Economic Effects
Social Effects
Politcal Effects
Economic Effects
The European economy was in shambles by the end of the war. A good part
of Europe lay thoroughly devastated and many families were forced into
poverty having lost members to casualties, both military and civilian.
However, in time, the loss of an income made little difference when currency
inflation soared to heights whereby money became virtually worthless.
As a debtor nation, Germany especially had inflation problems so advanced that
50,000 Mark bills were printed as a normal currency during the worldwide
depression during the 1930's. None of the other nations fared too well on
the European continent, either. Russia was still recovering from the
Great War and from internal revolution and much of France served as sites
for some of the more famous (and infamous) battles of the war. Italy
gained nothing from fighting on the victorious side, and general resentment
spread like wildfire, vitally tying the economic aftermath of World War I with
the political effects.
Social Effects
Socially, Europe initiated a trend moving away from Victorian morals of the pre-war period
and into the sleek luxury and wild nightlife of modern culture. Paris gained a reputation as the
city of lights, and Parisians referred to the "Roaring Twenties" as the "les annees folles"
or "the wild years." The achievement of speed and efficiency took on an enlarged importance
in the new society; everything was faster. Many cultural and scientific advancements were made
in the twenties; for instance, Albert Einstein and his work on the theory of relativity, the expatriated
Igor Stravinsky, a Russian composer living in Paris, and Sigmund Freud, the Austrian psychoanalyst.
However, in spite of the exciting developments unfolding, much of the post-war era was marked by
the cynicism and despair of the "Lost Generation," a phrase coined by Dorothy Parker, an American writer
living, like most of her literary and artistic circle, in Paris. These men and women, disillusioned
by the brutality of the Great War produced volumes of work in existentialism, holding
man's existence as a purposeless waste. Corruption was prevalent throughout
the governments in all the European countries, especially in Eastern Europe.
Kafka wrote in his last work, The Trial, of a law system whose books consisted
of dirty pictures, equivocating justice with injustice: a prophetic glimpse into
the future where the word genocide is added to the English language.
Political Effects
The League of Nations, the United Nations' predecessor, was established
on December 16, 1920, to settle disputes between countries and to avoid
the outbreak of another global war.
In the words of the charter of the League of Nations,
the members were "animated by the firm desire to ensure the maintenance
of general peace and security..."
(
http://gopher.law.cornell.edu:70/0/foreign/historical/LEAGUE-PROTOCOL.txt)
Then U.S. president Woodrow Wilson
advocated the U.S.A.'s participation in the League, but Congress
voted not to join due to general public feeling of isolationism
running through the United States.
The political effects of the Great War were characterized by general turmoil
and upheaval. In Russia, the people had overthrown the czarist monarchy
in favor of a Communist government constructed from the ideals of the
nineteenth-century German philosopher Karl Marx. The pressure of the war
on the food supply and morale of the Russian people forced the country to sign
for peace with the Central Powers and declare neutrality. Under the slogan
"Peace, Love, and Bread", Vladimir Illych Lenin rose as the country's first
"elected" leader. An attempt at democracy had been made with the creation
of the Dumas, a sort of legislative body led by Alexander Kerensky, but the czar
dissolved the organization upon entry into the war. The Communist takeover
took place in November of 1917, in the second to last year of the Great War.
At that point, the revolutionaries were split between two camps, the
Bolsheviks (majority) and the Mensheviks (minority). The Bolsheviks
believed in a massive reorganization of the government into a Communist state,
while the Mensheviks wanted to implement less drastic changes. A civil war
followed whereby the Bolsheviks seized complete power of Russia, and the
White Russians, as their opponents, usually czarist sympathizers, were called,
were persecuted well into the 1950s until Stalin's death for political reasons.
Another fanaticism swept Western Europe with the advent of Fascism. Benito
Mussolini, a natural-born demagogue, played on the emotions of his fellow
Italians and rose to power. Binding his followers together under the fasces,
a symbol of the Roman army in the days of Caesar and in the days of the
emperors, as well; therefrom derives Fascism its name. Mussolini promised to
restore Italy to the glory of the old Roman empire. He used the populace's
general dissatisfaction with the outcome of the Great War. Italy gained
nothing from fighting with the Allies against the Central Powers, especially
coveted lands in what is now present day Albania and Austria, e.g., Trieste.
Another rising demagogue, a corporal during World War I under the German flag,
observed Mussolini's style and ideas and adopted them to support his bid for
power in his war-torn fatherland. Adolf Hitler, like many Germans, was
dissatisfied with the Versailles Treaty, which, among other anti-war
provisions, forbade any militarization by Germany in the Rhineland.
Hitler began his crusade with a small group who called themselves the
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (National-Socialist German
Worker's Party), or the Nazis for short, and in the early 1930's tried to
seize control of the local government of Munich in the infamous Beer Hall
Putsch (Revolt). He held a colonel of the German army a hostage at gunpoint,
but was subsequently arrested and incarcerated in his efforts to escape once
his plan failed. This did not deter Hitler; he bided his time in jail while
the country around him, ailing from the worldwide depression and incredible
inflation of the currency, set the stage for his triumphant return as the
"savior" of his people.