W

Wagram, Battle of Costly French victory (July 6, 1809) over the Austrians during the NAPOLEONIC WARS. Determined to reverse their humiliation at the treaties of TILSIT, and encouraged by French difficulties in Spain, Austria joined a new coalition and advanced into Germany in spring 1809. At Aspern-Essling the Austrians fought to secure a Danube crossing, and repulsed the French. But, two months later, NAPOLEON I secured a bridgehead and won a hard-fought victory at Wagram, in probably the largest battle from the age of gunpowder. French losses were at least 30,000; those of the enemy were even greater, leading Austria to make peace.

Waldheim, Kurt (1918–2007), Secretary General of the UNITED NATIONS (1972–81), and President of AUSTRIA (1986–91). His candidacy for headship of state became controversial when it was alleged that, as a staff officer in YUGOSLAVIA during WORLD WAR II, he had been deeply implicated in the deportation of JEWS and the execution of partisans. This appeared to worry Austrians less than it did the international community. Despite his record of service to the UN, Waldheim became, once elected, the object of widespread diplomatic isolation (e.g. being barred from entering the USA). He did not seek a second presidential term.

Wałęsa, Lech (1943–), President of POLAND (1990–5). This former shipbuilding worker headed the trade-union movement of SOLIDARITY during the 1980s, and then became his country's leader early in the post-communist epoch. Wałęsa first achieved prominence in 1970, by organizing a major strike at the Lenin Shipyard of Gdańsk in protest against GOMULKA'S economic policies. Sacked in 1976 and then repeatedly harassed by the political authorities, Wałęsa was the figure to whom strikers again turned in their campaign of 1980 against GIEREK'S failure to control inflation. At that juncture he founded Solidarity, which then developed as a focal point of national opposition to the JARUZELSKI regime of the 1980s. Wałęsa's standing was boosted by support from JOHN PAUL II, the new Polish pope (see CATHOLICISM), and was confirmed by a Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. When Jaruzelski resigned amid the anticommunist European REVOLUTIONS OF 1989–91, Wałesa succeeded him as president in 1990 after an electoral contest against Tadeusz Mazowiecki (who had been appointed premier the previous year, as the nominee of a Solidarity movement that now began to fragment). During the early 1990s, Wałęsa's own status as national hero was much diminished by his often autocratic exercise of presidential power as Poland made its difficult transition to a free-market economy. He stood for re-election in 1995, but was defeated by the former communist Aleksander Kwaśniewski.

Wall Street Crash (see under GREAT DEPRESSIONS[2])

Wallachia (see under DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES; ROMANIA)

Wannsee conference Meeting held at a lakeside villa in the Berlin suburbs on January 20, 1942, to coordinate the bureaucratic arrangements needed by HITLER'S regime for the escalation of its “FINAL SOLUTION” to the Jewish question (see also ANTISEMITISM). Originally planned for December 1941 but delayed by the outbreak of war between Germany and the USA, the conference proceeded under the chairmanship of Reinhard Heydrich as deputy to HIMMLER. It also involved detailed administrative support from EICHMANN. The meeting enabled Heydrich and Eichmann to implicate a number of ministries more deeply in NAZISM'S secretive project of genocide, while also making clear to the state and Party functionaries there assembled that the SCHUTZSTAFFEL (SS) now had unchallengeable overall control of this exterminatory campaign.

War Communism Brutal economic policy adopted in 1918 by the BOLSHEVIKS so as to keep the RED ARMY fed and supplied during the RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR, which continued until 1921. Hastily improvised and overseen by the Supreme Council for National Economy, War Communism entailed an obligatory labor draft of the unemployed, the state takeover of industry, the imposition of rationing, and severe penalties for alleged slackers. The extent to which the policy encroached upon any particular area depended very much on the level of Bolshevik military control. This was especially so in the countryside where peasants responded to the forceful requisitioning of foodstuffs by slaughtering their livestock, hoarding supplies, and killing requisitioning agents. Though War Communism may have enabled the Red Army to win the Civil War, it had revealed the Bolshevik propensity for violence and left much of the economy in ruins. The discontent that fuelled the KRONSTADT UPRISING early in 1921 prompted LENIN then to accelerate a switch towards the NEW ECONOMIC POLICY, which itself marked a partial retreat from strict communist economics. (See also COMMUNISM)

warfare The conduct of military affairs at tactical, operational, and strategic levels. The art of war was transformed in the modern epoch principally by technological innovation and by the increasing ability of states to mobilize their demographic and economic resources, especially those deriving from INDUSTRIALIZATION. However, this did not mean that technological superiority or economic dominance, even when combined, could guarantee victory. Fighting qualities or imaginative and effective use of established weaponry might be just as important. Moreover, we should be wary of any teleological approach to nineteenth- and twentieth-century military developments that privileges an over-selective narrative of linear progress in the conduct of warfare.

The FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS and NAPOLEONIC WARS that opened the modern epoch were less deeply transformative in strictly military terms than they were in political ones. Innovations in drill and tactics, including varying use of the column (ordre profond) and of the so-called “thin line” (ordre mince), were built upon reforms initiated under the ANCIEN REGIME by Folard, de Saxe, Bourcet, and others. By 1789 the French army was already articulated into self-contained divisions, and it was these that NAPOLEON I would subsequently develop into self-sufficient corps, each capable of engaging the enemy on its own until still greater forces could be brought to bear. Three further factors enhanced France's war-making capacity. First, an unparalleled level of professional competence within the army was achieved by opening up careers to talent, blending old line regiments and new volunteers in 1793, and sustaining two decades of almost continuous warfare. Second, the new concept of citizenship implied a duty to defend the state and allowed the raising of armies of unprecedented size. Between 2 and 3 million Frenchmen were conscripted, supplemented by levies from the occupied territories, on a scale that prompted Napoleon to boast that he could afford to lose 30,000 men per month while on campaign. Third, the rhetoric of NATIONALISM and defense of the patrie created what the Prussian CLAUSEWITZ later called a “degree of energy in war that was otherwise inconceivable.” Such was the success of French arms, especially under Napoleon, that the “little corporal” dominated thinking about the art of war over following decades. Yet, although he had been the foremost practitioner of warfare, Napoleon had left no clear synthesis of his art. Military commentators therefore remained divided on what lessons might be learned from him, and indeed from 23 years of conflict.

For the Swiss-born Baron Jomini (1779–1869), maneuver as the prelude to a decisive battle was the key. In contrast, Clausewitz urged that sheer mass gave the greatest chance of victory, because warfare would necessarily be confused and drawn-out; indeed, by pointing out that combat “tended to the extreme,” he also presaged “total war.” Of these two, Jomini was the more influential theorist until the late nineteenth century, particularly because he wrote about operational aspects of warfare that generals considered their specialty: COMMUNICATIONS, marches, and decisive concentrations of force. The full significance of Clausewitz's call to harness the power of the nation-in-arms was either overlooked or deliberately ignored. This was not surprising. The French state had not only raised huge numbers of men but had also capitalized on their revolutionary zeal by employing them as skirmishers on the battlefield. In the PENINSULAR WAR guerrillas had operated with notable success, while elsewhere Clausewitz himself had controversially organized popular resistance to the Napoleonic forces. He had also urged the “spontaneous cooperation of the people” in future conflicts, such as would eventually occur in 1870–1 when GAMBETTA rallied his own fellow-French against the invading Prussians. However, although nineteenth-century governments recognized the need to take a bigger proportion of the population into their armies, guerrilla or popular warfare challenged established notions of military professionalism; and the authorities were reluctant to nurture the full potential of the nation-in-arms lest it give rise to the democratic and subversive sentiments articulated during the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789. Accordingly, although most states adopted conscription (the main exception being Britain, which was chiefly concerned with using soldiers to police its empire), this was generally short-term and applied in practice only to a fraction of the eligible cohort, while the core of the army remained professional and its strongly hierarchical ethos survived unaltered.

