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Aftermath of World War I

The aftermath of World War I saw far-reaching and wide-ranging cultural, economic, and social change across Europe, Asia, Africa, and even in areas outside those that were directly involved. Four empires collapsed due to the war, old countries were abolished, new ones were formed, boundaries were redrawn, international organizations were established, and many new and old ideologies took a firm hold in people's minds. World War I also had the effect of bringing political transformation to most of the principal parties involved in the conflict, transforming them into electoral democracies by bringing near-universal suffrage for the first time in history, as in Germany (1919 German federal election), Great Britain (1918 United Kingdom general election), and Turkey (1923 Turkish general election).

Blockade of Germany
Through the period from the Armistice of 11 November 1918 until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with the Weimar Republic on 28 June 1919, the Allies maintained the naval blockade of Germany that had begun during the war. As the German economy was dependent on imports, it is estimated that around half a million civilians had died. N. P. Howard, of the University of Sheffield, estimates that a quarter of a million excess deaths occurred in eight-month period following the conclusion of the conflict, 40% of which took place in November 1918, making for 474,085 excess deaths for the entire 1914–1919 period. The continuation of the blockade after the fighting ended, as author Robert Leckie wrote in Delivered from Evil, did much to "torment the Germans ... driving them with the fury of despair into the arms of the devil." The terms of the Armistice did allow food to be shipped into Germany, but the Allies required that Germany provide the means (the shipping) to do so. The German government was required to use its gold reserves, being unable to secure a loan from the United States.

Historian Sally Marks claims that while "Allied warships remained in place against a possible resumption of hostilities, the Allies offered food and medicine after the armistice, but Germany refused to allow its ships to carry supplies". Further, Marks states that despite the problems facing the Allies, from the German government, "Allied food shipments arrived in Allied ships before the charge made at Versailles". This position is also supported by Elisabeth Gläser who notes that an Allied task force, to help feed the German population, was established in early 1919 and that by May 1919 Germany "became the chief recipient of American and Allied food shipments". Gläser further claims that during the early months of 1919, while the main relief effort was being planned, France provided food shipments to Bavaria and the Rhineland. She further claims that the German government delayed the relief effort by refusing to surrender their merchant fleet to the Allies. Finally, she concludes that "the very success of the relief effort had in effect deprived the [Allies] of a credible threat to induce Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles. However, it is also the case that for eight months following the end of hostilities, some form of blockade was continually in place, with some contemporary estimates that a further 100,000 casualties among German civilians due to starvation were caused, on top of the hundreds of thousands which already had occurred. Food shipments, furthermore, had been entirely dependent on Allied goodwill, causing at least in part the post-hostilities irregularity.

Paris Peace Conference
After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919, between Germany on the one side and France, Italy, Britain and other minor allied powers on the other, officially ended war between those countries. Other treaties ended the relationships of the United States and the other Central Powers. Included in the 440 articles of the Treaty of Versailles were the demands that Germany officially accept responsibility "for causing all the loss and damage" of the war and pay economic reparations. The treaty drastically limited the German military machine: German troops were reduced to 100,000 and the country was prevented from possessing major military armaments such as tanks, warships, armored vehicles and submarines.

Influenza epidemic
Post WWI Conflict Map In New-York Tribune November 9 1919 Page 26.jpg'' prints this map on November 9, 1919, of the ongoing armed conflict in Europe in 1919, one year after World War I had ended: 1. War of Independence in Estonia and Latvia

2. White Army of General Yudenich

3. North Russia intervention

4. White Army of Kolchak's in Siberia

5. General Denikin's White Army

6. General Petlura's Ukrainian directorate

7. Polish–Soviet War

8. Silesia tension between the Poles and Germans.

9. Romanian occupation of Hungary

10. Gabriele D'Annunzio's seizes Fiume, creates the Italian Regency of Carnaro

11. In Albania promiscuous fighting is going on

12. Turkish War of Independence ]] Historians continue to argue about the impact the 1918 flu pandemic had on the outcome of the war. It has been posited that the Central Powers may have been exposed to the viral wave before the Allies. The resulting casualties having greater effect, having been incurred during the war, as opposed to the allies who suffered the brunt of the pandemic after the Armistice. When the extent of the epidemic was realized, the respective censorship programs of the Allies and Central Powers limited the public's knowledge regarding the true extent of the disease. Because Spain was neutral, their media was free to report on the Flu, giving the impression that it began there. This misunderstanding led to contemporary reports naming it the "Spanish flu." Investigative work by a British team led by virologist John Oxford of St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Royal London Hospital, identified a major troop staging and hospital camp in Étaples, France as almost certainly being the center of the 1918 flu pandemic. A significant precursor virus was harbored in birds, and mutated to pigs that were kept near the front. The exact number of deaths is unknown but about 50 million people are estimated to have died from the influenza outbreak worldwide. In 2005, a study found that, "The 1918 virus strain developed in birds and was similar to the 'bird flu' that in the 21st century spurred fears of another worldwide pandemic, yet proved to be a normal treatable virus that did not produce a heavy impact on the world's health."

Formation of national identities
After 123 years, Poland re-emerged as an independent country. The Kingdom of Serbia and its dynasty, as a "minor Entente nation" and the country with the most casualties per capita,  became the backbone of a new multinational state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia, combining the Kingdom of Bohemia with parts of the Kingdom of Hungary, became a new nation. Romania would unite all Romanian-speaking people under a single state leading to Greater Romania. Russia became the Soviet Union and lost Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, which became independent countries. The Ottoman Empire was soon replaced by Turkey and many of its territories became mandates under British or French rule.

In the British Empire, the war unleashed new forms of nationalism. In the Dominions of Australia and New Zealand, the Battle of Gallipoli became known as those nations' "Baptism of Fire". It was the first major war in which the newly established countries fought, and it was one of the first times that Australian troops fought as Australians, not just subjects of the British Crown, and independent national identities for these nations took hold. Anzac Day, commemorating the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), celebrates this defining moment.

After the Battle of Vimy Ridge, where the Canadian divisions fought together for the first time as a single corps, Canadians began to refer to their country as a nation "forged from fire". Having succeeded on the same battleground where the "mother countries" had previously faltered, they were for the first time respected internationally for their own accomplishments. Like Australia and New Zealand, Canada entered the war as a Dominion of the British Empire and remained so, although it emerged with a greater measure of independence. When Britain declared war in 1914, the dominions were automatically at war; at the conclusion, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were individual signatories of the Treaty of Versailles.

