Chapter 8.1 Recovering from World War I
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe World War I’s immediate aftermath
- List the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles
- Describe how economic issues in Germany helped lead to the rise of the National Socialists
- Analyze World War I’s effects on the economies of Europe and the United States
- Describe international efforts to prevent future global wars
Two major and competing forces took shape following World War I. One was disillusionment as the sheer horror of the war was finally understood. The other was the tantalizing idea that society had learned from the war and could build a better tomorrow, freed from the senselessness of war, through new institutions such as the League of Nations. Or, in the case of Russia, a new society would be based on more equitable principles. The reality turned out to be far from the ideal.
The Aftermath
As World War I ended in 1918, the world moved to cope with the destruction it had wrought. Military casualties stood between nine and ten million, civilian deaths at approximately ten million, and the number of wounded above twenty-one million. Veterans had both physical and emotional wounds; some needed physical therapy, prosthetics, or vocational training for their postwar lives. The civilian toll meant families had lost not only sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers but daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers. The war also brought into question the notions of superiority that had permeated Western civilization. People wondered whether the West was declining and could no longer consider itself a moral leader in the world.
In Belgium and eastern France, the physical destruction was immense. Thousands of acres, often of prime farmland, were barren after years of artillery bombardment. Towns such as Ypres in Belgium had been shelled so heavily that many buildings had collapsed (Figure 8.3). People had to filter back to the farmlands and cities they had fled and begin to rebuild their lives. Some towns, such as Thiepval, France, had been so thoroughly destroyed that they were never rebuilt.
In the defeated countries of Germany and Austria-Hungary, economies were in free fall. Millions of men returned home to find stubborn economic instability and labor markets in transition, with factories ill-equipped to return to peacetime production. For men from Europe’s colonies, it took even longer to return home because European troops were demobilized first. Even the victorious nations faced economic problems. Britain and France had borrowed billions to finance the war and had sizable debts to repay, many to the United States. Industries across the world had to reconvert their machinery and processes to begin producing consumer items again, causing continued unemployment.
The world was still dealing with the flu pandemic of 1918–1920, closing schools and theaters and canceling public activities. People were encouraged to wear masks and limit