Have you ever read this comment by Winston Churchill about WWI ?

[kentuck]

http://www.greatwar.nl/index.html

<snip>
If only for the sake of discussion4), here follows what Winston Churchill - according to the New York Enquirer - in 1936 has said literally :

"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these 'isms' wouldn't today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government - and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."

In the USA there was also support for this opinion. In 1939 the American historian professor Harry Elmer Barnes bluntly stated: "Not only was our entry into the World War a calamity of the first magnitude for Europe and contemporary civilization, it was also a serious disaster for the United States".5)

[bryant69]

1. Interesting analys

I'm not sure I buy it entirely - for example one of the key problems in the rize of naziism were the terrible burderns inflicted on Germany by the versailles treaty (as Churchill notes). However the racist but peace loving Woodrow Wilson was one of the few involved in the Versailles treaty arguing against these punishments. I will admit that i'm not an expert on that period, but it strikes me as entirely possible that without the United States having a seat at that particular table, the punishments inflicted on Germany would have been even more harsh.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[tocqueville]

2. I don't buy it

the rise of communism in Russia was an independent process and the first thing Lenin did was to sign a peace treaty with Germany. This reinforced the Germans. It's true that the American reinforcements were a worry for Germany, but I don't know of any signs of a peace treaty in 1917. Both sides were interested in a swift victory in the west.