World War I: Causes, Consequences, and Interwar Period
Consequences of World War I
Between 1914 and 1919, a terrible war broke out among the European powers. This war became global when the colonies first participated, and other extra-European powers like the U.S. and Japan entered. The First World War was seen by its contemporaries as the most terrible war in memory, so they called it “The Great War.” It was an enormous phenomenon that resulted in the deaths of 11 million Europeans. After 45 years of peace, this war was especially terrible because no one was prepared, either morally or strategically. The weapons used broke with all human values, and the whole war theory learned in 19th-century military academies was based on military honor and beautiful uniforms. Now arose a war based on trenches, gas masks, machine gun nests, and weapons of indiscriminate destruction. As a result, soldiers lost the old concept of honor and human dignity. The First World War changed the European mentality at all levels.
- Europe lost its primacy in the world, which passed to the U.S.
- A strong anti-war mentality emerged.
- Inventions created for military purposes, such as radar and aircraft, were adapted for civilian purposes, opening the way for future advancements.
- The concept of women transformed as they gained positions in the labor market, economic and social independence, accompanied by a fashion in dress that liberalized their bodies.
- Countries that had reached a certain industrial development, including Spain, but had remained neutral, revitalized their economies during the war years. It eventually found a global economic crisis that would have dire consequences.
Causes of World War I
During the First World War, powers clashed in two blocks: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. The Triple Entente was made up of Great Britain, France, and Russia, and the Triple Alliance consisted of Germany, Austria, and Italy. These coalitions were formed in the late 19th century, but at the beginning of the war, Italy remained neutral and secretly signed the Treaty of London, eventually entering the war with the Entente. The reasons for this were Italy’s old enmity with Austria and the fact that the Austrian Empire still claimed Italian territories. These powers did not differ ideologically, as all of them controlled a part of global hegemony, were capitalist, and formed the industrially developed countries. Thus, the main cause that led to war was the struggle for world domination, a struggle that had become particularly visible since the unification of Germany, which had upset the balance established in Utrecht and later in Vienna.
In 1870, Bismarck had sought to establish a new equilibrium model based on German dominance. To this end, he established the “Bismarckian systems,” a complex alliance of all powers with Germany, even those hostile to each other. Germany thus became the arbiter of European diplomacy and sought to keep France isolated to prevent a rematch against Germany for its defeat at Sedan. Bismarckian systems broke down when a new German Kaiser, William II, ascended the throne. William II ignored Bismarck’s complex alliances and intended to compete directly with England for industrial dominance, the colonies of Africa, and control of the sea. England had always intended to have no rival at sea and maintained a fleet double the size of the next naval power. However, Germany started to build ships and submarines, upsetting this ratio.
As for the colonies in Africa, Germany had been late to the colonial partition but blocked the British longitudinal continuous rule. Other causes are related to the crisis that arose at the end of the 19th century, which led to the retaking of mercantilist policies and generated a need to control the markets. Finally, we can mention extremist ideologies like the Communists. After the Second Industrial Revolution, rich countries had lost interest in social revolution. Russian Communists like Lenin had concluded that revolution would be possible in a country like Russia, where industrialization was beginning. But for the revolution to take place, an almost apocalyptic tragedy would be required to generate enough misery and despair. This does not mean that the Communists caused the war, because their strength was negligible, but it warned that after the war, the world would be different and could be used to build their revolution.
The period between the end of the 19th century and 1914 is called armed peace because the powers had become aware of the inevitability of war and prepared for it by accumulating weapons, while the media promoted a climate of war among the population. That feeling of inevitability made the war unstoppable.
The Crisis in Africa and the Balkans
Between the end of the 19th century and 1914, Europe had become a tinderbox, so any spark could ignite war. Two regions of conflict could start this war: Africa and the Balkans. The African crisis mainly affected France and Germany, and the Balkans affected Russia and Austria. Due to the international situation, it was vital not to lose allies because otherwise, a power could be left alone against its enemies if war broke out. Therefore, any conflict affecting a part of the alliance necessarily impacted the rest.
