In 1938, on this day the tin-pot army of Austrian Chancellor Adolph Schicklegruber marched into the tiny Soviet Republic of Munich. Predictably, the Füehrer's latest antics were greeted by fresh calls for the introducton of the collective security model proposed and then abandoned during the brief "Wilsonian Moment".

Happy Endings 13
Das Kleiner AnschlußUnlike the outmoded structures of the other victor nations, the American Republic's constitution encouraged a sensible level of consultation between the branches of government prior to executive action. This quickly revealed a shocking new isolationism on the Hill. Lacking a platform of popular support, President Wilson quietly dropped¹ his radical proposals for collective security and instead of attending in person dispatched his Secretary of State Robert Lansing to the Peace Conference. After months of drawn-out negotiation, Lloyd George and Clemenceau admitted their worst fears of a twenty-year armistice followed by an even more bloody conflict.

The cause of this cycle was determined to be Prussian militarism which was squarely blamed on Bismarck and his heirs. And so the unavoidable and perhaps inevitable conclusion was that the Prussian German State had to be broken up. The demilitarization of the Rhineland, and the occupation of the coal-rich Saar proceeded without much difficulty. And in fact, many aspects of the break-up went to plan, but only where Anglo-French interests were at stake. Some of the länder even refused to return to the pre-unification monarchies and one such example was Bavaria.

But by this stage, the Anglo-French Governments had decided that a mixture of different philosophies was no bad thing after all as it would "spike" a resurgence of German unity. However the small fly in this ointment was a ridiculous little man with a bad moustache. His romantic dreams of a Großer Deutschland generated concern in European Capitals and a wild level of enthusiasm in Southern Germany and Austria. But it was nothing of substance to really trouble the happy retirement years of Woodrow Wilson and his second wife Edith Bolling. After all, they had only married in 1914, and were able to fully enjoy the long autumnal years after they left the White House in 1921. Unlike Prussian Germany, their happy marriage really was a lasting union under God.