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The statement I have chosen to discuss is whether or not ‘the First World War changed the world forever’. And I’ll be looking predominantly at the social, cultural, technological, and political changes that occurred throughout the world, to some degree because of the Treaty of Versailles.
The First World War definitely changed certain characteristics of the world forever; the Treaty of Versailles was unquestionably an important driver for the changes that occurred after the war. The Treaty of Versailles did not satisfy anybody because the countries who were involved in the war found it difficult to transition from a war economy to a peacetime economy, which consequently led to major disruptions not just in the European economy but also in the world financial market. Export economies also faced difficulties because of the weakened European market. Both the Allies and Axis forces equally were highly indebted, Allies to the U.S., and Central Powers to their own populations.
There was also high unemployment because of the peacetime conversion slowing down the economy and lack of investments. Social tensions were also a problem because entrepreneurs made a profit from the war, and a huge percentage of the population was impoverished, this also led to huge political tensions. The First World War saw the beginning of the falling apart of empires because and French brought people over from their respective colonies to become soldiers and fight during the war which theoretically turned them into citizens. At the end of the war, the French rewarded people from the colonies with citizenship tied to language, religion, and education. Some colonies became de facto-independent as a result of the war. Many European countries’ superiority crumbled on the battlefields of World War One.
World War One helped create the League of Nations however the U.S. did not join and due to the Treaty of Versailles Germany was not admitted until 1926. The League of Nations never lived up to expectations. The first half of the 1920s was characterized by domestic crises and the lack of international cooperation however there were attempts to rebuild the European economy and to regulate Germany’s reparation payments. Overall authoritarian regimes begin to be developed in European nation-states and not democracies.
The First World War brought about the Red Scaremenace which is the widespread fear of the potential rise of communism. Bolshevism has been a specter in European societies since 1917. In 1919 the Bolshevik party aims for a world revolution and the Soviet state tries to facilitate trade and diplomatic relations. The conference of Genova takes place in 1921 without Germany because of the pressure of France this massively reflected France’s greater interest to weaken Germany than to stimulate the significant European economy. Germany and Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of in 1922 which resulted in secret cooperation between Germany and the Red Army.
But by 1924 the Bolshevik’s aim comes to an end however Western countries’ imaginations keep the red menace alive through propaganda. The Bolsheviks split into Communists and Social-Democrats which becomes a burden for Social-Democratic governments in post-war Europe. Anti-Bolshevism fuels extreme right-wing movements and makes them increasingly acceptable for middle-classes. Germany resists the reparation payments which provoke the occupation of the Rhineland and Ruhr by the French and Belgians, the German government correspondingly announces passive resistance. Inflation in Germany was turned by the government into a policy to liquidate the war debts and remediate treasury. The Hyper-Inflation in 1922-23 was used to denounce the Treaty of Versailles. In Germany, there wasn’t much unemployment, and the economy did recover to a certain degree, but the investments of the middle classes were liquidated which increased political radicalization.
The peacemakers after the First World War knew that Germany would be a major force in post-war Europe, they had to allow Germany to reconfigure its industries to peacetime production and continue its position as an important driver of Europe’s economic development and trade while still including the appearance of the military menace that was released on the world during the war. One of the other worries faced by the peacemakers was the fact that Poland became a new state and had the right to exist, but they were anxious about limiting the number of Germans who would find themselves living in a different country as a result of the new territorial adjustments being made in Paris.
One of the major technological advances that occurred during World War One was the invention and introduction of the tank, which helped turn the tide on the Western Front, but evidently, this did not happen overnight. Since the end of 1914, the German and Anglo-French armies had confronted each other across trench networks in virtual and ineffective stalemates. The war on the Western Front has been characterized by unexpected offensives, as one side tried to break through the other lines with massive artillery bombardments followed by tens of thousands of men attacking through no man’s land. However, technology advanced so much that these attacks became almost unbearably costly.
Barbed wire was difficult and time-consuming to clear. Machine guns could cut down man after man from hundreds of yards away and concrete bunkers and well-built trenches protected enemy soldiers even from the bombardment of hundreds of artillery guns. Both and French worried they would run out of soldiers from failed frontal assaults before German defenses could be breached. So, a small number of inventors and visionary engineers arrived at the same concept which was to build some kind of armored and armed vehicle that could create gaps in the barbed wire, knock out machine gun posts and bunkers and protect the infantry’s long enough for the trench networks to be captured.
