# What does "The war to end all wars" mean? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 3, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365 "2011-03-03T16:03:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/21 "2011-03-03T19:34:17Z")
> [@Shmendrik](#): > > armies, not arms. :smack: Actually, arms works too, in the sense of “military establishment.” I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, a hundred or a thousand years from now, what we consider two World Wars will be widely seen as a single conflict with a lengthy lull or hiatus. After all, most of the same players were in both, most of them were aligned with the same allies both times, with the question of who would dominate continental Europe a major issue in both. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/22 "2011-03-03T19:43:21Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Yes - I’d absolutely view the whole period as one thing. But given the habit of separating them, I find the first woefully underconsidered here in the US (unsurprisingly, given this country’s MUCH greater involvement in Round 2). Yea…he meant aftershock in 2 ways. A continuation of and ‘of lesser strength’. He viewed WWI as ‘smaller’ than WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/23 "2011-03-03T19:48:29Z")
The idea was that as a result of winning World War I, the Great Powers would be able to create a system that would resolve international disputes through non-military means and get everyone to agree to participate in this system. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/24 "2011-03-03T19:52:10Z")
> [@Shmendrik](#): > > That’s [highly debatable](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles#Historical_assessments). One could say that they corrected the error by decisively destroying their arms, completely occupying their territory, and indoctrinating them with liberal democracy (or communism, for East Germany), rather than giving them the freedom to run their own affairs. Germany also lost far more territory after WWII than after WWI. I didn’t mean to imply other factors weren’t involved. But decisively destroying arms, occupying territory, and indoctrination with a political creed doesn’t necessarily make a former enemy into a friend over the long term: witness the Soviet Union and its satellites. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/25 "2011-03-03T20:02:43Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Many people today call WWII a continuation of WWI. A single war with a 20-year cease-fire, if you will. And WWI was a continuation of the Franco-Prussian War. And the Franco-Prussian War was a continuation of the Austro-Prussian War. And the Austro-Prussian War was a continuation of the Second Schleswig War. And the Second Schleswig War was a continuation of the First Schleswig War. Which could have been avoided if Christian VIII had a eligible heir. Which he might have if he hadn’t divorced his wife Charlotte Frederica after she had an affair with court musician Edouard Du Puy. So I’m looking at you, Ed. This was all your fault. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/27 "2011-03-03T21:27:40Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, a hundred or a thousand years from now, what we consider two World Wars will be widely seen as a single conflict with a lengthy lull or hiatus. It is now, so it would more surprising if it wasn’t thought of that way in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/28 "2011-03-03T22:03:38Z")
It was the war to end all wars because: a) the horrifying number of casualties inflicted b) the defeat of Germany would restore the balance of power among the great nations c) the introduction of modern weapons – airplanes, tanks, submarines, poison gas, etc. – made the stakes too great to fight another war d) the old empires were broken up e) the advent of modern communications (telegraph and telephone) meant that an enemy would no longer have the element of surprise f) the League of Nations would provide a method for resolving disputes. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/29 "2011-03-03T22:08:16Z")
**kunilou** These (with the exception of b) ) seem to apply only after the war. The phrase was first used in August 1914, before any of them could really have been seen. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2011, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/30 "2011-03-03T22:15:41Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, a hundred or a thousand years from now, what we consider two World Wars will be widely seen as a single conflict with a lengthy lull or hiatus. After all, most of the same players were in both, most of them were aligned with the same allies both times, with the question of who would dominate continental Europe a major issue in both. I wouldn’t be surprised if an opposite effect also becomes true. That what we call World War Two will eventually be seen as two seperate wars that happened to occur during overlapping times: a European War (which will be seen as the second phase of the longer German War) and an Asian War. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/31 "2011-03-04T01:49:40Z")
> [@villa](#): > > **kunilou** > > These (with the exception of b) ) seem to apply only after the war. The phrase was first used in August 1914, before any of them could really have been seen. Granted, but the other five reasons gave the phrase greater weight after the war. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/32 "2011-03-04T03:10:30Z")
it was a slogan that Wilson and Co used to sell the highly unpopular war to the unwilling American public that had just reelected him under campaign slogan of “he kept us out of war”. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/33 "2011-03-04T04:00:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It is now, so it would more surprising if it wasn’t thought of that way in the future. It’s still debated now; I kinda doubt that it will be in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/34 "2011-03-04T05:52:20Z")
> [@villa](#): > > It might have done [del]if it wasn’t for you meddling kids[/del] if it wasn’t for pussying out on splitting Germany up into its constituent states. But that’s a different argument. In a lot of ways they got it exactly wrong. IMO, more or less punitive measures would have worked better than what actually happened. But the tension between Woodrow Wilson’s drive to make everything OK from now on, and France’s drive to punish the Germans for another invasion , produced the least desirable outcome - resentment but still the ability to rebuild. Add that to the British desire to leave Germany as still a viable counterweight to France - their abiding goal in diplomacy has always been to not leave any other power dominant within Europe. And, as diplomatic goals go, their efforts in this regard have been astonishingly successful. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/35 "2011-03-04T06:28:30Z")
