Why did world war i transform western civilization so profoundly

World War I Changed America and Transformed Its Role in International Relations

The American Expeditionary Forces arrived in Europe in 1917 and helped turn the tide in favor of Britain and France, leading to an Allied victory over Germany and Austria in November 1918. By the time of the armistice, more than four million Americans had served in the armed forces and 116,708 had lost their lives. The war shaped the writings of Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. It helped forge the military careers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton, and George C. Marshall. On the home front, millions of women went to work, replacing the men who had shipped off to war, while others knitted socks and made bandages. For African-American soldiers, the war opened up a world not bound by America’s formal and informal racial codes.

And we are still grappling with one of the major legacies of World War I: the debate over America’s role in the world. For three years, the United States walked the tightrope of neutrality as President Woodrow Wilson opted to keep the country out of the bloodbath consuming Europe. Even as Germany’s campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic put

By Jonathon Van Maren

My introduction to this series on the 20^th century, “The Century that Changed Everything,” can be found here. Part I, “The World Before the War,” can be found here. This is the third installment in the series.

On February 4, 2012, the last living veteran of the Great War died at the age of 110. Florence Green, a British citizen who had served in the Allied armed forces, died only nine months after Claude Choules, the last surviving combat veteran of the war, who also passed on at the age of 110. And with that, the last men and women who could speak from memory of that clash of civilizations that forever changed our world were gone, leaving us to our history books and revisionist squabbles. We have been collectively debating the impact of the Great War ever since.

I never had the opportunity to speak with an eyewitness of World War I, although I saw a few ancient men carefully swaddled in blankets being pushed respectfully to the cenotaph in wheelchairs at some of the first Remembrance Day ceremonies I attended as a boy. To hear the memories of those men and women today, one can only speak with someone who did know them when they wer

Post-war Societies (USA)

By Adam J. Hodges

Summary

World War I transformed the United States in so many important ways that it is certainly one of the key causal components in the development of the modern nation. Emerging in no small part from the war itself were: the anti-left and immigrant repression of the Red Scare, the racist violence of the Red Summer, an anti-statist politics and increase in business prestige, the rise of mass consumer society, and the creation of the largest cohort of veterans by far since the Civil War.

Introduction

In the aftermath of the war, the United States appeared almost unscathed compared to its European allies and their empires. The Russian Empire had nearly 2,000,000 combatants killed, the French nearly 1,500,000, and the British nearly 1,000,000. Russia was mired in civil war and its people faced starvation, France faced an enormous burden of debt, and revolt was shaking the foundations of the British Empire from Ireland to Egypt. The Together States, in contrast, had participated in military operations on the Western Front on a mass scale in only the ultimate months of the war and had fewer than 100,000 combatants killed. The home front

I. Introduction

Striking steel mill workers holding bulletins in Chicago, Illinois, September 22, 1919. ExplorePAhistory.com

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World War I (“The Great War”) toppled empires, created new nations, and sparked tensions that would explode across future years. On the battlefield, gruesome modern weaponry wrecked an entire generation of young men. The United States entered the conflict in 1917 and was never again the same. The war heralded to the world the United States’ potential as a global military power, and, domestically, it advanced but then beat back American progressivism by unleashing vicious waves of repression. The war simultaneously stoked national pride and fueled disenchantments that burst Progressive Era hopes for the modern world. And it laid the groundwork for a global depression, a second world war, and an entire history of national, religious, and cultural conflict around the globe.

As the German empire rose in power and influence at the end of the nineteenth century, skilled diplomats maneuvered this disruption of traditional powers and influences into s

The Impact of the First World War and Its Implications for Europe Today

Who caused the War?
The Consequences of the First World War
Foreign policy implications
Changes from the Second World War
The Rise of the EU
Implications for Europe today
Conclusion

The EU has provided the essential infrastructure to deal with ‘the German Question’ – the role of the largest and most powerful state in Europe. When Europeans commemorate the Great War of 1914-18 this summer they should be reflecting not only on the diplomatic blunders and the enormous waste of lives but also the beginning of a new approach to international relations epitomised by the EU.

The First World War destroyed empires, created numerous new nation-states, encouraged independence movements in Europe’s colonies, forced the United States to become a world power and led directly to Soviet communism and the rise of Hitler. Diplomatic alliances and promises made during the First World War, especially in the Middle East, also came back to haunt Europeans a century later. The balance of power approach to international relations was broken but not shattered. It took the Second World War to bring about s