To mobilize and manage these large armies, general staffs were developed. Prussia, always the military trendsetter in the nineteenth century, took the lead by creating such a body in 1866, to be followed by Austria in 1871, France in the 1880s, and Britain in 1906. Commanders now made increasing use of railways for the rapid transport of men and supplies. During the FRANCO-AUSTRIAN WAR of 1859 the French moved 120,000 troops to the Italian front in just over one week; and trains were also crucial to Prussia's victories, master-minded by MOLTKE, over Austria in 1866 and over France four years later when more than 400,000 troops were assembled on the frontier within three weeks (see AUSTRO-PRUSSIANWAR; FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR). There was certainly huge congestion at the railheads, but it was obscured by the rapidity of Prussian battlefield victories. For Schlieffen, chief of the German general staff from 1895 to 1906, and for his successors the railways seemed to offer a means of fighting on two fronts without getting bogged down in protracted conflict (see SCHLIEFFEN PLAN). However, once static trench warfare set in along the MARNE at the start of WORLD WAR I, rail transport permitted the rapid reinforcement of weak spots in the line, thus strengthening defensive rather than offensive capacities and thereby contributing to the subsequent immobility of the Western Front.

The case of railway usage indicates that (contrary to much popular belief) generals were not altogether uninterested in technological innovation. Particularly from the 1830s onward, industrialization changed the weaponry available to them. The smooth-bore muzzle-loading musket gave way to breech-loading rifles; initially deployed in the Austro-Prussian War, they had become standard issue by the 1870s. Cast-iron cannons were superseded by rifled steel artillery with a range of over 25 km (15.5 miles). This was effectively used in the Franco-Prussian War, and was further enhanced through the invention in 1885 of smokeless explosives and recoil mechanisms that improved accuracy and rate of fire by rendering it unnecessary to resite the gun after each shot. Forerunners of the modern machine gun also appeared, initially in the form of the hand-cranked Gatling gun deployed in the American Civil War (1861–5) and then of the belt-loaded Maxim gun (1884). One eventual result of the new weaponry was to reconfigure the congested battlefields that had characterized the Napoleonic era. Fire-power now became so intense that soldiers were obliged to dig trenches and erect barricades, and to abandon their conspicuously colored uniforms for drab khaki and grey. However, these changes did not take broad effect until WORLD WAR I. This was because of the relative tranquility of the period 1815–1914, and especially of the decades immediately following the VIENNA CONGRESS. There were few major inter-state conflicts in nineteenth-century Europe, with the most important exceptions being the CRIMEAN WAR and the campaigns associated with GERMAN UNIFICATION. The principal lesson derived from the former concerned the need of the countries involved to overhaul their methods of military administration. The brief bouts of warfare associated with BISMARCK'S achievement culminated in such decisive victories at SADOWA, SEDAN, and Metz as served only to obscure any wider considerations about the potential effects of massively-increased firepower. Though the American Civil War might have provided such lessons, this far-off conflict was mainly perceived as having been conducted by amateurs and as possessing much less relevance than the Prussian triumphs. Moreover, the military focus of European states in the nineteenth century was often directed overseas. There new technology amply proved its worth when deployed in the service of IMPERIALISM against tribesmen who were superior in numbers but poorly armed and organized. Accordingly, general staffs and commanders manifested a lack of imagination when it came to thinking about how flexibly new weapons might be employed, and their tendency merely to imitate each other's methods strongly marked the eventual conduct of World War I.

It was much the same story at sea. Here, the apparent impact of technological innovation was even greater than on land, as the wind-powered wooden sailing ships of 2,000 tons displacement characteristic of NELSON'S era gave way to iron-hulled steam- and oil-powered vessels, with massive guns mounted centrally in turrets. Yet, after the Battle of Navarino in 1827 (see GREEK WAR OF INDEPENDENCE), no major naval engagement occurred in European waters until JUTLAND in 1916. Even the disastrous defeat inflicted on the tsar's fleet in 1905 occurred far away in the Tsushima straits (see RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR). By then the influential doctrines expounded in the late nineteenth century by the US admiral, Alfred T. Mahan, had encouraged the belief that naval mastery would be secured by large capital ships, even despite their vulnerability to mines, torpedo-firing motor boats, and new submarine craft. However, there had been little opportunity to test these issues in action, and scant inclination towards developing any radical alternative to such capital vessels. Not even TIRPITZ, who had long concentrated on trying to match Britain's construction of major warships, had fully planned the German submarine offensive of 1917: rather, he resorted to it as a last throw of the dice.

Given the relative brevity of most nineteenth-century conflict and the failure to appreciate the potential of mass industrialized warfare, it was unsurprising that most observers expected a swift conclusion even to the hostilities between major powers that began in 1914. Instead, prolonged battle strained the economic and demographic sinews of the belligerent countries and resulted in the collapse of three empires. Partly in response to lessons learned from the final stages of that conflict, by the 1930s HITLER'S Germany and STALIN'S Soviet Union were developing military doctrines involving fast-moving columns capable of delivering an armored punch with support from aircraft (see BLITZKRIEG). By contrast, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia believed in fortifications (such as the MAGINOT LINE) to blunt an attack before grinding down the enemy through blockade and attrition as had happened in 1914–18. All governments, however, agreed that the next conflict would demand the mobilization of whole societies, and this was not the least of the senses in which the SPANISH CIVIL WAR of 1936–9 foreshadowed the wider international struggle that swiftly followed it. WORLD WAR II did indeed merit the title of “total war.” It was geographically widespread; with categories of conflict – involving submarines, surface vessels, land forces, air combat, intelligence, and extensive civilian participation – that were more numerous than ever before. It was fought on the basis of almost unlimited war aims, most strongly driven in the European context by the ideology of NAZISM and by Hitler's fanatical racist quest for a so-called NEW ORDER. Thus the conflict resulted in unparalleled levels of destruction, under conditions where the distinction between home and fighting fronts dissolved and where the laws of war, especially as painfully elaborated since the mid-nineteenth century, were often flouted (see also RED CROSS, INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE; GENEVA CONVENTIONS; HAGUE CONFERENCES; NUREMBERG TRIALS).

Aircraft played a pivotal part in this enlargement of scope. They had proved useful in 1914–18 for reconnaissance and directing artillery fire, but their roles in World War II were multiplied and enhanced. After 1918 the conviction (articulated most forcefully by the Italian Giulio Douhet) took hold that the bomber would always get through, and that by attacking cities and industrial targets it would undermine civilian morale and destroy the enemy's economic capacity for war. In the event, although the Allies in particular used such bombing, its effects remain contested. As for use of airplanes to land troops behind enemy lines by parachute and glider (e.g. in Crete and at Arnhem), this proved costly and yielded only mixed results. However, aircraft did prove vital in countering the German U-boat threat to shipping in the Atlantic; and air superiority was vital to the success of all army and combined operations. In contrast, navies were employed in largely traditional roles. In both world wars they were used to enforce an economic blockade; they sought to keep the sea lanes free, though they had to combat the novel menace of attack from submarines; and they were employed in amphibious operations (see, for example, GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN; NORMANDY LANDINGS). Radically new roles would be developed for both aircraft and naval vessels after 1945 – the year when war in the Pacific was ended by the US Air Force exploding atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus opening the nuclear age.

The Soviet Union completed its first successful test of such weaponry in 1949, with Britain and France following in 1952 and 1960 respectively. By the end of the 1960s all four of the pioneering nuclear powers, together with China, had developed their own versions of a still more destructive hydrogen bomb. During the COLD WAR, both sides massively increased their stock of nuclear weapons, for delivery by aircraft, submarines, or inter-continental ballistic missiles, until they had attained more than sufficient capacity for (aptly-acronymic) “mutually assured destruction.” The eventual movement towards DÉTENTE, followed in Europe by the collapse of COMMUNISM amid the REVOLUTIONS OF 1989–91, prompted significant reduction in the arsenals of the older nuclear powers: yet it did so without preventing the spread of such weaponry especially into the Middle East and the Indo-Pakistan region. Some observers had initially concluded that possession of nuclear devices would render conventional weapons largely obsolete, but this proved false. Although both world wars had matched the traditional inter-state paradigm of conflict prevalent since the Napoleonic era, a number of more recent struggles have been “asymmetrical” – typically involving low-intensity, guerrilla, and counter-insurgency operations, necessitating a greater diversity of force structures and fighting methods in contexts of confrontation between ethnic, religious, and other groups. Although the principal examples have come from Africa and Asia, it is vital to note that some aspects of such warfare were discernible within the upheavals that erupted in the BALKANS too during the 1990s, amid the fragmentation of YUGOSLAVIA and the civil strife that afflicted BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA in particular. On the European side of the Caucasus, conflict in CHECHNYA provided a further example. Such asymmetry has also developed in the context of terroristic dissidence (see TERRORISM), where the potentialities of chemical and biological warfare, and even of “dirty” radioactive mini-bombs, could not be lightly dismissed. In general, however, there has been a growing awareness that military force can no longer be used directly to impose political goals, as distinct from creating the preconditions for the eventual realization of such objectives. Clausewitz's famous dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means seemed to remain as valid in the early twenty-first century as it had been nearly 200 years earlier.

