A Short Summary: The Sword Or The Anvil

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Recommended: Mention the economic effects of World War 1

The sword or the anvil. The conqueror or the conquered. The sword shapes destiny one blow at a time while the anvil is beaten just as destiny is beaten taking one blow after the other. Or that is what is said. It’s not true, though. The anvil is beaten, but just as each blow to destiny hardens it, so does each blow to the anvil. The anvil is a solid steady rock that survives beating after beating never wavering, and never faltering. One day the hammer may break itself with the power that it uses to shape destiny. The anvil though never breaks. The anvil is Germany.

Germany was one of the last countries formed in Western Europe. After the Thirty-year War and the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that followed, Germany officially became a country. Unofficially, it was a loose conglomerate of hundreds of countries ruled by their regional princes. There was no sense of kinship or unity among the many different regions. It wasn’t until the Napoleonic Wars, that Germany felt the first stirring of Nationalism. Napoleon and the Congress of Vienne narrowed the hundreds of regions down to just 40 states. Unity it seemed was being forced on them whether they liked it or not. And they liked it because Nationalism had swept across the globe. Soon though it seemed that …show more content…

It went into a war against more than one enemy with little to no preparation or planning. It didn’t have the supplies, the network to get supplies where it was needed, the natural resources, or the money to win a war. Yet not only had they expected to miraculously win the war, but it was going to be a swift and resounding victory. It was not to be. Germany and France had traded a series of defeats in the recent past and the war reparations had started to spiral getting worse and worse. The blame for the WWI and the largest war reparations fell onto the shoulders of the German people. Like the anvil, it was defeated, but like the anvil, it would only

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