Consequences of the War

The First World War lasted for four years and three months. It began on August 4, 1914 and

ended on November 11, 1918. It involved sixty sovereign states, overthrew four Empires

(German Empire, Hapsburg Empire, Turkish Empire, Russian Empire), gave birth to seven new

nations, took ten million combatant lives (another 30 million were wounded), and cost about £

35,000 million. This war was in several ways exclusively novel in human history. It has been

described as the "primordial catastrophe of the twentieth century." It was the largest global

conflict yet seen, leading to the deaths of millions and the devastation of parts of Western

Europe. There had been wars in Europe before, involving many states. This one, however, was a

general conflict between highly organized states that had at their control all the resources of

modern warfare and were well equipped to find new methods of destruction and defence. It was

fought with determination and desperation by the nations because they believed that it was a war

for the survival and for high ideals; it was fought everywhere-on land, above land, on sea and

under sea. Obviously any such conflict was bound to have enormous and far reaching

consequences for Europe and rest of the world.

Destruction of Human Lives

The destruction caused by war in terms of human lives lost was terrible. There had been

nothing like the Great War in history. The figures of persons who fought in the war are shocking.

About 6,000 people had been killed each day for more than 1,500 days. In more than four years

of fighting, at least 65 million soldiers were mobilized. Out of 42 million men who served in the

Allied armies, 22 million were casualties; thus making the war Europe’s cruelest scourge. The

Central Powers mobilized 23 million, and had 15 million casualties. The table below shows

casualties (in million) during World War I in different countries. But sheer numbers do not tell the
entire story. The psychic damage to the generation of

survivors can hardly be measured. Of the wounded who survived, many were destined to spend

the rest of their lives in hospitals. Soldiers who had lost their limbs or who were injured in other

ways became a common sight in European countries after the war. The flower of European

youth-or much of it-had perished. Europe seemed a continent of widows and spinsters so many

were killed in the prime of their life that the birth rate fell strikingly after the war. Support for

families of the dead soldiers and the invalid unable to work strained national budgets. The

bloodshed was not confined to Europe alone. In an outbreak of ethnic hostility and in response to
Armenian demands for independent state, the Turks forced 1.75 million Armenians to leave their

homes in Turkey; more than a third of them died without water in the desert sun on the way to

Syria, their bodies consumed by animals. Furthermore, about 27 million people died in an

influenza epidemic during the last years of and after the war.

Social and Cultural Consequences

European countries directed all of their resources into total war which resulted in enormous

social changes. This war had the effect of accelerating women’s emancipation wherever the

movement started before 1914. Women over 30 years of age were granted parliamentary vote in

Britain in 1918 because the war required a national effort and in modern warfare civilian morale

and industrial production had become as important as the army. Moreover, conscription created

labor shortages which had to be filled at once, and women soon dispelled many anti-feminist

myths as they proved their ability to do hard jobs in the factories and on the farm. Women

participated in all activities and worked on factories, shops, offices and voluntary services,

hospitals and schools. They worked hand in hand with men and so won their claim of equality

with them. It became easier now for them to find work as traditional hindrances were eliminated.

They undertook a variety of jobs previously held by men. They were also more widely employed

in industrial jobs. By 1918, 37.6 percent of the work force in the Krupp armaments firm in

Germany was female. In England the proportion of women works rose strikingly in public

transport (for example, from 18,000 to 117,000 bus conductors), banking (9,500 to 63,700), and

commerce (505,000 to 934,000). Many restrictions on women disappeared during the war. It

became acceptable for young, employed, single middle-class women to have their own

apartments, to go out without chaperones5, and to smoke in public. Even the barriers of class and

wealth were weakened to quite a great extent by the “fellowship of the trenches.” If women

edged nearer to some kind of equality, the same was even truer of organized labor in nearly all

belligerent countries. For government to mobilize manpower in the war, the cooperation of the

trade union movement was essential and by the end of the war, unions were in a much stronger

position after collaboration with the government.

This social trauma manifested itself in many different ways. Some people were revolted by

nationalism and what it had caused; so, they began to work toward a more internationalist world

through organizations such as the League of Nations. Pacifism became increasingly popular.

Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that only military strength could be relied on for
protection in a chaotic and inhumane world that did not respect hypothetical notions of

civilization. Certainly a sense of disillusionment and cynicism became pronounced. Nihilism

grew in popularity. Many people believed that the war heralded the end of the world as they had
known it, including the collapse of capitalism and imperialism. Communist and socialist

movements around the world drew strength from this theory, enjoying a level of popularity they

had never known before. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or particularly

harshly affected by the war, such as central Europe, Russia and France.