Warsaw, Grand Duchy of Polity established by NAPOLEON I in 1807 as part of the treaties of TILSIT, in the aftermath of victory over Prussia at JENA-AUERSTLSQUÄDT. The Duchy was formed out of Prussia's territories in POLAND. The king of Saxony, an erstwhile Prussian ally who had negotiated a separate peace with France in 1806, was made Grand Duke. But in practice the Duchy was administered by Polish nobles supervised by a French nominee, making it akin to one of Napoleon's satellite kingdoms. The arrangement survived only until the latter's defeat at LEIPZIG in 1813.

Warsaw ghetto The largest of the ghettos into which JEWS were herded by HITLER'S forces early in WORLD WAR II. By 1940 some 400,000 victims from all over occupied POLAND were effectively imprisoned there under conditions of extreme squalor and starvation. As the so-called FINAL SOLUTION was implemented, there were regular transfers to the extermination center (see CONCENTRATION CAMPS) at Treblinka. On April 19, 1943 the decision to complete these deportations and to erase the ghetto was temporarily frustrated by a band of poorly-armed survivors, who bravely sustained their resistance until mid-May. Some 14,000 Jews were killed during that period. The overall wartime toll of those who died either within the ghetto or after deportation from it totaled around 300,000. (See also ANTISEMITISM; WARSAW RISING)

Warsaw Pact Known also as the Eastern European Mutual Assistance Treaty, this agreement of 1955 established a unified military command (with headquarters in Moscow) as between the SOVIET UNION and seven other states from the communist bloc: ALBANIA, BULGARIA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, the GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, HUNGARY, POLAND, and ROMANIA. It largely formalized existing arrangements, doing so in response to the admission of a rearmed FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY into NATO. The Pact contributed further to COLD WAR tensions by seemingly legitimizing the Soviet Union's continuing military presence in much of eastern Europe. Thus it eased the RED ARMY'S task of suppressing the HUNGARIAN RISING OF 1956, and also enabled the Soviet Union to coordinate, in line with the BREZHNEV doctrine, a multilateral crushing of the PRAGUE SPRING of 1968. That was also the year in which Albania, after breaking with Moscow back in 1961, officially withdrew from the alliance. The Warsaw Pact eventually dissolved amid the European REVOLUTIONS OF 1989–91. In 1999 Hungary, Poland, and the new CZECH REPUBLIC became the first of its former members to join NATO.

Warsaw rising As part of WORLD WAR II in eastern Europe, the rising against the Germans that began on August 1, 1944 needs to be distinguished from the revolt attempted by the Jews of the WARSAW GHETTO in 1943. By mid-1944 the Germans' hold on POLAND'S capital was already threatened by advancing Soviet forces. Encouraged from London by the pro-Western government-in-exile, the underground Polish Home Army led by General Komorowski sought to achieve a preemptive recapture. Initial successes were soon followed by a counter-attack that restored German control in early October. On HITLER'S orders there was total destruction of whatever still remained standing across central areas of the city. While the RED ARMY took its time regrouping in the suburbs, the Nazis were able to crush anticommunist elements within the Polish resistance. Soviet troops finally occupied Warsaw on January 17, 1945, three months after the end of a rising that resulted in a civilian death-toll of some 225,000 (out of a population of 1 million).

Waterloo, Battle of Decisive victory of the Allied army commanded by WELLINGTON and of the Prussians under BLÜCHER over the forces of NAPOLEON I, on June 18, 1815. It concluded the NAPOLEONIC WARS, bringing about a repeat of the emperor's abdication and of LOUIS XVIII'S restoration. Napoleon's return to France in March 1815 after his exile to Elba had been followed by the HUNDRED DAYS, when he sought to consolidate his position by defeating the Allies. On June 16, French forces fought an inconclusive engagement with Wellington (at Quatre Bras) and defeated the Prussians (at Ligny), but Blücher refused to retreat very far and his intervention would prove vital at Waterloo. There Wellington's careful choice of a defensive position behind a ridge spared his troops from the full impact of the French artillery, but by 6.30 p.m. his forces looked vulnerable to a final assault. However, the arrival of the Prussians and Napoleon's prevarication about releasing his reserves probably turned the battle. The repulse of the Imperial Guard then produced a rout of the Napoleonic army.

Weimar Republic Title commonly used for the regime established in February 1919 by a National Constituent Assembly meeting in the town of that name. Officially known as the Deutsches Reich (best translated for this period simply as “German Reich,” not “Empire”), it has had a bad press among historians since it ended by being calamitously overthrown through the triumph of NAZISM under HITLER. Yet many of the criticisms directed at this Republic are misplaced, and it has to be questioned whether any non-authoritarian political system could have readily withstood the economic and other pressures that beset Germany in the early 1930s.

Certainly “Weimar” was born in difficult circumstances, amid the chaos of the GERMAN REVOLUTION OF 1918–19. It also had the misfortune to be closely associated with the humiliation inflicted by the VERSAILLES TREATY. This gave rise to the myth of “the stab in the back” (see DOLCHSTOSS) which would be skillfully exploited by nationalist politicians. Nor did such figures have much time for Weimar's constitution. It derived partly from the proposals produced by the FRANKFURT PARLIAMENT of 1848–9. Moreover, in what survived territorially from the GERMAN EMPIRE of 1871–1918, the constitution also reflected much of the framework of FEDERALISM that had characterized BISMARCK'S creation. Thus the new regime initially incorporated nineteen state-republics (Llsquänder). Though these retained their previous powers over policing, education, and church matters, the Reich government now assumed a greater measure of centralizing authority especially in matters of direct taxation. In the bicameral legislature, the Reichsrat (representing the Llsquänder) was overshadowed by the Reichstag, which was now elected through universal suffrage for all adults over 20 and on the basis of proportional representation. The constitution further provided for a president to be popularly elected every seven years. He was charged with appointing the chancellor and cabinet ministers, according to the complexion of parliament, as well as with being the formal commander of the armed forces. Article 48 also conferred upon him emergency powers more extensive than any previously vested in the Kaisers. The scope of such executive discretion rendered pivotal the character of the president himself. The initial office-holder (chosen by the parliamentarians before the broader electoral arrangement came into force) was EBERT, a member of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF GERMANY (SPD) who from time to time used his special powers constructively to defend the fledgling regime. When he died in 1925, before completing his term, victory at the polls went to the military veteran Field Marshal HINDENBURG, a political reactionary whose more frequent resort to Article 48 during the years 1930–2 served largely to marginalize the parliamentary process and whose biggest mistake was to over-estimate his ability to control Hitler. The issue of emergency powers was also complicated by Weimar's over-elaborate version of proportional representation. This resulted in a proliferation of parties and a series of unstable coalitions, to the point where the period from 1919 to 1928 witnessed no fewer than fifteen governing administrations. More troubling still was the fact that a number of the groups which thus established some foothold in the Reichstag were bent on overthrowing the political system. These included the Communist Party (KPD) on the left; and, on the right, the German National People's Party (DNVP), the German People's Party (DVP), and – eventually most crucial of all – the Nazi Party (NSDAP). The difficulties were further compounded by the refusal of many survivors from the old imperial bureaucracy, most notably the army and judiciary, to reconcile themselves to liberal democracy. They were quick to clamp down on left-wing coups in 1919, 1921, and 1923, yet showed an excessive leniency to those perpetrated from the right, especially the KAPP PUTSCH of 1920 and the so-called BEER HALL PUTSCH attempted by Hitler in 1923. In this situation only the SPD, the liberal-minded German Democratic Party (DDP), and the Centre Party (see ZENTRUM) were substantially committed to making the system function. Despite these limitations, coalition could sometimes prove moderately effective, and it was widely believed during the period 1924–8 that Weimar's political instability seemed to be easing. Following STRESEMANN'S efforts in securing the LOCARNO TREATIES, Germany was accepted into the LEAGUE OF NATIONS and thus began to resume its proper place in the international community. It was the regime's misfortune that consensus could not be sustained at the time of the GREAT DEPRESSION[2] when the so-called Grand Coalition fell apart, divided over the issue of tax credits and unemployment benefits.

