World War 1 Causes and Consequences free essay sample

Europe avoided major wars in the 100 years before World War 1 began. In the 1800s, an idea swept across the continent that helped bring about the Great War. Many historians argue that there are many causes of the first World War some of which are not disclosed to the wider population. However, the main causes of World War I, which began in central Europe in late July 1914, included many factors, such as the conflicts and hostility between the great European powers of the four decades leading up to the war. Militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism played major roles in the conflict as well. The immediate origins of the war, however, lay in the decisions taken by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis of 1914 caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by Gavrilo Princip, anirredentist Serb and member of the Serbian nationalist organization, the Black Hand. The crisis came after a long and difficult series of diplomatic clashes between the Great Powers (Italy, France, Germany, Britain, Austria-Hungary and Russia) over European and colonial issues in the decade before 1914 that had left tensions high. In turn these diplomatic clashes can be traced to changes in the balance of power in Europe since 1867. The more immediate cause for the war was tensions over territory in the Balkans. Austria-Hungary competed with Serbia and Russia for territory and influence in the region and they pulled the rest of the Great Powers into the conflict through their various alliances and treaties. According to Henig (2002), another cause of the first World War was the Franco-Prussian War. The war between France and Prussia (the future German Empire) that lasted from 1870 to 1871 ended with a humiliating defeat for France. It lost the regions of Alsace and Lorraine, and was forced to pay a huge indemnity to Prussia. The Franco-Prussian War led to creation of a powerful German Empire with a military and industrial potential to further disrupt the European balance of power on the one hand and widespread resentment and desire for revenge among the French (revanchism) on the other. Cohen (1967) asserted that some other factors that led to the first World War were the domestic political factors. Left-wing parties, especially the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) made large gains in the 1912 German election. German government at the time was still dominated by the Prussian Junkers who feared the rise of these left-wing parties. Fritz Fischer famously argued that they deliberately sought an external war to distract the population and whip up patriotic support for the government. Russia was in the midst of a large-scale military build-up and reform that they intended to complete in 1916–1917. Other authors argue that German conservatives were ambivalent about a war, worrying that losing a war would have disastrous consequences, and even a successful war might alienate the population if it were lengthy or difficult. The situation in France was quite different from that in Germany as going to war appeared to the majority of political and military leaders to be a potentially costly gamble. It is undeniable that forty years after the loss of Alsace-Lorraine a vast number of French were still angered by the territorial loss, as well as by the humiliation of being compelled to pay a large reparation to Germany in 1871. The diplomatic alienation of France orchestrated by Germany prior to World War I caused further resentment in France. Nevertheless, the leaders of France recognized Germanys strong military advantage against them, as Germany had nearly twice as much population and a better equipped army. At the same time, the episodes of the Tangier Crisis in 1905 and the Agadir Crisis in 1911 had given France a strong indication that war with Germany could be inevitable if Germany continued to oppose French colonial expansionism. Lieven (1983) stated that France was politically polarized; the left-wing socialists led by Jean Jaures pushed for peace against nationalists on the right like Paul Deroulede who called for revenge against Germany. France in 1914 had never been so prosperous and influential in Europe since 1870, nor its military so strong and confident in its leaders, emboldened by its success in North Africa and the overall pacification of its vast colonial empire. The Entente Cordiale of 1904 with Britain held firm, and was supported by mutual interests abroad and strong economic ties. Russia had fled the triple crown alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary because of disagreements with Austria-Hungary over policy in the Balkans. Russia also hoped that large French investments in its industry and infrastructures coupled with an important military partnership would prove themselves profitable and durable. According to Strachan (2004), historians believe that one of the major reasons for World War One was Imperialism. Countries such as the United Kingdom and France accumulated great wealth in the late 19th century through their control of trade in foreign resources, markets, territories, and people. Other empires, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia all hoped to do so as well in economic advantage. Their frustrated ambitions and British policies of strategic exclusion created tensions. In addition, the limits of natural resources in many European nations began to slowly alter trade balance, and make national industries seek new territories rich in natural resources. Commercial interests contributed substantially to Anglo-German rivalry during the scramble for tropical Africa. This was the scene of sharpest conflict between certain German and British commercial interests. There have been two partitions of Africa. One involved the actual imposition of political boundaries across the continent during the last quarter of the 19th century; the other, which actually commenced in the mid-19th century, consisted of the so-called business partition. In southern Africa the latter partition followed rapidly upon the discoveries of diamonds and gold in 1867 and 1886 respectively. An integral part of this second partition was the expansion in the interior of British capital interests, primarily the British South Africa Company and mining companies such as De Beers. After 1886 the Witwatersrand goldfields prompted feverish activity among European as well as British capitalists. It was soon felt that Whitehall that German commercial penetration in particular constituted a direct threat to Britains continued economic