WWI

March 30, 2010

This cartoon by Louis Raemaekers is a cartoon depicting the European countries as the leaders of the countries and the culture of that country. I found this image interesting in the idea that it shows the countries as people but also it shows the allies and the central powers fighting each country respectfully.

WWI

March 30, 2010

This piece of art by James Dietz depicts a breath taking landscape with a dog fight happening between a couple planes. What I found really cool and also a great symbol of the determination of people to win the war is that the plane in front has been shot up and is still fighting. I think that you can really see how the artist saw what the soldiers were doing for us in the war. I mean he obviously thought that it was beautiful in its own way due to the way he painted the backdrop and then the way he saw how the soldiers were so courageous for what they were doing by painting the plane not giving up even when it had been shot.

WWI

March 30, 2010

This is an image that I think everybody has seen somewhere, whether it be at your grandparents house or in a textbook. I find this to be a symbol of the war effort though because you can see that it is a women that is looking quite masculine, which is fitting since she is taking over the duties of the male while he is fighting in the war. I also found the caption of what she is saying to be inspiring too because again it is a female and she is showing the women of America encouragement and that they can do the same work as their husbands and support the war effort in their own way.

WWI

March 30, 2010

While reading about how the Treaty of Versailles put ALL the blame of WWI on Germany and how Germany was not even invited to attend the Conference to help decide peace agreements I was astonished. Germany was given a war debt of 32 billion dollars, basically all of the debt that was generated by all the countries in the war was given to Germany to pay off. Also, Germany's army was cut down to barely enough people to stop a full fledged riot. The treaty stated that Germany could only have 100,000 men in the army, all soldiers had to volunteer, and also the navy could only consist of 6 ships. As I read further I learned that Germany also lost land in the deal which really hurt their economy due to the loss of people to work in factories and the lack of room to expand. In my opinion after reading about the Treaty of Versailles I find that Germany got a raw deal in the re-negotiations after WWI. I think that Germany is not the main country responsible for the war, I mean they were just helping out one of their allies. So to blame Germany for the war when they where not responsible for starting the war seems like a reprimand for something that took place in the past and I think that this is part of the reason why we had WWII.

WWI

March 28, 2010

While reading A Flawed Peace and reading about President Wilson's proposal, "Wilson's Plan for Peace," and how he proposed fourteen points on how he thought that the world could come to peace I thought about how controlling he was trying to be. I mean living in America ever since I was born I have always grown up as thinking that the United States was a highly powerful country in the world. After reading about how President Wilson was proposing that these fighting countries should let the delegates at the Paris Peace Conference decide new borders and taking away the freedom of governments to decide how to run their own countries I began to think about how controlling the United States sometimes is. Granted these are some of the reasons why WWI was started but I think that if a country that is half-way around the world tried to control how another country ran its country that we would not be where we are today. I think that the United States sometimes takes its power to seriously, yeah we are a powerful state but sometimes we become a sort of dictatator to the world. Like I said previously, I have grown up as always thinking that the United States is the best place to live in all aspects of life, but after reading the excerpt I started to think that the United States isn't always the best place to live. Now I have never been to the Eastern countries but I wonder what the response I would get when I told somebody that I was from America. After reading A Flawed Peace I have changed my outlook on how well I actually know my country and if we actually are as outstanding as I have always been taught.