Even from its outset, Weimar had been continually battered by economic difficulties, beginning with the issue of REPARATIONS. When Germany defaulted on these in 1923 the upshot had been a Franco-Belgian occupation of the RUHR and some months of deeply disruptive hyper-inflation. At that juncture, having struggled to overcome the transition to a peacetime economy (including rampant unemployment), the regime faced a major crisis of credibility. The misery was great, but not all social groups suffered equally, particularly as some elements of big business were able to write off debts and reduce labor costs. After 1924, with the revaluation of the Reichsmark and a partial resolution of the reparations question (see DAWES PLAN; YOUNG PLAN), the economy enjoyed a burst of success aided by improved cooperation between industrialists and trade unionists. It was, however, unfortunate that so much of Weimar's recovery rested on American loans, for these were quickly withdrawn following the 1929 Wall Street Crash. The Depression that opened the 1930s proved even more destabilizing than the earlier inflation, though once again large-scale producers were partially cocooned from the crisis, which was felt most keenly among small businesses and in rural communities. Amid spiraling unemployment, insolvencies, and BANKING collapses, Hitler was able to make his breakthrough. Whereas his NSDAP had polled only 2.6 percent in the Reichstag elections of May 1928, it registered 18.3 percent in those called for September 1930. By March–April 1932 Hitler had become the chief challenger to Hindenburg's presidential re-election, where the latter's eventual victory depended less on the conservative platform he had championed in 1925 than on his role as a rallying-point for those now increasingly desperate to find almost any means of blocking the Nazis. In the further Reichstag polls of July 1932 the NSDAP vote, expanding around a core of Protestant lower-middle-class support, rose to 37.3 percent. This made the Nazis by far the largest parliamentary grouping, and they retained that status even when their share dipped to 33.1 percent the following November in what proved to be the final free elections of the Weimar epoch. In this situation old-style conservatives such as PAPEN and Kurt von Schleicher believed that there was little alternative but to persuade Hindenburg to entrust Hitler with the chancellorship. These machinations formed at least the immediate cause of Weimar's dissolution. No single decree terminated this regime. However, having been appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933, Hitler rapidly implemented a process of coercive “coordination” (see GLEICHSCHALTUNG). This included the ENABLING ACT of March 23, which gave pseudo-legal authorization for what was already becoming the Nazi dictatorship of the so-called Third Reich. By the time that Hindenburg's death in August 1934 opened the way for Hitler to declare himself head of state as well as of government, all remnants of “the Weimar experiment” had been effectively destroyed.

welfare state (see under WELFARISM)

welfarism A belief that states have a positive duty to protect the wellbeing of their citizens – and particularly those who are poor, sick, disabled, elderly, or unemployed – through governmental schemes covering, for example, social insurance, pensions, health care, family allowances, and publicly-funded housing and EDUCATION. During the later-nineteenth century welfarism was closely associated with the rise of SOCIALISM. However, the fact that it was not entirely monopolized by the left is well illustrated by the experience of the new GERMAN EMPIRE. There BISMARCK, for his own broadly conservative purposes (see CONSERVATISM), aimed to weaken the popular appeal of the socialists by constructing, preemptively, some of the foundations of what would later be called “the welfare state” – principally through legislation covering insurance for sickness (1883), workers' accidents (1884), and old age and invalidity (1889). During the early twentieth century (for example, in Britain under the Liberal administrations of 1905–16) such initiatives became increasingly common. However, there remained considerable debate as to whether (as LIBERALISM as well as conservatism tended to suggest) governments should limit themselves to supplying a minimal “safety net” as distinct from incorporating welfarism into more radical socialist schemes of wealth distribution aimed at promoting greater equality. Particularly interesting variants on the theme of welfare provision during the 1920s and 1930s included those encountered in the forms of CORPORATE STATE advocated by fascist-style movements (see FASCISM), as well as those associated with the heavily taxed systems of social democracy that were developing in Sweden and the Scandinavian region at large. During and after World War II there were also major developments in Britain, inspired by the Beveridge Report of 1942 and implemented between 1945 and 1951 by Clement Attlee's Labour administration. By the 1950s and 1960s some substantial measure of welfarism based on relatively stable funding through regular tax revenues had become the norm throughout western Europe, even though this approach was never free from challenge by those who saw it as a symptom of excessive state power and as a disincentive to individualistic economic enterprise. Welfarism also constituted an even more fundamental feature of the COMMUNISM that had first been implemented within the SOVIET UNION before being consolidated across its newly-formed “satellite” system. Towards the end of the twentieth century, however, that specific form of welfare provision, previously operative “from cradle to grave” in such a strongly state-centralized form and largely protected from the competing “market forces” characteristic of capitalist systems, suffered collapse. Its rapid and almost total loss was, at least in the short term, one of the most destabilizing social consequences of the REVOLUTIONS OF 1989–91 across central and eastern Europe.

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of (1769–1852), British soldier, statesman, and Prime Minister (1828–30, 1834). Born into the impoverished Irish nobility, Wellesley fought in the Low Countries during the FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS, but really learned his trade and first made his mark in India, winning spectacular victories over the Mahrattas in 1803. He entered parliament as a Tory in 1806, before achieving national prominence as leader of the British forces in the PENINSULAR WAR after 1808. There he skillfully exploited the terrain, the tactical superiority of his troops, and the abilities of his Spanish allies as guerrilla fighters. In 1814 he was rewarded with a dukedom. At the battle of WATERLOO, which ended the NAPOLEONIC WARS, he confirmed his stature as an outstanding commander. After 1815 the new Duke of Wellington returned to politics, serving in the cabinet as Master-General of Ordnance (1818–27) and becoming prime minister after CANNING'S death. He was more successful as a general than as his country's political leader, in which latter role he opposed parliamentary reform and split his party through an eventual and reluctant acceptance of Catholic emancipation (see CATHOLICISM). He was a three-week caretaker prime minister in 1834 after Melbourne's death, and thereafter served under Robert Peel first as foreign secretary (1834–5) and then as minister without portfolio (1841–6). In this final office he helped to repeal the Corn Laws before retiring from public life. The “Iron Duke” died secure in the popular affection and public approbation that he had always tended to despise.

Weltpolitik Meaning “world politics” or “world policy,” this term became particularly important in Germany during the epoch of Kaiser WILLIAM II. The new GERMAN EMPIRE aspired not only to consolidate its influence over MITTELEUROPA but also to compete with other major powers, including Britain, in strengthening colonial IMPERIALISM. However, the manner and language of this pursuit by William's regime in the years before WORLD WAR I left many Germans and non-Germans alike in some uncertainty as to how far Weltpolitik might be turning into a bid for Welthegemonie (“world domination”).

Wends (see SORBS)

West Germany (see FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY)

Western European Union (WEU) European defense and security organization formed in 1954. Its roots lie in the BRUSSELS TREATY of Economic, Social and Cultural Collaboration and Collective Self-Defense, signed on March 17, 1948 by Belgium, France, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Their linkage was initially conceived as a means of promoting military cooperation as the COLD WAR intensified, but its functions were inevitably overtaken by NATO. The WEU itself then came into being in the mid-1950s thanks to attempts to accommodate the future military potential of the new FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY. Proposals to establish a European army through a European Defence Community (EDC) were approved by leaders of THE SIX, yet voted down by the French National Assembly. So it was that in 1954 Italy and West Germany signed up to the Brussels Treaty, as amended by the Paris Agreements of that year, and the WEU emerged. It achieved little, however, as members were wary of relinquishing sovereignty over military affairs. The WEU enjoyed another fresh start in the 1980s when France believed that this body might offer an alternative to a US-dominated NATO. Other member states of the European Union (EU), whose numbers had grown, were less convinced. Nonetheless, the MAASTRICHT TREATY envisaged the WEU as the chief military arm of the EU, and in 1995 the Eurocorps was formed, comprising troops from the member countries of the WEU. In 2000, in the wake of the AMSTERDAM TREATY, the various functions of the WEU started to be transferred to the EU as part of its developing Common Foreign and Security Policy, a process which did not prove at all straightforward due to continuing disagreements as to how Europe's security could be best safeguarded. (See also EUROPEAN INTEGRATION)

