Rome could only sustain her Empire by conquest and plunder and extermination of the peoples who offered resistance.

I am sure that they were and the responsibility of the revanchist France, the US and its policy of the Big Stick and the English policy of seeking European balance were ONE of the main causes of the 2nd World War. The uncontrollable inflation of the German Weimar Republic, abhorrent to 99.99% of the German people, and the great crisis of 1929 were the other converging causes for the outbreak of the "unnecessary war" as defined by Churchill.

Equal, I am not a professor or academics in nothing, I am just someone who wants to know the origin of things and I do not pretend any revealed truth if perhaps there is such a thing! If your opinion about Churchill and on Keynnes is a majority in the current UK that amazes me and a lot. Churchill was an amateur historian, it is possible that he had misconceptions and as a minister during the war, he certainly made some mistakes although in the essentials he was wrong. He had the premonition that Stalin was not identical to Hitler. Stalin was a mass killer psychopath with which he could talk and even to negotiating, Hitler was the beast on the dark side with whom he could not even speak! That distinction always caught my attention and at some point he said to someone nearby: "I am an anti-communist since 1917 and after the war is finished, I will continue to be an anti-communist but now I say alive the USSR!" And he was not desmaminated in his intuition that with Stalin and with the USSR could be talked out and agreed. With Keynnes perhaps it was not influence but the shock he received when reading the work of Marx and Engels not in the sense of admiration but quite the opposite he just as Churchill sniffed that something bad existed in the classical liberal economy from Adam Smith until the great recession of 1929 and that it was necessary to investigate and raise a new economic theory. And he did it.

For your information, I refer you to two admirable English personalities for me and for the World who were the opposite of those who, like you, justified the war indemnities imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaties. I am referring to Winston Churchill and the 1st chapters of his book "The 2nd World War - (1951) in particular the 1st chapter entitled: The follies of the victors. And the other Englishman was John Maynard Keynnes, former secretary of the Royal Treasury and his book: The Economic Consequences of Peace (1920) They will tell you better than this humble citizen of Uruguay because they had not only the fear but also the conviction that the infamous Treaties would be the cause of another war with Germany and much worse than the 1st.!

Perhaps the British people would be confused between their immediate needs and the ideal of avoiding a new great world war at the cost. They were the golden years of militant pacifism and Baldwin smelled that contradiction of feelings on the one hand and claims on the other and he promised both things: the return of pre-war prosperity and on the other the reassurance of a permanent peace maintained at a Germany defeated in a situation of destitution while its lobbyists reassured with the promise that the Weimar Republic would fulfill its commitment and pay the indemnities established by the Versailles Treaties of 1918-1919 that Baldwin and the majority of the Conservative Party knew that payment was impossible by a melted and prostrated Germany, forced to be a Republic and Democracy by force... As the saying goes "there is no better wedge than the same stick!" confusion of the masses in a time as difficult as the 20's and 30's in a Great Britain traumatized by the Great War and the subsequent crisis the loss of posts of t labor and the world recession, to obtain political gains for the Torys and block the way for Labor and Radicals Winston Churchill was the only dissonant voice in that evangelical choir of peace, and salvation who was not unaware that the world was on fire in many parts but the important thing was to keep the people uninformed and hopeful in a tomorrow that sings.