Lobbying by Chaim Weizmann and fear that American Jews would encourage the United States to support Germany culminated in the British government's Balfour Declaration of 1917, endorsing creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. A total of more than 1,172,000 Jewish soldiers served in the Allied and Central Power forces in World WarI, including 275,000 in Austria-Hungary and 450,000 in Tsarist Russia.

The establishment of the modern state of Israel and the roots of the continuing Israeli–Palestinian conflict are partially found in the unstable power dynamics of the Middle East that resulted from World WarI. Before the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire had maintained a modest level of peace and stability throughout some parts of the Middle East, although during the war the Ottomans conducted the ethnically and religiously motivated Greek genocide, Armenian genocide and Assyrian genocide, as well as overseeing The Great Famine of Mount Lebanon. With the fall of the Ottoman government, power vacuums developed and conflicting claims to land and nationhood began to emerge. The political boundaries drawn by the victors of World WarI were quickly imposed, sometimes after only cursory consultation with the local population. These continue to be problematic in the 21st-century struggles for national identity. While the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World WarI was pivotal in contributing to the modern political situation of the Middle East, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, the end of Ottoman rule also spawned lesser-known disputes over water and other natural resources.

The prestige of Germany and German things in Latin America remained high after the war but did not recover to its pre-war levels. Indeed, in Chile the war bought an end to a period of intense scientific and cultural influence writer Eduardo de la Barra scornfully called "the German bewitchment" (el embrujamiento alemán). The Transylvanian and Bukovinian Romanians who were taken prisoners of war fought as the Romanian Volunteer Corps in Russia, Romanian Legion of Siberia and Romanian Legion in Italy. Taking part in the Eastern Front as part of the Russian Army and since summer 1917 in the Romanian front as part of the Romanian Army. As a supporter of the White movement with the Czechoslovak Legion against the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. In the battles of Montello, Vittorio Veneto, Sisemolet, Piave, Cimone, Monte Grappa, Nervesa and Ponte Delle Alpi as part of the Italian Army against Austria-Hungary and in 1919 as part of the Romanian Army in the Hungarian-Romanian War.

In the late spring of 1918, three new states were formed in the South Caucasus: the First Republic of Armenia, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which declared their independence from the Russian Empire. Two other minor entities were established, the Centrocaspian Dictatorship and South West Caucasian Republic (the former was liquidated by Azerbaijan in the autumn of 1918 and the latter by a joint Armenian-British task force in early 1919). With the withdrawal of the Russian armies from the Caucasus front in the winter of 1917–18, the three major republics braced for an imminent Ottoman advance, which commenced in the early months of 1918. Solidarity was briefly maintained when the Transcaucasian Federative Republic was created in the spring of 1918, but this collapsed in May when the Georgians asked for and received protection from Germany and the Azerbaijanis concluded a treaty with the Ottoman Empire that was more akin to a military alliance. Armenia was left to fend for itself and struggled for five months against the threat of a full-fledged occupation by the Ottoman Turks before defeating them at the Battle of Sardarabad.

Greece fought against Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal, a war that eventually resulted in a massive population exchange between the two countries under the Treaty of Lausanne. According to various sources, several hundred thousand Greeks died during this period, which was tied in with the Greek genocide.

Revolutions

A far-left and often explicitly communist revolutionary wave occurred in several European countries in 1917–1920, notably in Germany and Hungary. The single most important event precipitated by the privations of World War I was the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Austria-Hungary
With the war having turned decisively against the Central Powers, the people of Austria-Hungary lost faith in their allied countries, and even before the armistice in November, radical nationalism had already led to several declarations of independence in south-central Europe after November 1918. As the central government had ceased to operate in vast areas, these regions found themselves without a government and many new groups attempted to fill the void. During this same period, the population was facing food shortages and was, for the most part, demoralized by the losses incurred during the war. Various political parties, ranging from ardent nationalists, to social democrats, to communists attempted to set up governments in the names of the different nationalities. In other areas, existing nation states such as Romania engaged regions that they considered to be theirs. These moves created de facto governments that complicated life for diplomats, idealists, and the Western allies. The Western forces were officially supposed to occupy the old Empire, but rarely had enough troops to do so effectively. They had to deal with local authorities who had their own agenda to fulfill. At the peace conference in Paris the diplomats had to reconcile these authorities with the competing demands of the nationalists who had turned to them for help during the war, the strategic or political desires of the Western allies themselves, and other agendas such as a desire to implement the spirit of the Fourteen Points.

For example, in order to live up to the ideal of self-determination laid out in the Fourteen Points, Germans, whether Austrian or German, should be able to decide their own future and government. However, the French especially were concerned that an expanded Germany would be a huge security risk. Further complicating the situation, delegations such as the Czechs and Slovenians made strong claims on some German-speaking territories.

The result was treaties that compromised many ideals, offended many allies, and set up an entirely new order in the area. Many people hoped that the new nation states would allow for a new era of prosperity and peace in the region, free from the bitter quarrelling between nationalities that had marked the preceding fifty years. This hope proved far too optimistic. Changes in territorial configuration after World War I included:

 * Establishment of the Republic of German Austria and the Hungarian Democratic Republic, disavowing any continuity with the empire and exiling the Habsburg family in perpetuity.
 * Eventually, after 1920, the new borders of Hungary did not include approx. two-thirds of the lands of the former Kingdom of Hungary, including areas where the ethnic Magyars were in a majority. The new republic of Austria maintained control over most of the predominantly German-controlled areas, but lost various other German majority lands in what was the Austrian Empire.

 * Bohemia, Moravia, Opava Silesia and the western part of the Duchy of Cieszyn, large part of Upper Hungary and Carpathian Ruthenia formed the new Czechoslovakia.
 * Galicia, the eastern part of the Duchy of Cieszyn, northern Árva County and northern Szepes County were transferred to Poland.
 * the Southern half of the County of Tyrol and Trieste were granted to Italy.
 * Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia-Slavonia, Međimurje, Dalmatia, Slovenia, Syrmia, parts of Bács-Bodrog, Baranya, Torontál and Temes Counties were joined with Serbia to form the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia.
 * Transylvania, parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș and Bukovina became part of Romania.
 * The Austro-Hungarian concession in Tianjin was ceded to the Republic of China.

These changes were recognized in, but not caused by, the Treaty of Versailles. They were subsequently further elaborated in the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon.

