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19th April 2017, 06:43 PM | #1 | ||
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WWII & Appeasement
Perhaps, we should take a look back into history on how the war in Europe began when Britain and France became ignorant and overlooked Hitler's violations that eventually embolden Hitler and led to the slaughter of millions of people before the war in Europe ended. There are times when action must be undertaken in order to prevent an even larger catastrophe. Passive behavior of the international community had embolden the Serbs and Saddam as well who then went on to commit their atrocities that killed thousands as the world sat back and watched before we were eventually forced to take action, which, unfortunately, was too late for the thousands of innocent people who were killed as the world sat back and watched.
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Britain and France didn't go for taking action against Hitler either despite the numerous warnings, which later resulted in war in Europe. How many paid with their lives because the world continued to overlook Hitler's violations? You either learn from history or you don't.
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Taking a look back into history, you will find that terrorists were bombing and hijacking US interest many years before 9/11 that had nothing to do with Iraq.
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History has a lesson for us all and Trump had better learn from that history when dealing with the Russians, particularly, Putin. . |
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19th April 2017, 07:12 PM | #2 |
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Haha. Saddam was crippled. He had nothing: no military, no weapons, no wealth beyond that sufficient to make his fat ass happy. He wasn't a threat. This was known before the war; it was proven by invasion.
I have to believe you're trying to be funny.
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Some of the Sarin was deadly. There was no reliable delivery mechanism. It was from the early 80's. It was dangerous to people near it - like a toxic waste spill - it was not a weapon of war. I gave you sources that broke this down in detail, yet you persist with this hysterical nonsense. [/quote]History has a lesson for us all and Trump had better learn from that history when dealing with the Russians, particularly, Putin. .[/quote] The fact that you compare a nation crippled by bombings in the 90's, then devestated by sanctions over the next decade to the country with the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world shows a total lack of clear thinking. Are you seriously suggesting that we pre-emptively invade Russia? That's what we did with Iraq. Is that your lesson? |
20th April 2017, 12:42 AM | #3 | ||
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WWII & Appeasement
Do you honestly believe that?! Time for a reality check. Iraq had over 2200 tanks, 2500 personnel carriers, over 1600 artillery pieces, missiles and aircraft. Ever wondered why the no-fly zones were established over Iraq after the Gulf War?
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Iraqi's Sarin stock was deadly period!!
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Just to let you know that after the Gulf War, Saddam was busy slaughtering his own people in Southern Iraq, which is something that you were unaware of.
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Of course not. However, Russia did supply military hardware to Iraq and even supplied Iraq with JDAM jammers, which we took out with our JDAM bombs. So once again, Trump had better learn from history when dealing with the Russians and Putin. |
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20th April 2017, 10:48 AM | #4 |
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20th April 2017, 02:53 PM | #5 |
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Britain and France did not ignore Hitler's violations, and did what they could to prevent them leading to another Great War.
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People of that generation were well aware that war is not something to be taken lightly. |
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20th April 2017, 03:43 PM | #6 |
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Britain and France did not confront Hitler with appropriate military action during his violations when needed and that embolden Hitler and the rest is history, which the former Soviet Union learned the hard way as well. Let's not forget Chamberlain holding up that infamous piece of paper for all to see. Lack of appropriate action by Britain and France allowed Germany to rebuild its military and the rest soon became history. You learn from history and failure to do so can result in serious consequences in the future and Trump would be wise to remember that history when dealing with Putin. |
20th April 2017, 04:03 PM | #7 |
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This your conclusion eighty years later. No doubt you have a firm opinion of what military action (aka war ; it was a simpler world in those days) should have been undertaken and at what point, given what you know of what subsequently happened. You'll appreciate that people at the time were living at the time.
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What would have been the ultimate consequences if the French had fired on German troops re-occupying the Rhineland? Not WW2 as and when it happened, but another war sometime, perhaps with a worse outcome. And so on. They did what they thought was appropriate at the time, with the best of intentions. Perhaps it was the best they could have done. |
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20th April 2017, 05:12 PM | #8 |
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Just like the leader of a certain country today is emboldened by the lack of appropriate military action against his violations. But what can the rest of the World do when he has more nukes than anyone else, and isn't afraid to use them?
