Essay Example on Social, Cultural, Political, and Economic Fallouts of WWI

Introduction

Although the primary fight of WW I took place in specific limited parts like Russia, Western Europe, Alpine frontier of Italy and Austria -Hungary, Balkan Peninsula, and the Middle East, several millions of individuals around the world felt the aftermath of the war. On the home front of America, significant changes were witnessed with the United States emerging as the world superpower because of the strategic leadership of President Woodrow Wilson's. The WWI resulted to the birth of empires, death of some nations, drawing of national boundaries as well as inevitable prosperity and depression for some countries in their politics, culture, economics and the social climate.

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Political Fallout

The significant political impact of the WWI is that it led to split up of the three critical imperial powers of Europe; Russia, Austria -Hungary, Germany as well as the foundation the states which had recently gained independence from them. Germany which was the primary aggressor suffered the main ignominy since it was compelled to destroy its army, pay a large amount of indemnity, give up its fleet, relent the Rhineland and the Saar and also lose their territories. However, before these terms were met, Austrian and Germany empires started to split apart. In the 1918 autumn, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia proclaimed themselves as nations (Abbenhuis, 2016).

By the time the revolution stretched out to Berlin, the abdicated Elbert and Kaiser were made the chancellor of the German republic which had been newly established. The treaty of Brest-Litovsk led to Russian losing their sovereignty over Georgia, Ukraine, Finland, Poland and the states of Baltic and by the end of the war, there was radical turbulence as Bolshevik were able to seize power. Germany and Soviet Russia which came to gain pariah status carried a crucial role in motivating the next socialist movements like the Rumania's Bela Kun which had developed in conditions that enabled revolution. The League of Nations developed as a proposition of the treaty of Versailles to aid in sustaining order and stop crises in the newly established environment (Abbenhuis, 2016). This alliance resulted in defeating and the scattering of Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Germany; a power vacuum was created in Europe, and the United States has remained powerful all along became isolationist with the protective alliances becoming hard to forge.

Economic Fallout

The urge for security displayed itself economically especially in the Danube valley. It found itself with no labor or capital which had recently been acquired from Germany, and this led to the successor states to establish secure imports and exports tariffs which were not observed in Europe some time ago since they feared for their safety. Another influence of post-war in the economy was that it led to instability of the currencies which resulted due to the consistent use of their gold reserves to pay their debts to the United States (Roper, 2016).

There was inflation especially in Germany since it was printing massive amounts of money at that time and also in areas where the league of the nation had to intervene economically like Austria and Hungary; other nations impacted were Russia and Poland. Loans from the United States to countries like Germany enhanced stabilization of some states leading to a consistent flow of capital to areas like Europe hence economic growth reappeared (Abbenhuis, 2016).

However, immediately after the WWI there was absolute economic destitution in nations like Europe where resources exhausted, significant workforces finished, and farms and factories destroyed leading to shortages in capital except for the United States of America which on the contrary improved its economy during the war. Other impacts were experienced in the infrastructure and communication which took very long to reconstruct. There was unemployment which later ended after women were trained and allowed to take over male jobs in the industries.

Social Fallout

The WWI led to the breaking of families as well as the uprooting of people with loss and hatred surrounding several people. The League of Nations assured minorities in the newly established nations the right and freedom to create their own linguistic, cultural and religious institutions. The advancing ethnic relations and awareness were witnessed in different states leading to the development of independence (Roper, 2016). For instance, India attained self-reliance due to the various industries established by the British to manufacture for imperial operations in Mesopotamia and Persian Gulf as the world war continued.

Nationalism advanced mainly in the newly established states and Germany through easy labor mobilizations and autocracy as well as defeat conversion and misery to pride and hatred. This strategy was advantageous to Germany as they used it to reduce the problems associated with the aggressive decreased population growth as a result of low birth rates; the problems were solved through the abolition of abortions and contraceptives. The small population was a definite social indication of the insecurity and depression which had existed in most European nations over the year after the war. Most families were split as several children and women became orphans and widows; basically, the social fallouts of the WWI were diverse (Abbenhuis, 2016).

Cultural Fallout

Art is one of the cultural artifacts which resulted from the WWI in several institutions such as the Australian war memorial in Canberra. The state authorities and the British ministry of information commissioned various legal war artists. There was a production of new art by realistic and academic artists. The culture restated itself and integrated with the latest technologies with the artwork of traditional artists developing side by side. Most of the artists reacted positively to the cultural changes which the war brought. Some of the artists who responded to the war undoubtedly include pacific artists like the main paintings of Mark Gertler.D.H Laurence described merry go round as the most fantastic art he had ever seen in his life (Roper, 2016).

There was an adaption of the Cubist vocabulary which the Royal Navy reshaped during the fight as the cubist's primary goal was to reform the painting and restore the art. There was also the invention of the dazzling paint by Norman Wilkinson who was a British marine painter. This helped in distracting the enemies by using disrupted stripes and lines which made them not to know the exact dimension and speed of a ship (Abbenhuis, 2016).

Conclusion

In conclusion, World war one should be one of the greatest wars that ended all the other wars; just because it was one of the largest and most terrifying battles the world has ever experienced. It had significant impacts on the European states as well as its countryside's; most people and animals were killed in cold blood leaving many homeless. The political, economic, social and cultural impacts were inevitable and have since then shaped our present as well as defining our future.

References

Abbenhuis, M. (2016). The First World War and its Aftermath: The Shaping of the Modern Middle East. International Journal of Turkish Studies, 22(1/2), 135.Retrieved on 5th March 2019 from https://search.proquest.com/openview/b473d572590ac106dcf199e8f6ae9a30/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1746339

Roper, M. (2016). From the shell-shocked soldier to the nervous child: Psychoanalysis in the aftermath of the First World War. Psychoanalysis and History, 18(1), 39-69.Retrieved on 5th March 2019 from https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/pah.2016.0177