Kylee Gore

History 1700
Professor Mark Welsh
May 1, 2016
Historical Article Critique (1)

I decided to read Margaret Macmillans article titled World War l: The War that changed
everything. As I began reading this article, the first thing I noticed was that the author included
many pictures throughout the article that helped support the evidence from the war that she was
talking about. Macmillan is an excellent writer and created a great picture with her words about
what caused, and happened in World War l. Macmillan took the time to talk about
assassinations, what countries were involved in the war, the bone chilling numbers of casualties
that were the result of the war, but best of all she recognized the civilians being effected outside
the war as well.
Being able to recognize the long-term effects that the war had not only politically,
socially, and morally, helps us who look back on the war today understand that much more. It
breaks my heart reading about the amount of civilians who died from diseases, unnecessary
attacks, and then the Great Depression that followed the war. With the result of the League of
Nations, and the Treaty of Versailles, it still left multiple countries unhappy from the result of the
war. Macmillan made a good point by showing how many countries felt like they had sacrificed
so much, but their amount of reward wasnt comparable. Macmillan also made a valuable
argument that left me wondering, and that was this: If the U.S. had joined the League and been
prepared to work with other democracies against the aggressive and undemocratic powers, could
World War II have been averted?