This article is excerpted from Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal (2010), chapter 1, "World War I: The Turning Point," which itself is a much expanded version of an essay that originally appeared in The Costs of War: America's Pyrrhic Victories, 2nd edition, John V. Denson, ed. (2001).
The war's direct costs to the United States were: 130,000 combat deaths; 35,000 men permanently disabled; $33.5 billion (plus another $13 billion in veterans' benefits and interest on the war debt, as of 1931, all in the dollars of those years); perhaps also some portion of the 500,000 influenza deaths among American civilians from the virus the men brought home from France.
The indirect costs, in the battering of American freedoms and the erosion of attachment to libertarian values, were probably much greater. But as Colonel House had assured Wilson, no matter what sacrifices the war exacted, "the end will justify them" – the end of creating a world order of freedom, justice, and everlasting peace.
The process of meeting that rather formidable challenge began in Paris, in January 1919, where the leaders of "the Allied and Associated Powers" gathered to decide on the terms of peace and write the Covenant of the League of Nations.
1 comment:
Excellent telling of how the victors of WWI prepared the path to WWII. All that Germany needed was an insane zealot to lead it.
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