White Terror Term used to describe a violent reactionary response to radical movements or policies. The first such episode took place in France following the fall of ROBESPIERRE in the coup of THERMIDOR (July 1794), when the CONVENTION brought the Montagnard-inspired TERROR to a close. Outside of Paris, this event sparked an epidemic of popular violence in which royalist lynch mobs, sometimes called “Companies of Jesus,” hunted down and summarily executed suspected JACOBINS. Such bloodshed was especially intense in southeastern France where possibly two thousand people were killed in the course of 1795. The second White Terror (1815–18) again occurred in France, at the time of LOUIS XVIII'S restoration. While the Chambre Introuvable prosecuted alleged regicides, in the countryside ULTRAS searched out former Jacobins and Bonapartists and forcibly reclaimed lands lost during the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789. The term White Terror is further used in the context of the RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR, when “White” tsarist armies engaged in the persecution of BOLSHEVIKS and in anti-Jewish POGROMS, especially in the Ukraine. A White Terror also followed the collapse of the GERMAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1918–19 when the FREIKORPS brutally suppressed the SPARTACISTS. Similar events accompanied the end of the Finnish Civil War (1918) and the collapse of Béla KUN'S Hungarian Soviet Republic (1920). The phrase is additionally applied to Nationalist atrocities during and after the SPANISH CIVIL WAR. These claimed the lives of anywhere between 200,000 and 800,000 people.

Wilhelmine empire (see GERMAN EMPIRE)

Wilhelmstrasse Synonym for the German foreign ministry, derived from the Berlin street named after Emperor WILLIAM I where its principal offices were sited from 1871 to 1945. (See also BALLHAUSPLATZ; QUAI D'ORSAY)

William I (1797–1888), King of PRUSSIA (1861–88) and German Emperor (1871–88). In 1858 William became Prussian regent, acting on behalf of his ailing brother FREDERICK WILLIAM IV until the latter's death three years later. As monarch, his initial concessions to LIBERALISM proved short-lived. His overriding aim was to strengthen the Prussian army with a view to challenging Austrian primacy within the GERMAN CONFEDERATION. When parliament raised financial objections in 1862, the king was persuaded by his war minister, von ROON, to drive through the necessary changes by appointing BISMARCK as minister-president. Thereafter the latter worked closely – though sometimes stormily – with his monarch to promote a version of GERMAN UNIFICATION that would exclude the HABSBURG EMPIRE and remain firmly under Prussian leadership. Victory in the AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN WAR of 1866 was a vital means towards that end, and a product of their collaboration. Strained relations between William and Bismarck became more apparent in 1870, when the former hesitated over whether to defy France by persisting with support for a HOHENZOLLERN succession to the Spanish throne. The king's cautiousness forced Bismarck to resort to editing the EMS TELEGRAM in a manner that would provoke a FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR – the conflict which soon enabled a new GERMAN EMPIRE to be proclaimed under William's aegis in January 1871. Though the rights of other princes were formally preserved through its federal constitution (see FEDERALISM[1]), this Second Reich became increasingly characterized by the Prussian dominance that Bismarck's statesmanship secured. While this was being consolidated, the “old emperor” helped to provide a symbolic focal point for the strengthening of German NATIONALISM within the new imperial structures. In 1878 William was nonetheless the object of two unsuccessful assassination attempts by disaffected radicals, after the second of which his son (later FREDERICK III) acted for a time as regent.

William II (1859–1941), King of PRUSSIA and German Emperor (1888–1918). William succeeded to these titles after the three-month reign of his father, FREDERICK III, a ruler of potentially more liberal persuasion. “Conceited and hot-headed” according to his grandmother Queen VICTORIA, he was to develop a complex love–hate relationship with everything British. From his youth he was obsessed with military paraphernalia, and his whole manner conveyed an impetuous bellicosity that may have provided some psychological compensation for the paralysis and deformity suffered in his left arm. Within two years of his accession, the new Kaiser had secured the ousting of BISMARCK from the imperial chancellorship – thus “dropping the pilot” who had skillfully navigated the HOHENZOLLERN DYNASTY'S version of a GERMAN EMPIRE through its first two decades. Thereafter William, an enthusiast for aggressive WELTPOLITIK in the contexts both of European and overseas empire (see also IMPERIALISM), sought to exploit the extensive powers available to him under the Reich constitution. These included the requirement that ministers should be directly responsible not to the Reichstag but to the ruler personally. In practice, they proved generally capable of outwitting him, and thus the neurotically erratic Kaiser failed to achieve the degree of autocratic authority that he craved. Although his most cherished prerogative was that of “supreme warlord,” William's role as military chief was increasingly marginalized, especially by HINDENBURG and LUDENDORFF, during the course of WORLD WAR I. On the day before armistice in November 1918, the Kaiser fled from Germany and subsequently abdicated. His self-exile allowed him to avoid a war-crimes trial by the victorious Allies for an alleged “supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties.” William spent the rest of his life in Holland, where after the Nazi invasion German troops guarded him at his country retreat of Doorn until his death.

Wilson, Thomas Woodrow (see under FOURTEEN POINTS; PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT)

Windischgrlsquätz, Prince Alfred (1787–1862), Austrian general, who rose to high rank in the HABSBURG EMPIRE during the NAPOLEONIC WARS. In 1840 he was made commander of BOHEMIA. Early in the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848–9 conservative elements hoped he would be given a free rein in crushing rebellion in Vienna. Denied that opportunity, Windischgrlsquätz went back to his Bohemian command, where in June 1848 he swiftly extinguished insurrection in Prague by bombarding the city. In October he returned to put down revolution in Vienna, before directing his attention to the Hungarian threat and marching on Budapest in December. In March 1849 Görgëy counter-attacked and drove Windischgrlsquätz from Hungary, leading to the latter's resignation from public life.

Windthorst, Ludwig (1812–91), German politician. After the Prussian annexation of his native HANOVER and the creation of the GERMAN EMPIRE in 1871, Windthorst became the most eloquent and effective opponent of BISMARCK during the period of the KULTURKAMPF. While tirelessly championing the interests of German Catholics (see CATHOLICISM), Windthorst was always a key defender of the constitutional rights of other minorities, including JEWS and Poles. Disliked but respected by Bismarck, Windthorst succeeded in turning the Catholic ZENTRUM into the pivotal party in the Reichstag, and has been seen by some historians and many contemporaries as Germany's most outstanding parliamentarian.

Winter War (see RUSSO-FINNISH WAR)

Witte, Sergei (1849–1915), Russian administrator and politician, responsible for the rapid INDUSTRIALIZATION pursued by the tsarist regime in the 1890s. Witte was born into a wealthy and well-connected family, and his decision to enter state service was a natural one. In the 1870s and 1880s, he was especially involved in the development of railways (see COMMUNICATIONS), and became transport minister in 1892. From 1892 to 1903, he served as minister of finance. In this capacity, he did much to boost heavy industry and undertook several public-works programs, particularly the Trans-Siberian Railway. To pay for such ventures, Witte was instrumental in encouraging sizeable foreign investments, especially from France. The speed of economic change was still too modest for NICHOLAS II'S more bellicose advisers, and Witte was effectively sidelined in 1903. He returned to power in 1905 to end the disastrous RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR that had contributed to precipitating the revolution of that year. In the course of this upheaval (see RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1905), he prepared the OCTOBER MANIFESTO, which envisaged a constitutional monarchy. In November he became the first Russian prime minister to serve within the new context of a parliamentary DUMA. He was, however, disliked at court, and continuing left-wing agitation ensured his dismissal in 1906. Remaining a member of the State Council, he became a fierce critic of the bellicose drift of Russian foreign policy, but never recovered the influence he had previously enjoyed.

Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759–97), pioneer of FEMINISM. During the epoch of the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789 she belonged to the circle of so-called “English JACOBINS.” Her Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) was partly an attack on Edmund Burke's conservative responses to the events in France. It was most influential, however, as an impassioned depiction of the extent to which male prejudices had come to determine conventional perceptions of the nature, education, and social functions of the female sex (see also GENDER). The Vindication certainly stung Horace Walpole into calling its author “a hyena in petticoats.” During her final years she was the partner of the radical journalist William Godwin, author of Political Justice (1793). Despite their shared disapproval of marriage, they eventually wedded in 1797 – shortly before she died following the birth of their daughter Mary, who would later become the wife of the poet Shelley.

women, emancipation of (see under FEMINISM; GENDER)

working class Within the overall spectrum of CLASS analysis, the undisputed core of this category is generally identified as being those whose subsistence depends on waged employment in manual industrial work (see INDUSTRIALIZATION). However, this term is also frequently used to cover any socio-economic grouping placed below the level of a notional “middle class.” Accordingly, the meaning may extend to encompass ARTISANS and agrarian workers (see RURAL SOCIETY), together with their families. The elasticity of definition is further encouraged by the persistence through the nineteenth century of complex patterns of MIGRATION, including those seasonally repeated by reference to harvesting, that often blunted sharp distinctions between town and country employment. Such mobility of labor remained quite commonplace in parts of southern and eastern Europe for even longer, thus continuing to bring into urban settings those traditions of rural protest that contributed, for instance, to Russian unrest in the early-twentieth century (see RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1905; RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1917).

Even so, by 1900 the number of Europeans who matched the core definition of “working class” and who lived more or less permanently in centers of industrial URBANIZATION had already grown massively in both absolute and proportional terms. They tended to inhabit what were in effect segregated areas, where they were housed in cramped conditions that strained their family structures. They had little access to leisure facilities and hard drinking became common, though many communities made special efforts to educate themselves and thus to maintain a proud tradition of self-improvement. This brought some respite from a strict factory system, characterized by dangerous conditions on the work-floor, long hours, and severe penalties for absenteeism. State WELFARISM would only partly ameliorate this situation. Among the working classes themselves, there existed a strong corporate identity, but also an internal hierarchy. The biggest distinction was between those who were skilled and those who were not. For instance, within the textiles industry the elite comprised specially trained technicians; below them were semi-skilled machine operators; and, at the bottom, there existed a mass of unskilled laborers who earned poor wages. Everywhere employers tried to keep remuneration low – something made easier by the wide range of mundane jobs available, as well as by increasing mechanization and the employment of women (see GENDER).

So as to better its conditions, the working class flocked to TRADE UNIONISM and became vital to the development of SOCIALISM, constituting for example the electoral bedrock for the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF GERMANY. The workers themselves were defined by MARX and LENIN as those who had no control over the means of production and who were denied the fruits of their labor. Thus it was the duty of COMMUNISM to promote a class consciousness that would pave the way for revolution and for a dictatorship of the proletariat which would eliminate rival social groups. This was something STALIN partly attempted through the FIVE-YEAR PLANS and COLLECTIVIZATION when he targeted the KULAKS (see also GREAT PURGES). It was, however, always a conundrum for Marxism that members of the working class did not necessarily prove to be the most revolutionary of social groups. Although they would largely resist the blandishments of FASCISM, they did not lean automatically towards the political left. One case in point was Britain, where there was a long tradition of working-class CONSERVATISM, partly based on deference and a desire for social betterment, and particularly noticeable among women who had fewer dealings with trade unions and socialist parties (see also FEMINISM). Through recent decades many western Europeans have continued to identify themselves as members of the working class, even though the accelerating pace of deindustrialization has been turning this into a shrinking and increasingly deskilled category in which women and immigrants tend to be proportionately over-represented.

World War I This conflict, conducted mainly in Europe but possessing certain wider dimensions as well, lasted from August 1914 until November 1918. Also known as the Great War, its principal belligerents were Germany, Austria, and Turkey on one side and Britain, France, Russia, and Japan (joined by Italy in 1915 and the USA in 1917) on the other.

The depth of controversy about its causes stems partly from the scale of the ensuing WARFARE, but also from the essentially political judgment registered by the victors in the 1919 VERSAILLES TREATY which emphasized “war guilt” and overwhelmingly condemned the former GERMAN EMPIRE. The subtler assessments provided by historians have tended either to rebut directly, or perhaps more often to qualify, that simplistic view. When offering more systemic long-term explanations based on broader European perspectives, they have cited a variety of factors that include the spread of NATIONALISM and IMPERIALISM; the allegedly self-destructive capacities of CAPITALISM; the competitive pursuit of militarism and of an arms race; the willingness of ruling elites to gamble on warfare as a means of resolving domestic divisions; and a culture increasingly pervaded by SOCIAL DARWINISM'S supposed endorsement of relentless struggle. Yet even considerations such as these have remained entwined with the need closely to analyze those diplomatic developments of the pre-1914 period that still feature centrally in the relevant historiography. Did the balance between a TRIPLE ALLIANCE and a TRIPLE ENTENTE that had evolved since the era of BISMARCK and had seemingly helped to preserve peace among the major powers contain intrinsically fatal flaws, or did it simply fall victim to the quite conscious determination of one or more powers to abandon all concern for equilibrium? Though the conduct of an increasingly powerful Germany sometimes appeared to be particularly disruptive (e.g. in the MOROCCAN CRISES), even WILLIAM II'S regime could offer some plausible claim, focused in this case on the perils of “encirclement,” that its policies were essentially defensive. Other governments adopted similar justifications, even as the chronic instability of the BALKANS and the territorial ambitions of SERBIA in particular became ever more threatening to general European peace (see also EASTERN QUESTION). While broader conflict was still avoided during the two regional BALKAN WARS of 1912–13, the major powers' overall reaction to the assassination of the Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 produced a very different outcome.

Particularly between July 23 and August 6 there was a welter of diplomatic and military activity (for the course and significance of which see JULY CRISIS) that ended with Russia, France, and Britain being at war with the CENTRAL POWERS of Germany and Austria. This line-up reflected (except for Italy's absence) the pattern of the pre-war alliance system, yet it was shaped less by the strict letter of previous treaty promises than by perceptions of what constituted, at that moment, the vital national interests of those involved. In essence, large-scale conflict erupted once statesmen and military chiefs in key capitals had generally concluded that maintaining peace now carried more risk than quickly resorting to war. Germany's decision was the most fateful of all, since it entailed prompt use of the SCHLIEFFEN PLAN. This envisaged a rapid victory over France that would then allow fuller concentration on the defeat of Russia. Therefore the Plan rendered it inevitable that a conflict whose immediate origins lay in the Balkans should spread, at the very outset, to western as well as eastern Europe. The related attack on Belgium was crucial in resolving doubts about the involvement of Britain, which would soon be bolstered by the participation of forces from her Dominions too. Once the Schlieffen scheme foundered in September because of French resistance at the first battle of the MARNE, Germany became burdened with precisely the kind of protracted warfare that she had aimed to avoid. Henceforth her reserves of manpower and material resources would be even more sorely stretched than those of her enemies.

By early 1915, a Western Front had developed along almost static lines stretching from Flanders to the Swiss border. Amid trenches and barbed wire, shell-craters and mud, the slaughter was now reaching the kind of horrific scale maintained thereafter. The successive battles around YPRES, the sustained German assault on VERDUN in 1916, and the SOMME counter-offensive of the same year became leading examples of vast carnage for minimal territorial gain. Warfare along the more mobile Eastern Front confirmed that the Russian commanders were also prepared to accept huge losses of manpower in their attempts to stem the enemy advances that progressed through 1915. In the Balkan region, Bulgaria's entry into the conflict in September of that year had further increased the pressure on the tsarist regime. At sea, there was only one major direct engagement, on May 31 to June 1, 1916, when the British and German fleets fought inconclusively at JUTLAND. The former did enough, however, to limit thereafter the movement of the Kaiser's main warships. This allowed Anglo-French naval power to be increasingly deployed in blockade. Early in 1917 the Germans responded with extensive mining and with unrestricted use of submarine warfare as now urged by TIRPITZ, in a situation where the need to transfer their own burden of economic suffocation on to the British had become urgent. This gamble on swift victory failed only narrowly. Its main effect was to drive the USA into war upon Germany. Thus strengthened, the western Allies survived even the loss of Russia. After the BRUSILOV OFFENSIVE of mid-1916 had failed to strike a decisive blow against the Austro-German forces, the tsarist regime's ability to sustain the war rapidly waned. Internal chaos, indicated by the RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1917, hastened military dissolution. Towards the end of that year the new BOLSHEVIK regime sued for peace, and in March 1918 LENIN and TROTSKY accepted the punitive Treaty of BREST-LITOVSK. However, even this eastern victory for the Central Powers came too late to save them.

