World War I: Causes, Strategies, and Aftermath

Posted on Dec 12, 2024 in History

Main Causes of the First World War

  • The industrial development and stiff competition, which generated rivalries between countries.
  • The strong sense of nationalism that swept Europe and the economic and political rivalry that involved the great powers.
  • The process of militarization and the spiraling arms race that characterized international society during the last third of the nineteenth century, stemming from the creation of antagonistic blocs.

Form of Organization

Europe’s politicians were thinking in terms of traditional concepts of classical diplomacy. Their energies were focused, first, on establishing a balance of power in Europe itself, a balance, however, continually modified to benefit their own alliance bloc. Disputes arising over the territories of Africa and Asia had an enormous impact and transcendence within the power system.

Monarchical absolutism still reigned over the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian empires, and social tensions were already acute.

Strategies

Strategy and policy during the war:

  • Entente: France, Britain, and Russia.
  • Central Powers: Germany and Austria.
  • The initial plans of each side ended in failure.

Initial plans: Schlieffen Plan and Plan XVII (Joffre)

  • Joffre: The French plan was an offensive at any cost.
  • The German Schlieffen plan was much more rational.
  1. Annihilation of the French army to avoid two fronts.
  2. Cross Belgium, head south and then southeast; the French army would be surrounded.
  • The failure of this plan was because Joffre was able to maintain the calm of the army and attack the German right flank.
  • Moltke lost his temper, sending divisions of his right to the eastern front too early.
  • Joffre persuaded the English, French, to throw their divisions into battle, but Germany had been successful.
  • The failure of both plans was that military solutions were sought.

Consequences of the First World War

This war is different from others because of its size and scope. It affected all the major world powers and millions of people. With it began the era of total war, in which all the resources of a country were placed at the service of war. Triumph over another nation involved the surrender of the entire enemy population.

Demographic

Europe lost about 10 million people (women and children included), with the Germans and Russians taking the brunt. A cruel war causes hunger. So many dead cannot be buried, and putrefaction causes multiple diseases, epidemics, etc.

Social

Due to the sharp decline of men, women appeared in the social sphere. This led to new laws that slowly gave rights to women, including suffrage. The population no longer migrated to the city (which was badly damaged), even giving an ebb, turning people back to the field.

General Consequences

65.8 million soldiers fought, of whom more than 1 in 8 were killed, an average of 6,046 people killed every day during the four years it lasted.

As a consequence of this war, four empires fell: German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman, and three great dynasties: the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, and the Romanovs.

Politically, four authoritarian empires collapsed, which profoundly transformed the map of Europe, redesigned by the peace treaty of 1919:

  • The Empire of the Czar was transformed into Communist Russia (later the USSR).
  • The Ottoman Empire was reduced to Turkey (Anatolia and Constantinople).
  • The Austro-Hungarian Empire was dismantled, and the tiny nations of Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia were born as newly independent countries.
  • The German Empire came to an end and was replaced by the Weimar Republic, territorially and economically depleted by the payment of war reparations.

Russian Revolution

Economic Reasons

The Russian Revolution was one of the most important events in modern times. Its impact was palpable in both America and Europe. Although the Revolution did not expand communism as an immediate effect, it gave other convulsed third-world countries an example to follow. Decades later, the philosophical model/government would take renewed notoriety as Russia, converted into a fully socialist state and an economic and military superpower, faced the United States in the Cold War.

Social Causes

The social causes of the Revolution are rooted in centuries of oppression of the tsarist regime on the lower classes, as well as the excesses of Nicholas in the First World War. Approximately 85% of the Russian people were part of the peasantry, oppressed by the upper classes and the regime itself.

Political Causes

The political facet of the Russian Revolution is essentially a combination of the social and economic problems mentioned above. Since at least 1904, lower-class workers of Russia suffered a dire economic situation.

Consequences of the Russian Revolution

Upon completion of the October Revolution, there were several consequences:

  • Soviets disappeared.
  • The Communist Party was formed.
  • Socialism emerged as a new political system, based on what Marx proposed: a new economic ideology and social policy, denying private property and suggesting the same living conditions for all concerned.
  • The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was formed by Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.
  • The first president was Lenin.
  • It drove the economy and industry through five-year plans (5 years), and results were immediately noticed in the electrical industry.