Question

What were the intellectual, political, and economic consequences of World War 1? Brief summary please.

Answer 1

European countries channeled all of their resources into total war which resulted in enormous social change. The result of working together for a common goal seemed to be unifying European societies. Death knocked down all barriers between people. All belligerents had enacted some form of a selective service which levelled classes in many ways. Wartime scarcities made luxury an impossibility and unfavorable. Reflecting this, clothing became uniform and utilitarian. Europeans would never again dress in fancy, elaborate costumes. Uniforms led the way in clothing change. The bright blue-and-red prewar French infantry uniforms had been changed after the first few months of the war, since they made whoever wore them into excellent targets for machine guns. Women's skirts rose above the ankle permanently and women became more of a part of society than ever. They undertook a variety of jobs previously held by men. They were now a part of clerical, secretarial work, and te! aching. They were also more widely employed in industrial jobs. By 1918, 37.6 percent of thework 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 chaperones, and to smoke in public. It was only a matter of time before women received the right to vote in many belligerent countries. Strong forces were shaping the power and legal status of labor unions, too. The right of workers to organize was relatively new, about half a century. Employers fought to keep union organizers out of their plants and armed force was often used against striking workers. The universal rallying of workers towards their flag at the beginning of the war led to wider acceptance of unions. It was more of a bureaucratic route than a parliamentary route that integrated organized labor into government, however. A long war was not possible without complete cooperation of the workers with respect to putting in longers hours and increasing productivity. Strike activity had reached its highest levels in history just before the war. There had been over 1,500 diffent work stoppages in France and 3,000 in Germany during 1910. More than a million British workers stopped at one time or another in 1912. In Britain, France, and Germany, deals were struck between unions and government to eliminate strikes and less favorable work conditions in exchange for immediate integration into the government process. This integration was at the cost of having to act more as managers of labor than as the voice of the labor. Suddenly, the strikes stopped during the first year of the war. Soon the enthusiasm died down, though. The revival of strike activity in 1916 shows that the social peace was already wearing thin. Work stoppages and the number of people on strike in France quadrupled in 1916 compared to 1915. In Germany, in May 1916, 50,000 Berlin works held a three-day walkout to protest the arrest of the pacifist Karl Liebknecht. By the end of the war most had rejected the government offer of being integrated in the beaurocracy, but not without playing an important public role and gaining some advantages such as collective bargaining. The war may have had a leveling effect in many ways, but it also sharpened some social differences and conflicts.

The economic impact of the war was very disaproportioned. 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 opportunities to make enormous amounts of money in war manufacture were plentiful. War profiteers were a public scandal. Fictional new rich, like the manufacturer of shoddy boots in Jules Romains's Verdun had numerous real-life counterparts. However, government rarely intervened 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 budges rose to astronomical figures and massive demand forced shor! tages 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.

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 change 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.

Answer 2

At the outbreak of the First World War few had foreseen the revolutionary changes that were to transpire as a result of the conflict. These included political outcomes like the Treaty of Versailles, the decline of European power, democratic states taking the place of monarchies, and the rise of Communism and Fascism. There were also economic consequences, including the economic deterioration of Europe, and the rise of the United States as a global economic power. Meanwhile. the war's socio-cultural legacy included the emergence of a variety of revolutionary new artistic, literary, philosophical, musical, and cultural movements, and increased malice towards the Armenians in Turkey.

An immediate consequence of World War One, and the catalyst for many others, was the 1918 Treaty of Versailles, the excessively punitive covenant that formally ended the war. Widely lampooned, especially in retrospect, there can be little doubt that the treaty was grossly unfair. "The economic clauses of the treaty were malignant and silly to an extent that made them obviously futile [condemning] Germany to pay reparations on a fabulous scale" (Winston Churchill, The Second World War- Volume One, Sydney, 1948, p. 7). Article 231 of the treaty, the "War Guilt Clause", that held Germany responsible for the war, "imposed upon [the Allies] by the aggression of Germany and her Allies" (Article 231, Treaty of Versailles, 1919), was also widely considered to be unjust. Yet another flawed attribute of the treaty was the fact that it was devised by dissimilar people, with clashing objectives, and different interpretations of Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points", upon which the treaty was supposed to have been based. It was therefore "a maze of compromises and a clash of principles" (Geoffrey Blainey, A Short History of the 20th Century, Melbourne, 2005, p. 101) neither harsh enough to ensure Germany's continued incapacity to wage war, nor weak enough to allow for its gradual reintegration into a "new" post-war Europe.

