What was the legacy of World War I?

Answer 1

Eighty seven years ago, the guns of both the Entente and Central Powers alliances fell silent. An armistice agreement came into effect in 1918 on November eleventh at eleven in the morning, though a peace treaty (Versailles) wasn't signed until 1919. A war that had begun for no clear reason, and had been fought in the most bloody and horrific of conditions, was over. The cost, in human lives, misery and disease had no previous parralel. In the space of five catastrophic years, the entire face of Europe was changed. A previous system of imperial rulers, most related to one another by blood, was displaced by parliaments, democries and in Russia, a powerful socialist autarch. Never again could reckless imperial hubris lead directly to the deaths and suffering of millions. This would be the war to end all wars.

The "Peace" Treaty of Versailles, is perhaps best described as a recipe for future wars. France, distraught and vengeful for having lost so many of its sons to the war, sought to extract absurd reparations from a nation which had almost succesfully taken on the combined strengths of the three opposing armies (Russia, France and Britain). The campaign to place all responsibility for the war on Germany alone remained popular perception for decades following the war, but has generally been discredited today. Germany's early invasion of Belgium was a result primarily of a "strike first" military tactic to be initiated once war was certain - a prospect assured by not just Germany, but all the involved European nations.

Despite France and Britain's more or less equal culpability in the 1914 outbreak, the Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of any disputed territories with France (Alsace Lorraine), imposed limits on its army, and demanded impossible industrial and economic reparations: 20 billion gold marks by 1921, with 40 billion gold marks at interest following the initial repayment as just one small component of the demands

The generation that had fought World War I for Germany often bought into the official view of the period, that Germany had been "stabbed in the back," that it's defeat was not a function of its military, but rather from domestic sabotage. The sudden abdication of the Kaiser Wilhelm and the close association between the provisional and Weimar governments (the post WWI German democratic goverment) with the "shameful" Treaty of Versailles led to popular resentment of the Weimar government. The provisional and Weimar governments were seen as complicit in the whole scheme of the Versailles treaty - even if as an obligatory signatory. Undercurrents of anti-Semitism, and accusations against left-wing politicians were revived to explain the Kaiser's abdication and the collapse of support and resolve on the home front. A whole generation of youth were born to WWI veterans who spoke of both military valour, personal sacrifice and the shameful reparations and unfair demands of Germany's foreign opponents.

Yet despite despite the grinding poverty, the hyperinflation of the early 1920s, and heavy-handed foreign supervision, most Germans remained sensible people. Hitler's rise to power was not an inevitable destiny, fixed by such factors as the unfair legacy of Versailles, popular Anti-Semitism and rising nationalism. His path to power was uneven, and almost stopped outright when he was wounded and jailed during the Beerhall Putsch of 1923. Many Germans saw in Hitler just another political extremist wandering the streets with a gang of thugs in tow. If it wasn't far-left Bolsheviks campaigning for Germany's entrance into an alliance with Leninist Russia, it was far-right agitators such as Hitler stirring up angst and unrest. Most Germans remained moderate, more concerned about daily needs and the security and well being of their families than in rabid explanations of how Jews were sabotaging Germany's fate.