After the war, the real significance of how tanks could be used on the battlefield was realized by all the combatants who took part in the war, France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. To a great extent that they all started making and designing their own. World War One also changed aviation drastically because when the world went to war in 1914 the Wright Brothers had only made the world’s first powered flight over a decade before. To say the first airplanes used in WW1 were simple is something of an understatement. Cockpits were open and instruments were basic, there were no navigational aids and pilots had to rely on whatever maps they could find. The core roles of air power during World War One were control of the air, strike, reconnaissance, and mobility which are still essential roles today.
Aviation evolved rapidly during World War One, with modern and more effective aircraft replacing the basic machines that took to the skies in 1914. Crews were not always sure where the enemy was, the danger was all the greater because the troops on the ground were not experts in aircraft recognition so just shot at anything that flew, regardless of which side it was on. Technological advances with airplanes became noticeable when airframes became more maneuverable and engines more powerful and it was soon possible to mount machine guns, whereas, in the early stages of the war, pilots would take potshots at each other with their service revolvers. The improvements also meant crews could carry more than single hand grenades in their pockets recognisable bombs and bomb racks added a strike component to the roles of air power in warfare.
The peacemakers had to deal with a very confused and turbulent set of circumstances. Especially in Eastern and Central Europe where the unprecedented and almost certainly unrepeatable, circumstance of the near-simultaneous collapse of four empires, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Ottoman. The collapse of these empires left areas bereaved of strong government and leadership but also left the area without established boundaries or identities. Britain, France, and the United States had very different conceptions and ideas about international organization and the creation of the League of Nations demonstrated this very clearly.
The League of Nations couldn’t help to resolve the problems that occurred in Europe during the 1920s all it could do was to reflect them. There were many agreements that were successfully negotiated in the 1920s, but they were painfully compromised, they were considered to be straightforward, but they could suddenly produce complications and demands for trade-offs. Historians continuously mention the problems that faced European leaders during the 1920s which were all caused both by the war and the conflicting interest of the major powers. Yet historians do not go into detail about whether a Second World War was therefore inevitable.
This is due to the fact that there was undoubtedly a German problem in Europe in the 1920s that remained unresolved but the ensuing Depression and the growth of extremism in Germany were not easy to forecast, and the coming to power of Hitler was by no means inevitable. The disastrous economic effects of the Depression plunged Europe once more into chaos and opened many of the wounds which had been slowly healing since 1919. In the years before the Depression Europe was certainly not pacified, some crises had been resolved and the prospect of war did seem to be slowly receding.
Many historians believe it was one particular battle during the First World War that changed and shaped the course of the world forever, the Battle of the Marne, because new forms of weaponry emerged such as airplanes, machine guns, and poison gas. The First World War caused the free flow of money, goods, and people to travel across the continent, and the growing prosperity that spread throughout the West during the 19th century suddenly came to a halt. In its place was a blood-soaked continent, European currencies rendered almost worthless, and bitter class and social hatred poisoned human relations.
Conceivably one of the worst consequences of the war was the rise of totalitarianism, as governments seized full control of societies and countries. It’s difficult to imagine the success of the Russian Revolution and eventually communist dictatorship, or the rise of Mussolini’s fascism, without the madness left behind after World War One. Germany’s defeat laid the groundwork for the rise of Hitler’s Nazi movement and sowed the seeds of an even more horrible conflict, which included something unparalleled, the attempted extermination of a whole race in the Holocaust.
So, in conclusion, World War One certainly influenced the radical change of specific characteristics and qualities of Europe and the world forever, whether that was political, social, cultural, or how wars and battles would be fought in the future. And I think the majority of the world believes that the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles contributed to a certain extent to the start of the Second World War because humiliated in defeat, crushed by debilitating war reparation payments, and angered by the war guilt clause, Germany came out of the war a truly weak nation. The war also brought about the League of Nations and the alleged Red Scare, which impacted hugely foreign trade and affairs between the former allies. The war also set in motion the demise of the four major empires and to some degree Empire.
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