Europe's economic, military, and decline was also directly attributable to World War One. Incapacitated by their appalling death tolls, in France for example, twenty percent of young men eligible for military service had lost their lives (Norman Lowe, Mastering Modern World History, London, 2005, p. 32), the countries involved, struggled to maintain a sufficient labour force. Damage to roads, railroads, vast areas of farmland and other important infrastructure, blockades and interruptions to shipping during the war, the gargantuan cost of the war, $US 196.5 billion, adjusted for 1990 dollar values (Nofi, Statistical Summary: America's Major Wars', [Online] at http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/other/stats/warcost.htm [accessed 15 March 2007]), and the looming spectre of having to repay war loans further contributed to the demise of Europe. The fact that Europe, seen previously as the bastion of civilization, could have allowed itself to wreak such havoc was understood, quite rightly, by the rest of the world as a sign that a cessation to the world's Eurocentricity was imminent (Lowe, Mastering Modern World History, p. 31).

Additionally, The First World War spurred the collapse of centuries-old empires, and the subsequent formation of various "successor" states. Dynasties such as the Habsburgs, Romanovs, and Hohenzollerns, which had dominated the European political landscape for centuries, and their empires, fell during or after the four-year war. This, the partitioning of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in particular, owing to its former confluence of different nationalities and the Wilsonian concept of national self-determination, paved the way for the establishment of a number of new national states. These states, the most notable of which were Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and Poland, were intended to serve as a democratic stabilizing influence in central and eastern Europe, and as a buffer against prospective attacks from communist Russia (Ibid., p. 59).

Out of these conditions of widespread upheaval and economic turmoil rose the first 1917 Russian revolution, and subsequently, the Bolshevik Revolution. Triggers of the first revolution included catastrophic Russian losses in World War One, financial hardship and food scarcity instigated by the war, and discontent amongst the "intensely patriotic" Russian general populace, faced with the daunting prospect of losing a third major war in a row, after the Crimean War in the 1850s and the 1905 Sino-Japanese War (Blainey, A Short History of the 20th Century, p. 88). Widespread dissatisfaction due to increasing governmental corruption, and the intransigent policies of Tsar Nicholas II also contributed to the general atmosphere of discontent, although it cannot be said that the uprising would inevitably have taken place as early, was it not for the catalysing conditions instigated by The First World War. The moderate provisional government established by the first revolution was perceived to have fared no better than had Tsar Nicholas II (Lowe, Mastering Modern World History, pp. 344-345). As a result, they too were overthrown, in November 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik associates, forming the worlds first socialist state.

Another political movement to arise from the harsh conditions brought about by the First World War was Fascism, fundamental to which were the principles of extreme nationalism, totalitarianism, economic self-sufficiency, and military strength. Although Italy had been on the winning side, the war had been a drain on her resources, and she was heavily in debt. Additionally, the rise of communism in Russia had many Italians concerned, particularly wealthy landowners and industrialists, who feared losing their land. Others felt that they had been short-changed by the Treaty of Versailles, having been deprived of the territories in Dalmatia, Adalia, and the Aegean that they had been promised. Additionally, the current Italian government was thought by many to be feeble and indecisive (Ibid, p. 288). Largely because of these factors, Benito Mussolini and his fascist cronies rose to power in Italy in 1922.

Similarly, conditions in post-war Germany eventually gave rise to Fascism. It is though to have been brought about by a difficult economic situation due to hyperinflation and war debt, Germany's desire to avenge her loss in the First World War, the unpopularity of the "Weimar Republic, [which] with all its liberal trappings and blessings, was regarded as an imposition of the enemy" (Churchill, The Second World War - Volume One, p. 8), Germany's harsh treatment under the treaty of Versailles, the fear of communism, and militarist young men who had been agitated by war-time propaganda campaigns and were now reaching their mid-thirties. All of these factors were a result of the First World War.