The 1919 treaties generally included guarantees of minority rights, but there was no enforcement mechanism. The new states of eastern Europe mostly all had large ethnic minorities. Millions of Germans found themselves in the newly created countries as minorities. More than two million ethnic Hungarians found themselves living outside of Hungary in Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Many of these national minorities found themselves in hostile situations because the modern governments were intent on defining the national character of the countries, often at the expense of the other nationalities. The interwar years were hard for religious minorities in the new states built around ethnic nationalism. The Jews were especially distrusted because of their minority religion and distinct subculture. This was a dramatic come-down from the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although antisemitism had been widespread during Habsburg rule, Jews faced no official discrimination because they were, for the most part, ardent supporters of the multi-national state and the monarchy.

The economic disruption of the war and the end of the Austro-Hungarian customs union created great hardship in many areas. Although many states were set up as democracies after the war, one by one, with the exception of Czechoslovakia, they reverted to some form of authoritarian rule. Many quarreled amongst themselves but were too weak to compete effectively. Later, when Germany rearmed, the nation states of south-central Europe were unable to resist its attacks, and fell under German domination to a much greater extent than had ever existed in Austria-Hungary.

Germany
In Germany, there was a socialist revolution which led to the brief establishment of a number of communist political systems in (mainly urban) parts of the country, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the creation of the Weimar Republic.

On 28 June 1919 the Weimar Republic was forced, under threat of continued Allied advance, to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Germany viewed the one-sided treaty as a humiliation and as blaming it for the entire war. While the intent of the treaty was to assign guilt to Germany to justify financial reparations, the notion of blame took root as a political issue in German society and was never accepted by nationalists, although it was argued by some, such as German historian Fritz Fischer. The German government disseminated propaganda to further promote this idea, and funded the Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War to this end.

132 billion gold marks ($31.5 billion, 6.6 billion pounds) were demanded from Germany in reparations, of which only 50 billion had to be paid. In order to finance the purchases of foreign currency required to pay off the reparations, the new German republic printed tremendous amounts of money—to disastrous effect. Hyperinflation plagued Germany between 1921 and 1923. In this period the worth of fiat Papiermarks with respect to the earlier commodity Goldmarks was reduced to one trillionth (one million millionth) of its value. In December 1922 the Reparations Commission declared Germany in default, and on 11 January 1923 French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr until 1925.

The treaty required Germany to permanently reduce the size of its army to 100,000 men, and destroy their tanks, air force, and U-boat fleet (her capital ships, moored at Scapa Flow, were scuttled by their crews to prevent them from falling into Allied hands).

Germany saw relatively small amounts of territory transferred to Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Belgium, a larger amount to France (including the temporary French occupation of the Rhineland) and the greatest portion as part of a reestablished Poland. Germany's overseas colonies were divided between a number of Allied countries, most notably the United Kingdom in Africa, but it was the loss of the territory that composed the newly independent Polish state, including the German city of Danzig and the separation of East Prussia from the rest of Germany, that caused the greatest outrage. Nazi propaganda would feed on a general German view that the treaty was unfair – many Germans never accepted the treaty as legitimate, and lent their political support to Adolf Hitler.

Ottoman Empire

At the end of the war, the Allies occupied Constantinople (Istanbul) and the Ottoman government collapsed. The Treaty of Sèvres, designed to repair damage caused by Ottomans during the war to the winning Allies, was signed by Ottoman Empire on 10 August 1920, but was never ratified by the Sultan.

The occupation of Smyrna by Greece on 18 May 1919 triggered a nationalist movement to rescind the terms of the treaty. Turkish revolutionaries led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a successful Ottoman commander, rejected the terms enforced at Sèvres and under the guise of General Inspector of the Ottoman Army, left Istanbul for Samsun to organize the remaining Ottoman forces to resist the terms of the treaty. On the eastern front, after the invasion of Armenia in 1920 and signing of the Treaty of Kars with the Russian S.F.S.R. Turkey took over territory lost to Armenia and post-Imperial Russia.

On the western front, the growing strength of the Turkish National Movement forces led the Kingdom of Greece, with the backing of Britain, to invade deep into Anatolia in an attempt to deal a blow to the revolutionaries. At the Battle of Dumlupınar, the Greek army was defeated and forced into retreat, leading to the burning of Smyrna and the withdrawal of Greece from Asia Minor. With the nationalists empowered, the army marched on to reclaim Istanbul, resulting in the Chanak Crisis in which the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, was forced to resign. After Turkish resistance gained control over Anatolia and Istanbul, the Sèvres treaty was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne which formally ended all hostilities and led to the creation of the modern Turkish Republic. As a result, Turkey became the only power of World War I to overturn the terms of its defeat, and negotiate with the Allies as an equal.

Lausanne Treaty formally acknowledged the new League of Nations mandates in the Middle East, the cession of their territories on the Arabian Peninsula, and British sovereignty over Cyprus. The League of Nations granted Class A mandates for the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and British Mandate of Mesopotamia and Palestine, the latter comprising two autonomous regions: Mandate Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. Parts of the Ottoman Empire on the Arabian Peninsula became part of what is today Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire became a pivotal milestone in the creation of the modern Middle East, the result of which bore witness to the creation of new conflicts and hostilities in the region.

Russian Empire

The Soviet Union benefited from Germany's loss, as one of the first terms of the armistice was the abrogation of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. At the time of the armistice Russia was in the grips of a civil war which left more than seven million people dead and large areas of the country devastated. The nation as a whole suffered socially and economically.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia gained independence. They were occupied again by the Soviet Union in 1940.

Finland gained a lasting independence, though it repeatedly had to fight the Soviet Union for its borders in the Winter War.

Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan were established as independent states in the Caucasus region. However, after the withdrawal of the Russian Army in 1917 and during 1920 Turkish invasion of Armenia, Turkey captured the Armenian territory around Artvin, Kars, and Iğdır, and these territorial losses became permanent. As consequence of invasions of Turkey and Russian Red Army all three Transcaucasian countries were proclaimed as Soviet Republics in 1920 and in 1922 were absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.

Romania gained Bessarabia from Russia.

The Russian concession of Tianjin was occupied by the Chinese Beiyang government in 1920; in 1924 the Soviet Union renounced its claims to the district.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, funding the war had a severe economic cost. From being the world's largest overseas investor, it became one of its biggest debtors with interest payments forming around 40% of all government spending. Inflation more than doubled between 1914 and its peak in 1920, while the value of the Pound Sterling (consumer expenditure ) fell by 61%. War reparations in the form of free German coal depressed local industry, precipitating the 1926 United Kingdom general strike.

British private investments abroad were sold, raising £550 million. However, £250 million in new investment also took place during the war. The net financial loss was therefore approximately £300 million; less than two years investment compared to the pre-war average rate and more than replaced by 1928. Material loss was "slight": the most significant being 40% of the British Merchant Navy sunk by German U-boats. Most of this was replaced in 1918 and all immediately after the war. The military historian Correlli Barnett has argued that "in objective truth the Great War in no way inflicted crippling economic damage on Britain" but that the war "crippled the British psychologically but in no other way".

