Quote Originally Posted by Brenus
France was attacked. The German declared war upon France. So, in this case, yes Germany clearly started the war.
Well, the German government asked France what they would do in case of a German war with Russia. The French responded along the lines that they would do what was in their best interest, leading the german government to think that France would fall into their back and to prevent this there was the "Schlieffen-Plan".

On the 1871 issue I don´t recall the french having to pay for several generations, so it might not have been a nice thing to do, but it was bearable for France, while Germany after WW1 had to pay for a much longer timespan and couldn´t even come up to the monthly expectations in the first time.

The 1871 war was wanted by Bismarck, but the French did their part by demanding a lot of things from Germany. So they and others did before WW1.

In my oppinion there were few if any good leaders in Germany after Bismarck until after WW2. And WW1 was wanted by other nations as well, they just knew how to play the victims and write history afterwards, but I agree that nothing of this justifies WW2.

The issue about Poland and Germany I see similar to Israel and Palestine. Territories changed very often in history and we should accept that.