I am not fond of this reductionist view of World War I's history to "both sides were evil" and the even worse interpretation of this "Central Powers should have won because then no Hitler". This is a very flawed view because it fails to account for the devastation that caused the rise of Hitler and how they were responsible for creating that situation in the first place.
1. Imperial Germany under Wilhelm II spent 25 years isolating Germany and surrounding itself by enemies. Its behavior towards Russia and the fact that it drove the most repressive Monarchy in the world perhaps into bed with Europe's only large Republic (France), speaks volumes of the ineptitude of German Foreign Policy in the 1890s and beyond. Britain and Russia hated each other, but Germany managed to push those two together as well thanks to the naval arm's race.
2. Imperial Germany's arrogance does deserve a larger share of blame for the start of the war. They completely misread the disturbances in Russia (riots and strikes in 1913 - 1914) into believing they were on the verge of collapsing and thus felt free to let Austria go all out with their demands on Serbia, which is what set off the chain of events leading to war.
3. Imperial Germany ceded Bolshevism into Russia in 1917 and thus created the foil which Hitler used to ride to power on fears of a red tide.
If inept foreign policy qualifies you for being evil, the Allied borders in the Middle East and the denial of the right to self-determination to the MENA region are certainly evil. Also, their refusal to seriously intervene in the Russian Civil War surely counts as a strike against them.
Poll