These crises in Africa are related to the fact that Germany wanted a presence in the Strait of Gibraltar, the most important strategic position in the world. In 1905, the Conference of Algeciras had addressed the domain of the strait, but Germany had been left out. Germany also pressured France to force the situation and see if England would leave it alone, as the traditional policy of English partnerships was always based on circumstantial and not durable alliances. However, the German attitude only served to strengthen ties with the British.
The other most serious conflicts occurred in the Balkans. The Balkans had belonged to the Turkish Empire since the 16th century, but by the 19th century, the Turkish Empire was very weak and had only managed to maintain their domains because the Europeans preferred to leave the Balkans in the hands of the weaker Turks rather than those of a stronger power. However, since the last quarter of the 19th century, the Balkan territories (such as Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria) had attained independence through complex wars. Austria and Russia saw the opportunity to extend their domains through those territories. This was the dream of both powers because it meant an exit to the Mediterranean for Austria, crowning its Danubian empire, and for Russia, hegemony over the Orthodox world. Thus, the Balkans had become a real hornet’s nest where the ambitions of the powers mixed with the enormous strategic value of this land (the passage between Europe and Asia, between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and the situation with the Suez Canal) and the religious and racial hatred that existed between the Balkan populations.
In the struggle between Austria and Russia for dominance in the Balkans, Austria was gaining ground. Russia had too many internal problems and had already shown that it was a giant with feet of clay. But the succession of Balkan crises in which Russia had always lost meant that Russia could not back down again without losing its great power status forever. The situation was further poisoned by the ambitions of Serbs who wanted to create the great nation of Yugoslavia (South Slavs). Serbia then became an enemy of Austria because many of these Yugoslav territories, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, belonged to the Austrian Empire. Meanwhile, Russia supported Serbia, as it was the spearhead against Austria, and they were joined by the Orthodox religion and Slavic race. The last of the Balkan crises led to the First World War.
In 1914, the heir to the Austrian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife made an official visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. A Bosnian anarchist killed them. Austria thought that the Serbian secret services were behind the assassination, so it sent Serbia an ultimatum: either the investigation of the assassination would be carried out by the Austrian police in Serbia, or Austria would invade. But Russia could not abandon Serbia, which was Slavic and Orthodox like her. Also, Russia had yielded too many times to Austria, and yielding again would mean losing its great power status. Russia launched another ultimatum: if Austria invaded Serbia, Russia would declare war on Austria. Thus, the First World War was launched due to bloc politics since the Western powers were determined to help their Eastern allies.
The First World War began with the great European powers facing each other in blocks: the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and the United Kingdom) and the Triple Alliance (Austria and Germany), which initially declared neutrality. Soon, other countries joined one or the other of the blocks: Turkey and Bulgaria on behalf of the Central Powers, and Romania and Portugal in favor of the Entente. Italy had a secret treaty, the Treaty of London, and at the end of the war, in 1918, it joined the Entente. Finally, the war became global as U.S. colonies and Japan participated, but the theater of war was in Europe, particularly on two fronts: one spanning thousands of miles between Switzerland and the Franco-Belgian border, and the eastern front linking the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. The distribution of the belligerents had the following strategic implications: the Central Powers had in their favor the fact that they were compacted and had mastery of the Dardanelles and the Black Sea. The Entente, by contrast, was fragmented into two incommunicado fronts but had the advantage of locking up the Central Powers in a vise and controlling the sea, which gave them an advantage, especially England, and would eventually be crucial, as the British naval blockade prevented German supplies. In the war, we distinguish different phases: the blitzkrieg, the war of position, and the war of attrition.