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To make matters worse a lot people tolerated or even admired Hitler, in part because he was anti-communist. Fascism had its ugly side, but the thought of having to share one's wealth was downright scary. Hitler's mistreatment of Jews and other undesirables was a small price to pay (or even a bonus) if it kept Communism at bay. But Russia is no longer communist, so now she is not a threat. Putin can murder his political rivals, violate his citizens' civil rights, interfere in foreign elections or even invade nearby countries, and it's not a problem for them. So long as there's money in it they are happy to do business with him - because in the end making money (and keeping it) is the only thing that matters. |
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20th April 2017, 09:46 PM | #9 |
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It didn't in this case because it served to embolden a dangerous dictator and it didn't take long before the fireworks were lit. What happened to him afterward should serve as a warning to those who plan to use the tool of appeasement when dealing with leaders such as Putin. Putin is testing Trump to see how far he is willing to go and appeasement will only make things worst especially when dealing with him. Putin has been testing us with his bombers near Alaska lately and it's time to play hardball. Just another way he provides us with real-time hands-on training, but Putin must also be challenged and made accountable for his actions. |
20th April 2017, 10:20 PM | #10 |
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The best of intentions, in this case, had resulted in the loss of millions because violations committed by the fox @ the chicken coop were ignored for several years until it was too late. The now well-fed and strengthen fox began to tenaciously attack those who waited too long to take care of business when the fox was weak with hunger. Putin is trying to spread his influence in ways that will be a challenge for the U.S. in the future. |
21st April 2017, 02:08 AM | #11 |
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If Britain and France had gone to war in 1938 Britain would have lost the war.
With what? You don't sufficiently appreciate the practical difficulties. Canada, Australia, New Zealand , South Africa and Rhodesia were opposed to war in 1938. There was deafening silence from America. Chamberlain knew war was inevitable but it was a question of timing. I remember seeing some American goon on TV once saying that Britain should have taken military action when Hitler invaded the Ruhr (Rhineland), I think in about 1936,in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles. There was no public support in Britain and France for war at that time and politicians need public support. There are people on the internet who say Churchill started the war, which is a bit unfair. At least nobody can say that Chamberlain started the war. |
21st April 2017, 09:28 AM | #12 |
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The alternative was war, which might well have been won, but with what consequences? The Great War was "won" : WW2 was one of the consequences. Had Britain and France attacked and occupied Germany to enforce the Versailles Treaty it would only have confirmed the Nazis' claims and prepared yet another conflict. It would also have fed the Communist and Socialist narrative that capitalism thrives on warfare, with who knows what consequences.
In the event, war was a late resort, and Hitler's war-hunger was laid bare. You know the result, and are convinced that your way would have had a better result - but you can't know that.
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21st April 2017, 10:39 PM | #13 |
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Why would Britain and France have lost the war in 1938? Could it have been that Britain and France had failed to take care of business in 1933 when Germany began remilitarization, which was in violation of the Versailles Treaty? They let the fox continue to feed unimpeded at the chicken coop until the fox became too strong for both countries to handle. In other words, it was too late. To sum that up, you don't wait to have an accident before you buy insurance.
So, once again, appeasement serves to embolden the bad guys as it did Hitler and now, Putin. Either confront the bad guys in the present, or face the consequences in the future. Putin continues to send his aircraft toward Alaska and the Russians are not flying near Alaska to scout for new fishing grounds. |
21st April 2017, 11:05 PM | #14 |
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Yet, Britain and France did not take care of business and as a result, the war in Europe began and 6 million Jews and millions of others were killed and millions more were wounded. That was the result of appeasement. Dictators like to test waters before they act, and if no one objects, the bad guy will jump right on in and make a big splash that will no doubt, be noticed by all near the 'pool of conflict.' Another example occurred in the Balkans where the Serbs made the UN peacekeepers look inept and weak, which they were, so the Serbs tied some of them to fences as they continued to slaughter thousands of innocent people until military action was called upon to stop the carnage. Simply doing nothing can have dire consequences. Putin is testing Trump's waters and only time will tell to see how far Putin is willing to go and how far Trump is willing to let him. . |
22nd April 2017, 03:31 AM | #15 |
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22nd April 2017, 03:39 AM | #16 |
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22nd April 2017, 04:00 PM | #17 |
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What do you imagine would have happened if Britain and France had overturned the German government in 1933, by some combination of blockade and invasion, and replaced it with one more to their liking?
You seem to think that the German people would be cowed, accept that they cannot escape the Versailles Treaty, embrace their new government, blame the nationalists for getting them into the situation, and nobody but nobody would ever suggest that The Jews were behind it. On the back of this history which didn't happen (and lets face it was never going to) you suggest that Putin should be faced down in some indeterminate way, cowing the Russian people, and not in any way storing up problems for the future. Can you not hear the same fatuous rhetoric in "taking care of business" and "mission accomplished"? |
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22nd April 2017, 04:03 PM | #18 |
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22nd April 2017, 07:52 PM | #19 |
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What did the UN do to prevent military action? Serbs were slaughtering innocent people while the rest of the world sat back and watched and that was before NATO became involved, which ended the carnage with its own military action that should never have happened if someone had taken care of business in the first place before things got out of hand. |
22nd April 2017, 08:30 PM | #20 |
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As history has shown, that didn't happened and as a result, millions upon millions of people would eventually lose their lives in the coming years because no real action was undertaken to confront Germany when it would have made a difference. Putin is testing the rest of the international community to see how much he can get away with. |
23rd April 2017, 02:30 AM | #21 |
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I agree with JihadJane.
