"Who won the First World War?" Topic

Maybe an army, maybe a person, maybe a combination. But who won the war?

This will spark huge outrage and discussion, but Australia did.

Once all Australian units were put under one command, with Australian commanders things changed very quickly.

I'm not saying they won the war singled handed, but they were the catalyst for it coming to an end.

(now sits back to 'cop' the abuse *grins* )

Nobody. Nothing was won, and the price was paid later.

I think GreenLeader was referring to what cause the war to end.

The Royal Navy Would have to take the honours IMO it was their blocakade that destroyed the German economy.

Death. But then again, it always wins…

German Generals gave up realized they couldn't win the war handed the job to the politicians to get the best deal then washed their hands and blamed it all on the politicians.

It's too early to tell…. :-p

Artillery commanders who developed:

a) creeping barrages
b) the ability to achieve surprise by massing large numbers of guns without pre-registration

Infantry commanders who developed modern platoon level tactics.

Nothing was won

Poland regained its freedom.

The Czechs and Slovaks gained theirs.

The Serbians remained free of Austrian control. (The original causus belli in fact.)

France regained the lost provinces of Lorraine and Alsace.

Britain prevented Germany's expansion as a competitive naval power.

In fact almost all the Allied Powers gained almost all their aims. Russia being the big exception.

Now you may think that none of these things were worth the price paid, but the people at the time were not so sure. The French at the time thought they had won, and you would be hard pressed to persuade a modern Frenchman that they didn't. The Germans sure thought they had lost.

A pyrrhic victory is still a victory.

Japan. Minimal involvement, but managed to grab all the German Pacific territories when no one was looking.

There were many loosers in WWI. Chief among there were Germany, AH, Turkey, Britian, France, Russian, Serbia, and Italy. I don't care how you slice the mustard, the price paid did not justify the outcome.

WWI was not Pyrrhic victory for anyone. When Germany decided it had had enough, the damage was already done. An entire generation lost. Utterly incomprehensible in today's world. If you couple the effects of the war with the subsequent economic collapse, it was a horrible outcome.

mjc

Switzerland. Were't expect that, were you?

Damon.

WWI was not Pyrrhic victory for anyone.

If a country achieves the aims it sets out with, then it wins. End of story.

The price toll paid is what makes it either worthwhile or not, but it irrelevant to the matter of whether it was won or lost.

France achieved its aims in 1918. It won. Moreover, in 1919 many did not regard the victory as pyrrhic -- that is a much later revision using modern standards about what their aims should have been.

I know it sticks in modern throats, but the people of 1914-1918 did not think like us in this regard. They paid the price willingly.

New Zealand lost as high a percentage of its young men as any other country in WWI. Yet it still happily lined up in 1939 to defend the Empire.

Utterly incomprehensible in today's world.

That's what many said after WWI. Only to be treated to WWII.

The Iran-Iraq war was extremely similar in its pointlessness and death toll for the combatants. It even had the gas.

If people believe in what they are fighting for, then wars like WWI will continue to happen.

There were many loosers in WWI.

LOSERS.

Switzerland.

Nope. WWII was a terrible time for Switzerland.

The French cantons and German cantons were aligned to different sides, which made things tense. Quite a few of their men volunteered, so they weren't even spared the deaths.

The Allied blockade meant 1918 was a time of terrible hunger in Switerland, which cannot feed its people adequately off its own resources.

hands down it was the spanish flu that was the winner.

Didn't the thing end shortly after the Yanks entered?

Nobody won. Both sides lost so many troops, they signed an armistice to buy time to raise another generation and go at it again.

"Didn't the thing end shortly after the Yanks entered?"

Yeah, but don't let 'em exaggerate their importance. It's one of their worst habits – show up late, claim all the credit. I have a cousin like that and we all hate to see him coming.

I'm thinking that the Australians did win it, by that incessant coin-tossing game of theirs. Once the Germans got interested in it, it was only a matter of time before some slick-tongued ocker persuaded them to toss for the entire result of the war.

Far too many losers and very hard to pick winners out of the rubble – which to my mind underlines why it was a war that should never have happened.

The first 4 years of the Second Thirty Years War had some territories transfer in the first armistice, but not permanently until the end of the fighting in 1945. Even then, the results were controversial and contradictory.

