The immediately destructive impact of the conflict is easily recounted.
The war cost an estimated 1 milHon lives and produced another 20 million
or so crippled or seriously wounded. Not physically hurt but scarred
nonetheless were 5 million widowed women, 9 million orphaned children,
and 10 million individuals torn from their homes to become refugees.-'' The
four great prewar empires present on the European continent—tlie German,
the Russian, the Austro-Hungarian, and the Ottoman—had all been destroyed.
Millions of men were demobilized and sent back home to make
their way as best they could in a Europe whose old patterns of life had been
shaken and sometimes completely destroyed. The losers were penalized,
and the victors rewarded themselves.
World History
