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Enormous Casualties: The Terrible Cost of War:
While medical care during the early twentieth century had made great strides when compared to the practices of the Civil War era, it could do little to prevent the tremendous casualties of the First World War. Despite improved sanitation and use of antiseptics, American casualties totalled 48,909 killed in action, 2,913 missing, and 237,135 wounded. In addition, a major flu epidemic in 1918-1918 caused another 46,992 deaths among AEF members. And significant as these losses are, they pale in comparison to those of the European combatants, who lost nearly 9 million men killed in action and more than 22 million wounded. The Great War had literally consumed a generation.
And there were other casualties as well. The war effort cost Americans some of their cherished civil liberties. Congress approved the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918. Together, these laws enacted harsh penalties for those convicted of "false statements" and forbade Americans to "utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal... language about the... Government or... military... of the United States."
But perhaps the greatest casualty of the war was the illusion that it would "make the world safe for democracy" or be "the war to end war." Americans rejected the harsh Treaty of Versailles imposed on Germany and refused to join the League of Nations. In effect, Americans sought to turn away from the new world order they had helped to create. During the period which historians call the Roaring Twenties and well into the period of Great Depression, grave international problems remained unsolved. With good reason, the great English historian and politician Winston S. Churchill characterized the period from 1914 through 1945 as the "Thirty Years War with the twenty years truce." |