You mean it's actually ended? The situations in the Balkans and in the Middle East don't seem all that different to before and during the Great War….

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans.
The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs.
South Africans hate the Dutch…
….and I don't like anybody very much!

The US came out of the war as the greatest power on earth. We financed the war and every nation owed us money. We provided raw materials, food, munitions and arms. The US had the largest navy at the end of the war and many of those ship went on to serve in the next war. Many Generals of WWII learned their job in the first war. The US went from being the sleeping giant across the sea to the titan that shacks the world with its every step.

The question is WHO won the war – If anyone I'd have to say it was the U.S. as it established the U.S. as a power player, taught us some lessons in military tactics, and political lessons which were not realized for several decades later – the UN is essentially what the League of Nation was supposed to be. Every other country lost nearly the entire generation of young men in the carnage – a disaster which we cannot fathom today in terms of casualties – it would be like taking the entire death toll of the Gulf War every day or in some cases, every hour, depending on the time of year and the offensive that year. The toll on all of the nations was staggering. Another winner was Japan, in that they did gain loads of power by gaining German colonies and spread their influence across the Pacific and into the Indian Oceans, but they paid a heavy price for their land grab later on as their wars led to a continuation of the conflict throughout the 20's and 30's and culminated with their total defeat in 1945. So, in the end the is only ONE power which can claim anything close to "victory" as they gained nearly all of their objectives and remain the sole super power, despite claims to the contrary. Of course, revisionist historians will argue with this and claim others.

The French. Their coalition of the willing won.

An entire generation lost.

So did all the old men remarry young girls to beget the generation after the lost generation? I know in my family of six people that went to the Great War only one didn't come back. And that from the nation that statistically took the highest number of military casualties per capita (New Zealand). The other five must have taken a wrong turn somewhere on the way home to end up lost…

Many German generals of the era said the entry of the US was the turning point from their point of view.

Ah, the "entire generation lost" myth. Glad to see it never dies!

The French hate the Germans.
The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs.
South Africans hate the Dutch…

Have you ever met anyone from these countries? This is stupid prejudice that does no-one any good.

I lived in France for six years and hatred of the Germans never came up. North Africans, yes. Germans, never. The Germans and French get on well.

The modern Poles distrust the Germans politically. But it didn't stop them joining the EU, nor moving across the border to work. (The Poles DO hate the Russians, mind you.)

There are no longer any "Yugoslavs" for the Italians to despise. They dislike the Albanian and Gypsy immigrants, but I doubt they worry for one moment about Slovenians who live in Slovenia. (The same attitude as so many Americans have to Mexicans really.)

Many German generals of the era said the entry of the US was the turning point from their point of view.

These guys were notoriously looking for any excuse. Some went for the "Jewish stab in the back" instead. With about as much validity.

I've worked with many people from some of those countries and to a man they all hated the French.

Mark, that's from a 1960's parody song by Tom Lehrer.

I read an economic analysis of the war a few years ago (can't remember the title of the book), but the economist made a convincing argument that it actually was Germany that won the war.

See, I was pretty sure it was kyoteblue's uncle, too. Damn, now I'm not so sure.

BTW, is the person who started this thread the same "Green Leader" who runs the Ultimate Soldier Unofficial Fan Page?

Arms dealers won. In fact, they are still winning.

MiniatureWargaming dot com, good point, although the same thing might be said of Japan. What a cost to "win".

No one. US came out ina good position, but WWI pushed all the world off in an unproductive and negative direction.

The Allied forces won in 1945, I think.

The Dutch made a fortune exporting Britsh cement to the Hun to build trench defences with…

Mlatch 221 – No, not me.

Some very interesting ideas – thanks to those who have responded.

I am interested in the lost generation idea. Britain seems to have lost about 1% of its population, France about 3%. Neither really seem to constitute a whole generation.

Obviously the Serbs. Their army brought the resolution. The breakthrough of the Thessaloniki front directly brought the collapse of two empires, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, and also made the Turkish position unbearable, cutting them off from its allies. It economically isolated Germany. We can observe the western front as a horrible butchery only tying many German forces, without significant moves throughout the war.
The turning points were the defeat of Russia and the Serbian offensive of 1918. Even the German emperor wrote to the Bulgarian saying it would be a disgrace that the war be decided by 60 000 Serb soldiers.