Less concrete changes include the growing assertiveness of Commonwealth nations. Battles such as Gallipoli for Australia and New Zealand, and Vimy Ridge for Canada led to increased national pride and a greater reluctance to remain subordinate to Britain, leading to the growth of diplomatic autonomy in the 1920s. These battles were often decorated in propaganda in these nations as symbolic of their power during the war. Overseas possessions such as British India and Nigeria also became increasingly assertive, because of their participation in the war. The populations in these countries became increasingly aware of their own power and Britain's fragility.

In Ireland, the delaying of the Government of Ireland Act 1914, which was enacted to resolve the Home Rule issue, later exacerbated by the Government's severe response to the 1916 Easter Rising and its failed attempt to introduce conscription in Ireland in 1918, led to an increased support for separatist radicals. This led indirectly to the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence in 1919. The creation of the Irish Free State that followed this conflict in effect represented a territorial loss for the United Kingdom that was all but equal to the loss sustained by Germany, and furthermore, compared to Germany, a much greater loss in terms of its ratio to the country's prewar territory. However, the new Irish Free State remained a dominion within the British Empire.

World War I also caused a major realignment in British parliamentary politics by leading to the rise of the democratic socialist Labour Party and to the break-up and decline of the social liberal Liberal Party. Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith ran into disagreements with not only the Conservative Party opposition but members of his own party led by David Lloyd George who disagreed with his handling of the war. Although Asquith agreed to form a coalition government, the disputes continued and eventually Lloyd George led a faction of the Liberals to form a new coalition government with the cooperation of the Conservatives. During the 1918 "coupon" election Conservatives and Liberals endorsed by the Coalition won a landslide majority in the British Parliament. However, the split between Lloyd George's National Liberals and Asquith's Independent Liberals fatally weakened the party. On the other hand, the Labour Party remained unified despite tensions between pacifist and pro-war leaders, used the war to expand the British trade union movement, and benefitted from the establishment of universal suffrage under the Representation of the People Act 1918. As a result both Liberal factions performed poorly in the 1922 general election while Labour became the Official Opposition for the first time. The Liberals reluctantly collaborated with Labour to help it form a brief minority government under Ramsay MacDonald. The Liberals would not fully reunify until Asquith's death in 1928, and thereafter primarily expressed influence through confidence and supply arrangements and coalitions in the event of a hung parliament.

China
The Republic of China had been one of the Allies; during the war, they had sent thousands of labourers to France. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Chinese delegation called for an end to Western imperialistic institutions in China, but was rebuffed. China requested at least the formal restoration of its territory of Jiaozhou Bay, under German colonial control as the Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory since 1898. But the western Allies rejected China's request, instead granting transfer to Japan of all of Germany's pre-war territory and rights in China. Subsequently, China did not sign the Treaty of Versailles, instead signing a separate peace treaty with Germany in 1921.

The Austro-Hungarian and German concessions in Tianjin were placed under the administration of the Chinese government; in 1920 they occupied the Russian area as well.

The western Allies' substantial accession to Japan's territorial ambitions at China's expense led to the May Fourth Movement in China, a social and political movement that had profound influence over subsequent Chinese history. The May Fourth Movement is often cited as the birth of Chinese nationalism, and both the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party consider the Movement to be an important period in their own histories.

France

Alsace–Lorraine returned to France, the region which had been ceded to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War. At the 1919 Peace Conference, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau's aim was to ensure that Germany would not seek revenge in the following years. To this purpose, the chief commander of the Allied forces, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, had demanded that for the future protection of France the Rhine river should now form the border between France and Germany. Based on history, he was convinced that Germany would again become a threat, and, on hearing the terms of the Treaty of Versailles that had left Germany substantially intact, he observed that "This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years."

The destruction brought upon French territory was to be indemnified by the reparations negotiated at Versailles. This financial imperative dominated France's foreign policy throughout the 1920s, leading to the 1923 Occupation of the Ruhr in order to force Germany to pay. However, Germany was unable to pay, and obtained support from the United States. Thus, the Dawes Plan was negotiated after Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré's occupation of the Ruhr, and then the Young Plan in 1929.

Also extremely important in the War was the participation of French colonial troops (who amounted for around 10% of the total number of troops deployed by France across the war), including the Senegalese tirailleurs, and troops from Indochina, North Africa, and Madagascar. When these soldiers returned to their homelands and continued to be treated as second class citizens, many became the nuclei of pro-independence groups.

Furthermore, under the state of war declared during the hostilities, the French economy had been somewhat centralized in order to be able to shift into a "war economy", leading to a first breach with classical liberalism.

Finally, the socialists' support of the National Union government (including Alexandre Millerand's nomination as Minister of War) marked a shift towards the French Section of the Workers' International's (SFIO) turn towards social democracy and participation in "bourgeois governments", although Léon Blum maintained a socialist rhetoric.

Women in France
“But with its faceless state machinery and unremitting mechanized slaughter, the war instead collapsed these old ideals” (Roberts 2). When the war was over and the men returned home, the world was a vastly different place than it had been before the war. Many ideals and beliefs were shattered with the war. Those returning from the front lines, and even those who were on the Homefront, were left to pick up the pieces of what was left of those ideals and beliefs, and try to rebuild them. Before the Great War, many thought this war would be a quick war, like many before had been. With new technology and weapons though, the war was at a stalemate for a large part of it, dragging what many thought would be a quick war out into a long, grueling war. With so much death and destruction done to France, it is not surprising when looking back that the way of life for French citizens was forever changed.

Many citizens saw the change in culture and blamed the war for taking away the rose tinted glasses that society had viewed things through. Many scholars and writers, such as Drieu la Rochelle, found many ways to describe this new view on reality such as stripping away clothes (Roberts 2). This comparison of the new reality and clothing being stripped away also ties into the fact that gender roles changed greatly after the war.

During the war many jobs had been left to women because many men were fighting on the front lines. This gave women a new sense of freedom that they had not been able to experience ever before. Not many women wanted to go back to how things were before the war, when they expected to stay at home and take care of the house. When the war was over many of the older generations and men wanted women to return to their previous roles.

At a time where gender roles were so heavily defined and intertwined with the culture of many places, for French citizens viewing how many women went against said roles after World War I, or the Great War as it was called at the time, it was ghastly. While gender roles had slowly been changing over time since the Industrial Revolution gave more work options outside of the home in factories, it had never been such a quick and drastic change as it was after World War I. During the war many men went off to fight, leaving behind factory jobs that were usually seen as a man's job only. These jobs had to be filled and without men there to fill the jobs, it was women who stepped up to fill the hole instead. France suffered a great loss of life during World War I, leaving many jobs unable to be refilled even after the war.

