The aftermath of WW1 always reminds me of the kind of trouble the US avoided after our Civil War. There were a lot of folks in the Union who wanted the South punished, and punished hard. But Lincoln was smart, and called for a "gentle peace." If he hadn't, the US likely would have faced a second, bloodier Civil War.

And that was the mistake that France and Britain made after the Armistice. By punishing Germany as harshly as they did, they doomed the Weimar Republic to failure and created the conditions that allowed Hitler and the Nazis to rise to power.