"I am interested in the lost generation idea. Britain seems to have lost about 1% of its population, France about 3%. Neither really seem to constitute a whole generation"

No, it is just the usual lions led by donkeys which is still being trotted out. If ten million or so dead in WW1 constitutes an utter catastrophe, a 'lost generation', then how does does one classify the 50 million+ dead in WW2? let alone the global armageddon which has characterised the years of 'peace' since 1945.

WW1 was undoubtedly a huge shock for Britain, as for the first time in a century they participated fully in a continental war, and suffered continental levels of casualties (but still less than thge French, Germans or Russians). This may have contributed to the numbers of english language works expressing the 'lost generation' viewpoint, but many of them were wildly exaggerated. Graves claimed that 20,000 men passed through his battalion in the course of the war to be lost as casualties, whereas in fact they lost a tenth of that. Pretty horrific but in line with the experience of many WW2 infantry units, but compared to the losses suffered in much Colonial warfare, utterly unheard of.

'Lost Generation' never seems to refer to the loss of a Generation of Brickies, Steel-Workers, Coal Miners or Chippies.

It only appears to relate to the upper Middle Class young men, who indeed DID suffer a disproportionate number of casualties as the Junior Officer Class. Their Courage is not in doubt, and I have the utmost respect for their sacrifice. But the lack of them was a major factor in making British Authors, many of whom were from the same class, conscious of some national tragedy.

Pat

The last bit of my post was indeed from the lyrics to a satirical song called the "Merry Minuette".

My late grandfather fought in the Meuse-Argonne and his regimental history is fascinating reading. I don't think he would say the Americans "won" the war, just that we helped.

I take the "lost generation" to refer as much to the psychological impact of the war as to its physical impact. Metaphorical rather than litteral. Although many at the time may have thought the reverse.

While it seems quite clear that Germany lost, picking a clear winner is not so easy.

Given that WW2 arose in part from dissatisfaction with the outcomes of WW1, and that many of the root causes persist to this day, no student of WW1 should be surprised by the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, I still remain to be convinced that it really ended, or that anyone "won".

The Lost Generation is not a literal term, and was never intended to be. Ernest Hemingway created the term to refer to a group of young writers, like himself, who were veterans of the war and subsequently hung out together at a little bar in Paris.

After their experiences, these guys had developed a disaffected, starkly realistic, and some would say pessimistic view of the world which came out in their writing. The prodigious amounts of alcohol they consumed together might also have been a factor.

It was only later that the term began to be applied to the whole generation of young people that lived through the war. As a group, they were disillusioned by the experience and questioned the values and ideals of their parents, giving way to a hedonistic generation in the 1920s that abandoned the morals that they were raised with. It was in THAT sense that they were a lost generation.

Didn't mean to get all American Lit 101 on ya.

A recently published book discussed the generation of women who had to face the fact they wouldn't marry. Granted these probably fell into the educated, middle-classes. However, Grandmother-in-law talks about a noticeable proportion of relatives and neighbours who had been briefly married, war-widowed & and had no inclination or no opportunity to ever remarry

I second Japan. As a combatant nation, they lost the least, and gained the most.
-Kle.

Surely the Russians won after all WW1 allowed them to get rid of some horriable tyrant and replace it with a workers and pesants paradise. Where everyone was equal and nasty tyrants where a thing of the past……….

" It was in THAT sense that they were a lost generation. "

I could go with that definition.

"Surely the Russians won"

Good point, without communism and the five year plans they would never have had the industrial capacity to resist the German quest for lebensraum im osten. They only barely managed it in any case.

It was an overtime tie. Since most people can't abide ties, the match had to be rescheduled – same venue, but with increased crowd participation – whether willing or not.

Did Australia participate in WWI? I thought they only showed up for the fashion and equestrian events??

No, that was Austria.

The usual story behind fascist agression is sore losing (Germany/Austria) or sore winning (Italy) Ironic that Japan came out well but still went on rampage

Mark Plant

In the list of things which were 'won' in WW1 (much earlier in the thread) you could also have mentioned that the British and French ended up with Germany's African territories, and most of the Ottoman Empire.