The twentieth century’s two world wars are an endless source of precedents and analogies. The lead-up to World War II produced the Munich analogy, an allusion to the 1938 British and French decision to permit Nazi Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia. “Munich” has become shorthand for “appeasement.” The aftermath of the war produced the Nuremberg analogy, a reference to the public trials of the surviving leaders of the utterly defeated Nazi regime. “Nuremberg” now stands for “unconditional surrender.”
By contrast, the conclusion of World War I had been unclear and incomplete. Berlin did not fall in November 1918. Instead, the government waging the war dissolved; Kaiser Wilhelm went into exile. The harsh terms of the peace—the reparations and the attribution of guilt to Germany—became the preconditions for Adolf Hitler’s rise and for the outbreak of World War II. This is the story of “Versailles”: shorthand for a peace agreement that begets further war.
