Social,ěonomical, and Politicalďfects of World War I


Global Effects of World War I

"Everywhere in the world was heard the sound of things

breaking." Advanced European societies could not support long wars or

so many thought prior to World War I. They were right in a way. The

societies could not support a long war unchanged. The First World War

left no aspect of European civilization untouched as pre-war

governments were transformed to fight total war. The war metamorphed

Europe socially, politicaly, economically, and intellectualy.

European countries channeled all of their resources into total

war which resulted in enormous social change. The result of working

together for a common goal seemed to be unifying European societies.

Death knocked down all barriers between people. All belligerents had

enacted some form of a selective service which levelled classes in

many ways. Wartime scarcities made luxury an impossibility and

unfavorable. Reflecting this, clothing became uniform and

utilitarian. Europeans would never again dress in fancy, elaborate

costumes. Uniforms led the way in clothing change. The bright

blue-and-red prewar French infantry uniforms had been changed after

the first few months of the war, since they made whoever wore them

into excellent targets for machine guns. Women's skirts rose above

the ankle permanently and women became more of a part of society

than ever. They undertook a variety of jobs previously held by men.

They were now a part of clerical, secretarial work, and teaching.

They were also more widely employed in industrial jobs. By 1918, 37.6

percent of the work force in the Krupp armaments firm in Germany was

female. In England the proportion of women works rose strikingly in

public transport (for example, from 18,000 to 117,000 bus conductors),

banking (9,500 to 63,700), and commerce (505,000 to 934,000). Many

restrictions on women disappeared during the war. It became

acceptable for young, employed, single middle-class women to have

their own apartments, to go out without chaperones, and to smoke in

public. It was only a matter of time before women received the right

to vote in many belligerent countries. Strong forces were shaping the

power and legal status of labor unions, too. The right of workers to

organize was relatively new, about half a century. Employers fought

to keep union organizers out of their plants and armed force was often

used against striking workers. The universal rallying of workers

towards their flag at the beginning of the war led to wider acceptance

of unions. It was more of a bureaucratic route than a parliamentary

route that integrated organized labor into government, however. A

long war was not possible without complete cooperation of the workers

with respect to putting in longers hours and increasing productivity.

Strike activity had reached its highest levels in history just before

the war. There had been over 1,500 diffent work stoppages in France

and 3,000 in Germany during 1910. More than a million British workers

stopped at one time or another in 1912. In Britain, France, and

Germany, deals were struck between unions and government to eliminate

strikes and less favorable work conditions in exchange for immediate

integration into the government process. This integration was at the

cost of having to act more as managers of labor than as the voice of

the labor. Suddenly, the strikes stopped during the first year of the

war. Soon the enthusiasm died down, though. The revival of strike

activity in 1916 shows that the social peace was already wearing thin.

Work stoppages and the number of people on strike in France

quadrupled in 1916 compared to 1915. In Germany, in May 1916, 50,000

Berlin works held a three-day walkout to protest the arrest of the

pacifist Karl Liebknecht. By the end of the war most had rejected

the government offer of being integrated in the beaurocracy, but not

without playing an important public role and gaining some advantages

such as collective bargaining. The war may have had a leveling effect

in many ways, but it also sharpened some social differences and

conflicts. Soldiers were revolting just like workers:

They [soldiers] were no longer willing to sacrifice their

lives when shirkers at home were earning all the money, tkaing,

the women around in cars, cornering all the best jobs, and

while so many profiteers were waxing rich.

The draft was not completely fair since ot all men were sent to the

trenches. Skilled workers were more important to industry and some

could secure safe assignments at home. Unskilled young males and

junior officers paid with their lives the most. The generation

conflict was also widened by the war as Veterens' disillusionment fed

off of anger towards the older generation for sending them to the

trenches..

Governments took on many new powers in order to fight the

total war. War governments fought opposition by increasing police

power. Authoritatian regimes like tsarist Russia had always depended

on the threat of force, but now even parliamentary governments felt

the necessity to expand police powers and control public opinion.

Britain gave police powers wide scope in August 1914 by the Defence of

the Realm Act which authorized the public authorities to arrest and

punish dissidents under martial law if necessary. Through later acts

polices powers grew to include suspending newspapers and the ability

to intervene in a citizen's private life in the use of lights at home,

food consumption, and bar hours. Police powers tended to grow as the

war went on and public opposition increased as well. In France a

sharp rise of strikes, mutinies, and talk of a negotiated peace raised

doubts about whether France could really carry on the war in 1917. A

group of French political leaders decided to carry out the war at the

cost of less internal liberty. The government cracked down on anyone

suspected of supporting a compromise peace. Many of the crackdowns

and treason charges were just a result of war hysteria or calculated

politcal opportunism. Expanded police powers also included control of

public information and opinion. The censorship of newspapers and

personal mail was already an established practice. Governments

regularly used their power to prevent disclosure of military secrets

and the airing of dangerous opinions considering war efforts. The

other side of using police power on public opinion was the "organizing

of enthusiasm," which could be thought of as:

Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people;

the organization embraces within its scope only those who do

not threaten on psychological grounds to become a brake on the

further dissemination of the idea.

World War I provided a place for the birth of propaganda which

countries used with even more frightening results during World War II.