Debates and discussions concerning gender identity and gender roles in relation to society became one of the main ways to discuss the war and people's stances on it (Roberts 5). The war left people struggling to grasp the new reality. There were mixed reactions to the new way of life after World War I and how it affected both men and women. Some people were willing to completely embrace the new standards that were emerging following the war, while others harshly rejected the changes, seeing the changes as summarizing all the horrors they experienced during the war. Others looked for ways to compromise between the new and old way of life, tried to combine the ideals and beliefs from before and after the war to find a healthy middle ground.

Discussions pertaining to women during post-war debates often split the view of women into three categories—the “modern woman,” the “mother,” and the “single woman” (Roberts 9). These categories broke up the view of women by the roles they took on, the jobs they did, the way they acted, or by the beliefs they might hold. These categories also came to encompass the views of gender roles in relation to before and after the war. The “mother” category relates back to the role of women before the Great War, the woman who stayed at home and took care of the household while the husband was off at work. The “modern woman” relates to how many women were after the war, working jobs meant for men, engaging in sexual pleasures, and often doing things at a fast pace. The “single woman” was the middle ground between the other two that were very different from one another. The “single woman” came to represent the women who would never be able to marry because there were not enough men for every woman to marry (Roberts 10).

One thing that sparked much debate in regards to the postwar woman is fashion. During the war things like cloth material were rationed, with people being encouraged to not use as much fabric, so that there would be enough for the military. In response to these rations, women wore shorter dresses and skirts, usually about knee length, or pants. This change in apparel was something that many women continued to wear even after the war ended. It was such a drastic change to the clothing norms for women before the war. This change led to some “modern women” to be described in harsh lights, as if wearing dresses and skirts that short showed that those women were promiscuous.

Those coming back from the war, from the fighting, were very traumatized and had wanted to come back to a home that was not very changed in order to give themselves a sense of normalcy. When these men came back to a home that had changed a lot they did not know what to make of it. Gone were the times of very defined gender roles that most of society conformed to. It was often hard for these traumatized men to accept these new changes, especially the changes in how women behaved.

Italy

In 1882, Italy joined with the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire to form the Triple Alliance. However, even if relations with Berlin became very friendly, the alliance with Vienna remained purely formal, as the Italians were keen to acquire Trentino and Trieste, parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire populated by Italians.

During World War I Italy aligned with the Allies, instead of joining Germany and Austria. This could happen since the alliance formally had merely defensive prerogatives, while the Central Empires were the ones who started the offensive. With the Treaty of London, Britain secretly offered Italy Trentino and Tyrol as far as Brenner, Trieste and Istria, all the Dalmatian coast except Fiume, full ownership of Albanian Valona and a protectorate over Albania, Antalya in Turkey and a share of the Turkish and German colonial empire, in exchange for Italy siding against the Central Empires.

After the victory, Vittorio Orlando, Italy's President of the Council of Ministers, and Sidney Sonnino, its Foreign Minister, were sent as the Italian representatives to Paris with the aim of gaining the promised territories and as much other land as possible. In particular, there was an especially strong opinion about the status of Fiume, which they believed was rightly Italian due to Italian population, in agreement with Wilson's Fourteen Points, the ninth of which read:

"A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality".

Nevertheless, by the end of the war the Allies realized they had made contradictory agreements with other Nations, especially regarding Central Europe and the Middle East. In the meetings of the "Big Four", in which Orlando's powers of diplomacy were inhibited by his lack of English, the Great powers were only willing to offer Trentino to the Brenner, the Dalmatian port of Zara, the island of Lagosta and a couple of small German colonies. All other territories were promised to other nations and the great powers were worried about Italy's imperial ambitions; Wilson, in particular, was a staunch supporter of Yugoslav rights on Dalmatia against Italy and despite the Treaty of London which he did not recognize. As a result of this, Orlando left the conference in a rage. This simply favored Britain and France, which divided among themselves the former Ottoman and German territories in Africa.

In Italy, the discontent was relevant: irredentists (see: irredentismo) claimed Fiume and Dalmatia as Italian lands; many felt the Country had taken part in a meaningless war without getting any serious benefits. This idea of a "mutilated victory" (vittoria mutilata) was the reason which led to the Impresa di Fiume ("Fiume Exploit"). On September 12, 1919, the nationalist poet Gabriele d'Annunzio led around 2,600 troops from the Royal Italian Army (the Granatieri di Sardegna), nationalists and irredentists, into a seizure of the city, forcing the withdrawal of the inter-Allied (American, British and French) occupying forces.

The "mutilated victory" (vittoria mutilata) became an important part of Italian fascist propaganda.

Japan
Because of the treaty that Japan had signed with Great Britain in 1902, Japan was one of the Allies during the war. With British assistance, Japanese forces attacked Germany's territories in Shandong, China, including the East Asian coaling base of the Imperial German Navy. The German forces were defeated and surrendered to Japan in November 1914. The Japanese navy also succeeded in seizing several of Germany's island possessions in the western Pacific: the Carolines, the Mariana Islands, and the Marshall Islands.

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Japan was granted all of Germany's pre-war rights in Shandong Province in China (despite China also being one of the Allies during the war): outright possession of the territory of Jiaozhou Bay, and favorable commercial rights throughout the rest of the province, as well as the South Seas Mandate over the German Pacific island possessions that the Imperial Japanese Navy had taken. Also, Japan was granted a permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations. Nevertheless, the Western powers refused Japan's request for the inclusion of a "racial equality" clause as part of the Treaty of Versailles. Shandong reverted to Chinese control in 1922 after mediation by the United States during the Washington Naval Conference. Weihai followed in 1930.

United States
While disillusioned by the war, it having not achieved the high ideals promised by President Woodrow Wilson, American commercial interests did finance Europe's rebuilding and reparation efforts in Germany, at least until the onset of the Great Depression. American opinion on the propriety of providing aid to Germans and Austrians was split, as evidenced by an exchange of correspondence between Edgar Gott, an executive with The Boeing Company and Charles Osner, chairman of the Committee for the Relief of Destitute Women and Children in Germany and Austria. Gott argued that relief should first go to citizens of countries that had suffered at the hands of the Central Powers, while Osner made an appeal for a more universal application of humanitarian ideals. The American economic influence allowed the Great Depression to start a domino effect, pulling Europe in as well.