The Blitzkrieg
Due to the blitzkrieg, the German plan sought to avoid war on two fronts. The Germans thought the French would mobilize quickly, but their resistance would be weak. By contrast, Russia, with little industrial infrastructure, would mobilize slowly, but their resistance would be harder. Thus, the Germans planned to take advantage of the time the Russians offered, throwing all their army against France. They aimed to surprise and easily defeat the French defenses in the rear by invading Belgium. This plan required temporarily sacrificing East Prussia to the Russians, as it would take time for them to reach their position. Then, when the Germans had defeated the French, they would quickly launch against the Russians, recover East Prussia, and defeat them to fight alone on one front. But the plan ultimately failed because the German army did not want to sacrifice East Prussia, which had great historical value for the Germans, and French resistance was stiff and heroic, further reinforced by the English upon entering the war, which shattered the German plan. This war could not be a blitzkrieg; instead, a long war of attrition was now expected.
War of Position and Attrition
Between 1915 and 1917, World War I became a war of positions and attrition. The front was anchored in thousands of miles of trenches, so the war became a terrible carnage because the trench facilitated defense but prevented conquest. In fact, the great battles of World War I, the Marne and Verdun, had no other purpose than to bleed the enemy since the fronts were static. In a war like this, victory depended on the carrying capacity, and it was vital to receive supplies from abroad, while women worked in factories in place of men to produce what the front demanded.
This need for supplies was very difficult to solve for Germany due to its geographical position, as the English kept the ports closed, especially since the German navy was defeated at the Battle of Jutland at the beginning of the war. The British closed the mouth of the North Sea with a sea blockade between Scotland and Scandinavia. This situation forced the Germans to use submarines, but the submarine was a criminal weapon because it could not pick up survivors, both because there was no room on board for them and because it represented a mortal danger to emerge, as enemy ships could easily sink them. German submarines began to sink merchant ships bringing supplies to their enemies. The death of American citizens on one of these ships was the excuse for the U.S. to declare war on Germany.
1917 was a pivotal year in the development of the war. The first Russian Revolution occurred in February 1917. This revolution was bourgeois and turned Russia into a republic with a parliamentary government of the European type. The new government wanted to undertake much-needed reforms but could not implement them quickly if it wanted to do them well. The new government also refused to leave the war because standing with France and England could mean victory for Russia. But the government failed to calm the agitation, and the German secret services facilitated the entry of the Russian Bolshevik leader, Lenin. Lenin thought that now was the time for the communist revolution and promised what the government had not been able to do and the people wanted: land reform and an exit from the war.
In 1918, Communist Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Russia left the war, accepted the independence of Finland, Poland, and the Baltic Republics, and Germany gained a formidable advantage, which could have won them the war because there was no longer an eastern front and because they gained possession of Ukrainian wheat.
But the German advantage was severed when the U.S. entered the war in that same year, 1917. A technically prepared, fresh army that had not suffered from the war at home hit a depleted Germany, unbalancing the scales. The Kaiser abdicated in 1918, the German republic was proclaimed, and Germany surrendered. Germany lost the war.
Peace Treaties
Peace Treaty: The victorious powers decided the question of war with different partial treaties applied to the vanquished, but these were present only to accept the conditions. Austria signed the Treaty of Saint-Germain, Turkey the Treaty of Sèvres, Bulgaria the Treaty of Neuilly, and most importantly, Germany the Treaty of Versailles. The Turkish Empire was dismantled. Already during the war, the British spy Laurence of Arabia, considered the father of Arab national feeling, had acted in the Arab world, and his mission had been to arouse such feelings among the Arabs to break up the Turkish Empire. Turkey was reduced to its current space. After establishing the new international order, powers occupied the Anatolian peninsula itself. Mustafa Kemal, a charismatic general, became the leader of the resistance against foreigners, joined national sentiments, and defeated the powers.
He expelled the Sultan and became the president of a secular republic, taking the name of Ataturk (the father of the Turks). This transformed Turkey forever, as Islamic laws were repealed and replaced by Western ones, and the Latin alphabet was imposed. The lands of the former Turkish Empire passed to British rule, including Palestine.
