Making of a Global World 4 Flashcards
explain the ww1
The First World War (1914-18) was mainly fought in Europe. But
its impact was felt around the world. Notably for our concerns
in this chapter, it plunged the first half of the twentieth century
into a crisis that took over three decades to overcome. During
this period the world experienced widespread economic and
political instability, and another catastrophic war.
who faught the ww1
The First World War, as you know, was fought between two power
blocs. On the one side were the Allies – Britain, France and Russia
(later joined by the US); and on the opposite side were the Central
Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey. When
the war began in August 1914, many governments thought it would
be over by Christmas. It lasted more than four years.
why was the ww1 different?
The First World War was a war like no other before. The fighting
involved the world’s leading industrial nations which now
harnessed the vast powers of modern industry to inflict the greatest
possible destruction on their enemies.
the ww1 was a modern industrial war. why?
This war was thus the first modern industrial war. It saw the use
of machine guns, tanks, aircraft, chemical weapons, etc. on a
massive scale. These were all increasingly products of modern largescale industry. To fight the war, millions of soldiers
had to be recruited from around the world and
moved to the frontlines on large ships and trains.
The scale of death and destruction – 9 million dead
and 20 million injured – was unthinkable before the
industrial age, without the use of industrial arms.
who faced most death?
Most of the killed and maimed were men of
working age. These deaths and injuries reduced the
able-bodied workforce in Europe. With fewer
numbers within the family, household incomes
declined after the war
how did war restructutr industries and famiies
During the war, industries were restructured to
produce war-related goods. Entire societies were
also reorganised for war – as men went to battle,
women stepped in to undertake jobs that earlier only
men were expected to do.
how did the war change united states?>
The war led to the snapping of economic links between some of
the world’s largest economic powers which were now fighting
each other to pay for them. So Britain borrowed large sums
of money from US banks as well as the US public. Thus the war
transformed the US from being an international debtor to an
international creditor. In other words, at the war’s end, the US and
its citizens owned more overseas assets than foreign governments
and citizens owned in the US.
how was britain state after the ww1?
i)Post-war economic recovery proved difficult.
ii)Britain, which was
the world’s leading economy in the pre-war period, in particular
faced a prolonged crisis.
iii)While Britain was preoccupied with war,
industries had developed in India and Japan. After the war Britain
found it difficult to recapture its earlier position of dominance in
the Indian market, and to compete with Japan internationally.
iv)Moreover, to finance war expenditures Britain had borrowed liberally
from the US. This meant that at the end of the war Britain was
burdened with huge external debts.
the war lead to an economic boom? what is that?
The war had led to an economic boom, that is, to a large increase in
demand, production and employment. When the war boom ended,
production contracted and unemployment increased. At the
same time the government reduced bloated war expenditures to
bring them into line with peacetime revenues. These developments
led to huge job losses – in 1921 one in every five British workers
was out of work. Indeed, anxiety and uncertainty about work
became an enduring part of the post-war scenario
how did the ww1 lead to many agricultural economy decline
Many agricultural economies were also in crisis. Consider the case
of wheat producers. Before the war, eastern Europe was a major
supplier of wheat in the world market. When this supply was
disrupted during the war, wheat production in Canada, America
and Australia expanded dramatically. But once the war was over,
production in eastern Europe revived and created a glut in wheat
output. Grain prices fell, rural incomes declined, and farmers fell
deeper into debt
how did us recover from war?
In the US, recovery was quicker. We have already seen how the war
helped boost the US economy. After a short period of economic ouble in the years after the war, the US economy resumed
its strong growth in the early 1920s.
what became a characteristic of industrial production in us
One important feature of the US economy of the 1920s
was mass production. The move towards mass production
had begun in the late nineteenth century, but in the 1920s it
became a characteristic feature of industrial production in
the US. A
how did henry ford follow this mass productiom
A well-known pioneer of mass production was the
car manufacturer Henry Ford. He adapted the assembly line
of a Chicago slaughterhouse (in which slaughtered animals
were picked apart by butchers as they came down a conveyor
belt) to his new car plant in Detroit. He realised that the
‘assembly line’ method would allow a faster and cheaper way
of producing vehicles. The assembly line forced workers to
repeat a single task mechanically and continuously – such as
fitting a particular part to the car – at a pace dictated by the
conveyor belt. This was a way of increasing the output per worker
by speeding up the pace of work. Standing in front of a conveyor
belt no worker could afford to delay the motions, take a break, or
even have a friendly word with a workmate. As a result, Henry
Ford’s cars came off the assembly line at three-minute intervals, a
speed much faster than that achieved by previous methods. The TModel Ford was the world’s first mass-produced car.
why did workers quit the ford car plant ?
At first workers at the Ford factory were unable to cope with the
stress of working on assembly lines in which they could not control
the pace of work. So they quit in large numbers. In desperation
Ford doubled the daily wage to $5 in January 1914. At the same
time he banned trade unions from operating in his plants Henry Ford recovered the high wage by repeatedly speeding up
the production line and forcing workers to work ever harder. So
much so, he would soon describe his decision to double the daily
wage as the ‘best cost-cutting decision’ he had ever made.
were the fordist industrial practices replicates?
Fordist industrial practices soon spread in the US. They were also
widely copied in Europe in the 1920s. Mass production lowered
costs and prices of engineered goods. Thanks to higher wages,
more workers could now afford to purchase durable consumer
goods such as cars. Car production in the US rose from 2 million in
1919 to more than 5 million in 1929.
