The Influence of World War I on Britain

After World War I, Britain began to decline, and its hegemonic position in the world was gradually replaced by the United States.

World War I changed the structure of the world economy. Before the outbreak of World War I, Britain was the financial center of the world, with an annual overseas investment of 4 billion pounds, accounting for 43% of the total investment in the world at that time. After World War I, Britain not only lost a lot of gold reserves, but also changed from the world's largest creditor country to a net debtor country.

Of all the belligerents in Europe, Britain has adopted the most responsible fiscal policy.

The British government spent as much as $43 billion on this war, including 1 1 billion in loans to allies such as France and Russia. In order to pay for these expenses, on the one hand, Britain raised $9 billion through tax increases; On the other hand, it raised $27 billion through long-term loans from China and the United States; The rest are loans from domestic banks.

The reason why the British are so generous is that European countries have regarded debt as part of war cooperation from the beginning and should solve it in a unified way after the war. 19 15, the finance ministers of Britain, France and Russia clearly stated at the Paris finance conference: "The finance ministers of Britain, France and Russia agreed to integrate the financial and military forces of the three countries to promote the final victory of the war."

The war made Europe's demand for American materials and commodities increase rapidly, which stimulated the prosperity of American economy. More importantly, this behavior led to a large amount of gold flowing into the United States, and the US gold reserve soared from less than $2 billion to $4 billion. This war changed the position of the United States in the world economy and finance in one fell swoop. After the war, the problem of war debt repayment was put on the agenda.

Britain is caught in the middle of the whole debt structure, that is, there are many creditor's rights and many debts. Britain is well aware of the difficulty of debt collection and hopes to solve the war debt problem in a unified way, and it is best to cancel it completely. This is in line with the tradition of European history. After the Napoleonic Wars, countries completely cancelled their war debts. In the view of European countries, all war expenses are the obligation of "free countries" to safeguard the "free world".

However, the United States insists on completing the handling of the war debt problem according to the business model. The differences between the two countries were not resolved until five years after the war. At that time, in order to quickly restore the economy, Britain rebuilt its pre-war gold standard as soon as possible, thus accepting the American plan.

However, huge war loans became the burden of British economic recovery, while the US dollar took the opportunity to import into Europe, eroding the British economic map. Britain's hopes of rebuilding the world financial center have been dashed.

Extended data:

The First World War was an irreconcilable contradiction that prevailed in the period of imperialist transition.

Colonies and semi-colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America have basically been carved up by foreign powers. Under the background of intensified contradictions between old and new colonialism, unbalanced economic development of various imperialists and unequal division of order, a world-class imperialist war broke out in order to carve up the world again and compete for global hegemony.

The course of the war is mainly the battle between the allies and the allies. The German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria belong to the allied camp, while the British Empire, the Third Republic of France, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy and the United States of America belong to the allied camp. This war is one of the most destructive wars in European history.

About 65 million people participated in the war, more than 6.5438+million people died and 20 million people were injured. The war caused serious economic losses. The First World War brought great disasters to mankind, but objectively promoted the development of science and technology. During World War I, various new weapons, such as airplanes, poisonous gas, tanks and long-range artillery, were put into war one after another, which was an important stage in the history of weapons development.

People's Network-World War I defeated the British banking industry

People's Network-UK Country Profile