On this day, ninety years ago, the guns finally fell silent over Europe. Unfortunately, short-sided politicians decided that the peace was too expensive and too intrusive. America's troops and influence left the continent and Britain and France turned inward to lick their wounds. Russia was in chaos and the Middle East was carved up and the dreams of the Kurds and the Armenians were destroyed.
The sitting President, then a lame duck, attempted to persuade the other party (this time Republicans) to have the United States preserve the win that it had just earned. Instead, the United States 'came home' and decided that its involvement in the 'unnecessary war' was already too much. So we withdrew and left Germany to repair itself. The Kaiser was already gone and it was determined by oh-so-many intellectuals that our intervention was worse than anything that could come out of that poor, destroyed nation.
On January 30, 1933, we learned differently.
