Spare a Few Moments

Comments

[redsquirrel456]

I don't believe anyone currently living save for a small minority truly understand the implications for the world this war had. We are quite literally living in the world this war built, and tore down. We built on top of the empires ground to dust in this conflict, and live with the consequences of maps drawn before and after it. Some remember, but I cannot look at today's world and say that very many understand, even world leaders who paid lip service to it.

[PresentPerfect]

4966435
This provides a couple good visual aids, but you're right it's not the whole story.

[libertydude]

It's days and remembrances like this that remind me of how great a gift peace is.

[the dobermans]

4966435

Seconded emphatically.

[Just_Me123]

It is so sad that this is true of all war from the beginning of time, and will likely continue to be true into the future...

[Bad Horse]

4966435
I think rather the opposite. This statement would have been more true if made about most other major wars 100 years after. A Greek writing at the time of Christ could have said the conquests of Rome had changed everything. A European writing in 850 AD could have said the same thing about the conquests of the Franks. Anyone in Latin America in 1800 would have to have said the same thing about the conquests by the Spanish nearly 300 years before. For those of us in America, our current borders and political disputes are much more the result of the Spanish Armada, the 7-Year War, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Mexican-American and US Civil Wars than they were influenced by WW1.

WW1 became so important to us precisely because it was geopolitically so inconsequential relative to its death toll. Previous wars with large death tolls typically had an aggressor and a defender, and either the aggressor won and the war made major, widespread changes of nationality and government, or the defender won and kept things as they were. In either case you could declare a winner and a loser.

WW1 was so unusual because it wasn't about anything, neither side knew what they wanted out of the war, neither side was destroyed militarily, and there were relatively few political or geographical consequences. The border shuffling that occurred was widespread and complex, but quite minor when compared to that of the Persian / Macedonian / Roman / Frankish / Islamic / Mongol / colonial American / colonial African / etc. conquests.

So nobody, not even the winners, felt like they had accomplished anything after the war. And this destroyed faith in governments, religions, and societies. That was the main consequence of WW1.