Aftermath of World War I
This article, the Aftermath of World War I, continues from the main World War I article due to the length of the text.Fighting in World War I ended when an armistice took effect at 1100 hours on November 11, 1918.
Throughout the armistice the Allies maintained the naval blockade of Germany begun during the war. This blockade is estimated to have caused the death of 800,000 German civilians from malnutrition during the final two years of the war. The continuation of the blockade after the fighting ended, as Leckie wrote in Delivered From Evil, would "torment the Germans... driving them with the fury of despair into the arms of the devil". Some historians have since argued the harsh post-war treatment was one of the primary causes of World War II, others have advocated the Allies should have been even harder on Germany.
Churchill referred to the blockade during his March 3, 1919, speech to the British House of Commons: "We are holding all our means of coercion in full operation... we are enforcing the blockade with vigour... Germany is very near starvation. The evidence I have received... shows... the great danger of a collapse of the entire structure of German social and national life, under the pressure of hunger and malnutrition."
The blockade was not lifted until June of 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was signed by most of the combatant nations.
After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919 officially ended the war. Included in the 440 articles of the treaty were the demands Germany officially accept responsibility for starting the war, and pay heavy economic reparations. The treaty also included a clause to create the League of Nations. The US Senate never ratified this treaty and the US did not join the League, despite President Wilson's active campaigning in support of the League. The United States negotiated a separate peace with Germany, finalized in August 1921.
A separate but related event was the great influenza pandemic. A virulent new strain of the flu, originating in the United States but misleadingly known as "Spanish Flu", was accidentally carried to Europe by infected American forces personnel. The disease spread rapidly through both the continental U.S. and Europe, eventually reaching around the globe. The exact number of deaths is unknown but over 20 million people are estimated to have died from the flu worldwide.
As a result of the Bolsheviks' failure to cede territory, German and Austrian forces defeated the Russian armies, and the new communist government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. In that treaty, Russia renounced all claims to Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland (specifically, the formerly Russian-controlled Congress Poland of 1815) and Ukraine, and it was left to Germany and Austria-Hungary "to determine the future status of these territories in agreement with their population."
Later on, Lenin government renounced also the Partition of Poland treaty, making it possible for Poland to claim its 1772 borders.
With the war ended, under the Treaty of Versailles, nearly 15 percent of the land area of the German Empire was ceded at Allied insistence to various countries. The largest confiscated part of Germany was restored to Poland, that claimed most areas that had been part of Poland before partitions 1772-1795. Those provinces were in 1871 incorporated into Germany; the part of it was sometimes referred as the "Polish Corridor" because of its position between East Prussia and the rest of Germany. Britain and France occupied the vast majority of former German and Ottoman colonies as "League of Nations mandates".
While some found the peace terms harsh, they were in fact more lenient then historical precedent would suggest, and far more lenient then the terms imposed on France by Prussia in 1871 (See Franco-Prussian War). The Allies made an effort to fairly apply the Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson, for example opposing what they saw as excessive Polish demands in eastern Germany. It should be noted that German victory plans were far less benign, including among other things the total annexation of Belgium. An example of German plans can be found in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Despite the perceived humiliations of the peace (or perhaps because of it), Germany honoured its war heroes and commemorated its victories, notably with the construction in 1927 of a massive monument at Tannenberg to their victory there over the Russians. German militarists soon invented theories about the revolutions at home that they claimed prevented German victory in the Great War. Many Germans came to believe that they could have won the war but for the treachery of politicians on the homefront. It took World War II to finally convince them otherwise.
Despite having been in favor of Germany paying reparations, the USA ended up lending funds to Germany for economic reconstruction — much of which was actually used to pay reparations instead. Germany did make other reparations in the form of goods and raw materials; however the overall effect of reparations was to contribute to a economic recession not only in Germany, but also in other countries where German exports depressed local market prices.
The countries of Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia gained their independence.
Proclaimed by Germans and Austrians on the area of Congress Kingdom in 1916, the Kingdom of Poland - the part of Mitteleuropa plan, was replaced by Second Polish Republic in 1918. Under the dynamic leadership of temporary head of state Jozef Pilsudski, it united the former Polish provinces of Austria and Prussia. Pilsudski also wanted to help Belorussia and Ukraine to become nations, however the plan failed and both countries became separate Soviet republics.
Romania, initially formed from the union of Vallachia and Moldova retrieved the Eastern part of Moldowa from Russia.
Armenia, Georgia and Azherbeijan states were established in Caucasus region. In 1922 all these countries were invaded by Soviets and proclaimed Soviet Republics. Similar events happened in Central Asia.
The new republics of Austria and Hungary were established, disavowing any continuity with the empire and exiling the Habsburg family in perpetuity. Bohemia, Moravia, Czech Silesia, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia formed the new Czechoslovakia. Galicia was transferred to Poland and South Tyrol and Trieste went to Italy. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Vojvodina were joined with Serbia and Montenegro to form the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia. Transylvania became part of Romania. These changes were recognised in, but not caused by, the Treaty of Versailles.
Because of the intermixed population and partly because of the interests of great powers, the new borders did not always follow ethnic divisions. The new states of eastern Europe nearly all had large national minorities. Hundreds of thousands of Germans continued to live in the newly created countries. A quarter of ethnic Hungarians found themselves living outside of Hungary.
