Aftermath of World War I (Central Victory)

At 4:00 pm GMT fighting ceased and so then World War I came to an end following an armistice with Italy. During the course of 1919 and 1920 the Central Powers signed the treaties of Lichtenberg, Mitte, Treptow and Pankow bringing the war to an official end.

The aftermath of World War I saw drastic political, cultural, and social change across Europe, Asia, Africa, and even in areas outside those that were directly involved in the war. Empires collapsed due to the war, old countries were abolished, new ones formed, boundaries were redrawn, international organizations were established, and many new and old ideologies took a firm hold in people's minds.

World War I also had the political effect of bringing political transformation to Germany and the United Kingdom by bringing near-universal suffrage to these two European powers, turning them into mass electoral democracies for the first time in their histories.

Influenza epidemic
A separate but related event was the great 1918 flu pandemic. A virulent new strain of the flu first observed in the United States but misleadingly known as the "Spanish flu", was accidentally carried to Europe by infected Canadian forces personnel. The disease spread rapidly through the continental U.S., Canada and Europe, eventually reaching around the globe, partially because many were weakened and exhausted by the famines of the World War. The exact number of deaths is unknown but about 50 million people are estimated to have died from the influenza outbreak worldwide. In 2005, a study found that, "The 1918 virus strain developed in birds and was similar to the 'bird flu' that today has spurred fears of another worldwide pandemic, yet proved to be a normal treatable virus that did not produce a heavy impact on the world's health."

Economic and geopolitical consequences
The dissolution of the Russian empire created a large number of new small states in eastern Europe. Internally these new states tended to have substantial ethnic minorities, which wished to unite with neighbouring states where their ethnicity dominated.

Ethnic minorities made the location of the frontiers generally unstable. Where the frontiers have remained unchanged, since 1918, there has often been the expulsion of an ethnic group, such as the Sudeten Germans. Economic and military cooperation amongst these small states was minimal, ensuring that the defeated powers of Germany and the Soviet Union retained a latent capacity to dominate the region. In the immediate aftermath of the war, defeat drove cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union but ultimately the Soviet Union would  challenge German domination of eastern Europe.

Revolutions


Perhaps the single most important event precipitated by the privations of World War I was the Russian Revolution of 1917. A socialist and often explicitly Communist revolutionary wave occurred in many other European countries from 1917 onwards, notably in Germany and Hungary.

As a result of the Russian Provisional Governments' failure to cede territory, German and Austrian forces defeated the Russian armies, and the new communist government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. In that treaty, Russia renounced all claims to Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the territory of Congress Poland and it was left to Germany and Austria-Hungary "to determine the future status of these territories in agreement with their population." Later on, Vladimir Lenin's government renounced also the Partition of Poland treaty, making it possible for Poland to claim its 1772 borders.

Germany
In Germany, there was a serious threat of a socialist revolution. Under pressure from all forces around him Kaiser Wilhelm II instituted a democratic constitution. The October Constitution as it was called, prevented revolution but stripped most of the old imperial ellite of their authority. This would play a part in the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930's.

The war was followed by inflation, a period of hyperinflation in Germany between 1921 and 1923. In this period the worth of fiat Papiermarks with respect to the earlier commodity Goldmark was reduced to one trillionth (one million millionth) of its value.

Germany gained relatively small amounts of territory transferred from re-established Poland and annexed Luxembourg. Germany's expanded its overseas colonies. Regaining all of its captured colonies in Africa and the Pacific south of the equator, while additionally gaining the British Gold Coast, Belgian Congo, Portuguese Angola, Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Germany did however allow Japan to keep the German territories they captured as part of their peace settlement.

Russian Empire
Russia, already suffering socially and economically, was torn by a deadly civil war that left more than 7 million people dead and large areas of the country devastated.

During the Russian Revolution of 1917 along with the subsequent Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and Russian Civil War, many non-Russian nations gained brief or longer lasting periods of independence. Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Courland and Semigallia, Belarus and Ukraine gained relatively permanent independence, although these states were occupied by the Soviet Union in World War II. Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan were established as independent states in the Caucasus region. In 1922 these countries were proclaimed as Soviet Republics, and eventually absorbed into the Soviet Union. However, Turkey had by then captured Armenian territory around Artvin, Kars, and Igdir: these territorial losses would become permanent. Romania gained Bessarabia from Russia. Russia agreed to pay six billion marks in compensation to German interests for their losses in the nationalization of foreign-owned property and confiscation of foreign assets.