The Super Summary of World History (51 page)

The
Power
of
Change

Before 1900, big change was rather unusual. People lived out their lives often never leaving the small villages in which they were born. After 1900 in the West change came so fast people struggled to adjust. From 1900 to 1970, one lifetime, history saw WWI, WWII, Korea, and part of the Vietnam War. A person would have seen soldiers marching off to war in 1914 with bolt-action rifles and horse drawn carts. By 1970, that same person would have seen men marching off to war with automatic rifles, tanks, trucks, jet aircraft, and huge cargo aircraft to carry them across the seas. In 1914, our viewer of history could have seen a small bi-wing airplane putting along overhead, but by 1969, that same person could have witnessed, as it happened, men walking on the moon. In 1900, no radio, but by 1970, TV broadcast from around the world and even from the surface of the moon. Of course, outside of Europe and the United States of America many people did not experience any change in their way of life. Worldviews also changed, and that was the hardest fact of all to adjust to. What was accepted as absolute truth in 1900 was openly questioned by 1960.

This pace of change influenced the early 1900s, as people thought change was endless. The world was advancing, they thought, and people should welcome change. World War I smashed those illusions. Still, the idea that changes represent progress hung on and it is still with us today. Not as much as in 1900, but to this day in the year 2010, people think the world can get better, and change is thought to be positive for the most part.

The concept that change is expected and is good goes a long way toward explaining how the West accelerated ahead of the rest of the world and stayed there so long. Many regions of the world view change with skepticism, impeding progress. The acceptance of change is a powerful agency forming one of the many foundations for vigorous progress by the Western world.

Let Us Learn

Citizens of this new world of the 1900s had to adapt to its manifest traits of turmoil, uncertainty, exploding knowledge, and apparent meaninglessness. But
is
our
world
meaningless
?
Are
we,
as
individuals,
meaningless
? Recall that the universe is marvelously well ordered, as is life here on earth. Is it possible that such a harmony forms the underpinnings of chaos? If the universe is well ordered, and if life on earth is exactly harmonized, can it also be meaningless? From the moment of the Big Bang, the universe seems to have been designed for life by the very nature of the universal elements, and the exact timing of events (inflation). Can such fine tuning set the foundations of chaos for the individual life? Since
everything
in the universe is ordered to an exactness beyond imagination, can the individual exist for nothing? Isn’t it possible that every life has an precise place in the universal order? The symphony writers thought so. Each note was supremely important. Isn’t it possible that you have that same significance in the symphony of the universe?

 
Chapter 13

The First World War 1914 to 1918

Figure 48 Europe 1914

This is THE war, in that it set the foundations of the twentieth century; a century of war, murder, and devastation beyond anything seen before. If we take the position, as many do, the First World War caused the Second World War then the First World War is the most important conflict in history. However one desires to look at it, World War I changed everything. We must recognize that World War I set the foundations for the 20
th
and
the 21
st
centuries, and shattered the idealism of the 19
th
Century. It was a momentous turning point.

In theory, if WWI never occurred, World War II, the Depression, the Cold War, communism, and a host of other ills evaporate from history’s pages. Prior to WWI, the world experienced a long peace in the sense that no general war had broken out between great powers since the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1913 a person traveling around the world using the English pound as currency and speaking the English language encountered very few problems. European empires controlled colonies the world over generally uniting the world in a Western European ideology. A monetary system based on precious metals kept the world markets relatively stable, and international trade grew steadily. The world experienced peace and prosperity across the globe. Europe ruled most of the world creating a trading bonanza because business found predictable governmental systems, many uniform laws, safe trade routes, stable currencies, and access to huge markets. Rising wages with falling prices enabled consumer purchasing. Scientific and industrial advances transpired consistently, and people of the era came to suppose the future held wonderful promise.

World War I smashed the illusion of a good and predictable world. WWI was brutal beyond all explanation. Artillery, machine guns, bombs, and repeating rifles destroyed life in mass. Men marched into hopeless battles facing certain failure and all but certain death. It was war outside comprehension and beyond reason. All sides fought claiming virtue and honor belonged to them alone.
Propaganda
played a large role by deifying one government while demonizing the opposition, and it encouraged the opposing populations to endure monstrous hardships. Propaganda also played into the unrealistic and harsh
war
aims
adopted by the two warring sides and guaranteed prolonging the war to the bitter end.