France and the Britain got most of the Middle East, and the British were given the Mandate of Palestine under the League of Nations.
Italy and Greece were given much of Anatolia, however Turkish resistance forced out the Greeks while the Italians were unable to establish themselves. The independent state of Armenia was created in eastern Turkey, however the Red Army invaded in 1920 and the state was annexed.
An autonomous Kurdish area was also created, but attempts to become independent in the 1920s were suppressed by the Turks.
After Turkish resistance led by Atatürk had conquered the Greek, Italian, Armenian, and Kurdish areas (Turkish War of Independence), a new treaty was signed, the Treaty of Lausanne, which formally ended all hostilities and led to the creation of the modern Turkish republic.
Less concrete changes include the growing assertiveness of Commonwealth nations. Battles such as Gallipoli for Australia and New Zealand, and Vimy Ridge for Canada led to increased national pride and a greater reluctance to remain subordinate to Britain, leading to the growth of diplomatic autonomy in the 1920s.
However the generalissimo of the Allied forces, Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, had demanded that for the future protection of France the Rhine river should now form the border between France and Germany. Based on history, he was convinced that Germany would again become a threat, and on hearing the terms of the Treaty of Versailles had left Germany substantially intact, he observed with great accuracy that "This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years."
Also extremely important in the War was the participation of French colonial troops from Indochina, North Africa, and Madagascar without whom France might well have fallen. When these soldiers returned to their homelands and continued to be treated as second class citizens, many became the nucleus of pro-independence groups.
For more details on the subject, consult these histories:
(list of histories here)
The blockade of Germany
The Treaty of Versailles
Influenza pandemic
Geopolitical and Economic Consequences
Revolutions
Perhaps the single most important event precipitated by the privations of the war was the Russian Revolution. Socialist and explicitly Communist uprisings also occurred in many other European countries from 1917 onwards, notably in Germany and Hungary. Germany
With Imperial Germany heading for defeat, on October 28, 1918, the German constitution was finally amended to make the Reich a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy. Civil unrest broke out the following day, later giving way to city and provincial uprisings and revolution attempts led by elements of the opposition Social Democratic Party and communist groups. In November Kaiser Wilhelm II was driven into exile. A new constitution was eventually signed into law on August 11, 1919, marking the start of the Weimar Republic under its first President.Russia
During the Soviet Revolution and Civil wars, many non-Russian nations gained brief or longer lasting independence.Austro-Hungarian Empire
With the war having turned decisively against the Central Powers, the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire lost faith in it, and even before the armistice in November radical nationalism had already lead to several declarations of independence in September and October 1918. With victory, the allied powers also decided to break up the republic, in accordance with Woodrow Wilson's 14 points, although rather than giving stability as had been expected, it would in practice make the region more unstable.Ottoman Empire
At the end of the war the Ottoman government collapsed completely and the Ottoman Empire was divided amongst the victorious powers in the Treaty of Sèvres.British Empire
In the United Kingdom itself, funding the War had a huge economic cost. From being the World's largest overseas investor, it became one of its biggest debtors, with interest payments forming around 40% of all government spending. Inflation more than doubled between 1914 and its peak in 1920, while the value of the Pound Sterling (consumer expenditure [1]) fell by 61.2%. Reparations in the form of free German coal depressed the local industry, precipitating the 1926 General Strike.United States
In the USA, disillusioned by the failure of the war to achieve the high ideals promised by President Woodrow Wilson, the American people chose isolationism and enjoyed several years of unbalanced prosperity until the 1929 Stock Market crash. However, American commercial interests did finance Germany's rebuilding and reparations efforts, at least until the onset of the Great Depression. The close relationships between American and German businesses became somewhat of an embarrassment as the Nazis took over Germany in the 1930's.France
For France, the end of the War seemed to finally mark to end of Prussian-German domination which had lasted since the Prussians and British had ousted Napoleon in 1814, and especially since their defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. Social trauma
The experiences of the war lead to a sort of collective national trauma afterwards for all the participating countries. The optimism of 1900 was entirely gone and those who fought in the war became what is known as "the Lost Generation" because they never fully recovered from their experiences. This was especially acute in France where a huge number of their young men were killed or injured during the conflict. For the next few years the nation became obsessive in its mourning and thousands of memorials were erected, one for each village in France.Remains of ammunition
Throughout the areas where trenches and fighting lines were located, such as the Champagne region of France, quantities of unexploded shells and other ammunition have remained, some of which remains dangerous and continues to cause injuries and occasional fatalities into the 21st century. Some are still found nowadays, for instance by farmers plowing their fields. Some of this ammunition contains chemical toxic products such as mustard gas. Cleanup of major battlefields is a continuing task with no end in sight for decades more. Squads remove, defuse or destroy hundreds of tonnes of unexploded ammunition every year in Belgium and France.Memorials and Tombs
Memorials:
Many towns in the participating countries have a war memorial dedicated to local residents who lost their lives. Those of national importance include:Tombs of the Unknown Soldier:
World War I Resources
The first major television documentary on the history of the war was the BBC's The Great War (1964), made in association with CBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Imperial War Museum. The series consists of 26 forty-minute episodes featuring extensive use of archive footage gathered from around the world and eyewitness interviews. Although some of the programme's conclusions have been disputed by historians it still makes compelling and often moving viewing.See also
External links