Artists such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Ernst Barlach, and Käthe Kollwitz represented their

experiences, or those of their society, in blunt paintings and sculpture. Similarly, authors such as

Erich Maria Remarque wrote grim novels detailing their experiences. These works had a strong

impact on society, causing a great deal of controversy and highlighting conflicting interpretations

of the war. In Germany, nationalists including the Nazis believed that much of this work was

degenerate and undermined the cohesion of society as well as dishonouring the dead.

The war destroyed the cultural fabric of Europe. It caused widespread destruction of

buildings. Old established values were questioned and often unthinkably repudiated, while the

newer ones restored nothing lasting of any significance. The void thus left, saw an alarming

decline of moral standards.

Economic Impact

The economic impact of the war was much disproportioned. At one end there were those who

profited from the war and at the other end were those who suffered under the effects of inflation.

The prospects of making enormous amounts of money in war manufacture were ample. War

profiteers were a public scandal. Fictional new rich had numerous real-life counterparts.

However, government rarely interfered in major firms, as happened when the German military

took over the Daimler motor car works for padding costs on war-production contracts.

Governments tended to favor large, centralized industries over smaller ones. The war was a

stimulus towards grouping companies into larger firms. When resources became scarce,

nonessential firms, which tended to be small, were simply closed down. Inflation was the

greatest single economic factor as war budgets rose to astronomical figures and massive demand

forced shortages of many consumer goods. Virtually ever able-bodied person was employed to

keep up with the demand. This combination of high demand, scarcity, and full employment sent

prices soaring, even in the best managed countries. In Britain, a pound sterling brought in 1919
about one-third of what it had bought in 1914. French prices approximately doubled during the

war and it only got worse during the 1920's. Inflation rates were even higher in other

belligerents. The German currency ceased to have value in 1923. All of this had been foreseen by

John Maynard Keynes as a result of the Versailles Treaty: “The danger confronting us, therefore,

is the rapid depression of the standard of life of the European populations to a point which will

mean actual starvation for some (a point already reached in Russian and approximately reach in

Austria).”

Inflation affected different people quite differently. Skilled workers in strategic industries

found that their wages kept pace with prices or even rose a little faster. Unskilled workers and

workers in less important industries fell behind. Clerks, lesser civil servants, teachers,

clergymen, and small shopkeepers earned less than many skilled labors. Those who suffered the

most were those dependent on fixed incoming. The incomes of old people on pensions or middle

class living on small dividends remained about the same while prices double or tripled. These

dropped down into poverty. These "new poor" kept their pride by repairing old clothes,

supplementing food budget with gardens, and giving up everything to appear as they had before

the war. Inflation radically changed the relative position of many in society. Conflicts arose over

the differences in purchasing power. All wage earners had less real purchasing power at the end

of the war than they had had at the beginning. To make matters worse some great fortunes were

built during the wartime and postwar inflation. Those who were able to borrow large amounts of
money could repay their debts in devalued currency from their war profit. It has been pointed

out, that all the economic slogans of the post-war years, strangely enough, began with the prefix

re: reconstruction, recovery, reparations, retrenchment, repayment of war debts, restoration of

gold standard etc.

Political Implications

The First World War and Peace Treaty concluded after it transformed the political map of the

world, particularly Europe. As mentioned earlier, four ruling dynasties were destroyed. It

uprooted the hereditary autocracy and monarchy from almost all the European countries. The

war had been declared ‘to make the world safe for democracy.’ There were some countries like

England, Spain, Romania and Greece etc., where the monarchy could not be uprooted. But

nobody could deny the fact that the governments of these countries could not preserve the tone of

monarchy in the real sense and democratization of the governments became order of the day
after the First World War which compelled the autocratic rulers to rule as constitutional

monarchs or to abdicate. This war promoted the feelings of democracy all over the world.

Governments took on many new powers in order to fight the total war. War governments

fought opposition by increasing police power. Authoritarian regimes like tsarist Russia had

always depended on the threat of force, but now even parliamentary governments felt the

necessity to expand police powers and control public opinion. Britain gave police powers wide

scope in August 1914 by the Defence of the Realm Act which authorized the public authorities to

arrest and punish rebels under martial law if necessary. Through later acts, police powers grew

to include suspending newspapers and the ability to intervene in a citizen's private life in the use

of lights at home, food consumption, and bar hours. Police powers tended to grow as the war

went on and public opposition increased as well. In France a sharp rise of strikes, mutinies, and

talk of a negotiated peace raised doubts about whether France could really carry on the war in

1917. A group of French political leaders decided to carry out the war at the cost of less internal

liberty. The government cracked down on anyone suspected of supporting a compromise peace.