This website is closer to the truth about Chamberlain. He used cunning and subtlety, unlike the average Joe in America who tend to be a lot of armchair admirals. From: www.politicalbistro.com/neville-chamberlain
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23rd April 2017, 03:41 PM | #22 |
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Confronting Germany to maintain the Versailles Treaty wouldn't have solved the underlying problem - which was the Versailles Treaty - and would probably have made matters worse. We might now be hearing people bitch about how the intransigence of Britain and France and their determination to keep Germany down led to WW2, with terrible consequences for Europe's Jews.
That's the sort of thing people had to consider at the time, and we have to consider in ours. Often, doing nothing is the right option. for instance, Canada and Mexico could intervene in the US to preserve NAFTA, but removing Trump would only strengthen the forces which created him, storing up greater trouble for the future. Better to let him crash and burn, like Hitler did, but hopefully more quickly and less destructively.
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23rd April 2017, 04:03 PM | #23 |
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Not unreasonable except in parts, especially the bit about the Luftwaffe. Chamberlain would have compared the British strategic bomber force - which was significant - with the German one - non-existent. The Luftwaffe was a tactical arm for employment in blitzkrieg, not a war-winning one. When Hitler tried to use it as one it was gutted, to the later benefit of the USSR.
If any lesson is to be learnt it's that air power alone does not win wars, but it's a zombie concept that just will not lie down. |
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23rd April 2017, 10:55 PM | #24 |
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24th April 2017, 11:57 AM | #25 |
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It could have been worse, having 56-million killed, and the Nazis ruling an empire from the Atlantic to the Urals would do that.
We *now* know that Hitler was willing to remove his troops from the Rhineland. This wasn't known at the time. Similarly by Munich, some people argue that it bought time for Great Britain to rearm and update the RAF in particular. I agree that with the benefit of hindsight, it was the wrong decision. I would even agree that some people could see that it was the wrong decision at the time. However I disagree that it was so clear-cut as you make out with the benefit of hindsight. This is secondary to your point about Putin, and I agree that he seems to be playing on salami tactics. It is one reason why credible conventional forces are needed, not just nuclear deterrents. |
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24th April 2017, 03:48 PM | #26 |
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You seem to think that, without that war, there would have been no war. Intervening in Germany to prevent re-armament would not have persuaded the German people that they didn't need it. Quite the opposite. Nor would it have weakened Hitler and the nationalists generally. And this isn't even to touch on the US reaction, given its suspicion of the Imperial powers and rather large German-American population.
So yes, it could have been all that it was and more. A major re-ordering of Europe to replace the Versailles arrangement was the only thing which might have worked, and that's what Chamberlain and like-thinkers were seeking. The French were the problem, of course. Perhaps Britain should have intervened there. The parallel in the ex-USSR is, of course, the arbitrary nature of the borders and the sanctity granted to them by the international order. Hence the frozen conflicts. A grand re-ordering is definitely in order. Things can't carry on like this for ever, after all. Or if they can, it's a drab prospect. |
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24th April 2017, 06:05 PM | #27 |
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24th April 2017, 06:16 PM | #28 |
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It might have had more time to prepare. The elements of the conflict would not have been dispelled by enforcing the Versailles Treaty. The anti-democratic nationalist influence would only grow stronger, and more drawn to the equally anti-democratic Soviets. They might well have started things when they were ready, not before they were ready, as they did.
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25th April 2017, 03:08 AM | #29 |
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Yes, I agree with this overall point. Hitler and his Nazis were the symptom of the problem, the main problem was virulent anti-democratic nationalist influence which allowed a person like him and his organization to ascend to power and then rule the country which never really was that much into them in the first place.
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25th April 2017, 09:08 AM | #30 |
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25th April 2017, 10:39 AM | #31 |
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it is understandable given the casualties suffered, especially by France in WWI
A French male born in 1896, so 18 in 1914 had about a 1:6 chance of being killed during the war. That statistic still shocks me. ETA: Again, I'm not exactly disagreeing with you, just saying that there were reasons that seemed good at the time. |
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26th April 2017, 03:56 AM | #32 |
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28th April 2017, 04:45 AM | #33 |
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Out of the Western Allies, France had had it the worst - in addition to the massive loss of life and the large number of men crippled in WWI, there was also the economic and social devastation that had occurred (as an example, the brewing industry in northern France is still recovering from WWI), coupled with the economic disruption of the Depression, France was not in a position where an aggressive war against Germany in 1933 would have been acceptable to the people of France.
