Effects Of Wwi On The World

Effects of World War I

WHAT WERE THE MAJOR EFFECTS OF WWI?

UPON ENGLAND?

UPON FRANCE?

UPON THE UNITED STATES?

UPON GERMANY?

UPON AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE?

UPON RUSSIA?

England had been the center of the great British Empire before World War I. The war marks the beginning of the decline of that empire in the face of rising nationalist demands for independence throughout the non-European world.

England had also been the great creditor nation of the world, providing shipping and insurance services to the rest of the world. The cost of the war was so great that England consumed all of its credits and became heavily indebted to the United States. As a result of the war, the world's financial center shifted from England to the United States, from London to New York.

The demands by women for the right to vote had become most strident in England prior to the war. It could no longer be denied. Women acquired that right throughout most of the countries of Europe following the war.

Working class people, as well as women, were fully employed during the war, and their status, once defined as very subordinate to the aristocracy, was greatly enhanced. The distribution of income shifted in favor of the poor. Relatively, the status of the aristocracy was diminished. Politically, this is reflected in England by the rise of the Labor Party as one of the two major parties.

In France, the heavy losses in manpower at the front decimated an entire generation of Frenchmen and is thought to have created a leadership vacuum when that generation came of age. France had fallen behind Germany and England in population during the 19th century. They were, therefore, less able to sustain wartime losses.

France also suffered untold property damage since most of the war on the western front was fought on French soil.

The United States, removed by an ocean from the center of the war and joining late in the war, did not suffer the catastrophic losses of the major belligerents. U.S. losses in life were great, more than 100,000, but this was small in comparison to the millions lost by the other major powers.

Furthermore, the United States was a great continental power, with great population and resources. The war stimulated the U.S. economy, increased employment and wages, and brought great profit to industry. The United States emerged from the war as clearly the greatest power in the world as well as the creditor nation of the world.

These circumstances thrust the United States into a position as world leaders, while the American people still assumed that Europe had little to do with America. President Wilson had a vision that would have involved the United States extensively in world affairs through the League of Nations, but he was unable to find popular support.

Germany had entered World War I as the greatest power among the belligerents, with its people immensely proud of Germany's achievements in the years since unification. Defeat in war was a profound shock, and coupled with economic privation and collapse, was more than the German people could accept.

The unusual circumstances at the end of the war, in which their government collapsed and the Social Democratic Party assumed power, were not of their choosing. Revolution was forced upon them by outside pressure, before the people were prepared for change. The new government was unpopular from the beginning. Rather than being in the

mainstream of German politics, its support came mainly from the working class. Its popularity was