I was watching a documentary of Hitler’s rise and it pointed out another unforesen consequence of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler loved the army. His biggest desire in 1918 was to stay on and be a career NCO. (Which was unusual because most servicemen had had enough of the military by 1918.) But the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to almost completely demoblize its military. So there was no room for Hitler and he was discharged. Desolated and directionless, he ended up hanging out in Munich bars where he drifted into politics. ---
**Author:** ![A.Gwilliam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@A.Gwilliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.Gwilliam)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/36 "2011-03-04T09:57:15Z")
> [@villa](#): > > It is very easy for Americans to underestimate the importance of World War I on the European psyche. In some ways, it is a more defining moment in European history than World War II. Absolutely. Both the UK and France lost far more lives in the First than in the Second World War. All over the UK today there are war memorials placed after the Great War. You’ll find them in every major railway station (and many smaller ones), in any major hotel that was around back then… and also in just about every single village in the country. By my quick reckoning, the death rate for the UK was about the same as was suffered in the US’ civil war. And that’s **half** the death rate suffered by France. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/37 "2011-03-04T12:00:01Z")
In contrast to ‘the war to end all wars’ there’s a good (if somewhat heavy-going) book out called [The Peace to End All Peace](http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-20th-Anniversary/dp/0805088091/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299239540&sr=8-1). It’s about WWI and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and all the scheming by Britain, France and others surrounding the creation of the Middle East as we broadly know it. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/38 "2011-03-04T20:20:48Z")
> [@villa](#): > > …It is very easy for Americans to underestimate the importance of World War I on the European psyche. In some ways, it is a more defining moment in European history than World War II. Higher casualties, sure, and that’s not to be scoffed at. But France was conquered and occupied in Round 2, and the UK was pounded much more severely and was under what was perceived at the time as a very real threat of invasion. In those ways WWII was much worse for them than WWI. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/39 "2011-03-04T20:27:37Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Higher casualties, sure, and that’s not to be scoffed at. But France was conquered and occupied in Round 2, and the UK was pounded much more severely and was under what was perceived at the time as a very real threat of invasion. In those ways WWII was much worse for them than WWI. No doubt. But the societal impact of the Great War was, I believe, significantly higher. It also massively influenced British and French military and political thinking between the wars and during WWII. The Great War completely changed British society in a way the WWII didn’t - the trenches brutalized the working classes, certainly, but also decimated the old elite. By far the most dangerous rank to be in WWI was Second Lieutenant. And those were (at first at least) the sons of the old ruling classes, the landed gentry. The Great War saw a massive shift of power to the middle classes - the tradesmen if you will - including those who made huge fortunes from supplying the troops. It also radicalized the working classes, leading to the class conflicts before the war, and the stunning success of Labour in 1945 (which I trace more back to WWI than WWII, if anything the second war delayed the welfare state). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/40 "2011-03-05T00:01:26Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Higher casualties, sure, and that’s not to be scoffed at. But France was conquered and occupied in Round 2, and the UK was pounded much more severely and was under what was perceived at the time as a very real threat of invasion. In those ways WWII was much worse for them than WWI. As villa says, those are physical rather than psychological. Remember the forgotten topic of this thread. People honestly thought that a world war was impossible, and then they thought that they were going off to fight a glorious war similar to those in the last century. The reality of the war was radically different. Trench warfare was long grinding horror. The generals were ridiculously incompetent butchers rather than dashing heroes. Poison gas was a horror few had conceived of. The development of submarine and air warfare meant that Brits were vulnerable in a way they thought impossible. The aftermath was a generation wiped out along with the social changes villa mentions. Instead of a war to end all wars, Europe saw endless turmoil. Monarchies collapsed. Empires fell. There has never been anything like it in history. The first world war changed everything. Every aspect of life changed. The world in 1890 is utterly unlike the world in 1930, even beside the technological changes. What’s fascinating is that the war is the only literal dividing line that we can pinpoint for eras of history. Before the war is the past. After the war is the modern era. Americans don’t appreciate this as much because we were untouched by the war in any serious way. (Yes, many men died but a tiny number compared either to the Civil War or the losses of the other nations.) Yet the divide between the past and modernity was just as real here. If you’re talking about the psyche of Western Europe you can’t begin to compare the two. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365/41 "2011-03-05T01:54:25Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > it was a slogan that Wilson and Co used to sell the highly unpopular war to the unwilling American public that had just reelected him under campaign slogan of “he kept us out of war”. It could be correct if “the war to end all wars” had been commonly used only in the USA, and it isn’t the case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-war-to-end-all-wars-mean/573365.md?page=3)