May 27, 2011

Two years ago this week, I rode an actual legitimate bicycle to see a train car inside a building. This was the very same train car in which the Germans surrendered to the Allies at the end of World War I, and also the very same train car in which the Germans made the French surrender during World War II. It’s always nice to have some good old fashioned childish retribution right in the middle of terrifying global conflict, ain’t it?

Now, to be fair — and holy cow do I hate being fair to 1940s Germany, really — France did it first.

Germany proclaimed victory in the Franco-Prussian War (which was a proxy war between France and Prussia fought by France and Germany, I guess) in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, which is where the Germans were forced many years later to claim responsibility for the ENTIRETY of World War I (which, recall, began when a Serb killed an Austrian in Bosnia), which led to the German nation going down the proverbial tubes, which led to a sort of Petri dish of resentment and poverty which would ultimately create the perfect conditions for something like, say, just to pick something off the top of my head, FASCISM.

Basically, Europe sucks.