Question to Brits: which world war was a bigger trauma?

[Tamas]

Well, I guess Poland was an exception again, since you were allowed to start small private businesses here (including farms, shops and service outlets). The only area where the state had a monopoly was industrial production.

Wasn't that nice of them! 

here small shops were also allowed from the 70s or something.

[Martinus]

Dude, I am not saying that communism was a desirable system or that I would like it to return. It's just that when you criticise it, there is enough truth to go around that you do not need to invent false stuff.

[Brazen]

Culturally and socially, definitely WWI - an entire generation of men was decimated. But with bombings in major cities bringing the war to the doorsteps of Britons, WWII had more of an impact on the national psyche.

[Valmy]

IIRC Clemenceau said something to the effect that "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years".

That was Foch, and his point was that the treaty was not harsh enough to cripple Germany.

I tend to think of Versailles, at least with regard to Germany, as like the Roman fable/history of the Battle of the Caudine Forks where the Sabine General was advised either to be mercilessly brutal or magnanimous to the beaten Romans.  He lacked the nerve to do either and the Sabine victory only served to anger the Romans.

[Tamas]

Dude, I am not saying that communism was a desirable system or that I would like it to return. It's just that when you criticise it, there is enough truth to go around that you do not need to invent false stuff.

Which part am I inventing? Can't you see that there is little if any practical difference between the system of feudal nobility and peasants vs. the state-owned economy and mandatory work in it by the citizens? Sure, you said comrade director instead of Sir, but hey

[Valmy]

Which part am I inventing? Can't you see that there is little if any practical difference between the system of feudal nobility and peasants vs. the state-owned economy and mandatory work in it by the citizens? Sure, you said comrade director instead of Sir, but hey

Less bureaucracy in a feudal system.

[Tamas]

Which part am I inventing? Can't you see that there is little if any practical difference between the system of feudal nobility and peasants vs. the state-owned economy and mandatory work in it by the citizens? Sure, you said comrade director instead of Sir, but hey

Less bureaucracy in a feudal system.

dependent on the specifics of the age in terms of population and technologies available

[Admiral Yi]

Less bureaucracy in a feudal system.

And fewer inspiring slogans.

[derspiess]

I remember a history professor of mine likening WWI in Britain to the US Civil War in the US in terms of how it's remembered.

[Ed Anger]

Which system serves its food better?

[CountDeMoney]

I remember a history professor of mine likening WWI in Britain to the US Civil War in the US in terms of how it's remembered.

Big German reenactment community over there.

[Zanza]

When was there more switch between how the world and people's everyday life looked like?
1913 and 1920ish
or 1938 and late 1940s?

For Germany both were huge upheavals. Not sure which was bigger. The transition from Imperial to Republican Germany was obviously dramatic, but then so was the transition from Nazism to democracy. 1949 is considered a zero hour for Germany, which is at least not how 1919 is seen nowadays. So I would tend towards the 1940s being a bigger upheaval for Germany.

[Razgovory]

I remember a history professor of mine likening WWI in Britain to the US Civil War in the US in terms of how it's remembered.

I had a literature teacher make the same argument.

[Razgovory]

When was there more switch between how the world and people's everyday life looked like?
1913 and 1920ish
or 1938 and late 1940s?

The 1913-1920ish.  Just look  at the art after WWI.  The poetry, the painting, the sculpture. It all cries out despair and cynicism and exhaustion.  Compare it the the joy, self assurance and pride before the war.  In truth, Europe still hasn't recovered.

Again, when you talk about Europe, it really just means the great powers. For example, in Poland's case, the period of 20 years between wars was pretty cheerful, culturally, especially in the beginning. Only when fascism/authoritarism started to raise its ugly head in the 30s, it began to get gloomy.

So the 20 year period is actually around 10 years?  I have a hard time believing it was particularly cheery when you had people trying to assemble a government with three remnant administrations.  Not to mention there had to be significant devastation and death due to it being a major battlefield and Poles were conscripted to fight in three different armies during the war, and then partake in the Russian Civil War.

[Martinus]

Poland wasn't really devastated by WW1. And there was no significant deathtoll.