Countries that gained or regained territory or independence after World War I

 * First Republic of Armenia: independence from Russian Empire
 * 🇦🇺 Australia: gained control of German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and Nauru
 * 🇦🇹 Austria: gained territories (Őrvidék) from Hungary
 * Azerbaijan Democratic Republic: independence from Russian Empire
 * 🇧🇪 Belgium: gained control of Eupen-Malmedy and the African territories of Ruanda-Urundi from the German Empire
 * Belarusian People's Republic: gained control of several cities from the Russian Empire
 * First Czechoslovak Republic: gained territories from the Austrian Empire (Bohemia, Moravia, and part of Silesia) and Hungary (mostly Upper Hungary and Carpathian Ruthenia)
 * Danzig: semi-autonomous free city with independence from the German Empire
 * 🇩🇰 Denmark: gained Nordschleswig after the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites from the German Empire
 * 🇪🇪 Estonia: independence from the Russian Empire
 * 🇫🇮 Finland: independence from the Russian Empire
 * 🇫🇷 France: gained Alsace-Lorraine as well as various African colonies from the German Empire, and Middle East territories from the Ottoman Empire. The African and Middle East gains were officially League of Nations Mandates.
 * Democratic Republic of Georgia: independence from the Russian Empire
 * Kingdom of Greece: gained Western Thrace from Bulgaria
 * 🇮🇪 Ireland: Irish Free State (approximately five-sixths of the island) gained independence from the United Kingdom (but still part of the British Empire as a Dominion)
 * Kingdom of Italy: gained South Tyrol, Trieste, Istria, and Zadar from the Austro-Hungarian Empire
 * Empire of Japan: gained Jiaozhou Bay and most of the Shandong Peninsula from China and the South Seas Mandate (both controlled by German Empire before the war)
 * 🇱🇻 Latvia: independence from the Russian Empire
 * 🇱🇹 Lithuania: independence from the Russian Empire
 * 🇳🇿 New Zealand: gained control of German Samoa
 * Second Polish Republic: recreated and gained parts of the Austrian Empire, German Empire, Russian Empire and Hungary (small northern parts of the former Árva and Szepes counties)
 * 🇵🇹 Portugal: gained control of the port of Kionga
 * Kingdom of Romania: gained Transylvania, parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș from the Kingdom of Hungary, Bukovina from the Austrian Empire, regained Dobruja from Bulgaria, and Bessarabia from the Russian Empire
 * Union of South Africa: gained control of South West Africa
 * 🇹🇷 Turkey: gained control of part of the Armenian Highlands from the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Kars, while losing territory overall
 * Ukrainian People's Republic: gained independence from the Russian Empire and recognized by Soviet Russia in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
 * 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: gained League of Nations Mandates in Africa and the Middle East
 * Kingdom of Yugoslavia: created from the Kingdom of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and gained parts from Austrian Empire (part of Duchy of Carniola, Austrian Littoral, Kingdom of Dalmatia) and Hungary (Muraköz, Muravidék, parts of Baranya, Bácska and Banat)

Nations that lost territory or independence after World War I

 * 🇦🇹 Austria: as the successor state of Cisleithania in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
 * Kingdom of Bulgaria: lost Western Thrace to Greece, also lost a part of Pirin Macedonia and Western Outlands to Serbia (Yugoslavia)
 * Republic of China (1912–1949): temporarily lost Jiaozhou Bay and most of Shandong to the Empire of Japan
 * Weimar Republic: as the successor state of the German Empire
 * Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946): as the successor state of Transleithania in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
 * Kingdom of Montenegro: declared union with Serbia and subsequently became incorporated into Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
 * Russian SFSR, as the successor state of the Russian Empire
 * 🇹🇷 Turkey: as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire (although it did simultaneously gain some territory from the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Kars and reverse some territorial losses in Anatolia with the Turkish War of Independence)
 * 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: lost most of Ireland as the Irish Free State, Egypt in 1922 and Afghanistan in 1919

Social trauma
The experiences of the war in the west are commonly assumed to have led to a sort of collective national trauma afterward for all of the participating countries. The optimism of 1900 was entirely gone and those who fought became what is known as "the Lost Generation" because they never fully recovered from their suffering. For the next few years, much of Europe mourned privately and publicly; memorials were erected in thousands of villages and towns.

So many British men of marriageable age died or were injured that the students of one girls' school were warned that only 10% would marry. The 1921 United Kingdom census found 19,803,022 women and 18,082,220 men in England and Wales, a difference of 1.72 million which newspapers called the "Surplus Two Million". In the 1921 census there were 1,209 single women aged 25 to 29 for every 1,000 men. In 1931 50% were still single, and 35% of them did not marry while still able to bear children.

As early as 1923, Stanley Baldwin recognized a new strategic reality that faced Britain in a disarmament speech. Poison gas and the aerial bombing of civilians were new developments of the First World War. The British civilian population, for many centuries, had not had any serious reason to fear invasion. So the new threat of poison gas dropped from enemy bomber aircraft excited a grossly exaggerated view of the civilian deaths that would occur on the outbreak of any future war. Baldwin expressed this in his statement that "The bomber will always get through." The traditional British policy of a balance of power in Europe no longer safeguarded the British home population.

One gruesome reminder of the sacrifices of the generation was the fact that this was one of the first times in international conflict whereby more men died in battle than from disease, which was the main cause of deaths in most previous wars.

This social trauma made itself manifest in many different ways. Some people were revolted by nationalism and what they believed it had caused, so they began to work toward a more internationalist world through organizations such as the League of Nations. Pacifism became increasingly popular. Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that only military strength could be relied upon for protection in a chaotic and inhumane world that did not respect hypothetical notions of civilization. Certainly a sense of disillusionment and cynicism became pronounced. Nihilism grew in popularity. Many people believed that the war heralded the end of the world as they had known it, including the collapse of capitalism and imperialism. Communist and socialist movements around the world drew strength from this theory, enjoying a level of popularity they had never known before. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or particularly harshly affected by the war, such as central Europe, Russia and France.

Artists such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Ernst Barlach, and Käthe Kollwitz represented their experiences, or those of their society, in blunt paintings and sculpture. Similarly, authors such as Erich Maria Remarque wrote grim novels detailing their experiences. These works had a strong impact on society, causing a great deal of controversy and highlighting conflicting interpretations of the war. In Germany, German nationalists including the Nazis believed that much of this work was degenerate and undermined the cohesion of society as well as dishonoring the dead.

