Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Disillusion



Disillusion is a word often associated with The Great War and its aftermath. What about this war led to an unprecedented level of disillusionment for people in the Europe and the US?

30 comments:

  1. Disillusionment probably started being associated with The Great War after WWII. Since there hadn't been a war within Europe for about a century, people were expecting that this war would be a small war. The Great War is small in comparison to WWII, but it was the largest war in all of Europe. The Great War was expected to solve the last of Europe's problems, but that is not what occurred because it actually caused the largest war and economic recession. Disillusionment is also defined as realizing that a belief is false. As we have discussed within class, all the countries had an idea before the Great War that they were better than the rest of the nations. Some countries stopped believing this idea and became more equal with their counterparts.

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  2. I agree with Bianca when she explains how before this there hadn't been a huge war in Europe for a century, so they expected this war to be just a small war that fixed everything, but they were wrong. Even after this devastating war, Europe believe that they were done with major wars for atleast another century. This, of course, caused disillusionment because of World War II, which was more devastating than the Great War. I think after World War II was the major level of disillusionment. Europe no longer thought that the wars were finished, that casualties would decrease, but were probably anxious and on their toes, anticipating something like this to happen again. I think all countries now are prepared for the worst, prepared for war because no one is just saying, " Well we just had a war, I think we are good for another century. " Everyone is prepared with an army that is always powerful. They no longer just have armies when they need them and disperse when they are done. This, in my opinion, changed everyones minds about the occurance of wars.

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  3. A agree with both Melissa and Bianca in that people were probably disappointing after seeing that the agreements and treaties didn't even have a lasting effect. In the long term the effects of the Great War were all redone or overshadowed by the outcomes of WWII. In the United States people might be disappointed that the government had said that they would not get involved with conflicts in Europe and then they went back on it, resulting in more American deaths. But, if the US hadn't got involved, the effects of the war might be a little different. I also agree with Melissa that the mindset of "okay, we're done with big wars" after WWI probably changed after WWII where people think they have to be prepared. Also I think that there is a degree of disillusionment after every war because they is no way to make everyone happy, like we say when we tried to divide up the map in class.

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  5. I think there was a lot of disillusion over the great war. Everyone was expecting a very small war, and they got the complete opposite. I don't think people realized how big it was until after it all happened and all the damage was done. Just like the girls said, no one was expecting a huge war and people were disappointed in how the countries were acting and all the treaties being signed. The biggest disappointment was all the people that had been killed, and that was part of the aftermath, too. It wasn't just people in the war that were killed, it was citizens and innocent people. The people that did survive were disappointed, also, because none of the promises were kept and they were back to the old ways in some ways. People also realized that if the US hadn't gotten involved, the war might have been different, along with some of the little countries that didn't really have a choice of being attacked.

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    1. I agree with Alexa because the countries were disillusioned about the Great War. The war went completely out of control compared to what everyone thought it was going to be. There were over 10 million people killed, thanks to the new technology that came out specifically for war, such as submarines, planes, and firearms. People thought it was going to be a little unimportant war, but it turned out to be one of the most important events in history. Europe didn't change very much,except for the but the people and their ideas of war did.

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    2. Alexa and Jacob are correct, people thought that the war wasn't going to be big but they got the complete opposite. It is now the biggest and more horrific war. So many have died from that war because of the new technology that was brought into the war. Like Jacob said, they had submarines, planes, firearms that helped kill millions of people. Disillusion is a great fit to call this war because of how many people have died to get this war resolved and it didn't really resolve completely, and the people didn't think this was going to be a big war at all.

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  6. Disillusion is very relatable to the Great War. I say this because it was supposed to be a small war like Lexi said. It all started out as a conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary and due to the system of alliances the war grew almost immediately. Another reason that disillusion fits with the Great War is because there was another war over the same thing twenty one years later. This war is known as World War 2. This probably disappointed many because the conflict was supposed to have already been resolved after World War 1. Unfortunately it was not, and that is what lead to another world war. The conflict over land should've been resolved by the second world war. This war caused millions of people to die and it didn't even get the conflict completely resolved. That is why disillusion fits perfectly with the Great War.

