Effects of the Great War

Effects on the Home Front

During the war many cities and places were directly affected by the conflict from attacks by infantry or bombings.
Although the direct damage on infrastructure would be far smaller than in the Second World War, where entire cities would be turned to rubble.
Additionally on the home front millions of people suffered from a lack of food and resources and often had to start rationing.
After the war all countries were in a difficult situation, as they had lost lots of resources and young men which were the primary workforce for factories.
Many people would be permanently injured due to poor medical care and just as many were also psychologically affected, as they had poor healthcare.

Many women lost their husbands during the war and became widows.
However, women also got more jobs, like in factories due to the desperation of the war countering the previously held prejudice of women having to stay at home and care for kids.
Although a lot of women had to return their jobs after the war, some improvements were slowly being made.
For example, the first kindergartens were opened in France, giving women more time for working opportunities.

Before and during the war many types of propaganda were used to get people to enlist or support the war effort in any way possible.
For example sending money and resources for arms manufacturing and rationing or consuming less meat which was needed for the army.
Lots of phycological tricks and relying on emotions such as guilt were used during propaganda.

The propaganda poster above depicts a little girl asking her dad what he did in the war. It showcases a scenario of people who wouldn't have gone to the war and depicts them as cowards.
Enlisting is shown as a heroic and dutiful thing to do.

An American propaganda poster depicting a gorilla with a traditional German helmet coming to American shores from a destroyed horizon, carrying the defeated French maiden in its hands.
It tells viewers to "destroy this mad brute" by enlisting in the U.S. army.
It showcases Germany as a brutal beast that would terrorize America if not stopped.

It’s very reasonable to call The Great War the first total war as it was a continent-wide war that even involved other countries from other continents due to the colonies of European powers.
Many of the countries involved in the war devoted almost their entire industry towards the war, running very low on supplies towards the end of the war and struggling economically.
Tens of millions of people were lost and it has effects that have only recently recovered or started to recover.
The amount of deaths were around 20 million, with 21 million injured.

As territories of large empires were lost after the war, new countries were made out of the areas.
The new nations formed were Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Poland, Yugoslavia, the Baltic countries.