Was anything achieved by WW1?

[sandandfoam]

I've been reading a little about the Great War recently. My feeling is that it achieved nothing.
In your view, did WW1 achieve anything?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

In your view, did WW1 achieve anything?

Sure - it made a number of people rich, made a number of rich people more rich, killed off a bunch of people, and shifted around the socio-economic landscape of the world, setting the stage for decades of economic, political, and social turmoil and war to come.

 

[metis]

I've been reading a little about the Great War recently. My feeling is that it achieved nothing.
In your view, did WW1 achieve anything?

Yes. It helped to set up WWII.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I've been reading a little about the Great War recently. My feeling is that it achieved nothing.
In your view, did WW1 achieve anything?

You mean positive achievements? The only thing I can think of is the gained knowledge that destroying a country economically by forcing them to pay off all of the war debt of all countries involved sets up a second war. Which is why we haven't done it since. I guess that is the only positive lesson learned.

 

[psychoslice]

Just a lot of dead soldiers.

 

[Revoltingest]

We learned (thru deadly trial & error....lots'o errors) efficient tactics for tanks,
automatic weapons, aircraft, chemical weapons, & infantry. This made us better
prepared for the next big war, which made us better prepared for the next big war.

 

[Knight of Albion]

Every war achieves something - it teaches us of its folly.

Unfortunately 'we' forget this.

 

[Knight of Albion]

.. And for politicians declaring war is a lot easier when it is someone else's son you are sending off to fight it.

 

[LuisDantas]

I'm not sure WW 2 achieved anything, either.

 

[GoodbyeDave]

I'm not sure WW 2 achieved anything, either.

It gave the Nazis the chance to murder six million people without anyone seeing it happen.

I find it increasingly difficult to think of any war that has achieved its goal with a justifiable cost.

 

[Aquitaine]

I've been reading a little about the Great War recently. My feeling is that it achieved nothing.
In your view, did WW1 achieve anything?

In terms of positive outcomes? Not much.
Pretty much sowed the seeds for WW2 as well.

 

[Dingbat]

Well WW1 lead to an economically powerful Germany, a destroyed France, a fragile British Economy, and an equally fragile German government that failed to keep an economic boom from turning into a disaster.

 

[MD]

Both the wars achieved one thing for sure: American power

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Well WW1 lead to an economically powerful Germany.

How so?

 

[Dingbat]

How so?

All the fighting took place in France. The Germans had in 1914 advanced all the way to the outskirts Paris. Damage was catastrophic. Other than war debt German industry and civilian areas were untouched. Kissinger touches on this fact in his book Diplomacy that the Germans were in a much more economically powerful situation due to the war as France was devastated and the British economy was in the tank. The weakened Weimar government was its own problem but the economic side was heavily in German favour. Ineptitude by the Weimar Government made that advantage disappear.

 

[newgodthinker]

Seems like WWI was just a big growing up experience for people. Like OOOoohhhh, THIS is why being violent and aggressive is not a good idea.

 

[Pegg]

Seems like WWI was just a big growing up experience for people. Like OOOoohhhh, THIS is why being violent and aggressive is not a good idea.

it doesnt seem the world grew up though unfortunately.

More people died in WW2 then in WW1.

If anything, i'd say the world learned to be more destructive and more violent then ever before.

 

[BSM1]

I'm not sure WW 2 achieved anything, either.

Really?

 

[dust1n]

Both the wars achieved one thing for sure: American power

That certainly worked out well. [/sarcasm]

 

[Wirey]

WW1 led to the downfall of rule by authoritarian throughout Europe. I know democracy needed a second take in Germany, but the end of these false empires built on ruling families began there. The Czar, Kaiser Wilhelm, the Austrian empire, they all got destroyed and we moved a step closer to self determination. Hell, Churchill said WW1 and WW2 were one war with a truce in the middle, and it could be called the War of British Succession. Read "Dreadnaught" by Massey. It explains better than I can. Don't look for fast answers in hustory. It's a longer process than that. American democracy started in Greece 3000 years earlier.