Governments used the media to influence people to enlist and to

brainwash them war into supporting the war. The French prime minister

used his power to draft journalists or defer them in exchange for

favorable coverage. The German right created a new mass party, the

Fatherland Party. It was backed by secret funds from the army and was

devoted to propaganda for war discipline. By 1918, the Fatherland

Party was larger than the Social Democratic Party. Germany had become

quite effective at influencing the masses.

The economic impact of the war was very disaproportioned. At

one end there were those who profited from the war and at the other

end were those who suffered under the effects of inflation. The

opportunities to make enormous amounts of money in war manufacture

were plentiful. War profiteers were a public scandal. Fictional new

rich, like the manufacturer of shoddy boots in Jules Romains's Verdun

had numerous real-life counterparts. However, government rarely

intervened in major firms, as happened when the German military took

over the Daimler motor car works for padding costs on war-production

contracts. Governments tended to favor large, centralized industries

over smaller ones. The war was a stimulus towards grouping companies

into larger firms. When resources became scarce, nonessential firms,

which tended to be small, were simply closed down. Inflation was the

greatest single economic factor as war budges rose to astronomical

figures and massive demand forced shortages of many consumer goods.

Virtually ever able-bodied person was employed to keep up with the

demand. This combination of high demand, scarcity, and full

employment sent prices soaring, even in the best managed countries.

In Britain, a pound sterling brought in 1919 about one-third of what

it had bought in 1914. French prices approximately doubled during the

war and it only got worse during the 1920's. Inflation rates were

even higher in other belligerents The German currency ceased to have

value in 1923. All of this had been forseen by John M. Keynes as

a result of the Versailles Treaty:

The danger confonting us, therefore, is the rapid

depression of the standard of life of the European populations

to a point which will mean actual starvation for some (a point

already reached in Russian and approximately reach in Austria).

Inflation affected different people quite differently. Skilled

workers in strategic industries found that their wages kept pace with

prices or even rose a little faster. Unskilled workers and workers in

less important industries fell behind. Clerks, lesser civil servants,

teachers, clergymen, and small shopkeepers earned less than many

skilled labors. Those who suffered the most were those dependent on

fixed incoming. The incomes of old people on pensions or middle class

living on small dividends remained about the same while prices double

or tripled. These dropped down into poverty. These "new poor" kept

their pride by repairing old clothes, supplementing food budget with

gardens, and giving up everything to appear as they had before the

war. Inflation radically change the relative position of many in

society. Conflicts arose over the differences in purchasing power.

All wage earners had less real purchasing power at the end of the war

than they had had at the beginning. To make matters worse some great

fortunes were built during the wartime and postwar inflation. Those

who were able to borrow large amounts of money could repay their debts

in devalued currency from their war profit.

Four years of chaos and utter destruction had smashed the old

world Europe. The most "advanced" quarter of the world had turned to

violence and barbarism of its own accord. Progress and reason had

been suppressed for destruction. Moreover, it has brought to light an

almost incredible phenomenon: the civilized nations know and

understand one another so little that one can turn against the other

with hate and loathing. Indeed, one of the great civilized nations is

so universally unpopular that the attempt can actually be made to

exclude it from the civilized community as "barbaric," although it has

long proved its fitness by the magnificent contributions to that

community which it has made.

The early part of the war satisfied the fascination with

speed, violence, and the machine as manifested in the pre-war

Futurists. Many movements shared a resolute "modernist" contempt for

all academic styles in the arts, a hatred for bourgeois culture, and a

commitment to the free expression of individuals. All these feelings

were given an additional jolt of violence and anger by the horrors of

the wartime experience. During the war there was a loss of illusions

as described in All Quiet on the Western Front. Poets, like others,

had gone to war in 1914 believing in heroism and nobility. Trench

warfare hardened and embittered many. Freud said of disillusionment:

When I speak of disillusionment, everyone will know at

once what i mean. One need not be a sentimentalist; one may

perceive the biological and psychological necessity for

surrering in the economy of human life, and yet condemn war both

in its means and ends and long for the cessation of all wars.

British poet, Wilfred Own, who was killed in 1918 was transformed from

a young romantic into a powerful denouncer of those who had sent young

men off to war. In "Dulce et Decorum Est" he mocked "the old lie"

that it was good to die for one's country, after giving a searing

description of a gassed soldier coughing out his lungs. The anger of

the soldier-poets was directed against those who had sent them to the

war, not their enemy. The war experience did not produce new art

forms or styles. It acted largely to make the harshest themes and the

grimmest or most mocking forms of expression of prewar intellectual

life seem more appropriate, and to fost experiments in opposition to

the dominant values of contemporary europe. The Dada movement, which

mocked old values and ridiculed stuffy bourgeois culture, was one of

these movements. A mood of desolation and emptiness prevailed at the

end of a war where great sacrifice had brought little gain. It was

not clear where post-war anger would be focused, but it would

definately be in antibourgeois politics.

The echoes of a world shattering were heard throughout the

world as Europe collapsed into total war. These echoes were the sound

of change as Europe was transformed socially, politicaly,

economically, and intellectualy into a machine of complete

destruction. Europe would never be the same again.



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