Impacts of the First World War

Please respond to each of the following posts, #1 & #2 (at least 100 words for each response). Each response should be substantive and add something to the discussion, rather than simply restating or agreeing or disagreeing with something the original writer has written.

Post #1:  

            The short-term consequences of World War I: starvation, disease, and economic collapse of the first order.  The re drawing of borders in Europe. The general idea that somehow creating Poland and building up Belgium would hold Germany down in the future. The splitting up of the Ottoman Empire. Giving domains of influence to European countries, providing oil and gas resources.

            President Wilson of the United States held the view that The Great War was as struggle between democracy and imperialism (autocracy). Germany, Austria- Hungary and on the peripheral the Ottoman Empire on absolute power.  He and many others also held Russia the same way. Between the Zimmerman Telegram to Mexico and the Russian Revolution in February of 1917. Wilson found his path into The Great War. Wilson believed that Allies, were trying to spread the light of democracy and capitalism to all parts of the Earth. I suspect, India Ireland, Egypt, Africa amongst many others would disagree.

            Lenin believed that capitalism lend to imperialism. Yes, wealth and the divide between the poor and the aristocrats/ Tsar in Russia was an ever-widening gap. According to Lenin, the imperialist (Britain, France, and Germany) needs to expand to maintain their trade monopiles. Only helped the wealthiest and owners, the erstwhile 1% of today.  He also believed this expansion was just delaying the inevitable of socialism. Well, he wasn’t wrong.

            Now, Wilson he had a lot of ideals, none of which applied to the Middle East or Africa. He had reluctantly given women the right to vote. And while yes Russia, Germany, Austria Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire absolute monarchs.  And most definitely needed to reform their governance.  The allies, spread their inability to see everyone as equals to all parts of the Middle East and Africa. And we live with a Treaty of Versailles, that caused more problems than it solved.

Post #2:

At the beginning of WW1, also called The War to End All Wars, the Allied and Central Powers in Europe saw their own military growth, weaponry, and ability to mobilize and defeat any other country as making them invincible. They believed the two groups of aligned powers, which ironically had been forged to help them avoid war, would empower them to defeat the foes in Europe before Christmas. This “total war” held the possibility of total annihilation of the enemy. It also was a “total war” because it incorporated the totality of the people in the countries on both the home front and the battlefront. Initially, there was strong nationalism on the home front, a term coined to highlight help for the war effort by those back in the homeland. Most industries and trades turned their attention to making items to aid in the war effort. Government control of media, news, and public opinion allowed the governments to bombard the people with propaganda and squelch any outcry over the war effort. The battlefront and the home front often crossed paths as the war raged across Europe. Over time the fact that the home front was also the battlefront in many countries led to mass civilian casualties, widespread starvation, and deterioration of the health of the civilian population. All physical, natural, and manufactured resources were turned toward war leaving the people of the nation abandoned, helpless, and hopeless. “By 1917 starving civilians on both sides no longer yearned for war but for peace” (Smith p 105). On the battlefront hundreds of thousands of soldiers were dying as the new technologies of war were implemented. Trench warfare, bombing planes, and machine guns were costing both sides many lives. Many more soldiers died than ever imagined. “(Soldiers) were engulfed in death, dismemberment, and debilitating conditions of trench warfare” (War and the Individual, Smith, p 121). The growing need for peace became evident. Whether it was voiced in Lenin’s “April Theses” touting ‘peace, land, and bread’ while sparking civil war or Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” of peace, the tone and willingness of the world’s people to participate in the war changed. The countries in Europe and the people in those countries had been proven to be less than invincible and had been decimated by The War to End All Wars.