In the aftermath of the First World War, the victors imposed upon defeated Germany all the long-sought dreams of the Western liberal nations. The German Empire’s armaments, armies, planes, and sea-power were unceremoniously thrown on the chopping block. A new democratic constitution was given to them at Weimar and the Emperor was driven out while nonentities were elected in his place. Beneath the fragile veneer of a new democratic order raged the fury of the still mighty yet defeated German people.
Winston Churchill, in his book ‘The Gathering Storm: The Second World War,’ discussed the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism in Germany. Churchill claimed that after World War I, wise policy would have ‘crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the person of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency.’ However, American prejudice against monarchy made it clear that Germany would be treated more kindly by the Allies as a republic than a monarchy. But in the Emperor’s place, the German people were left with a weak, unstable government imposed upon them by the conquerors. For a people who had never before been fortunate enough to experiment with democracy, having it thrust upon them by foreign powers hobbled the new government’s …show more content…
American sympathy or even admiration for Russia found powerful expression. At the same time, however, Russia was left to stew in its own juice of political upheaval. The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis resulted in the deadliest street fighting since the Russian Revolution in 1917 with 187 killed and the Russian parliament being shelled by army tanks. The next few years of social and economic upheaval crippled Yeltsin’s credibility and threatened to plunge Russia into civil war between her communist and nationalist
Winston Churchill, in his book ‘The Gathering Storm: The Second World War,’ discussed the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism in Germany. Churchill claimed that after World War I, wise policy would have ‘crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the person of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency.’ However, American prejudice against monarchy made it clear that Germany would be treated more kindly by the Allies as a republic than a monarchy. But in the Emperor’s place, the German people were left with a weak, unstable government imposed upon them by the conquerors. For a people who had never before been fortunate enough to experiment with democracy, having it thrust upon them by foreign powers hobbled the new government’s …show more content…
American sympathy or even admiration for Russia found powerful expression. At the same time, however, Russia was left to stew in its own juice of political upheaval. The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis resulted in the deadliest street fighting since the Russian Revolution in 1917 with 187 killed and the Russian parliament being shelled by army tanks. The next few years of social and economic upheaval crippled Yeltsin’s credibility and threatened to plunge Russia into civil war between her communist and nationalist