by Gomez Gomez

Created on: March 16, 2007   Last Updated: April 26, 2007

At the outbreak of the First World War few had foreseen the revolutionary changes that were to transpire as a result of the conflict. These included political outcomes, like the Treaty of Versailles, the decline of Europe, the establishment of democratic states, taking the place of monarchies, and the rise of Communism and Fascism. Economic influences included the economic weakening of Europe, and the rise of The United States as a global economic power. Socio-cultural changes included an augmented dislike of the Armenians in Turkey and subsequently the Armenian Genocide, and the emergence of a variety of revolutionary new artistic, literary, philosophical, musical, and cultural movements.

An immediate consequence of World War One, and the catalyst for many others, was the 1918 Treaty of Versailles, the excessively punitive covenant that formally ended the war. Widely lampooned, especially in retrospect, there can be little doubt that the treaty was grossly unfair. "The economic clauses of the treaty were malignant and silly to an extent that made them obviously futile [condemning] Germany to pay reparations on a fabulous scale" (Winston Churchill, The Second World War- Volume One, Sydney, 1948, p. 7). Article 231 of the treaty, the "War Guilt Clause", that held Germany responsible for the war, "imposed upon [the Allies] by the aggression of Germany and her Allies" (Article 231, Treaty of Versailles, 1919), was also widely considered to be unjust. Yet another flawed attribute of the treaty was the fact that it was devised by dissimilar people, with clashing objectives, and different interpretations of Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points", upon which the treaty was supposed to have been based. It was therefore "a maze of compromises and a clash of principles" (Geoffrey Blainey, A Short History of the 20th Century, Melbourne, 2005, p. 101) neither harsh enough to ensure Germany's continued incapacity to wage war, nor weak enough to allow for its gradual reintegration into a "new" post-war Europe.

Europe's economic, military, and decline was also directly attributable to World War One. Incapacitated by their appalling death tolls, in France for example, twenty percent of young men eligible for military service had lost their lives (Norman Lowe, Mastering Modern World History, London, 2005, p. 32), the countries involved, struggled to maintain a sufficient labour force. Damage to roads, railroads, vast areas of farmland and other important infrastructure, blockades

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