Economic consequences
The war left allied countries overburdened with debt to the United States, and the wrecked German economy wasn't able to pay reparations except when loaned by American banks. Many wished to restore the gold standard despite opinions that would hurt their economies.

After the war, governments didn't return to the policies of the First globalization, instead erecting capital controls and trade barriers, and new borders didn't help. Introduced as a temporary war measure, passport control hindered economic migration and prevented equalizing labor costs in poor and developed countries, with the latter declaring they wish to abolish any restrictions but not actually wanting their workers to compete with emigrants.

The end of the first total, global war, met world industry with a massive overcapacity for military and military-related production (as well as military surpluses) such as aviation engines and stimulated research in how to adapt it to the peaceful life. For example, nitrocellulose lacquers were commercialized after it was invented how to decrease velocity of the substance formerly produced for gunpowder. Many companies specializing in the affected industries went out of business. Some industries, such as shipbuilding, were initially flooded with reconstruction orders, e.g., to replace lost shipping, but faltered as soon as the demand returned to normal levels.

Remains of ammunition
Throughout the areas where trenches and fighting lines were located, such as the Champagne region of France, quantities of unexploded ordnance have remained, some of which remain dangerous, continuing to cause injuries and occasional fatalities in the 21st century. Some are found by farmers ploughing their fields and have been called the iron harvest. Some of this ammunition contains toxic chemical products such as mustard gas. Cleanup of major battlefields is a continuing task with no end in sight for decades to come. Squads remove, defuse or destroy hundreds of tons of unexploded ammunition from both World Wars every year in Belgium, France, and Germany.

War memorials
Many towns in the participating countries have war memorials dedicated to local residents who died. Examples include:
 * Australian War Memorial, Canberra, Australia
 * Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri, United States
 * Memorial for The Battle of Jutland, Thyborøn, Jutland, Denmark
 * District of Columbia War Memorial, Washington, D.C., United States
 * Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial
 * The Cenotaph, London, United Kingdom
 * Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Belgium
 * Thiepval Memorial
 * Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing at Passchendaele
 * Verdun Memorial Museum
 * Vimy Ridge Memorial, Vimy, France
 * Gallipoli Memorial, Turkey
 * Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, Australia
 * Irish National War Memorial Gardens, Dublin, Ireland
 * Island of Ireland Peace Park, Messines, Belgium
 * National War Memorial, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
 * National War Memorial, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
 * Kriegerdenkmal auf dem Neroberg, Wiesbaden, Hessen, Germany
 * Sacrario militare di Redipuglia, Fogliano Redipuglia, Italy
 * Mausoleum of Mărășești, Romania

Tombs of unknown soldiers

 * Monument to the Unknown Hero, Belgrade, Serbia
 * Amar Jawan Jyoti, New Delhi, India
 * Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
 * Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France
 * The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, London, United Kingdom
 * Tomb of the Unknowns, Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, United States
 * Tomba del milite ignoto, Rome, Italy
 * Australian War Memorial, Canberra, Australia
 * New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, Wellington, New Zealand
 * Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Syntagma Square, Athens, Greece
 * Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Bucharest, Romania
 * Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Batalha Monastery, Batalha, Portugal
 * Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Warsaw, Poland

title: Aftermath of World War I


text:
Zendō

Zendō (禅堂) or senbutsu-jō (選仏場) is a Japanese meditation hall. In Zen Buddhism, the zen-dō is a spiritual dōjō where zazen (sitting meditation) is practiced. A full-sized Zen Buddhist temple will typically have at least one zen-dō as well as a hon-dō ("main hall", but sometimes translated as "Buddha hall"), which is used for ceremonial purposes, plus a variety of other buildings with different functions. However, any place where people go to practice Zen can be referred to as a zen-dō.

Mealtimes
In some temples, meals are eaten in the zendo during sesshin. Three meals a day are served. Breakfast is served in the early morning, before dawn. It normally consists of rice gruel and pickled vegetables. Two meals are taken later; at noon and late afternoon. The noon meal is the main meal. These meals usually consist of rice, vegetable soup and pickled vegetables. The afternoon meal consists of leftovers from the noon meal. The Heart or Hridaya Sūtra and the "five meditations" are recited before breakfast and lunch. During lunch monks will offer some of their meal to the pretas or hungry ghosts. The monks remain silent during mealtimes and communicate via hand and arm gestures.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Zendō


text:
Muzzle velocity

Muzzle velocity is the speed of a projectile (bullet, pellet, slug, ball/shots or shell) with respect to the muzzle at the moment it leaves the end of a gun's barrel (i.e. the muzzle). Firearm muzzle velocities range from approximately 120 m/s to 370 m/s in black powder muskets, to more than 1200 m/s in modern rifles with high-velocity cartridges such as the .220 Swift and .204 Ruger, all the way to 1700 m/s for tank guns firing kinetic energy penetrator ammunition. To simulate orbital debris impacts on spacecraft, NASA launches projectiles through light-gas guns at speeds up to 8500 m/s. FPS (feet per second) and MPH (miles per hour) are the most common American measurements for bullets. Several factors, including the type of firearm, the cartridge, and the barrel length, determine the bullet's muzzle velocity.

Projectile velocity
For projectiles in unpowered flight, its velocity is highest at leaving the muzzle and drops off steadily because of air resistance. Projectiles traveling less than the speed of sound (about 340 m/s in dry air at sea level) are subsonic, while those traveling faster are supersonic and thus can travel a substantial distance and even hit a target before a nearby observer hears the "bang" of the shot. Projectile speed through air depends on a number of factors such as barometric pressure, humidity, air temperature and wind speed. Some high-velocity small arms have muzzle velocities higher than the escape speeds of some Solar System bodies such as Pluto and Ceres, meaning that a bullet fired from such a gun on the surface of the body would leave its gravitational field; however, no arms are known with muzzle velocities that can overcome Earth's gravity (and atmosphere) or those of the other planets or the Moon.

While traditional cartridges cannot generally achieve a Lunar escape speed (approximately 2300 m/s) or higher due to modern limitations of action and propellant, a 1 g projectile was accelerated to velocities exceeding 9000 m/s at Sandia National Laboratories in 1994. The gun operated in two stages. First, burning gunpowder was used to drive a piston to pressurize hydrogen to 10,000 atm. The pressurized gas was then released to a secondary piston, which traveled forward into a shock-absorbing "pillow", transferring the energy from the piston to the projectile on the other side of the pillow.