During the world war, the British signed an agreement with the Zionist Jews (Jews scattered around the world who wanted to return to Israel) under which Great Britain pledged to create a state of Israel in Palestine in exchange for economic aid from Jewish leaders during the war. The British did not fulfill this promise at first but eventually did at the end of World War II.
The Austrian Empire was broken up into multiple states:
- Austria
- Czechoslovakia
- Yugoslavia, as claimed by the Serbs, binding the South Slavs
Other territories of the former empire were handed over to Poland to found present-day Poland, and Italy received the Trieste region, but the Italians were not pleased at all. It’s clear that the new formations were complex because, in Europe, there were still many intermingled ethnic groups. The border was finally established by recourse to referendums where citizens chose the nation they wanted to join. This was the case with the Galician Austrians, who were finally surrendered to Poland. In other cases, people were forced to emigrate to match their location in terms of nationality, as with the Greeks and Turks. But the most important treaty of all was that of Versailles.
At first, the powers did not intend to establish such ferocious conditions for Germany, but the French view prevailed, seeking to humiliate Germany to avenge the insult inflicted at Sedan and also because France had been the hardest hit during the war. The humiliation of Germany was justified by asserting in the treaty that Germany had been guilty of the war, something that terribly offended the German people. So, if Germany was to blame, it should pay for the destruction, and a whopping sum was imposed for reparations to be delivered in fixed annuities. All countries were ruined and in debt to each other and all with the U.S., so it was intended that the winners would be paid by Germany to get out of the wreck. Since the European balance opposed the existence of a strong Germany, it had to be destroyed. The problem was that Germany could not pay because it was also ruined and because the Treaty of Versailles took away much of its wealth: Germany had to surrender its locomotives and ships, demilitarize the left bank of the Rhine, and limit its military to civil protection. France was to be compensated by handing over the Ruhr mines for 15 years, and at the end of that time, the future of this territory would be decided in a plebiscite. Germany also suffered other territorial amputations: Alsace and Lorraine were ceded to France, other territories to Belgium, and Galicia to Poland, but the most painful thing was that East Prussia was separated from the rest of Germany to give Poland the Danzig corridor, providing it with an outlet to the sea.
The Treaty of Versailles was a failure in every sense: it did not ensure peace in Europe because it created a deep resentment among the Germans, nor did it achieve the economic recovery of the winners because the clauses of the treaty made it impossible for Germany to pay. It also hurt the chances of German democracy because the Germans accused the Weimar Republic of betraying Germany by surrendering and signing the humiliating treaty. The peace treaty also incorporated the doctrine of U.S. President Wilson, who wanted to ensure peace while respecting national realities in Europe (hence the Austrian Empire was dismembered to create national states) and ensuring freedom of trade. But the issue of nationalities in Europe was very complicated because favoring one meant harming others, and in this case, the main one affected was Germany. Wilson also believed in creating the League of Nations, the forerunner of the UN. It was intended that conflicts be resolved through international consensus, but the League of Nations failed for various reasons: it did not allow Germany to join because it was found guilty of the war, nor the Soviet Union for being communist. The U.S. did not join it, despite being an institution created under the auspices of its president. The reason was that the U.S., with a Republican Congress, bet on diplomatic isolation. Finally, the League of Nations had no army to enforce its decisions.
In conclusion, we can say that the Europe that designed the peace treaties of World War I was a ruined Europe, distrustful of its neighbors and full of hate, which only promised a future war.