Their position had been complicated by Italy's abandonment of NEUTRALITY and indeed by her reversal of earlier alliance loyalties, when she declared war on Austria in May 1915 and on Germany in August 1916. Though combined Austro-German forces routed the turncoats at CAPORETTO late in 1917, this northern Italian front (running principally along the Isonzo and then the Piave) continued into 1918 as a further drain on the resources of the Central Powers. Things were also going increasingly badly for their ally Turkey, which had joined the fray in November 1914 and had then enjoyed some success in frustrating its enemies' GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN of 1915–16 as well as in its domestic pursuit of the ARMENIAN GENOCIDE. Now the surviving Ottoman holdings in the Balkans, Asia Minor, and the Middle East were all being imperiled. Nor could Germany take comfort from the course of the far-flung colonial warfare that was bringing defeat to her imperial ambitions in parts of Africa, the Far East, and Oceania. Within Europe itself, by July 1918 LUDENDORFF'S last great German offensive on the Western Front stood exhausted. Here the tide of advance was now reversed, due principally to the increasing availability of American manpower, plus improved artillery techniques and greater use of tanks. Germany soon came to accept the need to seek an armistice. In November, even before enemy troops could reach her own soil, she obtained this. The ceasefire came amid rapid collapse of further resistance from her other war-partners, and indeed of WILLIAM II'S own imperial authority too (see GERMAN REVOLUTION OF 1918–19). The defeat of the Central Powers was now an established fact, even though the conflict was not formally ended until the 1919 PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT had generated the requisite treaties (alongside that of Versailles, see those of NEUILLY; ST GERMAIN; SÈVRES; TRIANON) and thus re-mapped much of Europe and its colonial extensions.

What the ex-Kaiser's son had initially welcomed as “a jolly little war” looked very different at the end of a conflict whose length and scale of slaughter none had anticipated. Overall, the battles themselves had probably accounted for nearly 10 million deaths and for varying degrees of disablement in some 25 million further cases. The related RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR of 1917–21 also levied a heavy toll. Furthermore, taking Europe and other continents together, the early postwar period witnessed between 20 and 50 million deaths from the combined effects of epidemic (including “SPANISH ” INFLUENZA) and malnutrition upon peoples directly or indirectly debilitated by four years of conflict. Such losses underlined the extent to which World War I had reflected the circumstances of MASS SOCIETY. Soldiers, increasingly recruited by general conscription, had been subjected to a carnage that was indiscriminate and impersonal. In London and Paris homage would be paid henceforth to the Unknown Warrior – a novel conception suggesting how apt it now was even for heroes to be nameless. The lines between combatant and civilian had also become more blurred. Both sustained blockade and long-range artillery bombardment, for instance, ignored distinctions of age, sex, or class. Moreover, there was leveling of service as well as suffering, illustrated particularly by the losses of merchant shipping and, in contexts of domestic war production, the growing reliance on female labor (see also GENDER). Once attrition became the order of the day, the “home front” had to be fully mobilized. Each nation's human and material resources were then used according to the requirements of that scientific and mechanical technology which had already so profoundly conditioned everyday life before 1914. Among the results were innovative developments in tank, gas, submarine, and aerial warfare. More generally still, there was gigantic conversion of productive into destructive capacity. At certain moments it even seemed as if technical necessity had assumed autonomous significance, defiant of control by statesmen or generals. The machine, so long paradigmatic of the rationalization of European society, had become central to a scale of wastage that appeared irrational, or indeed insane. Other assumptions were similarly shaken by the kind of mass propaganda that had accompanied total mobilization and that would then become familiar for governments to employ as means of distortion, censorship, and control during the 1920s and 1930s. Enlarged state power was further exemplified by conscription, reorganization of civilian labor, imposition of price controls and rationing, higher government borrowing, increased taxation, stronger centralized direction of overall economic strategy, and various curtailments of civil liberty.

Other broad consequences of the Great War included its crucial contribution to the final collapse of Romanov, Habsburg, and Hohenzollern imperial authority in the course of 1917–18, as well as to that of the Ottomans in the early 1920s. Much of that process encouraged the western Allies to proclaim a triumph for LIBERALISM and DEMOCRACY. Yet, equally, the conflict helped to make COMMUNISM the ruling ideology in Europe's largest state, and also created the preconditions for the widespread emergence of FASCISM elsewhere across the continent. Moreover, the Versailles Treaty was harsh enough to leave Germany deeply embittered, while also being sufficiently lenient (especially in not requiring a reversal of national unification) to permit NAZISM to pursue revenge barely a generation later. As Marshal FOCH famously put it, “This is not a peace, but an armistice for twenty years.” Once the SOVIET UNION and the HITLER regime had consolidated themselves, survival for many of the SUCCESSION STATES created by the peacemakers of 1919 in the name of national self-determination became deeply questionable. Viewed over the long term and in truly global perspective, the European aspects of the conflict of 1914–18 might well appear to be a form of continental civil war. This was not merely an internecine struggle which hinted at the vulnerability of Europe's far-flung imperialistic claims but also one which would soon be even more bloodily resumed within the overall ambit of WORLD WAR II. (See also battles of TANNENBERG and PASSCHENDAELE; FALKENHAYN; FOURTEEN POINTS; HINDENBURG; NIVELLE; PÉTAIN; and Maps 7, 8, and 9)

World War II This conflict, conducted on a scale unparalleled in previous history, lasted in its European sphere from September 1939 to May 1945. The causes related principally to defeated Germany's resentment at the terms imposed after WORLD WAR I by the VERSAILLES TREATY of 1919. Since efforts to relax those provisions were supported by most Germans during the WEIMAR REPUBLIC, the revisionist program developed in the 1920s by the Nazis (see NAZISM) was in some ways unremarkable. However, particularly after HITLER became chancellor in 1933, he expressed such demands in an increasingly radical and bellicose fashion, exploiting an ideology of Teutonic RACISM that focused on the “Aryan” destiny of Germany to reassert its primacy within (and even beyond) Europe.

Under Nazi rule Germany promptly withdrew from the LEAGUE OF NATIONS, and ignored the bans on conscription and rearmament imposed at Versailles. Early in 1936 Hitler managed through the RHINELAND CRISIS to undo another part of the treaty. By the end of that year he and MUSSOLINI had formed the Rome–Berlin AXIS, and had committed support to FRANCO'S Nationalists in the SPANISH CIVIL WAR. In March 1938 the Nazi regime violated the Versailles prohibition on union (see ANSCHLUSS) between Germany and Austria. Six months later, having provoked a crisis over the SUDETENLAND, Hitler secured through the MUNICH AGREEMENT the first stage of Czechoslovakia's dismemberment. The remaining stages occurred in March 1939, when it became fully evident that the Third Reich's territorial ambitions extended into non-Germanic regions. At that point the British and French governments, which had previously tended towards APPEASEMENT of Germany, stiffened their stance by offering guarantees to the next likely target, Poland. Any chance of making these promises really effective was destroyed in late August by the surprise announcement of the NAZI–SOVIET PACT. While Hitler and STALIN were both content to publicize what were for the time being their mutually convenient assurances about non-aggression against each other, they were equally anxious to conceal the “secret protocol” that confirmed their shared intent urgently to carve up all Polish territory. The German invasion of September 1 activated this scheme, under the pretext of resolving the DANZIG CORRIDOR issue, and by the end of the same month the goal of partition had been essentially achieved.

Though Britain and France swiftly responded by declaring war on Germany, no major combat on land ensued in the west during the subsequent winter of the so-called PHONEY WAR. This was, however, the period when Stalin waged a RUSSO-FINNISH WAR, from which he managed to make only limited gains. Hitler's major BLITZKRIEG in the western direction started in April 1940, with attacks on Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg. By the end of June the German military machine had not only defeated all these countries and driven a British Expeditionary Force into the evacuation from DUNKIRK but had also compelled the surrender of France. Its western and northern regions (including Paris) fell under military occupation, while the rest became administered by a VICHY REGIME of essentially “puppet” status. However, the Luftwaffe's failure to defeat the RAF over southern England (see BATTLE OF BRITAIN) and the continuing power of the Royal Navy meant that by October Hitler's plans to round off the western strategy by bringing the UK directly to heel had to be postponed. Now led by CHURCHILL, the British would fight on – though not so entirely “alone” as legend often has it, but rather with valuable support from the Dominions.

