The Impact of the Great War: Peace and War After the War

The great challenge for world leaders after the Great War lay in replacing the informal and inequitable global order that had been built up over the late nineteenth century with a more stable and equitable order. The conflict had destroyed four empires in Europe, created nine new nations, changed boundaries all over the world, and fractured the balance of power. The Great War destroyed billions in wealth, left a mountain of debt, and drastically altered the geography of the world economy. Countries such as Japan and the United States gained at the expense of Europe. While Britain and France expanded their empires by taking German and Turkish lands, nationalist movements in Africa and Asia began to challenge European rule. Internationalism in the form of the League of Nations represented one attempt to solve the ills of great power politics. The failure of the United States to join the League, combined with Britain’s fixation on its empire, left France alone to impose a vengeful peace on Germany. The failure of France’s occupation of Germany’s Ruhr industrial area in 1923 finally led Britain and the United States, reluctantly, to create a temporary peace in Europe and revive the continent’s economy.