The Economy in the Interwar Period
At the end of World War I, all the belligerent countries, both winners and losers, were in crisis. All had suffered heavy loss of life (millions of dead, lost generations, the disabled) and materials; works of art and infrastructure were destroyed. It was necessary to rebuild and pay pensions, but there was no money to do it. All countries were in debt to each other and with the U.S., so no one had money to pay that debt. Consequently, the U.S. now emerged as the new world power, with great industrial development. The victors felt increased hatred towards the vanquished, as the hardships were becoming insurmountable, and the joy at the end of the conflict was increasingly distant. It was in this situation that these peace treaties were made, especially that of Versailles. The idea was that Germany should pay so that the rest of Europe could be saved. But the harsh conditions imposed did not allow Germany to pay. So, Europe could not be saved by sinking Germany. On the contrary, Europe had to be saved as a whole or sink together.
The Spirit of Locarno
The spirit of Locarno: When Europe realized that the Versailles Treaty was a mistake and that it only led to the destruction of the whole world, it sought to smooth out the German terms, leading to the Treaty of Locarno. It was absolutely necessary to do so because inflation was rampant, Germany could not pay for repairs, and there had already been a threat of communist revolution in Berlin, the Spartacist revolution led by Rosa Luxemburg.
The new conditions allowed Germany to join the League of Nations in return for accepting the borders of Versailles, especially in relation to France. At the same time, the Briand-Kellogg Pact gave Germany a huge loan from the U.S., while downplaying the reparations and allowing them to be paid not in fixed annuities but according to the growth of its economy. The idea was to revive the German economy so that it could pay for repairs to Europe, and Europe could pay its debt to the U.S. The Treaty of Locarno was held in 1924. It seemed that hatred would be buried and that Europe would emerge, but the crisis of 1929 ended these hopes and solidarity among nations.
The Crisis of 1929
The Crisis of 1929: Since 1924, it seemed that the crisis would be overcome, but these hopes were dashed when, on Black Thursday, 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashed. The stock market crisis contaminated the entire U.S. economy, producing an unprecedented crisis, the Great Depression, which surprised even the Americans because they were living in a time of economic rise. Politicians had not foreseen the ruin that was coming, to the point that President Hoover had said that poverty had been banished. Following the crisis, it became globalized from the U.S. when they demanded the return of loans to Germany, so Germany could no longer afford payments to Europe. Among the causes of the crisis of 1929, we must emphasize overproduction and speculation.
Overproduction: During the war, the powers involved had not been able to maintain their industrial production. This place was occupied by large emerging countries such as Spain, the Southern Cone of Latin America, and colonies such as South Africa and Canada. They were the ones who offered industrial products to the warring powers. After the war, the European powers resumed their production without other countries backing down. The result was that the market was saturated, and stocks began to accumulate. However, companies maintained their profits artificially through stock market speculation.
Speculation: In the U.S., huge fortunes were being made based on market speculation without anything to back them up. Anyone could invest in the stock market with capital provided by banks, which did not require any security other than the shares themselves in which the capital was “invested.” Consequently, shares rose in value constantly, but people who invested with borrowed money could not risk a fall in value because they would not only lose their gains but also the initial capital. The continuous rise in values enabled the subsistence crisis to be masked because companies were handing out benefits. The crisis occurred on Black Thursday in 1929 when the New York Stock Exchange crashed uncontrollably. The stock market crash spread to finance when banks could not recover loan principals and then to industry when they stopped receiving liquidity from banks. An example of the severity of the crisis is that it affected businesses as emblematic as Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors. Unemployment, of course, became a reality.
From the USA, the crisis spread to Europe when the Americans demanded the repatriation of capital, thus cutting off the chances that Europe would recover.
