Agree with all of that Marc. The book would add a number of points, of which here are a couple:
1. The key cause or WW1 was a Prussian military mindset and bureaucracy, fostered over the previous century and more, but greatly strengthened by Bismark’s wars in the pursuit of German unification. Germany really was determined upon European hegemony and the allies were right to defend a balance of power. This contradicts the generally held perception of WW1 being a failure by all parties to avoid war.
This military mindset and bureaucracy survived Versailles, despite the departure of the Kaiser. For example, the judiciary and the army both demonstrated support for right-wing politics and hostility to the left. The false myth of Germany not being defeated in WW1 was assiduously nurtured by its governing classes, adding a powerful drive to return Germany to its rightful position of European dominance.
I found the book rather convincing an this point.
2. Versailles left Germany as the dominant European power. Less than 2% of Germany’s native population were lost by territory being ceded, leaving Germany with a much larger population than France. Within a a very few years its industrial output surpassed pre-war levels. Much of the huge reparations bill was structured with no expectation of it being paid, but included in the total to mollify the electorates of the allied nations. In fact Germany then paid only a tiny fraction of the reparations that the allies were expecting. The huge costs of rebuilding swathes of France and most of Belgium were actually funded by the allies.
All of this runs against our awareness of hyper-inflation in Weimar Germany. It seems that inflation was actually encouraged by the Weimar government to reduce the actual value of reparations, which were set in German Marks.
I was less sure on this point, although the book quotes all sorts of statistics.
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