Many of the crackdowns and sedition charges were just a result of war panic or calculated

political opportunism. Expanded police powers also included control of public information and

opinion. The censorship of newspapers and personal mail was already an established practice.

Governments regularly used their power to prevent leaking of military secrets and the airing of

dangerous opinions considering war efforts. The other side of using police power on public

opinion was the "organizing of enthusiasm," which could be thought of as: “Propaganda tries to

force a doctrine on the whole people; the organization embraces within its scope only those who

do not threaten on psychological grounds to become a brake on the further dissemination of the

idea.”

World War I provided a place for the birth of propaganda which countries used with even

more horrifying results during World War II. Governments used the media to influence people to

enlist and to persuade them war into supporting the war. The French prime minister used his

power to draft journalists or defer them in exchange for favorable coverage. The German right

created a new mass party, the Fatherland Party. It was backed by secret funds from the army and

was devoted to propaganda for war discipline. By 1918, the Fatherland Party was larger than the

Social Democratic Party. Germany had become quite effective at influencing the masses.

The war weakened the world’s centre, Europe, and strength the periphery-North America,
Russia and Asia. The period after the war saw the beginning of the end of the European

supremacy in the world. Economically and militarily, Europe was surpassed by the United States

which emerged as world power after the war. The Soviet Union became the first socialist country
and was also to come up as a major world power. Thus Europe’s primacy was at the end and its

future looked miserable.

The period after the war also saw the strengthening of the freedom movements in Asia and

Africa. The weakening of Europe and the emergence of Soviet Union which declared her support

to the struggles for national independence contribute to the growing strengths of these struggles.

There was also a problem of redistribution of balance of power in the world. As a result of this

war, there was a military and political collapse of old empires. The pre-war German and Austrian

dominance, for a time, came to an end. The supreme task before the peacemakers was to see that

Germany is kept in check and also, weakened militarily. Another problem was the reshaping of

eastern and central Europe in the light of newly emerging realities of national grouping,

economic viability and military security. Peace Treaties

When the First World War ended there were a great deal of near sighted decisions made that

directly lead to the Second World War thus it has been said that the Second World War was

actually a continuation of the First World War. After the First World War, the Allies imposed a

series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The1919 Treaty of Versailles, in which Germany

was kept under blockade until she signed, ended the war. It declared Germany responsible for the

war and required Germany to pay enormous war reparations and awarding territory to the

victors. Unable to pay them with exports (a result of territorial losses and postwar recession), she

did so by borrowing from the United States, until the reparations were suspended in 1931. The

"Guilt Thesis"6 became a controversial explanation of events in Britain and the United States The
Treaty of Versailles caused enormous bitterness in Germany, which nationalist movements,

especially the Nazis, exploited. The treaty contributed to one of the worst economic collapses in

German history, sparking runaway inflation in the 1920s.

The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. The treaty,

however, was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the Turkish republican movement.

This led to the Turkish Independence War and, ultimately, to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

Austria-Hungary was also partitioned, largely along ethnic lines. The details were contained in

the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon.

The New International Organization

‘power politics.’ It was an international organization founded as a result of the Treaty of

Versailles in 1919–1920. The scheme of League of Nations was sponsored with great fervor by

President Woodrow Wilson. The League's goals included disarmament, preventing war through

collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation, diplomacy and

improving global quality of life. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a

fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The League failed in its supreme

task of preserving peace. The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on the Great

Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the League ordered, or

provide an army, when needed, for the League to use. However, they were often reluctant to do

so. Sanctions could also hurt the League members imposing the sanctions and given the pacifist

attitude following World War I, countries were reluctant to do so. Benito Mussolini stated that

"The League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."

After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League

ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis Powers in the 1930s. The onset

of the Second World War suggested that the League had failed in its primary purpose, which was

to avoid any future world war. The United Nations replaced it after the end of the war and

inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League.

Conclusion

Thus to conclude we can say that World War I did not completely end with the signing of

the Treaty of Versailles, for its social, cultural, political, economic, environmental and

psychological effects influenced the lives of people long after the last shot was fired. The Great

War could not be relegated to the past. War became the continuing experience of the 20th

century.