Britain and the Dominions weren't in much better condition. Canadian casualties in WWI amounted to approximately 1% of the overall population, for example (pre-war pop. approx. 8.8M, size of the CEF approx. 880, 000 in 1918 - with approximately 89,000 dead and wounded). Going to war to stop a country from moving troops within their own borders, or for ignoring parts of what was being seen as an unfair treaty when there were so many more pressing domestic issues and being well aware of the costs of war, was simply not an option most countries were prepared to seriously consider. With hindsight, we can see that negotiating with Hitler and not taking a stronger line led to WWII. Back then, that wasn't so clear this was where it would lead. |
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28th April 2017, 02:04 PM | #34 |
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No they were the fault of lunatic who was determined to have a war at any price. The hard fact is there was no real public support for a hardline against Nazi Germany until Hitler violated the Munich Agreement and occupied Czechoslovakia. After that the British were serious about drawing a line but Hitler chose not to believe them.
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28th April 2017, 02:28 PM | #35 |
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Iraq was completely toothless. Their stuff was rusted, rotten, unusable. They were not a threat to anyone, and because of our monitoring, the moment they tried to use any of those things, they would have been blasted into dust.
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The lesson should be - dealing with Putin has absolutely nothing in common with Iraq. |
30th April 2017, 05:42 AM | #36 |
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30th April 2017, 05:48 AM | #37 |
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What does that even mean? As far as I can see it means start to kill the soldiers of the other country which is usually called "a war".
And to be fair American appeasement of the Nazis did very much lead it to becoming the world's only true superpower, so as far as the USA's history is concerned appeasement - at least for many years - has a pedigree of being good for the USA. |
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30th April 2017, 08:13 AM | #38 |
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And this anti-democratic feeling in Germany was fueled by the first great mistakes the Allies made, and that was on 11 November 1918. When the German army command sued for an armistice, the Allies allowed it to be signed in German side by a MP, the catholic Centre party member Matthias Erzberger, and not by the military. German supreme commander Hindenburg and his chief of staff Ludendorff should have done that; armistices aren't signed by civilians but by military. This crucial piece allowed that piece-of-work Ludendoff, who later was Hitler's co-conspirator in the Beer Hall Putsch, to perpetrate the stab-in-the-back legend: the army had been undefeated in the field, it was those pesky democratic politicians which had lost the war for Germany.
And to top it off, the Allies should have held a victory parade on the Kudamm. On its own, the Versailles Treaty was not that harsh: it was milder than the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt, which in turn referred in its amount of indemnities to the 1806 Treaty of Tilsit, in previous Franco-German wars. Also, the much-maligned "war guilt clause" is a red herring: It was a standard clause about Germany's responsibility for indemnifying the victors, and the same clause appeared in the peace treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, and none of those countries ever whined about that they got stuck up with admitting guilt of starting the war. And on top of that, the democratic government in Germany decided to spite its face by cutting of its nose with an unnecessary hyperinflation in 1923, and blamed it all on "Versailles". And the Allies fell for it all hook, line and sinker. But by the time that Hitler came to power, the Versailles payments had all been stopped for a few years already. Of course, that is all hindsight and all, but it still strikes me as unreal that the Allies let a civilian sign an armistice, and then let the chief of staff who begged for that armistice run for years a slander campaign that his army had not been defeated in the field. And maybe Germany was simply still not up for truly democratic governance. The whole bureaucracy, judiciary and all educators were still deeply steeped in the aristocratic class society of Wilhelminian Germany. If there's one thing we can thank Hitler, as well as Stauffenberg, for, then it's the elimination of the German nobility, in particular the Prussian junkers. |
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30th April 2017, 11:28 PM | #39 |
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The 56 millions figure includes 20 millions Chinese deaths and other victims in the war against Japan, which have nothing to do with the Versailles Treaty. As a matter of fact the Second Sino-Japanese War had started on 7 July 1937. The Versailles Treaty had no incidence on it.
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30th April 2017, 11:46 PM | #40 |
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I'm not sure. The Treaty created a Sino-Japanese territorial dispute, the Shandong ProblemWP arising from the transfer to Japan of former German possessions in China.
Despite its formal agreement to Japan's terms (in 1915 and 1918), China at Paris in 1919 now denounced the transfer of German holdings, and won the strong support of President Wilson. The Chinese ambassador to France ... demanded the promised return of sovereignty over Shandong, to no avail. Japan was adamant and prevailed. Chinese popular outrage over this provision led to demonstrations and a cultural movement known as the May Fourth Movement and influenced Wellington Koo not to sign the treaty. |
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