Question

Discuss the effect of first world war or great economic depression on europe

Answer 1

Money, money, money, money, the one aspect of any country that is the driving force on decisions being made and the progression of production. Ingvar Svennilson is a very well-known economist in the mid 1900’s who researched the European economy in the early 1900’s and World War I. In the book “The European Economy 1914-2000” the author Derek H. Aldcroft talked of how Svennilson analyzed and calculated that “if there had been no war and the 1881-1913 European rate of industrial output growth had been maintained (3.25 per cent per annum) then the 1929 level of production would have been achieved in 1921.” This means that Svennilson is saying that World War I had caused a setback of eight years in the growth of production. Europe had the greatest impact of on the growth of their production due to economic problems and the horrible aftermath of World War I. Russia, Germany, France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Latvia were the countries in Europe that had most of the loss in growth in 1920 with that being at least thirty percent lower than in 1913. The European economy was devastated post World War I and rippled throughout the European economy for many decades thereafter.



This picture shows the despair of the economy of Europe after the effects of WWI. These kids are using stacks of money as building blocks to make a tower. The economy of Europe post World War I was so destroyed that people were throwing stacks of money away.

World War I had many drastic changes around the world from physical to economical. The majority of the changes occurred in Europe from all the beneficial parts such as raising the economy of the majority of Europe due to the technology boost after the war from the production of automobiles to airplanes. WWI had also done a lot of damage to the economy too, economy in Germany became destroyed and the European nations started a period of inflation due to over printing of their currencies. The European countries had diverse ways of thinking from printing more and more money to producing different goods for countries around the world. The one thing that is abundant in Europe is the conflict between the different countries. Due to the countries being so close the nations have conflicts over small things and always have a lot of resentment toward one another.