Economic Consequences of the Crisis of 1929
Implications of the crisis of 29: (Economic Consequences) -> The crisis of 1929 showed that the dogmatic liberalism that had prevailed since the 19th century did not work because it created great instability, so periods of high growth were followed by others of great depression. Thus, classical liberalism or dogmatism was corrected by the Keynesian system. Keynesianism, a doctrine devised by the economist Keynes, stated that the state should intervene by correcting the imbalances between supply and demand to avoid such brutal speculative processes and ensuring a minimum degree of welfare for all citizens. Keynesian doctrines were applied in the U.S. by Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his New Deal program. This program advocated for state intervention in the construction of large public works as a method of creating jobs and subsidies to producers, especially in agriculture, to reduce production and allow prices to climb. Keynesian policies are the foundation of the new economic and social model of the state that has prevailed in the 20th century, the so-called welfare state, which does not involve socialist democracy but the rule of law, where everyone is responsible to the law, including institutions, and ensures citizens a minimum level of welfare.
Political Fallout
Political fallout: The crisis of 1929 seemed to demonstrate the failure of democracies, so many countries turned to dictatorships of the left or right. The crisis of democracy was even greater because dictatorships appropriated the term to gain legitimacy, especially in the case of communist countries, which called themselves People’s Democratic Republics. The term was justified by the fact that the Communist Party was the one directing the destiny of the people and by the fact that the entire economy and property were nationalized, in theory for the benefit of the people. But the reality was that the people, as they defined it, consisted only of the working class, and ultimately, only Communists; everyone else was to be exterminated. Communism had triumphed in the first place in Russia due to the revolution of 1917, but it threatened to spread to Eastern Europe, and indeed, in Germany, there had been a failed Marxist revolution, that of Spartacus. The fear of communism made it possible for the aristocracy and German capital to support the growth of the Nazi Party. The National Socialists had emerged in Munich (Bavaria), led by Hitler, an Austrian who had fought with Germany in World War I and had expounded his ideals in Mein Kampf. Nazism was also driven by the distrust of Germans towards democracy, as the Weimar Republic had surrendered the country and accepted the humiliating Treaty of Versailles.
Just as in Italy, there had been a rise of fascism since the 1920s. Italy was disappointed by the results of World War I; they felt that there had not been sufficient territorial compensation. This feeling of national humiliation was accompanied by an economic and social crisis and rising unemployment, which it shared with the rest of the world. Leftist forces were gaining weight, and between 1919 and 1920, Italy was rocked by a wave of strikes, urban riots, and occupations of farms and factories. Employers, the middle class, and the government saw the fascists as a tool to curb leftist extremism. The fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, a former socialist, created Italian Fascism in 1919. The fascists were also called Blackshirts for their clothing. In 1922, Mussolini attacked the government, claiming it was unable “to ensure order,” in the March on Rome of his militants. Mussolini was supported by the king, the government resigned, and the king proclaimed Mussolini Prime Minister. Until 1924, he apparently maintained democratic rule while gradually transforming the state by strengthening his authority and making Italy into a totalitarian dictatorship, defined as a third alternative to capitalism and Marxism. In Germany, as we have seen, something similar happened because Hitler did not take power until 1933 when, after winning an election, he was appointed Chancellor by the president of the republic in an attempt to stop the Communists. Just as Mussolini had done in the previous era, Hitler ended up concentrating all powers and destroying democracy through the Enabling Act. Ideologically, fascist movements are defined by radical nationalism as a result of the consciousness of a humiliated people who have been defeated or feel disappointed at not receiving enough international respect. Fascism is also anti-parliamentary and anti-liberal. It is considered a third way in front of these movements: communism, which reduces the human being to the importance attached to the class struggle, and liberalism, which breaks the nation into political parties and creates social injustice. It also upholds absolute leadership. As a result of all this, fascism sought to improve the socio-economic situation in their countries through measures taken by the state, measures that enjoyed wide popular support: they built large public works such as highways, large buildings, remediated unhealthy regions, improved railways, etc. The economy sought autarky, which was ultimately negative, and in social terms, corporatism was sought, or agreements between employers and employees, with the state acting as an arbiter between disputes. As for Nazi anti-Semitism, we must emphasize that it resulted in the persecution of the Jews. We should also note the Lateran Treaty of 1929, which ended the conflict between the Holy See and the state of Italy that had begun in 1880.