestic opponents. And as he set out against the advice of his advisers to court a closer relationship with Russia, he left the world teetering with uncertainty over what felt like a collapsing world order.”

He fires Bismarck, rips up the Reinsurance treaty, bullies Great Britain and begins a massive arms race.  This is the powder keg which is Europe in the early 20th century.  Though several matches are struck, the Moroccan affair, the 08 crisis in Bosnia- Herzegovina, German flags flying over Constantinople, it would take the assassination of the Archduke in June 1914, to allow the powder keg to erupt, in August 1914, of an event that would claim human casualties in numbers never seen before and come to be known as the War to end all Wars.

Later of course it would be called the “First World War” because there was a “Second World War”.

Kissinger Chapter 1 – The New World Order

All right everybody.  Here we go.  The big book. Kissinger.  Time to get to know him.  As I’ve said and you may know, he was Secretary of State for Ford and Nixon before that and National Security Adviser before that.  Before that he was a civilian adviser to the White House in the Johnson and Kennedy years and such a bright shining light he was expected to have a position in the new incoming administration in 1969 no matter who won the 68 election.  Before all of that he was born in Germany and was quite, and is quite, a soccer fan.  His home team is SpVgg Greuther Fuerth and he played a bit himself but supports team USA more than the Germans.

He is also a man who expects you to know what Raison d etat means.  He does not suffer fools.  His effort here, to explain 20th century international diplomacy from his perspective, I find just fascinating.  That three chapters are devoted to the American War in Vietnam suggests that that topic looms large, and it does, for that is what he won the Nobel Prize for, but is also what he is most vilified for.

Here he is setting up very broad strokes.  The largest circle in the circles of causality.  He really is teeing up his first few chapters which I will summarize for you later but basically its the story of the emergence of the “nation state” in Europe in the 17th and 18th century.  That the person he finds principally responsible for this is Richelieu, a Cardinal in the Catholic church, underscores just how revolutionary this was.  The nation, France in this case, was more important than the church, even for a Cardinal in the church.

Kissinger has a particular affinity for the Congress of Vienna, the subject of his PhD dissertation, and the 100 years of peace it enabled.  His admiration of some, Bismark, Adenauer, will almost border on man-love.  Others, like Wilson, are more complex.  His disdain for some, Napoleon III, Kaiser Wilhelm II, are almost comical.

Anyway, take some time to get to know him.  You’re in for a long journey.

Pipes 3 – Why did Stalin succeed Lenin?

I like cars.  I always have.  I think I learned to love to read in the pages of “Road and Track” when I was a child.  In my cursory research on the post WWII international auto race in CZ (Czechoslovakia), the last international race in the “east” for the entire Cold War era, (except for Hungary in 1988 I think) I came across this image of “Stalin’s race car” apparently from the early 50s, several years (6?) after the race in CZ.   I found this very interesting because it suggested that some persons in the Soviet Union wanted to challenge the evils of capitalism on the track, as they would in the Olympics, Space Race and the World Cup.   What is interesting is that I have never, ever heard of motor-sports competition in the former Soviet Union or its satellites, yet I guess there was some interest in it.  Must’ve been.  That might be an interesting piece of research.  Motor-sports in the USSR!

So why did Stalin succeed Lenin?  Well, for Pipes it seems a foregone conclusion.  With the failure to export the revolution (in the most important war in history!  In Poland!  in 1920!…  ever heard of it?) the emerging  bureaucracy and the emergence of the worker’s opposition Stalin was clearly the man and Trotsky never had a chance.  Lenin just never saw the dark heart of the killer lurking in the back according to Pipes.

One fascinating point made here is that with the failure to export the revolution, they needed to wait, and agitate for, another World War.  The historiography on WWII is generally much simpler than WWI.  Everybody says it was Germany’s/Hitler’s fault.  Now though, I wonder.  Were Stalin, and Lenin before, successful at keeping agitation alive in  Germany insofar as to lead to the emergence of Hitler?  We know there was  military cooperation between the USSR and Germany in the 1930s.  Was Stalin secretly hoping a remilitarized Germany would spark another “World War”?  Can we blame WWII on the Soviet union? Is this what Pipes meant when he said if there had been no Russian Revolution there would be no National Socialism, or WWII?

What do you think?

Pipes Chapter 2 – Why did the Bolsheviks succeed?

fait accompli . Who looked that one up?  There are great and complicated machinations at work in this chapter that I do not expect you to commit to detailed memory.  Even Pipes admits the complexity is too great for his short treatment here.

The long and short of it is that gaining power was as easy for Lenin as “picking up a feather”.  As a woman in one set of documents from an old IB exam testifies the “white” soldiers walked out and dropped their munitions.  There was no resistance.

There were three keys to this event which you should know in at least their basic form.  Failure of a major offensive in WWI, failure of the Provisional Government (PG) to hold an election, and the Kornilov affair, which you should know in the basic terms that Pipes lays down here.

Pipes makes a curious statement here that one, despite Lenin’s fears, cannot “betray” a revolution.  I think what he means here is that whereas there maybe be treasonous persons like a Benedict Arnold, a true revolution from below will have such power as to make their betrayal if not meaningless, than a mere bump in the road.