In 1914, Author and Commentator H.G. Wells published a number of articles in London newspapers that eventually ended up in a anthology called The War that Will End War. In his commentaries, Wells blamed the Central Powers for instigating World War I and that their defeat and a stop to German Imperialism would bring about the end of war. The statement was picked up by Woodrow Wilson as a way to characterize both the effect and brutality of WWI.
Industrialized warfare and the destruction of entire generations left the United States questioning its exposure to Europe. Entangling and anachronistic colonial alliances brought world powers into a intractable conflict that only led to mass slaughter. Two months after sending the military into Europe, President Wilson lamented the colonial ties that created the conflict and appealed for a settlement and a "peace without victory."
WWI introduced the world to mechanized warfare. The human element was washed away under the repeated firing of machine guns, the explosions of grenades and tanks, the sickly smell of mustard gas and the anonymous destruction brought by the millions upon millions of artillery shells fired and bombs dropped on either side of the endless labyrinth of trenches. Trench warfare was a zero sum game where one side gained ground only to lose it again.
The kinds of experiences that soldiers brought back from the front lines scared and appalled the public. The president who had won re-election on keeping the United States out of the war had to head overseas to negotiate its end. In the short time that the US took part in WWI, it sustained over 320,000 casualties. In all, casualties from the war topped 37 million.
Out of the conflict came a framework and a start to the end of total warfare. Wilson, with the backing of the country, went to Paris to negotiate a peace. Wilson's 14-points included some of the most innovative and progressive post-war solutions that still hold as much legitimacy today as they did 100 years ago. Ideals like freedom of the seas, self determination for all countries and the formation of a unified body of peacekeeping countries were all included in Wilson's plan.
But, much like the war dead, his points became victim to colonial revenge and entitlement. Britain, France and Italy all exacted revenge on the Central Powers by slapping Germany with $300 billion in reparation payments, sending its already tattered post-war economy into a tailspin. The rise of extreme nationalism and Nazism can be directly connected to the effects that the war debt had on the country. While the US-made Dawes Plan tried to strike a compromise for repayment, the extreme deflation of the Deutschemark had done enough damage to the economy.
Despite the toll of the war, the roots of peace and open trade were fostered in Versailles. The League of Nations was created, which eventually spawned NATO and the United Nations. The Allied powers worked together to pass armament reduction treaties which included the Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons and a limitation on the number and size of warships. The Allied powers also signed the well-intentioned, yet ineffective, Kellogg-Briand Pact which renounced war as an instrument of national policy.
Wilson, who failed to get the United States Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, tried to sell the League of Nations to the people. Opponents of the League of Nations, the "Reservationists" and the "Irreconcilables," fanned the flames of isolationism and the loss of American sovereignty. They only had to point to the violence of the war and the "pound-of-flesh" that colonial powers exacted from Germany to turn the Senate against the treaty. Wilson's uncompromising push to include the US in the League of Nations blinded him to the less controversial points of his plan and he eventually sold them away only to see the US turn towards isolationism and anti-European sentiment.
100 years on, the effects of the Treaty of Versailles that ended the war are still pervasive. The rise of National Socialism, the beginning and end of the Soviet state, the Great Depression, the United Nations and Middle East conflicts can all trace their roots back to the splitting up of the Central Powers' colonial holdings after the war and the investment that the US made in European powers to rebuild their post-war economies. Borders were drawn without regard to ethnic, racial or religious ties, leading to future conflict. Post-war investment in Europe employed for debt repayment instigated the beginning of a World Depression.
On the Centennial of the Great War, Europe and the US should return to some of the lessons of Versailles and the messages ingrained in the 14-points, especially when current conflicts reflect both the legacy and the failure of the treaty.