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  7. Like Nathan and Lexi said, the Great War wasn't supposed to be a big war. There was a reason the Great War wasn't originally called World War I, because no one thought issues between the two small countries of Serbia and Austria-Hungary would lead to something so horrible. Due to the alliance system however, the Great War was turned into the first World War. I think one of the biggest disappointments and results of World War I would be World War II. As if one destructive war wasn't enough, there had to be a second one. I don't think many people expected either of these wars to become what they did. Issues weren't completely resolved after the first world war. There were still countries that felt they didn't get what they deserved (Germany.) If things would have been handled differently in World War I, it's possible World War II wouldn't have been started. Many people thought things would have gone differently in war than what they had, and this caused several issues and much disappointment for obvious reasons.

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    1. I agree with Macie that one of the greatest disappointments is WWII. Countries during that time did not even put forth effort to show diplomacy. Diplomacy would have been the leaders of Austria-Hungary accepting the agreements Serbia made with them. Serbia agreed to most of the ultimatum that was given. Austria-Hungary decided that they wanted to get rid of the country of Serbia because they were a weak nation. I also may add that the Great Depression was the other biggest disillusionment of WWI. The Great Depression was never expected after a mass murder of 10 million people. The Great Depression was a result because the economy slowed down by making the pie smaller. People also realized that their treaties were not as good as expected. None lasted over 20 years.

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  8. Generally before the war, things for the world are better. There is no serfdom or slavery or killing people for what they believe. But after the Great War, people questioned the idea of the world getting better. After hearing that millions of people were killed, it's hard for people of the early 20th century to believe that the world is getting nicer and better. Many men are also being sent off to war so there are practically no men in a community, unless they're mentally handicapped or wounded. A lot of the men were killed in war and a few men were available for women to marry.
    With the Congress of Vienna, society assumed that the world was going to be getting better forever. But by the time the Great War came around and everyone wanted the Balkans, they knew they needed to fight a war in order to get it, so there is a lot of failure in diplomacy in all of these European countries. This leads people to believe the world is just going to get greedy and not care about anyone but themselves, which will lead to war and destruction.

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  9. Today, we are very careful about our disputes with other countries. As we mentioned in class today, the U.S. now helps to rebuild the countries they defeat in war. After the great war and WW2, we had no desire to enter into another war that would soon devastate us even more than we already were. We began to see that no matter what, war could only bring more violence and distrust--we expect the worst. After the great war, we never expected to enter in a war of equal devastation, and we definitely did not expect to bring on a war that would grow past the size of the last. This disillusion was harmful to us--because we didn't see this war coming. Even after we helped to rebuild Germany, we didn't expect their conditions to be so terrible that they would let a totalitarian (Hitler) lead them into another war.

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  10. I think this happened because the president of the United States kept lying to the people about what is really going on over in Europe. Which made problems worse because people finally found out what happened. This caused people in the United States to somewhat not follow what the president says anymore. This even happens today. We say that we are doing good things over in Afghanistan and all those places, but we are still fighting a war. Even if president Obama says that he is returning the troops home. All he really is doing is changing out the old troops with new troops. Back in the Great War people had nothing better to do than to listen to what the president says so they believed him for the longest time.

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    1. I agree with Kyler's reasoning. The president was instructed by his advisers to not tell the public everything that was going on over seas. I wouldn't call it lying, but he definitely left out some major news in the war. Also like Kyler said above that it caused major distrust in our government and leadership throughout our country. This really goes hand in hand today with previous and upcoming leaders. I feel like this happens in the United States today yet. You don't ever hear about what is going on throughout the world where our troops are stationed. Don't believe anything Obama says that he is pulling all troops out of anywhere. They never actually leave the country completely.

