The results of the First World War are linked to its nature as the first total war. Never before had so many soldiers been enlisted, and never before had there been so many victims. The war also marked the end of empires in Europe. Finally, the Treaty of Versailles, which crushes Germany, carries with it certain seeds of the Second World War.
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The human toll of war 14-18 is heavy. In the aftermath of the armistice of November 18, 1918, nearly 20 million people died, including nearly 10 million soldiers and nearly 9 million civilians. During the four years of the conflict, nearly 60 million men took up arms. In France, 10% of the active male population is dead or has disappeared.
At the end of the war, European societies had to integrate the many war wounded and invalids. We then call the soldiers seriously injured and physically marked, in particular with heavy sequelae at the level of the face, the “broken jaws”. Many, then psychologically scarred, were interned for life. The First World War was also the scene of the massacre of 800,000 to 1,500,000 Armenians by the Turkish government, considered by several countries to be a genocide.
The end of European empires
In 1918, the empires present on European soil all disappeared. The German Empire becomes the Weimar Republic and loses Alsace and Lorraine as well as part of its eastern territory to create Poland. The Austro-Hungarian empire is completely dismembered to give birth to Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Yugoslavia is founded. Part of the Ottoman Empire is shared between France and the United Kingdom. Finally, Tsarist Russia disappears following the October Revolution. Under the impetus of American President Wilson, the peoples are claiming the right to self-determination to free themselves from the old imperial tutelage inherited from the 19th century.and century.
actions for peace
The peace treaties which follow the armistice of 1918 are very hard for the vanquished. Thus the Treaty of Versailles is experienced as a diktat by the Germans. The country finds itself without an army and deprived of one of its richest regions in minerals, the Ruhr. Germany also had to pay a war indemnity which quickly plunged the country into an inflationary spiral. Disabilities that will be so many arguments brandished by the Nazis to trigger the second World War.
For the First World War to be the “last of the last”, the countries decided in 1919, mainly pushed by the United States, to create an international organization responsible for ensuring the maintenance of peace in the world: the League of Nations.
Namely: The Battle of Ypres on April 22, 1915 was the first massive chemical attack. It claimed 10,000 victims.
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