The “Great War”, 1914-1918: Democracies and Autocracies

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The “Great War”, 1914-1918: Democracies and Autocracies


The “Great War”, 1914-1918, was “the largest and bloodiest war in human history to that time.” (Snow and Drew 2010). The war was fought across the globe from the trenches and fields across Europe to the steppes of Russia, the deserts of the Middle East, and the Atlantic. All over Europe hundreds of thousands of men and women went to work in factories. Manufacturing and industry was pressed into service as this war was the first that included aircraft, submarines, lethal chemicals and machineguns.

     Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of 

Bulgaria comprised the ‘Quadruple Alliance’ also known as the ‘Central Powers’. The ‘Central 

Powers’ were pitted against the Allied Powers, or Triple Entente, from the major nations of 

France, Russia, the United Kingdom and her colonies. Allies were from as far away as New 

Zealand and Honduras. The war touched every continent and hundreds of millions of lives.




The United States in the late 1890’s had established itself on the international scene as a junior member of colonial powers, having fought a quick and decisive Spanish-American War in 1898. ‘Manifest Destiny’ had helped to secure the territories across North America and the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ assisted with U.S. interests being secured in the Caribbean and parts of Central America such as Panama, Nicaragua and as well as Cuba and Puerto Rico.

During the early 1900’s the United States became the world’s largest industrial power but this did not necessarily translate to becoming a world power politically nor militarily. In 1914 most “Americans agreed that we should remain aloof from intramural European struggle” (Snow and Drew 2010) and the U.S. would remain so for several more years as the war dragged on.

Isolationism and ignorance to the dynamics of the global economy, further coupled with a lack of understanding that the war was evolving to be one of democracies fighting against autocracies kept America’s entrance into the war delayed.  The American people were by and large, immigrants from Europe and “intended to stay out of a conflict that seemed emblematic of the rottenness of old Europe, a place from which most Americans were thankful to have escaped.” (Telegraph 2014)

The American public received information on the war from its Foreign Correspondents and news outlets. One of Britain’s first acts in 1914 was to cut the underwater telegraph cables between Britain and the United States. Thus, Americans would have to rely on information from Britain but the real motive was “an attempt to target those seen as both sympathetic to Britain and influential in public debate on the war.” (Cooke 2014)

Many in the United States, however, did support the U.S. entry into this ‘First World War’. In time the British press was able to simply the reasons for the war and to what end the Allies were fighting, namely, the defense of democracy which stood in stark contrast to the old European Autocracies. The American press reported the sinking of many U.S. Merchant vessels crossing the Atlantic and it was the sinking of the SS. Lusitania with the loss of hundreds, to include 129 Americans that began to change public opinion. In addition, the “revelation of the ‘‘Zimmermann Telegram’’ — a signal intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence from Germany’s foreign minister to his man in Mexico, offering the Mexicans the return of territories lost to the US if they joined the war on Germany’s side — helped generate support for war.” (Telegraph 2014)


The Armistice, signaling the end of the most bloody war in human history, was very much hoped to be mankind’s last. Unfortunately, the European powers were in shambles. “The Versailles Treaty thus, ended up a mish-mash of Wilsonian idealism and old-fashioned vengefulness.” (Telegraph 2014) The Germans perceived the loss as embarrassing and the reparations demanded by the Treaty of Versailles, to be paid by Germany to the rest of Europe, only sowed the seeds for the next World War.

“President Woodrow Wilson ultimately failed in his ambitions for a new world order and a credible League of Nations, setting off much chaos with his insistence on an armistice and his support for undefined “self-determination.” (Erlanger 2014)

On the domestic front, President Wilson, once fully committed to war in Europe, proposed or enacted a multitude of legislation that rationed fuel, affected price controls and restricted travel. “On April 16, 1917, all males older than 14 who were still “natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects” of the German Empire became alien enemies.” (McElroy 2002) The Wilson administration continued to enact or expand measures against “alien enemies” that ultimately prevented them from work. Organizations that were deemed “socialist” were also targeted and this included Unions and Worker Organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). “165 IWW leaders were arrested in 1917, charges ranged from treason to the use of intimidation in labor disputes.” (McElroy 2002)

Max Hastings, a prominent and widely respected military historian has said of the ‘Great War’ that “the supreme irony of 1914 is how many of the rulers of Europe grossly overestimated military power and grossly underestimated economic power.” (Erlanger 2014).

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References

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Snow, Donald M. and Drew, Dennis M., From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond War and Politics in the American Experience, 3rd Edition, M.E. Sharpe, 2010

 

Telegraph, The, “The War That Launched The American Century”, Inside the First World War Part Nine, May 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/inside-first-world-war/part-nine/10801898/why-america-joined-first-world-war.html

 

Cooke, Ian, “Propaganda in World War I: Means, Impacts and Legacies”, Fair Observer, October 2014

http://www.fairobserver.com/region/north_america/propaganda-in-world-war-one-means-impacts-and-legacies-73296/

 

Erlanger, Stephen, “The War to End All Wars? Hardly. But It Did Change Them Forever.” The New York Times, Europe  The Great War, June, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/world/europe/world-war-i-brought-fundamental-changes-to-the-world.html?_r=0

 

McElroy, Wendy, “World War I and the Suppression of Dissent”, Independent Institute, April 2002

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1207

 

 

 







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