Keith says:

"Military historians are quite clear that nothing else was possible."

Hang on, I thought before it was all historians, not just military historians. How about social historians? I would take their views rather more seriously, military historians after all have a vested interest in their being more wars for them to be historians about.

"The other allies were just trying to liberate the German "territorial gains" stolen from them."

Weasel words again, all territory has been "stolen" time and time again. Including by our own ruling classes from us. If German ruling classes had been trying to "steal" land from our ruling classes, which they had before stolen from us, why should we take sides, especially when to do so means the deaths of millions of us.