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orld War I, the Great War, the War to End All Wars was a war of firsts. It brought us new weapons, the dawn of air power, created a world power out of the isolationist United States, ushered in fascist regimes and communist states, marked the zenith of the British Empire, and was the beginning of the end of colonialism. It was the world’s first true encounter with total war.
The war employed women and minorities in numbers not seen before, was a catalyst to Great Migration, and provided a rallying point for activists on all sides of the race and gender divide. Working class men in Britain gained the right to vote during the war; women in its wake. When the dust began to settle in 1919, the maps of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia were redrawn reflecting the victors’ prerogatives.
The events that began in the summer of 1914 shaped the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in profound ways.
OVERVIEW
W
orld War I, the Great War, the War to End All Wars was a war of firsts. It brought us new weapons, the dawn of air power, created a world power out of the isolationist United States, ushered in fascist regimes and communist states, marked the zenith of the British Empire, and was the beginning of the end of colonialism. It was the world’s first true encounter with total war. The war employed women and minorities in numbers not seen before, was a catalyst to Great Migration, and provided a rallying point for activists on all sides of the race and gender divide. Working class men in Britain gained the right to vote during the war; women in its wake. When the dust began to settle in 1919, the maps of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia were redrawn reflecting the victors’ prerogatives.
The events that began in the summer of 1914 shaped the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in profound ways.
