If the war had come to an end in 1917, if the con-
flict had been decisively won by either the Allies or
the central powers eighteen months earlier, then
for certain the history of the world would have
been very different. Instead the war went on.
Neither a compromise peace nor a decision on the
western front could be attained. European society
had withstood the strains of war for more than
two and a half years much better than anyone
thought likely in the beginning. In the third year,
the toll of destruction finally began to crack the
political and social cohesion of Russia, the largest
of the European powers; nor could even the mili-
tarily stronger Western countries escape the con-
sequences of the conflict. The year 1917 marked a
great change in the direction of world history.
From the start the war had not been entirely
European. With the entry of Turkey into the war
in 1914 the destiny of the Middle East was bound
up in the war’s outcome. In what, from the point
of view of the war itself, was a sideshow, the
British launched offensives in 1916, 1917 and
1918 against the Turks and at the end of the war
became the predominant military power in this
region of the world. They were now bound to
agreements and promises to the French (the
Sykes–Picot agreement) to divide influence with
them after the war; to the Arabs they had held
out prospects of independence; and to the
Zionists, who under Chaim Weizmann’s leader-
ship were working for a Jewish state, ‘a National
Home of the Jewish People’ in Palestine. Fromthese origins in the First World War developed
the Middle East conflicts that have continued
down to the present day.
From the start, too, eastern Asia was involved
in the war. On the pretext of pursuing the war
against Germany, Japan began by occupying the
German colonial sphere in China in 1914, and
went on to attempt to gain predominance over a
much greater part of China while the European
powers were locked in devastating conflict thou-
sands of miles away. On the continent of Africa
the war seemed only to result in a rearrangement
of colonies: a further chapter in the history of
imperialism. Yet the new ‘mandates’ of the League
of Nations over former German colonies held out
eventual promise of independence for the African
people. Peace treaties did not end these worldwide
repercussions of the war. National aspirations
which were intensified during the war continued
to ferment when the war was over.Nineteen-seventeen was a momentous year in
world history. Two events almost coincided: the
Russian Revolution and the entry of the US into
the war. By becoming a belligerent and assuming
world commitments, the US was in decisive
breach of the advice of the Founding Fathers of
the republic. After the war, the American people
tried to treat this as an aberration and return to
normalcy and ‘isolation’. But Americans could
not escape involvement in global affairs in the
twentieth century as they perceived their security(^1) Chapter 10
THE GREAT WAR II
THE END OF WAR IN THE WEST, 1917–18