Meanwhile Hitler was experiencing the mixed blessings that stemmed from Italy's belated entry into the war in June 1940. Any fulfillment of Mussolini's Mediterranean ambitions, focused especially on the BALKANS and North Africa, became increasingly dependent on German support. The Axis attack on Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941 caused a few weeks of crucial delay to Hitler's implementation of a far more fundamental strategic objective. Coded as Operation BARBAROSSA and eventually launched on June 22, this involved invading the Soviet Union. The Nazi–Soviet collaboration (which had freed Stalin to absorb the Baltic States in June 1940) was thus suddenly repudiated by Germany. For Hitler – gripped by ideological obsessions about Jewish–Bolshevik conspiracy, Slavic racial menace, and the Aryans' imperative need for LEBENSRAUM – this was the moment at which the real war began.

Over the next few months the Germans made impressive initial advances in an eastward direction. But the onset of autumn and winter slowed their progress. By early December the Wehrmacht was threatening Moscow and Leningrad, yet also proving incapable of registering a decisive victory. At this juncture the scope of the war became truly global. Japan's sudden strike upon Pearl Harbor provided the occasion for Germany in her turn to challenge the USA, whose formal NEUTRALITY had been operating (e.g. through Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program) with increasing bias in favor of Britain. Henceforth the European and Asian spheres of conflict would be interlocked.

During 1942, despite German advances towards the Volga and the Caucasus, Hitler's increasingly pressing need to defeat the Soviet Union remained unsatisfied. By November American landings in North Africa had prompted him into bringing all of France under military occupation. Meanwhile, with the USA, the USSR, and Britain now allied against him, the higher levels of manpower and material resources available to Hitler's enemies assumed ever greater importance. The anti-Nazi alliance was also superior in the secret war of intelligence and code-breaking, whose significance historians began properly to understand only in the 1970s (see also ULTRA). This whole turning of the tide – exemplified most crucially by the lifting of the siege of STALINGRAD in February 1943 – stimulated greater activity from valuably disruptive RESISTANCE movements inside the territories subjugated by the Nazis. By the summer of 1943 Soviet forces were gaining the upper hand on the Eastern Front (e.g. at KURSK), as well as in southeastern Europe against Hitler's Romanian and Bulgarian auxiliaries. Similarly, the western Allies were following up their North African victories with an attack on and beyond Sicily, which helped towards the ousting of Mussolini in July and produced a general surrender of Italian forces in September. After the NORMANDY LANDINGS had opened up a “second front” in June 1944, the Germans were forced into retreat across France. Their Ardennes counter-offensive (see BULGE, BATTLE OF THE) at the end of the year was remarkably spirited, but incapable of being long sustained.

Unlike in 1918, on this occasion the Allies were clear that proper victory meant nothing less than total military occupation of Germany. By early 1945 American and British forces were leading the advance from one flank, while the RED ARMY was driving deep into the Nazi heartland from the other. At the end of April, when the Russians had already seized much of Berlin, Hitler killed himself in his Reich chancellery bunker. On May 7–8 the remnants of his regime made an unconditional surrender. However, it was not until mid-August, when Japan also capitulated after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that the Asian part of this globalized conflict ended.

World War II, as compared to World War I, was vaster both in its geographical scope and in the scale of destruction wreaked upon the human and material resources that were so extensively mobilized for its conduct. One of the legacies for postwar Europe was a huge problem of refugees and “displaced persons.” In the German case, “total war” had involved the exploitation of millions of slave laborers drawn from the conquered countries. Though there were fewer deaths on the western front than in 1914–18, the conflict of 1939–45 produced overall a far higher toll of casualties. These losses were particularly severe in the Russo-German struggle and in the Asian-Pacific theatre of hostilities. On a global basis, mortality directly attributable to the war was of the order of at least 50 million. The USA lost some 300,000 service personnel. Estimates for combined military and civilian deaths suggest around 400,000 for France and nearly as many for Britain. The equivalent tallies for Poland and Germany come out to at least 6 and 4 million respectively. That for the Soviet Union is now generally recognized as being, on modest calculation, some 25 million (though the figure tends to grow as more detail emerges from the Soviet archives). It was thus understandable that Stalin should have claimed that, while Britain had won vital time for the Allies and while the USA had mobilized its huge economic might, the most crucial contribution to victory had been the blood sacrificed by the peoples of the USSR. However, it must also be remembered that far less of this would have been spilt if, especially during the first half of 1941, their leader had been himself less naïve about Hitler's ambitions.

Whereas the slaughter of 1914–18 had possessed elements of miscalculation, the death-toll of 1939–45 was far more deliberately methodical – above all, on the Nazi side. Each of the belligerents used every subtlety of science and technology to inflict a devastation that made little discrimination between soldier and civilian, adult and child. This was particularly evident in the intensification of various forms of aerial attack. The “Blitz” waged by Hitler on such cities as London and Rotterdam early in the war was eventually overshadowed in scale by the counter-attacks launched from American and British bombers. During the last two years of the war Germany was subjected to massive (and still controversial) raids that included the Hamburg fire-storm of July 1943 and the destruction of Dresden in February 1945. Meanwhile, during the final phase of conflict the Nazis themselves had resorted to pilotless aircraft-bombs (V1s) and supersonic rockets (V2s). Sea warfare also had an important role to play. In the European context its most notable features included the German U-boat attacks that threatened the UK's Atlantic supply-lines; the Arctic convoys that set out from British and Icelandic ports so as to sustain the Soviet war-effort; and the naval participation in the kind of amphibious ventures and “combined operations” best exemplified by the Normandy landings.

The ideological content of the conflict also contributed to the pitiless conduct of such “total war.” This emerges most plainly from the way in which the Nazi and Soviet regimes became locked into a combat between two systematically intolerant and irreconcilable worldviews. For Hitler the struggle involved the opportunity to implement his vision of a pan-European NEW ORDER, centered on a hierarchy of races. Not least, the fog of war supplied cover for the Führer to pursue, in semi-secrecy, a so-called FINAL SOLUTION to “the Jewish question” (see ANTISEMITISM). During the period 1941–5 the Nazis murdered some 5–6 million JEWS, mainly in the extermination centers (see CONCENTRATION CAMPS) that were constructed in Poland and became symbolized most notoriously by Auschwitz.

By the time of the German surrender most European countries had been gravely weakened in their economic resources and their political standing. Even those such as Britain, France, and the Netherlands which, by virtue of their imperial traditions, still aspired to play some role on the wider global stage had quickly to reckon with a lessening of their control over or influence in colonial contexts (see DECOLONIZATION). Across central Europe itself the armed forces of the USA as the leading capitalist power and of the Soviet Union as the pioneering communist one found themselves facing each other in much of the continental heartland. In 1944 Stalin had commented: “This war is not as in the past. Whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system as far as his armies can reach. It cannot be otherwise.” Just as this had applied to the Nazis' imperial project, so too it conditioned the stance adopted by the two “superpowers” of the postwar era. Their ideological and military rivalries were now, very directly, geopolitical ones as well. In this form they provided the principal setting for the COLD WAR that was to dominate much of European, and indeed global, history over the four decades or so following the eventual defeat of Hitler. (See also Maps 9, 10, and 11)

Württemberg Occupying the Swabian region of southwest Germany, this duchy was promoted to the rank of kingdom in 1806 following the dissolution of the HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. Its inaugural monarch, Frederick I, continued to benefit from the support that he gave to NAPOLEON I, at least until the time of the latter's defeat at LEIPZIG in 1813. Württemberg emerged from the VIENNA CONGRESS of 1814–15 as a member of the new GERMAN CONFEDERATION. In the AUSTRO-PRUSSSIAN WAR of 1866 it fought, like most of the other southern states, on the losing side as an ally of the HABSBURG EMPIRE. From 1871 until 1918 the kingdom formed one of the federal constituents (see FEDERALISM[1]) of the Prussian-led GERMAN EMPIRE. Under the WEIMAR REPUBLIC it existed simply as a provincial Land. Following the Nazi interregnum, Württemberg eventually resumed that status when in 1952 it was combined with Baden to be one of the new Llsquänder of the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY.