Aftermath: End of a World

Aftermath:End of a World ~16:20

For the victors who celebrated in the streets of cities across the globe the war’s end didn’t seem like the end of the world. Philadelphia (11/11/1918) Sydney, Australia (11/11/1918) In many ways it was… Paris (11/11/1918)

German soldiers returned from the war to a heroes’ welcome in Berlin. The mood in Germany was a mixed one of both relief about the end of the war and anxiousness about the future. On the one hand, German forces, while clearly defeated, had not been driven back onto German soil at the time the Armistice was signed, giving the public the false impression that Germany had been betrayed into surrendering.

However, Germany was clearly hurting, especially from the British blockade that would continue until the final peace treaty was signedover seven months later. Until then Germany’s people starved, surviving on the charity of soup kitchens and rummaging through piles of rubbish looking for cast off potato peels. Germans would remember this time as the Potato Winter.

The French victory parade celebrating the end of World War I. In order to erase the shame of the Franco-Prussian War, the French followed the same route the Germans had in 1871 after their victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War.

Taking the body of the French Unknown Soldier to his final resting place (11/11/1919). As many as half those killed in the war either could not be recovered or identified. Britain, the United States and other nations followed France’s example of creating tombs honoring their unknown dead.

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) World War I cost 10 million lives Vailloton, Cemetery at Chalons sur Marne

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) One of eight British soldiers were killed…

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) One of eight British soldiers were killed…as were one of six French & German soldiers….

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) One of every four Turkish & Bulgarian soldiers died…

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) One of every four Turkish & Bulgarian soldiers died… as did 37% of all Serbian soldiers

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) In addition, another 37,500,000 were wounded….

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) ,,,,leading to what was referred to as a “Lost generation of leaders”

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) Half of all soldiers in combat were wounded, some more than once.

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) Up to 4% soldiers’ faces were permanently disfigured

Unexploded shells such as these remained a deadly threat to farmers and tourists for years after the war.

Another leftover from the war was abandoned equipment, such as tanks, that some French peasants managed to revive and use as tractors for pulling their plows.

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) Financially, the war cost $300,000,000,000 (not adjusted for inflation)…

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) Financially, the war cost $300,000,000,000 (not adjusted for inflation)… which would lead to more economic instability…

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) Financially, the war cost $300,000,000,000 (not adjusted for inflation)… which would lead to more economic instability… which would lead to the Great Depression.

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) During the war, Italy spent twice its combined budgets for the period 1865-1913, creating volatile conditions that would lead to Mussolini and the Fascists seizing power in 1923.

The cloth hall of Ypres (the scene of three major battles in World War I) which was built (the first time) in the 1100s and rebuilt after the war. 1919 1962 1912

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) There was also the social and psychological cost, as millions of men didn’t return home or returned totally changed by war. Millions of mothers were suddenly single parents who had to both raise their children and provide for them in a world that gave women few job opportunities. The men who did return, such as the one pictured here, often brought with them severe psychological trauma (AKA shell-shock) that generated violent behavior and at times even suicide. What is especially remarkable is that so many women managed to nurse their men back to health.

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) On a broader cultural level, as seen in art, literature, and movies, there was a corresponding psychological shock against the horrors of modern warfare.

THE COST OF WAR (1914-18) Many people even questioned the validity of Western civilization when it could do such horrible things to itself. War (1929-32) by Otto Dix (1891-1969)

Otto Dix, Flanders (1934-6). His last painting with its strong anti-war message was strongly disapproved of by the new Nazi regime then ruling Germany

Leichengegangnisby George Grosz, expressed much of the shock and self-doubt people felt about what our civilization is capable of after the horrible experiences World War I.

*The Big Three who dominated the negotiations at Versailles in 1919: (l. to r.) David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow Wilson of the United States. Wilson’s participation marked the emergence of the United States as a world power.*His Fourteen Points, which he hoped would bring a fair solution for all involved, proved a dismal failure in the poisoned and bitter atmosphere of negotiations. As Lloyd George said, God had only Ten Commandments, and here came Wilson with his fourteen. Even his League of Nations, the first attempt at a global organization to preserve world peace, was crippled by the inability of nation states to give up any of their sovereignty.

Spanish influenza, the last major worldwide pandemic, took place at this time. It killed between 50,000,000 and 100,000,000 people, (3-6% of the globe’s population), making it the deadliest outbreak of disease in history. It killed more people in India alone than World War I did overall and was especially deadly among young adults, because it triggered an overreaction of the body’s immune system, which is what ravaged its victims. Tent city erected to deal with flu patients during the worldwide flu pandemic of 1919

Although Wilson himself survived a bout of influenza, it may have affected the part of the brain concerned with negotiating, making him agree to deals he thought were victories for his principles, when in fact they were defeats. Similarly, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (right) was deathly ill at the Yalta Conference toward the end of World War II, seriously impairing his ability to negotiate effectively and contain Stalin’s expansion into Eastern Europe.

Negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles began on the anniversary of the Declaration of the Second Reich and unification of Germany in 1871 in this very same room, just another dig by the French at the Germans.

“Like a riot in a parrot house” is how a diplomat described the negotiations at Versailles. I’ve never seen or heard such a thing, and I don’t think I want to. The point was that the negotiations were extremely bad tempered as each diplomat felt he had to take enough land & money to justify the horrors of the last four years to his people back home. Before it was over, the Italians would leave because Yugoslavia got the part of the Dalmatian coast that they wanted; the Chinese would leave because their lands that Germany had taken were given to Japan instead of them; and the Japanese would leave angry because the victorious European allies refused to put a racial equality clause in the treaty guaranteeing equal treatment of all races.

After months of wrangling, a treaty was finally hammered out that satisfied no one.The Treaty of Versailles (1919) punished Germany materially and politically. Germany lost 13.1% of its pre-war territory, including Alsace, Lorraine, and the so-called Polish Corridor, a strip of land separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany. In 1939 this would be the issue over which Hitler would invade Poland and start World War II.

Germany also lost most of its merchant marine, one-quarter of its fishing fleet and a good part of its railroad rolling stock. Each year it had to build 200,000 tons of shipping for the victorious allies and also make deliveries of other commodities such as coal and telephone poles. Left: A French poilou guards a shipment of German coke bound for France as part of Germany’s reparations for World War I.

Its army was limited to 100,000 men and its navy to twelve ships. Germany could have no submarines, air force, heavy artillery, tanks, or even a professional general staff. Below: German planes stacked and waiting to be destroyed

The German battleship, Bayern sinks off Scapa Flow, Scotland (6/21/1919). Rather than turn their navy over to the allies, German sailors scuttled their own fleet as one final act of defiance to the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

Still, this hardly seemed enough to justify the war. Slogans like “the war to end all wars” and “the war to make the world safe for democracy” rang hollow in light of the suffering. Demonizing the Germans as monsters wasn’t enough to make it seem right either.

Neither did the war guilt clause (Article 231) where Germany was forced to take complete responsibility for the war.

Announcement of the final price tag of the reparations Germany had to pay for its role in the war, $32 billion, was delayed until 1923, probably to give the wounds of war time to heal. After all, a war widow could divide that $32 billion by the number of dead, around 10 million, and get the dollar and cents value of her husband ($3,200). Whatever that figure might be, it would seem ludicrous.

Military aides view the handing over of the allies’ demands at Versailles (5/7/1919). Germany was originally to get a chance to negotiate the demands, but the allies were so frustrated & tired from all their own bickering that they made this the final draft with the ultimatum to sign or face a renewal of war.

William Orpen, Signing of the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors on June 28, 1919, the fifth anniversary of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination which had started the war.

The German people were furious but, for now, helpless to do anything but sign the Treaty of Versailles . However, it remained fixed in their minds as an injustice that must be avenged, opening the way for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Left: Cartoon in the German magazine Simplicissimus portraying the allies as a five-headed monster eating out the entrails of Germany

German cartoon of God pointing an accusing finger at Wilson and asking where are his 14 Points. Wilson smugly replies “You gave us 10 Commandments and we didn’t keep them either.”

American cartoons on the Treaty of Versailles & League of Nations

Humanity points an accusing finger at the US Senate for refusing to ratify the Treaty of Versailles & join the League of Nations, thus weakening the prospects for further peace.

Commentaries by George Grosz (left) and Otto Dix, protesting the huge gap between rich war profiteers and poor veterans in Germany after the war.

U.S. dominance of world trade in early 1900s Economically, World War I had been horribly expensive, both in its immediate cost to fight and its long-range effects on Europe's industries. In addition to selling colonial assets (such as mines and plantations), the allies had resorted to borrowing heavily, especially from the United States. By the war's end, European countries owed the United States $7 billion. By 1922, it would be $11.6 billion. Also, largely thanks to World War I, the center of world finance was shifting from London to New York City. However, the economic effects of the war went far beyond borrowing money. U.S. Raw materials $$$$$$$ Manufactured goods $$$$$$ LOAN$$$ $$$$$$$$$

For four years, European countries had been producing guns and ammunition instead of consumer goods. This had allowed other countries, the United States in particular, to take over many consumer markets from the Europeans who were preoccupied with the war. Not surprisingly, the Americans did not willingly give up these markets to the Europeans after the war. Because of this and the huge war debts, the United States became the premier economic power of the world, creating a heavy dependency on the American economy, producing 80% of the world’s new technologies, such as these cars on Henry Ford’s assembly line in Detroit.

This, combined with German instability, made the world economy vulnerable to a worldwide depression when the American economy crashed in the 1930's. And that would help lead to the rise of the Nazis and World War II.

The break-ups of the Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires created problems in two ways. In accordance with the principle of national self-determination, the Hapsburg Empire (light green) was broken up into four new democratic nation states: Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, while Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland were formed from parts of the old Czarist empire. In addition there were still the various Balkan states whose squabbles had triggered World War I in the first place.

Aftermath: End of a World