The Vanquished: Revolution and Violence in Europe Between the World Wars, 1917–1923

For the victors of the First World War, November 11, 1918, marked the end of the war. For the defeated, however, it was the beginning of a huge catastrophe of violence.

To a great extent, the First World War's destruction of Europe was not limited to the brutal fighting on the Western Front. It also lay in the devastating consequences that followed. In regions where conflict erupted after the war, people were thoroughly brutalized by revolution, massacres, ethnic cleansing, and escalating military clashes.

Between 1917 and 1923, violent conflicts across Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe killed millions. It was amid these ruins of war that extremist ideologies began to take shape. Fascism and Nazism rose to power in Italy and Germany, setting the stage for the outbreak of the Second World War.

A century has passed since the First World War, yet the series of problems caused by its immediate aftermath continues to trouble the world.