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  11. The reason disillusion happened after World War one is the fact that the world did not get better. Before the war, many people thought the world was becoming a far better place, and that humans had outgrown the savage and deadly nature of war. We were becoming more enlightened, more advanced, and more civilized. But World War one made things worse. Weapons became more efficient at killing people. Millions of soldiers and civilians died in the Great War. Countries fought over who gets what all over again. It seemed that the world had taken a major step back. Even the years after the war so some steps back. The treaties we made, the Great Depression, World War 2, the Cold War, all of them seemed to be the result of the major step back of World War one.

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  13. Leading up to the Great War, we as a species thought that we were extremely advanced, and that we had figured life out. We thought that we were past the times of war because people had become too enlightened and civilized to possibly have another big war. When The Great War broke out people were proven wrong. The war caused over 10 million deaths, and massive destruction across Europe, as well as being the first major war in 100 years. The war also proved as a disillusionment, because the treaties created were not effective in repairing the damage. This caused an even bloodier war over the same issues that were left unsolved in WWI despite the vast number of casualties.

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    1. I agree with this because the human race was supposed to be the peaceful people who don't go to war on a major scale and only want the best for man kind. :The nit shows that we really have not changed because the Great war was fought over the same reasons as those in wars before them. All the countries wanted land and that was a major thing that caused this war as well as the alliance system. The biggest failure though that showed that the human race was not as enlightened as we thought was the treaty at the end of the war. Instead of lifting the country back up we pushed them farther down. We basically made them so desperate that the only thing that they could do to get back to their normal way of life was to start a new war and this is how WW2 started. But the big thing is that the world after WW1 leared from its mistakes and has become more enlighten then it was befor

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  14. Going into the Great War people thought that their lives were constantly getting better and better. During this time people were like oh ok life isn't that bad. After the Great War peoples thoughts were completely changed. They started to second guess what happened before and they thought that they could never get into a war that bad. The Great War showed that people are more interested in finding outs more and more ways to kill someone then they are about changing something so that way a war never really happens. This is a huge set back to pretty much everyone that was a live during this time period.

    Another problem is that people constantly thought that they would never have a war again. They thought that the Great War was never going to happen or that the Great War was the last war that the world would ever fight. They were completely wrong because almost 25 years later there was another huge war that killed more people that the Great War did. That was how people were disillusioned because they didn't think that we were going to fight another large scale war like that. But once again they were completely wrong and have been wrong. Since we are currently on the verge of World War 3 because of Afghanistan and places like that.

    People probably thought the same thing after WW2 that we were going to live happily ever after. But they are wrong too, because we still have wars going on today. Granted we haven't had a large enough war to kill over 50 million people, but we have had wars with a variety of nations involved. But I even believe that we will have a WW3 because of how corrupt some things are in this world at this time. For example terrorism, which started WW1, is still around today. So what if another terrorist attack happens and a huge politician person gets targeted. Would the United States ask their allies to help fight a war with whoever did this to them. Would we just sit back and say we can't fight them for the fear we might start WW3?

    http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=840
    http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/postwar-disillusionment-and-quest-peace-1921-1929

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    1. I agree with Kyler, and this is a major set back. People just wanted to continue to kill, which did not make sense. It's a big disillusion because if they were happier and doing better, why would they want to kill like what has been happening in Europe for so long with tragic events like the French Revolution, etc.? Also, Kyler made a good point that people were disillusioned with thinking the Great War was the last. I feel that even though many things were getting better, they needed to realize that the world was far from being settled with land, industries, manufacturing, etc. Many countries appeared greety, and even people, as they wanted to continue to find ways to kill mass numbers of people, such as nearly 10 million in WWI. The scary thing is, some people may understand that a WWIII could happen, but they don't realize the amount of people that could be killed with the technology we have. Furthermore, I agree with Kyler that the Great War and WWII were disillusions that contradicts what people originally thought: that they were getting better and better.

