West Europe's Recidivistic Hubris
2,150 words
Since January 1919, it cannot be denied that the West or Atlantic Europe, with minor exceptions such as Ireland, has repeatedly overplayed its hand.(1) The clearly declared red lines of both Germany and Russia have been disregarded, Germany's in 1919 and the subsequent order, and Russia since the mid 1990s. A pattern emerges from the western collectivity's post-war approaches of the continental other.(2) Obviously, this cannot be applied to the completely different ending of the Second World War. In the post-war confrontation with the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, the same actors conscientiously prevented any revival of diktats or scapegoats from the first post-war period. This resembled the United States refusal to ratify the Treaty and Bund von Versailles, after which President Woodrow Wilson's successor concluded a mutually acceptable peace treaty with Reichspräsident Friedrich Ebert's Germany in 1921.
At least for a few decades, it appeared that historical and political intelligence have grown since the European West's strangling peace diktat and the subdued nation's subsequent dictatorship (1933–1945). How come this growth receded completely in the 1990s? Historic failures, in particular the Entente and British colonists' intrusions over the second and third 1918 Armistice extension, seem to be repeating themselves a few years into the post-Soviet era. Over time, the British Empire's imperialists and sub-imperialists had to hand over the leadership role to their allegedly postcolonial equals in New York and Washington. In my German-language centenary book, Britain's imperialist and sub-imperialist derailment of the Armistice Agreement was analysed from a transnational perspective.(3)
In 1917, the third year of the Great War, the United States joined the war effort on the side of the Entente powers. Under the influence of a revolutionary regime, the allied Russians unilaterally abandoned the front against the Central Powers. Although Germany's exclusive pain of Zweifrontenkrieg was relieved, the Allied war effort was now supported by the American Expeditionary Force. Both at war and over the dictated peace order, the US weight turned out to be of great significance. Firstly, the horrifying deadlock on the western front was finally broken as a result of this overseas impetus. After the spring of 1918, the enemy was left with no other choice than to retreat from occupied territories in Belgium and France. Without American support, the Europeans' Abnutzungskrieg was almost certainly protracted. Nobody would have been able to predict a timely follow-up to the cessation of the eastern front.
During the seven-month Armistice and the post-war order, the United States emancipated itself from old Europe and was about to surpass it in more than one respect. During the conference, while being under immense pressure from Britain's increasingly imperialistic delegations, President Wilson's state of health worsened. The ceasefire was formally terminated with the signing of the Treaty and 'Bund von Versailles' (June 28, 1919). During the Treaty's half-year ratification process, the US Senate decided to opt out of the ailing President's League and Treaty. While running the campaign for ratification, now back home, he collapsed and never fully recovered. Under the leadership of British delegations twice the size of Wilson's, which secured five more votes in the League than France or the US, the newly created German Republic was forced to sign a dictated peace treaty. At the same time, virtually all of Britain's imperialist and sub-imperialist claims were realised.(4) On March 19, 1920, a US Senate vote on ratification mirrored the original refusal of November 19 of the previous year.(5) Thus Europe re-emerged as the central arena. The future would be shaped by the new order's protector states versus the revisionist respectively revanchist states of Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey. The Europeans were left to themselves. Before attributing the main responsibility for this exclusive outcome to the American party, bear in mind that the British, first and foremost their colonial upstarts, secretly aimed at dismissing Wilson and his entourage.
Thus, the downfall of Wilson's peace programme was confidentially taken for granted. In defiance of the alarmed British general and chief of staff William Robertson's repeated warnings, the London government thought the national interests, most notably the imperial ones, were better served without US participation.(6) Exactly within this back-to-1914 European framework of treaty and league ratification, the elimination of the state of war was forfeited. A legal basis for renewed hostilities remained intact. Throughout the political landscape of the Weimar Republic, the diktat's reversion, if not its quintessential alteration, would be prioritised. Particularly from the German perspective, the peace treaty contained a substantial number of Armistice-Agreement violations. As of 1920–1921, not a single actor outside of Europe, with the notable exception of Britain's sub-imperialists, could be held accountable to the rise of radically revisionist regimes. In 1923, the Turkish nationalists were the first to reverse the verdict of Sèvres (Versailles). At the same time, Germany's National Socialists were determined to rearm the nation and strike back.
In alignment with this interpretation, Britain's colonial proxies, with South African Jan Christiaan Smuts as their figurehead, are regarded as European proxies. In contrast to the United States, the collective of Central and West Europeans, including Smuts' sub-imperialists, bore exclusive responsibility for the outbreak, if not the causes of another world war (1939–1945).
Without the hubris from Britain and its rapidly adjusting Entente partner, the parameters of the post-war order could have been delineated in compliance with President Warren Harding's and his German colleague Ebert's peace treaty. In contrast to this what-if scenario, the events and developments of some seventy to hundred years later indicate that the instructive (pre-)history of an armed conflict with global dimensions seems to repeat itself. The unique instructions, thus, fail to be implemented.
As it was demonstrated through Europe's absenteeism and the all-American World War One centenary party on June 28, 2019 in Paris and Versailles, the American age began a (mere) hundred years ago. In 2014, history and memory coincided. On the one hand, a five-year period of First World War anniversaries commenced, on the other, an armed conflict in Europe broke out. This is obviously marked by global ramifications. Following several waves of eastward extensions by the United States leadership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Ukraine's accession were to be next. At the same time, an increasingly isolated Russia, after largely accepting the opposite military's expansion toward its borders, repeatedly stated that the darkest of its red lines would be crossed. This would invariably mean regression into the type of war the secularising Turkish, who were forced to sign a British-made Treaty of Sèvres (Versailles), carried out successfully in 1922. A hundred years later, US President Joe Biden continued to fuel the proxy war against the main successor state of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics as well as to ignore this adversary's justified concerns. Through the invasion of Ukraine, a 25-year period of Russia's profoundly diplomatic involvement with US unilateralism and expansionism came to an end. An eight-year long conflict escalated.
