Page 10 - 21st Century Defense 100th Anniversary WW1

The dissolution of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and favorable commercial rights throughout the rest of the
Ottoman empires and the collapse of the Treaty of Brest- province. In addition, it was awarded a mandate over the
Litovsk created a number of new countries in Eastern Europe. German Pacific island possessions that the Japanese navy had
Transylvania and Bukovina became parts of Romania. Bosnia protected and a permanent seat on the Council of the League
and Herzegovina, Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, Slovenia, and of Nations.
Vojvodina merged with Serbia to form the Kingdom of the
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which later became Yugoslavia. There were no clear winners or losers as a result of the war,
except for the people who lost their lives and property, which
Politically the war resulted in significant changes in Europe. could never be recovered. Perhaps the most negative outcome
The German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman was from a military standpoint: more combatants died in
empires dissolved. The formation of the new or redrawn battle than from disease. That had not often been the case in
countries created a new set of problems in Czechoslovakia previous wars.
and Poland which, following the war, contained substantial
ethnic minorities that were unhappy with the new boundaries In hindsight, the social and political upheaval the “Great War”
that disconnected them from other members of their groups. created reverberated across Europe for another twenty years,
That would become a major issue in the years leading up to as did the massive debts incurred by the warring countries.
World War II. Virtually the same countries that lined up against each other
in World War I, many with new names and borders, resumed
Japan was rewarded for its efforts in the war, albeit their nationalistic, political, and territorial struggles with the
temporarily. It received all of Germany’s pre-war rights in outbreak of World War II in September 1939. World War I had
Shandong province in China, which it lost in 1922, complete been an exercise in futility for the countries involved, at a price
outright possession of the territory of Jiaozhou Bay, and that is still difficult to compute or comprehend.

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