and political hegemony south of the Limpopo. Amid the expanding web of German business on the Rand, the most contentious operations were those of the German-financed N. Z. A. S. M. or Netherlands South African Railway Company, which possessed a railway monopoly in the Transvaal. Nugent (2008) stated that rivalries for not just colonies, but colonial trade and trade routes developed between the emerging economic powers and the incumbent great powers. Although still argued differently according to historical perspectives on the path to war, this rivalry was illustrated in the Berlin-Baghdad Railway, which would have given German industry access to Iraqi oil, and German trade a southern port in the Persian Gulf. A history of this railroad in the context of World War I has arrived to describe the German interests in countering the British Empire at a global level, and Turkeys interest in countering their Russian rivals at a regional level. As stated by a contemporary man on the ground at the time, Jastrow wrote, It was felt in England that if, as Napoleon is said to have remarked, Antwerp in the hands of a great continental power was a pistol leveled at the English coast, Bagdad and the Persian Gulf in the hands of Germany (or any other strong power) would be a 42-centimetre gun pointed at India. On the other side, Public opinion in Germany was feasting on visions of Cairo, Baghdad, and Tehran, and the possibility of evading the British blockade through outlets to the Indian Ocean. Britains initial strategic exclusion of others from northern access to a Persian Gulf port in the creation of Kuwait by treaty as a protected, subsidized client state showed political recognition of the importance of the issue. If outcome is revealing, by the close of the war this political recognition was re-emphasized in the military effort to capture the railway itself, recounted with perspective in a contemporary history: On the 26th Aleppo fell, and on the 28th we reached Muslimieh, that junction on the Baghdad railway on which longing eyes had been cast as the nodal point in the conflict of German and other ambitions in the East. The Treaty of Versailles explicitly removed all German ownership thereafter, which without Ottoman rule left access to Mesopotamian and Persian oil, and northern access to a southern port in British hands alone. As asserted by Smith (2007), there are also some technical and military factors that are said to have led to the First World War. Both sides believed, and publicly stated, that the war would end soon. The Kaiser told his troops that they would be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees, and one German officer said he expected to be in Paris by Sedantag, about six weeks away. Germany only stockpiled enough potassium nitrate for gunpowder for six months; without the just-developed Haber-Bosch process, Germany might have collapsed by 1916. Russian officers similarly expected to be in Berlin in six weeks, and those who suggested that the war would last for six months were considered pessimists. Von Moltke and his French counterpart Joseph Joffre were among the few who expected a long war, but neither adjusted his nations military plans accordingly. The new British Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener was the only leading official on either side to both expect a long war (three years or longer, he told an amazed colleague) and act accordingly, immediately building an army of millions of soldiers who would fight for years. Some authors such as Niall Ferguson argue that the belief in a swift war has been greatly exaggerated since the war. He argues that the military planners, especially in Germany, were aware of the potential for a long war, as shown by the Willy-Nicky telegraphic correspondence between the emperors of Russia and Germany. He also argues that most informed people considered a swift war unlikely. However, it was in the belligerent governments interests to convince their populaces, through skillful propaganda, that the war would be brief. Such a message encouraged men to join the offensive, made the war seem less serious, and promoted general high spirits. As stated by Gillette (2006), British security issues is another military factor that might have lead to World War 1. In explaining why neutral Britain went to war with Germany, Paul Kennedy, in The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914, claimed that it was critical for war that Germany become economically more powerful than Britain, but he downplayed the disputes over economic trade imperialism, the Baghdad Railway, confrontations in Eastern Europe, high-charged political rhetoric and domestic pressure-groups. Germanys reliance time and again on sheer power, while Britain increasingly appealed to moral sensibilities, played a role, especially in seeing the invasion of Belgium as a necessary military tactic or a profound moral crime. The German invasion of Belgium was not important because the British decision had already been made and the British were more concerned with the fate of France. Kennedy argues that by far the main reason was Londons fear that a repeat of 1870—when Prussia and the German states smashed France would mean Germany, with a powerful army and navy, would control the English Channel, and northwest France. British policy makers insisted that would be a catastrophe for British security. With all the happenings of the First World War, there were both devastating and positive consequences. The aftermath of World War I saw drastic political, cultural, and social change across Europe, Asia, Africa, and even in areas outside those that were directly involved. Four empires collapsed due to the war, old countries were abolished, new ones were formed, boundaries were redrawn, international organizations were established, and many new and old ideologies took a firm hold in peoples minds. World War One left many families in hurt and turmoil due to the loss of their family members. Women and children were left to fend solely for themselves. The death toll for the armed forces in World War I was appalling. Around nine million soldiers were killed, which was about 15 per cent of all combatants. In addition, millions more were permanently disabled by the war; of British war veterans, for example, 41,000 lost a limb in the fighting. In Britain, it became common to talk of a lost generation. Such was a particularly appropriate phrase for the situation in France, where 20 per cent of those between the ages of 20 and 40 in 1914 were killed. Although civilians were not killed on the scale that they would be in World War II, populations had nevertheless become targets of war. In addition to the civilians killed directly in the war, millions more died from famine and disease at the end of the war and at least a further 20 million died worldwide in the Spanish flu epidemic in the winter of 1918–19. There were also economic consequences of World War 1. The economic impact of war on Europe was devastating. The war cost Britain alone more than ? 34 billion. All powers had financed the war by borrowing money. By 1918, the USA had lent $2,000 million to Britain and France; U-boats had also sunk 40 per cent of British merchant shipping. Throughout the 1920s, Britain and France spent between one-third and one-half of their total public expenditure on debt charges and repayments. Britain never regained its pre-war international financial predominance, and lost several overseas markets. The physical effects of the war also had an impact on the economic situation of Europe. Wherever fighting had taken place, land, and industry had been destroyed. France suffered particularly badly, with farm land (2 million hectares), factories and railway lines along the Western Front totally ruined. Belgium, Poland, Italy, and Serbia were also badly affected. Roads and railway lines needed to be reconstructed, hospitals and houses had to be rebuilt and arable land made productive again by the removal of unexploded shells. Consequently, there was a dramatic decline in manufacturing output. Combined with the loss of trade and foreign investments, it is clear that Europe faced an acute economic crisis in 1919. According to Glaser (1998), another consequence of the First World War was treaty of Versailles. After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919, between Germany on the one side and France, Italy, Britain and other minor allied powers on the other, officially ended war between those countries. Other treaties ended the belligerent relationships of the United States and the other Central Powers. Included in the 440 articles of the Treaty of Versailles were the demands that Germany officially accept responsibility for starting the war and pay economic reparations. This treaty drastically limited the German military machine: German troops were reduced to 100,000 and the country was prevented from possessing major military armaments such as tanks, warships and submarines. Conner (2009) stated that World War One also had a medical consequence which was a huge breakout in Influenza. Historians continue to argue about the impact the 1918 flu pandemic had on the outcome of the war. It has been posited that the Central Powers may have been exposed to the viral wave before the Allies. The resulting casualties having greater effect, having been incurred during the war, as opposed to the allies who suffered the brunt of the pandemic after the Armistice. When the extent of the epidemic was realized, the respective censorship programs of the Allies and Central Powers limited the publics knowledge regarding the true extent of the disease. Because Spain was neutral, their media was free to report on the Flu, giving the impression that it began there. This misunderstanding led to contemporary reports naming it the Spanish flu. Investigative work by a British team led by virologist John Oxford of St Bartholomews Hospital and the Royal London Hospital, identified a major troop staging and hospital camp in Etaples, France as almost certainly being the center of the 1918 flu pandemic. A significant precursor virus was harbored in birds, and mutated to pigs that were kept near the front. The exact number of deaths is unknown but about 50 million people are estimated to have died from the influenza outbreak worldwide. In 2005, a study found that, The 1918 virus strain developed in birds and was similar to the bird flu that today has spurred fears of another worldwide pandemic, yet proved to be a normal treatable virus that did not produce a heavy impact on the worlds health. † Fromkin (1989) said that an economic and geopolitical consequence of the first World War was the dissolution of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and (a little earlier) Ottoman empires created a large number of new small states in eastern Europe. Internally these new states tended to have substantial ethnic minorities, which wished to unite with neighbouring states where their ethnicity dominated. For example Czechoslovakia had Germans, Poles, Ruthenians and Ukrainians,Slovaks and Hungarians. The League of Nations sponsored various Minority Treaties in an attempt to deal with the problem, but with the decline of the League in the 1930s, these treaties became increasingly unenforceable. One consequence of the massive redrawing of borders and the political changes in the aftermath of World War I was the large number of European refugees. These and the refugees of the Russian Civil War led to the creation of the Nansen passport. Ethnic minorities made the location of the frontiers generally unstable. Where the frontiers have remained unchanged, since 1918, there has often been the expulsion of an ethnic group, such as the Sudeten Germans. Economic and military cooperation amongst these small states was minimal, ensuring that the defeated powers of Germany and the Soviet Union retained a latent capacity to dominate the region. In the immediate aftermath of the war, defeat drove cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union but ultimately these two powers would compete to dominate eastern Europe. Perhaps the single most important event precipitated by the privations of World War I was the Russian Revolution of 1917. A socialist and often explicitly Communist revolutionary waveoccurred in many other European countries from 1917 onwards, notably in Germany and Hungary. Due to the Russian Provisional Governments failure to cede territory, German and Austrian forces defeated the Russian armies; the new communist government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. In that treaty, Russia renounced all claims to Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the territory of Congress Poland and it was left to Germany and Austria-Hungary to determine the future status of these territories in agreement with their population. Later on, Vladimir Lenins government also renounced the Partition of Poland treaty, making it possible for Poland to claim its 1772 borders. However, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was rendered obsolete when Germany was defeated later in 1918, leaving the status of much of Eastern Europe in an uncertain position.