The Europeans of 1914 were said to sleepwalk into a major war. Sleepwalking meant without realising it. Up to now, the subsequent crisis of civilisation is lingering on. The foreign-policy developments instigated by Biden's successor and predecessor seem to justify a comparative thesis of its own: when the Americans walk away, and a conflict is left to the Europeans, things tend to grow essentially worse.
When the proxy war in Ukraine entered its second decade, the United States presidency was retaken by Donald Trump. In contrast to Biden's Democrats, the Republican businessman announced a policy of turning away from the expanding Atlantic Alliance's virtual war effort against the Russian Federation. This was met with indignation by the European Union leadership and Keir Starmer's Great Britain. In alignment with some of the East Central Europeans, the West, including Germany, reaffirmed the decommissioned US president's unconditional support for Ukraine's war against the invaders. It showed that England may be regarded as the world's most 'undecolonised' country. At the same time, the European Union was unilaterally led by western and ardently anti-Russian personnel. The first East European access to the lead did not occur before December 2024, a mere thirty years after the union's foundation at the beginning of the post-Soviet era. Through Kaja Kallas' common foreign policy, Brussels' outright hostility toward Europe's largest nation was taken to the next level. When Estonia, her country of origin, was occupied by the USSR, Kallas' mother was deported to Siberia.
Three years after the proxy war's escalation in 2022, the Kremlin and White House resumed direct diplomatic communication reminiscent of the pre–2021 period. This defining feature can be attributed to both of Trump's administrations. After Biden left office, the now experienced successor did not show much interest in conceding a seat to the European allies. His government may well opt for a policy in alignment with his predecessor Harden's peaceful and prospering relationship with the Germans. Particularly from the European perspective, the transatlantic relationship is suffering from distrust. As said before, Britain and a similarly sidelined core of EU Member States agreed to remilitarise and continue the war effort, if not to intensify it. These parties expressed a consensus on challenging the enemy within the continent's borders. Just like in 1919, any diplomacy respectively concessions from Western Europe (now including a then dictated and dehumanised Germany) seemed to be ruled out.
Historical and political intelligence have certainly grown since the West European display of hubris in Versailles. The present warfare and the collective remilitarisation are showing, however, that mainstream media as well as the political elites went a different path.(7) In alignment with London, Brussels headquarters may display even more hubris than the Smuts and Lloyd George tandem at Paris 1919 and thereafter. Even if the American army were to be sent into another war among Europeans East and West, such as in 1917 or 1941, the present developments are likely to end up in a ruin eclipsing the one of the 1940s. At the time of high imperialism, our Russian, German, French and British forefathers were historically less prepared. In contrast to the 1919 generation, the present one can be held accountable for failing to implement the probably most important of learned (?) historic lessons.
The number of alleged parallels between then and now keep growing. In 1913 or 1914, very few politicians and others acknowledged the growing tendency towards a war of unprecedented proportions. Sleepwalking was an appropriate term to be attributed to the majority of people and its leaders. Eighty to a hundred years following these sleepwalkers, repeated warnings against a similar tendency – now including open conflict with a nuclear superpower – originated from the feather of individual experts. In quite a lot of cases, the academicians among them are to be found outside of university walls. In defiance of century-old lessons, mainstream politicians in and out of the international organisations seem to sleepwalk and follow in the footsteps of their hopelessly naive predecessors.(8) When World War One broke out in August 1914, it was widely thought that it would be over before Christmas.
If the theatre of war and peace were to be left to European parties, it cannot be said that history offers any model for proper results. Again, their exclusive interplay may well end up in full-scale escalation. Without the United States' active participation, the worst seems yet to come.
Peter de Bourgraaf
Footnotes
1. Apart from a few meaningful exceptions such as Ireland.
2. Glenn Diesen, Jeffrey Sachs: NATO and Russia on the Brink of Nuclear War, G. Diesen's Substack / Youtube interview, June 3, 2025, final couple of minutes.
3. Peter de Bourgraaf, Hundert Jahre Urkatastrophe. Der Kolonialvertrag 1919, Göttingen 2018.
4. Thomas Gidney, An International Anomaly. Colonial Accession to the League of Nations, Cambridge 2025, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009584432, p. 13–14, 20, 70, 81, 84, 107–108 and 114.
5. A few months into US President Warren Harding's term, a German-American peace treaty was signed on mutually agreeable conditions. In contrast to the Versailles diktat, it may be regarded as the one and only sustainable, because it mirrored the ceasefire provisions. The victorious power negotiated on an equal footing with the underdog (Weimar). Imperialism and sub-imperialism were left to the consequently dictating parties of respectively David Lloyd George, Britain's Prime Minister, and his colonial upstart Jan Christian Smuts.
6. De Bourgraaf, Hundert Jahre Urkatastrophe, S. 92, 98 und 144.
8. Thomas Fasbender, Washington-Gipfel zur Ukraine: Europäer sind nur Statisten am Spielfeldrand, Berliner Zeitung, August 19, 2025 (particularly fifth paragraph).