0.3 Great war (part ii)  (Page 16/16)

Conclusion

The “War to End all War”, the “War to Make the World Safe for Democracy”, the “Great War”, and eventually “World War I” were all phrases used to describe the hostilities that erupted throughout Europe and the Middle East between 1914 and 1918. When the war came to an end millions of people were dead, Germany was an occupied nation, American troops were still fighting in Russia and National Guardsmen had been deployed around this country in wake of the racial and political violence. Americans rejected being a player on the international stage, influenza ravaged the world, and American literature and art seemed to reflect this era of death and misery.

The Versailles meeting among American, Italian, French, and British leaders certainly did not settle any of the big questions that Wilson posed in his January 1918 address. Most of the colonial holdings of the Ottoman Empire, Austria, and Germany were redistributed among Great Britain, France, and Italy. One group of people known as the Kurds desperately clung to Wilson’s idea on “self determination.” They tried to carve a country for themselves out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire. They called their country Kurdistan and the League of Nations turned to the United States to tutor the country’s political, economic, and social leaders. The US refused and Kurdistan was consumed among Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, not unlike how the world was consumed by the flu. Since the Great War, the Kurds have been but the fuzzy, yellow tennis ball being smacked around in a game in geo-political mixed doubles among the governments of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. We are still dealing with the Kurdish question today.

Palestine was a backwater province of the Ottoman Empire yet Palestinians sought independence and they were not willing to change one master (Istanbul) for another (England). A young Arab military leader named Faisal traveled to Versailles in the hopes of being able to convince the Allies to allow Palestine to become an independent country. The allies refused, Palestine was taken by England. We are still dealing with the question of Palestine today both in terms of billions of US dollars each year, the cost of the Israeli occupation, and in the loss of lives.

A young Vietnam nationalist leader named Ho Chi Minh traveled to Versailles in the hopes of meeting with President Wilson. Minh wanted the help of the US to transform his country from a colonial holding of France into an independent nation based on the political and economic example of the United States. Wilson refused to help and ultimately over one million American troops will be sent to fight against Ho Chi Minh’s forces resulting in the over 60,000 American deaths and nearly 400,000 wounded Americans.

Right around the corner is the “Roaring ‘20s”. Just how can such a depressed and dejected nation seemingly bounce back into a decade of dancing, music, and never-ending celebration? They don’t. Just like the War to End all War failed in its titular objective, the Roaring 20s were certainly not roaring for those in the center of the decade-long social, political, and economic hurricane as you will see.