The World Commemorates the End of World War One
One hundred years ago, World War One ended. This November, world leaders will gather in France to commemorate the end of the conflict which ushered in a century of wars and large ethnic cleansings, unraveling of empires, World War Two and the subsequent Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. Even though the commemoration in France will serve as a unifying motive between the various leaders, the world has in fact been divided as never before in the period which followed the end of the “Great War.” It all began on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, then the center of Bosnia, a province annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908.
On that day, Gavrilo Princip, a member of the ultranationalist group “Black Hand” stood on the corner of Appel Quay and Franz-Josef Strasse eating a sandwich. The 19-year-old Bosnian Serb was part of a group of assassin students called the Young Bosnians who were trying to capitalize on Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s trip to Sarajevo. Heir to the Austria-Hungary throne, Ferdinand was visiting Bosnia to attend military exercises, and when the Young Bosnians heard of his visit, they smuggled semi-automatic pistols and handheld bombs over the Serbian border. Their first attempt to assassinate Ferdinand ended with a bomb rolling off the side of the Archduke’s car killing a few bystanders.
A motorcade carrying Ferdinand and his pregnant wife, Duchess Sophie Chotek, took a wrong turn on Appel Quay, and Princip was given a second chance to carry out what the conspirators had agreed on. Two shots killed the couple, and the assassination catapulted Europe into World War I.
The conflict killed millions and swept several of the major monarchies off the European continent. The Russian Empire, stretching from Vladivostok to Warsaw, broke up, losing the South Caucasus, almost the entire Ukraine and the Baltic States, while the hinterland of the country was at full-scale civil war between Reds and Whites. The mighty German-speaking world of two German and Austrian empires was shaken to its core: while the German Empire with its monarchy simply ceased to exist and its territory was truncated from east and west, the Austrian empire was dismembered. The same happened to the Turkish Empire. Victorious France and Great Britain occupied the entire Middle East, and during the Versailles Conference (1919) they did not even invite the German and Russian sides (so important for securing a long-term European peace) to negotiate their rights. As a result, Germany was floored by having to pay huge military reparations and was unable to sustain its economy.
Extremism
World War I spawned perhaps two of the most violent ideologies in world history: Nazism and Communism. This was a reaction, primarily, to the difficult economic situation those countries found themselves in following the war. All of Hitler’s electoral messages had one theme: to reverse the Versailles Treaty. Communists had the same agenda. The essential point here is that both countries were excluded from the European peace settlement. The failure of the League of Nations (precursor to the modern United Nations) should be explained primarily by this fact. Revisionist Berlin and Moscow wanted another world conflict and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact should be seen through this lens. Ideology-driven regimes form an essential part of European history: a number of Asian countries (China, Cambodia, Vietnam) too saw extremists rise to power.
The destruction of Hitler’s Third Reich ought to have brought about a more peaceful world. Instead, we saw a second round of ideological conflict between the democratic and communist powers led by the USA and USSR. Both of them were doing the same things: invading foreign countries and financing local democratic/communist parties to topple governments in power. In the end, the Communist bloc broke up and the world was again enthralled with the prospect of long-term peace.
Back to Modern Days
When the world leaders gather in Paris this month, the question they will face is whether the world has become a more stable place than it was 100 years ago. There are disturbing indications that all runs contrary to this assumption. Over the past 27 years, we have seen dozens of large-scale wars around the world. The world nowadays sees many similarities to what was happening in the pre-1914 political order.
Beyond actual conflicts, today we see how a number of regional powers aspire to achieve a larger geopolitical stance in the region, which is always bound to cause tensions with future repercussions. Russia has increasingly stepped up its influence on her immediate neighborhood. Her relations with the West are in shatters and her economy is weak, making the country more willing to ease the pressure through foreign policy maneuvers. More importantly for killing the post-Cold War order is China’s aspiration for a much bigger role on the Eurasian landmass – an initiative which goes against the US’ geopolitical imperatives.
The Arab Spring, supposed to bring about the freedom of the Middle East, culminated in the bloody Libyan and Syrian wars with tens of thousands of casualties. The United Nations cannot ensure every right of a state, big countries often bully their small neighbors, and as a result, large-scale warfare persists whether in Central Africa, the Middle East, or even in Europe itself (Ukraine).
100 years on from the end of the World War One, this November the world leaders in Paris can easily grasp how less safe the world has become in the past decade.
By Emil Avdaliani