After WWI: The Collapse of Old Europe
Overview
After four bloody years, at 11:00 am on November 11, 1918, the guns fell silent as an armistice brought a stop to World War One. Or did it? The war between the Allies and Central Powers was over, but much of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East was racked by war for nearly fiveย moreย years. Right- and left-wing revolutions, coups, civil wars, wars of national liberation, Imperial interventions, and anti-colonial resistance plunged societies into chaos and helped shapeย todayโs world. From Syria to Siberia and Berlin to Baghdad, American, British, German, French, Russian, Turkish, and Arab soldiers fought and died โ long after the War to End All Wars was โover.โ
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In this talk, historian Jesse Alexander explains why World War Oneโs incomplete and messy ending(s) opened a Pandoraโs Box of Imperial greed, national dreams, ideological extremes, and incredible sufferingโdespite and because of Americaโs arrival on the World Stage.
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Recommended Reading:
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The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End,ย by Robert Gerwarth
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Peacemakers: The Paris Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War,ย by Margaret Macmillan
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Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914โ1921,ย by Laura Engelstein
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Civil War in Central Europe, 1918โ1920: The Reconstruction of Poland,ย by Jochen Bรถhler
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Discussion Questions:
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1)ย ย ย ย Why couldnโt the Allies agree on how the post-war order should be?
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2)ย ย ย ย Why didnโt the Allies impose peace after theyโd defeated the Central Powers?
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3)ย ย ย ย What can we learn from a re-assessment of the fallen Empires and new nation states that emerged after them?
Totally lightning history what happened after the bullshit at the revolution in the end of World War I. I had no idea of how complicated all of the borders were given me 13 boundary wars in nine revolutions in the five-year period after the bolshevik revolution.. professor Alexander is an excellent presenter knowledgeable, smart, and delivers and easy-to-understand history.
So pleased that I tuned in to the lecture.