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    2. I agree with Kyler, and this is a major set back. People just wanted to continue to kill, which did not make sense. It's a big disillusion because if they were happier and doing better, why would they want to kill like what has been happening in Europe for so long with tragic events like the French Revolution, etc.? Also, Kyler made a good point that people were disillusioned with thinking the Great War was the last. I feel that even though many things were getting better, they needed to realize that the world was far from being settled with land, industries, manufacturing, etc. Many countries appeared greety, and even people, as they wanted to continue to find ways to kill mass numbers of people, such as nearly 10 million in WWI. The scary thing is, some people may understand that a WWIII could happen, but they don't realize the amount of people that could be killed with the technology we have. Furthermore, I agree with Kyler that the Great War and WWII were disillusions that contradicts what people originally thought: that they were getting better and better.

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  15. As the first world war dragged on, its meaninglessness began to take hold more and more broadly across populations. The Russian population, already emotionally exhausted by domestic political developments, grew extremely tired of its participation in the war. The war's demise would see the end of the great empires, the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian, and German -- and the other major colonial powers, Britain and France, would witness the beginning of the end of their global positions. World War I was the ultimate war of attrition. Its defining characteristic, the series of trenches each side dug to protect its soldiers while slaughtering those of the enemy, became synonymous with the war's futility. Adolf Hitler, a young soldier in the German Army, was famously influenced by his own experiences fighting in the trenches and being wounded by chemical weapons, and swore that Germany would never again pay such a price for the crimes of others (Hitler, of course, blamed Jews first and foremost despite that particular group having had no role in the war's start, duration or finish). The populations of Europe had grown thoroughly disillusioned with war by the latter years of this conflict. Its causes and purpose were sufficiently much of each country's population. Familial ties between monarchies only furthered the notion that these populations were being sacrificed for no greater good.

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  16. We talked about delusion in class about the great war and its aftermath. I think that its a delusions more now, then when it is happening. For example, at this time there was more production with machinery for the great war, such as machine guns. They were able to kill more people during this war. During the great war, there was up to 10 million deaths. We do not view that as, as big of a loss compared to other wars after the great war. There was also a delusion about how they settled the Great War. After the war ended, it seemed as if the boarders of Europe were all settled and there would be no more conflicts until World war two started. Bringing up old conflicts that were supposed to be ended in The great war.

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    1. I agree with Katie. Disillusion is basically another word for disappointment and looking back at the war, people would probably feel this way. As Katie said, during the great war, there was up to 10 million deaths which is not thought of to be much compared to wars after the great war. One weapon produced for this war was the machine gun which helped in killing people. Today, we have many more weapons that can do so much more to aid in killing the enemies which makes us possibly higher numbers. Settling the war also brought about disillusion. Little did people know, World War ll started only to fight about the conflicts that were already fought about during the great war.

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  17. When World War I started the people of Europe didn't know what they were getting into. The world was getting better for them all, but what they didn't realize is how many people this war would kill. They thought World War I would be small, but they were quite disillusioned. In America they had this same idea that they wouldn't get involved in the war. They ended up getting involved which upset a lot of people. Then World war II came around and either people thought World War I would be the worst of all the wars to come or World War II would beat it out of the competition. Either way someone would be right. And they were. World War II had so many more deaths which made it so much worse than the first World War.

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  18. Disillusion is being disappointed in a person when they turn out to be less than you thought they were. This idea is often associated with the aftermath of World War I. World War I should have been a war between two countries, but the alliance system in Europe dragged the whole of Europe in. People developed better and more modern weapons, such as the machine gun and poison gas. They were killing more people in less amount of time. At the time, the number of deaths were outstanding. Even after the war was over, there was a huge amount of deaths and virtually nothing to stand for. The peace treaty created to stop the way was a huge blow to Germany and hardly resolved anything. The idea of Western Civilization, and the idea many people had at the time, was that the human race will only get better and more peaceful. The outbreak of this war was almost like a step backward from this idea. Instead of being peaceful, countries were still killing people of other countries and didn’t create much peace. The disillusion comes from the outcome of the war. Instead of becoming more peaceful, like we should have, the war only caused more unrest in Germany, leading to World War II.

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