Map 2: European Economies Devastated

[Hauksbee 103]

               The war devastated European economies

The war devastated economies across continental Europe. Not only did each country rack up significant amounts of war debt, they almost all suffered massive losses in gross domestic product over the course of the conflict. France and Russia had each lost a third of their prewar output by the time they left the conflict. The economic pain and massive debt load prompted the Allies to demand huge punitive damages from the losing side after the war. The burden of debt and reparation payments hobbled the Weimar Republic that governed Germany from the end of the war until Adolf Hitler rose to power in the early 1930s. Germany stopped paying reparations in 1931, having paid only a small fraction of the sum the allies had demanded. The Allies also demanded that Austria, Hungary, and Turkey pay reparations, but their economies were so devastated by the war that they never made significant payments