Casualties

“The war to end all wars,” referring to World War I, began in August 1914 and ended in November 1918. The Allies (England, France, Russia, and later Italy, and even later joined by the United States)—also known as the
Triple
Entente
),
[166]
and the
Central
Powers
(Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey)
[167]
together lost approximately
8
million
dead and over 20 million wounded. On the Western Front alone, casualties on both sides
averaged
2,250
dead
and approximately 5,000 wounded every day. In England, three men were killed in WWI for every one man killed in WWII. In 1921 England there were 55 women to every 45 men in the most marriageable age group of twenty to thirty-nine years of age. During the
first
two
months
of the Great War (August and September 1914), France lost about
360,000
men, Germany
241,000
, England
30,000
, Austria-Hungary
230,000
, Serbia
170,000
, and Russia about
50,000
. In spite of these losses early in the war, the most deadly year was 1918. The British lost more men in 1918 than they lost in all of WW II.

After the war, a great influenza epidemic hit the world causing
50
to
100
million
deaths worldwide. Most researchers think men coming home from the Western Front spread the influenza. Coupled with WWI, this was a human disaster of incalculable proportions. Pile this on top of WWII casualties and you know why the 20
th
Century earned its name as the century of slaughter.

Financial
Costs

All the warring nations spent vast sums financing the conflict. The major European warring nations alone spent over
200
trillion
dollars
, and after the war large repatriations were required from Germany to pay back the winning sides’ expenses to the tune of
thirty-two
billion
dollars
. Few recognized it at the time, but these war expenses shattered the world economic system. World War I strained the monetary system beyond its capacity. The world trade system began to collapse after the war, then tariffs were passed by the major economic powers to protect their internal markets causing retaliatory tariffs by other nations. International trade dried up as a direct result of these tariffs. After the stock market crash in 1929, US banks began calling war loans to Europe rather than extending them. The world economic system imploded, and an unremitting depression swept the world. Because of governments’ mismanagement after the crisis hit, the Great Depression lingered on unlike past depressions. This depression began in 1929 and lasted past the start of World War II in 1939 until 1941 or later.
[168]

Other
Costs

World War I gave birth to a new world menace:
communism.
In 1918, Russia’s monarchy suffered a revolution and overthrow directly related to its grave mishandling of the war. A rather-small group of communist fanatics eventually took over the nation. Russia left the war in 1918, withdrawing into itself in an orgy of murder and destruction so vast the nation remained wounded until WWII. Russia took itself out of the world’s markets after the Communist Revolution causing additional European economic disruption. Communism spread after World War II and remained a direct challenge to the Western Democracies for decades (China is still communist in 2010).
The
number
of
people
killed
in
the
name
of
communism
runs
well
over
94
million
. Absent World War I, the world may have dodged this worldwide scourge.

Now the worst part. The great powers as a group desired peace, the war began for stupid reasons, and the war continued for the worst of reasons; both sides demanded total “victory.”
[169]
The ultimate cost was the destruction of a world without equal in history which, like Rome, plunged into that dark abyss of the uncaring past.

Causes
of
the
Great
War

World War I resulted from many
indirect
causes, and among the most important (
in
no
particular
order
) were:

1)    An
arms
race
between Germany, France, and England raising world tensions. The main arms race was between England and Germany over sea power. For years the great problem standing in the way of peace was Germany’s insistence on constructing a fleet that would equal England’s. Every attempt to reach a compromise on the issue of fleet size failed, and this failure can be traced directly to German Admiral Tirpitz and the Germany’s Kaiser. Dreadnaughts were terribly expensive, so the arms race was consuming enormous amounts of money resulting in higher taxes as well as higher tensions

2)    Germany,
encircled
by
the
Allies
, faced a losing two-front war unless it took desperate measures such as the Schlieffen Plan. Those plans meant Germany must move at the first sign of trouble. Under these circumstances any general mobilization by Russia or France would mean war.

3)    The various
interlocking
European
alliances
were complex and often secret causing widespread mistrust. England struggled to keep the balance of power in Europe which entailed supporting weaker European nations against any nation becoming so strong it could rule Europe. England wanted to avoid another problem like Napoleon. In 1914, Germany was the nation with the ability to rule Europe as it could defeat France even if France were united with Russia; however, England supporting France increased the power of the anti-German alliance significantly. The problem: a wrong move by any nation could draw all the Great Powers into war.

4)    The
failure
of
diplomacy
for many reasons including a lack of time, and German resolve to allow the Austrian attack on Serbia. After the assassination and Austria’s announced its move against Serbia, the mobilizations began so quickly that there was no time to react with diplomacy. Another problem was Russia’s pride. Russia was recently forced to back down in a confrontation with Germany and Austria, and the Tsar decided any challenge from Austria, backed by Germany or not, would be immediately accepted. The Kaiser’s diplomacy had also failed to prevent Russia and France combining in a military alliance against Germany. The Kaiser was very inept at handling foreign affairs and allowed the combinations arranged by the brilliant Bismarck to expire while failing to prevent the formation of deadly alliances against Germany. Worst of all, a few German leaders had decided on war in 1914 and conspired with Austria to allow Austria to crush Serbia.