“The war to end all wars” is over – and yet, Henry Wilson, British Army Chief of Staff,
wrote in 1919, “One year and three days later, we have between 20 and 30 wars raging
in different parts of the world.”
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War Epilogue Special.
At the end of 1918, there are new nations and new leaders springing up all over Europe,
and the former battlefields of the world war will soon see renewed warfare as those nations
fight each other- or fight themselves in civil wars.
A world reeling from the confusion of the world war now grows even more confusing.
In Central and Eastern Europe, the idea now is that national identity is based on some
mix of ethnicity, geography, and religion.
Unfortunately there are no natural borders on which to base these new divisions, so no
matter how you slice it, a lot of people with any common cultural identity will end up on
the wrong side of some border.
Move the border a little to fix that and it’s another group that gets split instead.
Poland becomes independent again after 123 years of partitions.
Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.
A Hungarian democratic republic is declared.
Latvia declares independence from Russia.
Montenegro becomes part of Serbia.
The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes is established.
Transylvania again becomes part of Romania.
In fact, Hungary lost so much territory from the Treaty of Trianon that it had instant
grievances against its neighbors, especially Romania with whom they went to war, and that
began a pretty much permanent source of discord.
Russia is in a state of civil war.
The by now fairly well organized Bolshevik forces; The Reds - face a mess of different
counterrevolutionary factions; The Whites.
These imperialists, democrats, proto-fascists, monarchists, and more, fight not only against
The Reds, but also for control of the war between each other.
But beyond the civil war, the Bolsheviks want to take back land lost to Germany under the
Brest-Litovsk treaty, most of which is now new European nations.
These regions are rich in resources and industry, but also the Bolshevik aim is to achieve the
International Proletariat.
The ideal vision is a world of peace and prosperity where everyone receives according to their
needs and gives according to their ability.
In 1919 this vision seems ridiculous, because all they do is fight and kill.
Estonia is fighting Russia mostly united, but Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus are split
into factions that either want to stay independent or want to become part of Russia again.
Polish forces are fighting with Ukraine for control over Eastern Galicia, which contains
Europe’s biggest oil reserves.
So Ukraine is facing three enemies at once since they’re also fighting with Romania
in the South over territories in Bessarabia, recently annexed by Romania, but that now
want to join Ukraine instead.
Poland is both concerned about having the Bolsheviks on their doorstep and about protecting
the ethnic Poles in the region.
The Polish-Soviet War soon begins.
But wars aren’t confined to Eastern Europe.
The United Kingdom is at war with Ireland, the Afghans, and the Bedouins in Syria.
France is at war with Hmong Rebels in the War of the Insane in Indochina.
Finland is fighting back Bolshevik Russian forces.
Despite the Ottoman Empire coming to its end, the War of Turkish Independence pits Turkey
against the Allies again, now with Greece as Allied Proxy.
Greece got new territory after the world war, and then looked at what seemed to be a helpless
Ottoman remnant and decided to go to war to reunite all of the lost Hellenic provinces
from ancient history.
A successful advance led the Greeks all the way to Ankara, but Mustafa Kemal managed to
put together an even more successful counter offensive that overwhelmed the overstretched
Greek army.
This war and the atrocities committed- on both sides- shocked even a world that had
just been through the world war.
The Treaty of Lausanne that ended that conflict also swapped, yep, relocated the Greek and
Turkish minolrities on each side with each other- against their will, but perhaps even
more importantly, it provided a quasi-legal precedent whereby “unwanted” minorities
could be removed from a nation.
That would really come back to haunt the world over the next decades.
There is unrest everywhere.
In China, the new republic that deposed the Emperor in 1912 is already falling apart.
Although the Republic of China still exists officially, in reality the country is now
under control of local warlords.
Some parts of China are under Japanese control.
Japan is one of the Allies and expanded its influence on the Asian mainland and in the
Pacific postwar.
Together with the US they are also now involved in Eastern Siberia against the Bolsheviks.
In India, South East Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, France and Britain have tightened
their control over their colonial dependencies.
Nevertheless there is increasing civil strife as the peoples of these regions watch new
independent nations arise all over the rest of the world.
In the Middle East, the British have made the Emir Faisal King of Greater Syria, a British
dependency.
They have also promised him a new pan-Arabic Nation.
This is a reward for uniting the Arab tribes- together with Lawrence of Arabia - with the
Allies in the war.
But the intricate web of financial interest, oil fields, and agreements like Sykes-Picot
that divided up the region between France and Great Britain on lines just drawn on a
map with no care for the division of peoples, or the Balfour Declaration that promises a
Jewish State in Palestine, now stand in the way of a united Arabia.
And France and Britain are unwilling to give up their influence and oil.
By the time 1920 ends many of those East European nations proclaimed only a little more than
year ago no longer exist.
Ukraine, Lithuania, and Latvia are part of Soviet Russia or Poland.
The Bolsheviks defeated and destroyed the White forces, but as they consolidated their
gains and with incredible hubris turned their attention westward, first to crush the Poles
and take Poland, and then to take Germany and beyond - they were themselves beaten-
no, they were slaughtered by the Poles at the Battle of Warsaw and Soviet influence
in mainland Europe was halted for the next 20 years.
Poland remained free.
Military historian J.F.C.
Fuller ranks the Battle of Warsaw as one of the most decisive battles in history, as it
prevented Soviet influence from reaching the borders of Germany, Romania, and Hungary at
what was a very critical and uncertain stage in those nations.
And the uncertainty in Germany was reaching a fever pitch.
The 1920 Luttwitz-Kapp Putsch, a coup to take power that involves former German Army Quartermaster
General Erich Ludendorff and the Freikorps - right wing paramilitary nationalist forces,
begins.
They take Berlin but as the government flees the city, the entire country - at government
request - goes on strike.
In Berlin everything stops; no gas, water, electricity, no nothing.
In effect the refusal of the ENTIRE German population makes Luttwitz and Kapp incapable
of governing, and the coup breaks down after only three days.
Though it looks at first like a big win for the new Weimar Republic, it won’t be in
the long run.
A major grievance of Kapp and co. against the government was that the national assembly
was only supposed to serve temporarily and was now acting like a permanent Reichstag.
This is a popular sentiment, so to appease further unrest the assembly is dissolved in
April and a general election held in June.
The electorate is not impressed with the current government.
They get half the votes they had gotten in 1919.
None of the parties can agree on a coalition with a majority, and the conservatives manage
to form a minority government.
This effectively leads to a paralysis of government, as they can’t advance their policies without
support of the opposition.
In fact, the Weimar Republic will never have a majority government again and this will
contribute to the constant chaos in German politics in the 20s as the country will have
no clear leadership.
And that chaos, combined with the failure of the German economy over the years and growing
resentment that the war wasn’t really “lost” but the army was betrayed by its leaders,
will prove a fertile breeding ground for extreme political movements like the Nazi Party.
And in all of the nations I mentioned today, nations at war or civil war in the aftermath
of the World War, the 1920s will come to be defined by –isms; movements and ideologies
across the whole political spectrum, many of which are new or new as mass movements;
fascism, futurism, communism, internationalism, republicanism, feminism, liberalism, nationalism,
socialism, pacifism, imperialism, and more, and the struggle between these competing ideologies,
that are often completely incompatible with each other, will define the world of the 1920s,
making it as chaotic at times or even more so than the Great War.
And the people of this brave new world cannot be helped but colored by the spectre of violence
- after seeing and living so much of it for so long - that casual violence is an accepted
part of society, and institutionalized violence is seen by a great many people as an acceptable
way to solve a conflict.
And it begs the question - if the whole world is at war, then is the world war over?