SMETHPORT (EC) — Three local presenters will offer “The History of World War I” at 7 p.m. Thursday at the McKean County Courthouse.
Sponsored by the McKean County Historical Society, this program is free and open to the public.
Retired President John Yoder will discuss the pre-war conditions; McKean County President Judge John Pavlock will speak about the war; and retired McKean County Family Law Master Deborah Babcox is to address the war’s aftermath. Each presenter will have approximately 20-minute segments
Yoder is to discuss the conditions prior to the outbreak of the European war that developed into a global war involving all the world’s great economic powers, 32 nations — the Allies and associates versus the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria.
“I plan to mention the importance of the military alliances involved in the war,” Yoder noted. “While the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was not the only cause of the war, it was the trigger that set off a diplomatic crisis that eventually led to the war.”
World War I lasted from 1914-18.
The tactical stalemate of trench warfare, plus the introduction of new weapons such as airplanes, tanks and poison gas, led to the deaths of nine million combatants, including 100,000 Americans, and an additional seven million civilians, making it one of the largest wars in history. President Woodrow Wilson dubbed it “a war to end all wars.”
Pavlock said, “Necessity is the mother of invention, and at the beginning of his war the necessity for better airplanes was strongly felt, with the result that in just four years the progress to a higher degree of development than they otherwise have done in 10 years.
“Just 10 years after the Wright brothers flew their first plane at Kitty Hawk, (N.C.), the airplane, which had the basic rudiments of flight, was used in the war primarily for reconnaissance about the terrain and the enemy positions,” he continued. “Soon, however, it was realized the airplane could drop bombs and be equipped with machine guns.”
The years following the war saw extreme political, economic, cultural and social upheaval throughout much of the world. By the conclusion of the war or shortly thereafter, the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires no longer existed. National borders were redrawn and several independent nations were restored or created.
At the same time, though, burdensome reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, coupled with an inflationary period in Europe during the 1920s caused hyperinflation and economic chaos in Germany.
The economic crisis and social and political unrest in Germany after the war, according to many historians, helped sow the seeds for an even more destructive war less than 25 years later.
