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By Root 1584 0

in 1815. In 1913 a person traveling around the world using the English pound as currency and speaking the English language encountered very few problems. European empires controlled colonies the world over generally uniting the world in a Western European ideology. A monetary system based on precious metals kept the world markets relatively stable, and international trade grew steadily. The world experienced peace and prosperity across the globe. Europe ruled most of the world creating a trading bonanza because business found predictable governmental systems, many uniform laws, safe trade routes, stable currencies, and access to huge markets. Rising wages with falling prices enabled consumer purchasing. Scientific and industrial advances transpired consistently, and people of the era came to suppose the future held wonderful promise.

World War I smashed the illusion of a good and predictable world. WWI was brutal beyond all explanation. Artillery, machine guns, bombs, and repeating rifles destroyed life in mass. Men marched into hopeless battles facing certain failure and all but certain death. It was war outside comprehension and beyond reason. All sides fought claiming virtue and honor belonged to them alone. Propaganda played a large role by deifying one government while demonizing the opposition, and it encouraged the opposing populations to endure monstrous hardships. Propaganda also played into the unrealistic and harsh war aims adopted by the two warring sides and guaranteed prolonging the war to the bitter end.

Casualties

“The war to end all wars,” referring to World War I, began in August 1914 and ended in November 1918. The Allies (England, France, Russia, and later Italy, and even later joined by the United States)—also known as the Triple Entente),[166] and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey)[167] together lost approximately 8 million dead and over 20 million wounded. On the Western Front alone, casualties on both sides averaged 2,250 dead and approximately 5,000 wounded every day. In England, three men were killed in WWI for every one man killed in WWII. In 1921 England there were 55 women to every 45 men in the most marriageable age group of twenty to thirty-nine years of age. During the first two months of the Great War (August and September 1914), France lost about 360,000 men, Germany 241,000, England 30,000, Austria-Hungary 230,000, Serbia 170,000, and Russia about 50,000. In spite of these losses early in the war, the most deadly year was 1918. The British lost more men in 1918 than they lost in all of WW II.

After the war, a great influenza epidemic hit the world causing 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide. Most researchers think men coming home from the Western Front spread the influenza. Coupled with WWI, this was a human disaster of incalculable proportions. Pile this on top of WWII casualties and you know why the 20th Century earned its name as the century of slaughter.

Financial Costs

All the warring nations spent vast sums financing the conflict. The major European warring nations alone spent over 200 trillion dollars, and after the war large repatriations were required from Germany to pay back the winning sides’ expenses to the tune of thirty-two billion dollars. Few recognized it at the time, but these war expenses shattered the world economic system. World War I strained the monetary system beyond its capacity. The world trade system began to collapse after the war, then tariffs were passed by the major economic powers to protect their internal markets causing retaliatory tariffs by other nations. International trade dried up as a direct result of these tariffs. After the stock market crash in 1929, US banks began calling war loans to Europe rather than extending them. The world economic system imploded, and an unremitting depression swept the world. Because of governments’ mismanagement after the crisis hit, the Great Depression lingered on unlike past depressions. This depression began in 1929 and lasted past the start of World War II in 1939 until 1941 or later.[168]