Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction.
War finds many ways of being cruel.
You can measure the lasting effects of a Trauma only by imaging their absence.
Robert Cowley
Political
A.L Rowse thought that WW2 was inevitable and worthwhile as
essentially a continuation of the first, both started by Germany to get
domination
Yet, unfair to say that this was the sole cause better attributed to other
factors like 1929, collapse of Weimar government and the consequent rise
of Hitler
Versailles was 18 January 1919
Ex. Battle of Tannenberg 1914, 120 000 Russian vs 20 000 German
casualties
Russia lost 5 million men as prisoners or casulaties
Musket Wars 1818-1830s / New Zealand Wars of 1860s
ANZUS 1951, SEATO 1954
Vietnam Wars 1955-1975
Geo-political
Germany lost 12% of Population, 13% of territory, Alsace-Loraine, Polish
Corridor
R. Henig thought Treaty was a compromise, no one got full peace
New states of Czech / Austria / Hungary / Finland / Estonia / Romania /
Yugoslavia / Poland
30 million people as ethnic minorities, ethnic tensions
Mandate systems
Creation of Israel Haganah, prepared to use violence
November 29, 1947 UN adopted resolution to establish independent
Jewish State
Economic
British govt spent 9 billion pounds on war, borrowed 1 million
Germany pay 6.6 billion pounds in reparations. By 1922 they could not
pay this, leading to a hyper-inflation crisis
These terms were condemned by JM Keynes, who argued that this would
only produce a Carthaginian peace with all these terms on Germany
No one dealt with war debts for US
23 k factories destroyed, 48 000 km of roads wrecked, area larger than
Wales ruined in France
New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 4.73 million acres confiscated in New
Zealand
Technological
80 000 treated for shellshock, but estimates suggest sufferers up to 325
000