The accelerated emergence of The United States as an economic superpower was an additional significant outcome of the Great War. In the years between 1914 and 1919, America experienced a one hundred percent increase in its share of world trade (Lowe, Mastering Modern World History, p. 59), largely due to economic opportunities presented by World War One. Countries such as China and India, which would otherwise have obtained their essential commodities from Europe were unable to do so, as a result of the First World War disrupting trade. Desperate for indispensable goods, coal for example, they turned to the United States, and, largely for reasons of convenience, continued to do so following the conclusion of the war. The buoyant American economy was further boosted by the prospect of the repayment of inflated war loans, if necessary.

Additionally, the advent of World War One resulted in an oft-disregarded escalation in the killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. As the Ottoman army mobilised, Armenians who should supposedly have been serving their country desisted, instead taking the side of the Russians. As the Ottoman army reported: "From Armenians with conscription obligations those in towns and villages east of the Hopa-Erzurum-Hinis-Van line did not comply with the call to enlist but have proceeded East to the border to join the organization in Russia." (Speech given by Dr. Justin McCarthy at the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Ankara, March 24, 2005.) This was seen by the Young Turks as an opportunity to eliminate the empire's unpopular Armenian population. They proceeded to "embark upon the total extermination of the Armenians in Transcaucasia" (Major General Otto von Lossow at the 1918 Batum Conference, attesting to the intentions of the Ottoman Government). The Armenian genocide of 1915-1918 is thought to have resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million people (Anon, Armenian Genocide - 1915-1918 - 1,500,000 Deaths' [Online] at
http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/armenian_genocide.htm [accessed 13 March 2007]).

The horrors of the First World War led to widespread social trauma. This Disillusionment following the war manifested itself in a number of ways, sparking manifold artistic, literary, philosophical, musical, and cultural movements. In contrast to pre-war artistic movements, such as Impressionism, post-war art became bleak and cynical, changing the rules, abandoning tradition, experimenting with the unknown, and, above all, exposing the sham of western civilization (Kreis, The Age of Anxiety: Europe in the 1920s' [Online] at http://www.historyguide.org/europe/ lecture8 .html [accessed 15 March 2007]). Abstract movements such as surrealism, minimalism and futurism flourished. Modernist literature mirrored these new artistic movements, in its experimentation, cynicism, and austerity. Additionally, the disenchanted populace turned to nihilism, dadaism, and various other radically sceptical philosophies. A newfound disrespect for the elderly, who were seen by many youth to have caused the war, led to the formation of a rebellious "youth culture", along with the widespread popularisation of a defiant new style of music, jazz. Not all reduced themselves to miserable moping, however. Horror at the war's atrocities also prompted widespread pacifism and anti-nationalist sentiment. This led to the formation of a revolutionary new global mediation body, of sorts, the ill-fated League of Nations.

World War One was the world's first "total war" (Lowe, Mastering Modern World History, p. 31), meaning that it had involved "not just armies and navies but entire populations, and was the first big conflict between modern, industrialized nations" (Ibid). Because of this it resulted in outcomes the scale, magnitude, and horror of which were unprecedented. Entire generations of youth were traumatised by the misery of the war, whilst their countries struggled to recover from the severe economic downturns that resulted from the war. Because of this, it was hoped that World War One would be the "war to end all wars". However, this was not to be. Outcomes of the First World War included manipulated discontent over the Treaty of Versailles, people's misplaced confidence in The League of Nations, a sustained economic slide and the rise of communism, and subsequently Fascism. These were eventually among the primary causes of World War Two. Even the Armenian Genocide influenced the unspeakable horrors that were to come, with Hitler using the fact that "[no one] speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians" to justify his genocidal policies. As Marshall Foch foresaw upon the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, "This is not peace. It is armistice for twenty years." (Churchill, The Second World War - Volume One, p. 7.)