The collapse of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and (slightly earlier) Ottoman empires resulted in the establishment of a significant number of new minor nations in Eastern Europe. Internally, these new nations often had sizable ethnic minorities that desired union with neighboring governments where their ethnicity was strong. For example, Czechoslovakia had Sudeten Germans, Poles, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Magyars (Hungarians), Ashkenazim, and Roma in addition to the Czechs and Slovaks who gave the state its name. The League of Nations sponsored a number of minority treaties in an effort to address the issue, but as the League declined in the 1930s, these treaties became more unenforceable. The huge number of European refugees was one of the consequences of the major redrawing of boundaries and political upheavals that followed the First World War. These factors, along with the influx of Russian Civil War refugees, resulted in the development of the Nansen passport.
Due to ethnic diversity, the placement of boundaries was usually insecure. Where boundaries remained unaltered since 1918, ethnic groups such as the Sudeten Germans were often expelled. Economic and military collaboration between these tiny nations was sporadic, enabling defeated Germany and the Soviet Union to maintain a latent potential for regional dominance. Although defeat resulted in collaboration between Germany and the Soviet Union after the war, these two countries would eventually fight for supremacy in Eastern Europe.
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France was especially hard hit by the First World War’s destruction. The war accelerated technological advancements that benefitted businesses by altering the nature and techniques of manufacturing. Following the conclusion of World War I, Clemenceau positioned France at the center of the peace talks that began in January 1919 in Paris. The fact that it took place in Paris reinforced the notion that Europe remained at the center of postwar global diplomacy. Reconstruction and/or (re)conversion of factories to peacetime output are required. This rebuilding needed to be launched in the face of devaluation, inflation, and debt. However, the war sparked technological advancements that benefitted businesses in terms of the nature and techniques of their production. Industrialization was aided by the increased usage of internal combustion engines, electricity, and rubber, among other things. The car industry began in the United States and Canada and subsequently spread to Europe and consequently, it changed the European landscape: we witnessed the construction of several plants and a radical swift in the market. Global growth was one of the earliest indications of the desire to improve living conditions following the moral and material toll of the First World War; it was the precursor to the consumer society that took hold in the 1920s in North America and then spread to Western Europe in the second half of the twentieth century.
When it comes the Treaty of Versaille, it laid the groundwork for the beginning of the Second World War because of the Diktat.
It would be wrong to blame the First World War for all of the twentieth century’s wars. It is unavoidable, however, that its growth favored diplomatic conflicts. Beyond the political dimensions, it is necessary to acknowledge that this first global war is a watershed moment in modern history. If a conflict happening in the 20th century must have had huge and direct impacts on the reshaping of Europe, it would rather be WWII and the Cold War. The first world war was, indeed, only sparking things off and warning us about undeniable future political tensions.