This discovery might indicate that future projectile velocities exceeding 1500 m/s have to have a charging, gas-operated action that transfers the energy, rather than a system that uses primer, gunpowder, and a fraction of the released gas. A .22 LR cartridge is approximately three times the mass of the projectile in question. This may be another indication that future arms developments will take more interest in smaller caliber rounds, especially due to modern limitations such as metal usage, cost, and cartridge design. In a side-by-side comparison with the .50 BMG (43 g), the 1 g titanium round of any caliber released almost 2.8 times the energy of the .50 BMG (1 g at 10 000 m/s = 50 000 joules), with only a 27% mean loss in momentum. Energy, in most cases, is what is lethal to the target, not momentum.

Conventional guns
In conventional guns, muzzle velocity is determined by the quantity of the propellant, its quality (in terms of chemical burn speed and expansion), the mass of the projectile, and the length of the barrel. A slower-burning propellant needs a longer barrel to finish its burn before leaving, but conversely can use a heavier projectile. This is a mathematical tradeoff. A faster-burning propellant may accelerate a lighter projectile to higher speeds if the same amount of propellant is used. Within a gun, the gaseous pressure created as a result of the combustion process is a limiting factor on projectile velocity. Consequently, propellant quality and quantity, projectile mass, and barrel length must all be balanced to achieve safety and to optimize performance.

Longer barrels give the propellant force more time to work on propelling the bullet. For this reason longer barrels generally provide higher velocities, everything else being equal. As the bullet moves down the bore, however, the propellant's gas pressure behind it diminishes. Given a long enough barrel, there would eventually be a point at which friction between the bullet and the barrel, and air resistance, would equal the force of the gas pressure behind it, and from that point, the velocity of the bullet would decrease.

Rifles
Rifled barrels have spiral twists carved inside them that spin the bullet so that it remains stable in flight, in the same way an American football thrown in a spiral will fly in a straight, stable manner. This mechanism is known as rifling. Longer barrels provide more opportunity to rotate the bullet before it leaves the gun. Longer barrels increase the overall precision of the weapon. If one examines shot groups on a paper target from a 2 in barrel, a 4 in barrel, and a 6 in barrel, one will observe how the longer barrels produce "tighter" grouping, with bullets landing closer together on the target.

A bullet, while moving through its barrel, is being pushed forward by the gas expanding behind it. This gas was created following the trigger being pulled, causing the firing pin to strike the primer, which in turn ignited the solid propellant packed inside the bullet cartridge, making it combust while situated in the chamber. Once it leaves the barrel, the force of the expanding gas ceases to propel the bullet forth. When a bullet is fired from a handgun with a 2 in barrel, the bullet only has a 2 inch "runway" to be spun before it leaves the barrel. Likewise, it has only a 2 inch space in which to accelerate before it must fly without any additional force behind it. In some instances, the powder may not have even been fully burned in guns with short barrels. So, the muzzle velocity of a 2 in barrel is less than that of a 4 in barrel, which is less than that of a 6 in barrel.

Large naval guns will have high length-to-diameter ratios, ranging between 38:1 to 50:1. This length ratio maximizes the projectile velocity. There is much interest in modernizing naval weaponry by using electrically powered railguns, which shoot projectiles using an electromagnetic pulse. These overcome the limitations noted above. With these railguns, a constant acceleration is provided along the entire length of the device by means of the electromagnetic pulse. This greatly increases the muzzle velocity. Another significant advantage of railguns is not requiring explosive propellant. The result of this is that a ship will not need to transport propellant and that a land-station will not have to maintain an inventory of it either. Explosive propellant, stored in large quantities, is susceptible to explosion. While this can be mitigated with safety precautions, railguns eschew the need for such measures altogether. Even the projectile internal charges may be eliminated due to the already high velocity. This means the projectile becomes a strictly kinetic weapon.

Categories of velocity
The United States Army defines different categories of muzzle velocity for different classes of weapons:

title: Muzzle velocity


text:
Timeline of postal history

This is a partial timeline of significant events in postal history, including dates and events relating to postage stamps.

559–530 BC

 * Chapar Khaneh, the state-run courier (and transportation) service of the Persian Empire was established by Cyrus the Great, and later developed by Darius the Great as the royal method of communication throughout the empire.

First century

 * Cursus publicus, the state-run courier (and transportation) service of the Roman Empire was established by Augustus based on Chapar Khaneh of the Persians .

Fifteenth century

 * 1497 - Franz von Taxis established a postal service on behalf of Emperor Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire

Sixteenth century

 * 1516 - Henry VIII established a "Master of the Posts"
 * 1520 - Manuel I creates the public mail service of Portugal, the Correio Público-Public Post Office
 * 1558 18 October - Sigismund II Augustus established Poczta Polska, a postal service of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Seventeenth century

 * 1635 31 July - Charles I made the Royal Mail service available to the public for the first time with postage being paid by the recipient.
 * 1639 - The General Court of Massachusetts designates the tavern of Richard Fairbanks in Boston as the official repository of overseas mail, making it the first postal establishment in the Thirteen Colonies.
 * 1647 7 January - H. Morian Granted license på have a postal monopoly "Posten Norge".
 * 1654 - Oliver Cromwell grants monopoly over service in England to "Office of Postage".
 * 1660 - General Post Office established in England by Charles II.
 * 1663 - England's Imperial Post Office is established in the Colony of Barbados.
 * 1663 - Portugal's Correio-Mor das Cartas do Mar is established in Rio de Janeiro by the 7th High-Courier of the Kingdom of Portugal, Luís Gomes da Mata.
 * 1671 - King Louis XIV grants monopoly over service in Paris to the family Pagot and Rouillé.
 * 1675 - Beat Fischer von Reichenbach granted permission to operate a private postal service in Bern, Switzerland.
 * 1680 - The first penny post system, known as the London Penny Post, for local delivery was introduced by William Dockwra in London.
 * 1690 – Leon II Pajot builds a privately operated postal center on 9 rue des Déchargeurs in Paris - International Horse Carriages carry Mail from Paris to Pajot et Rouillé or Thurn und Taxis Post relais around western Europe. The building, the Hôtel de Villeroy still exists, it is used today for private apartments and for the exposition center Cremerie de Paris, the private courtyard can be visited by the public certain days in the summer.

Eighteenth century

 * 1738 the Parisian postal family Pajot & Rouille had become one of the wealthiest families in France. The Royal French minister of finance cardinal de Fleury estimates that the postal wealth should belong to the Kings of France and nationalizes the privately run postal enterprise. The postal service also leaves the historic Pajot & Rouille buildings (formerly Hôtel de Villeroy) located on rue des Dechargeurs / rue des Bourdonnais.
 * 1775 - The Continental Congress appoints Benjamin Franklin to be the first United States Postmaster General.
 * 1792 20 February - The US Postal Service Act establishes the United States Post Office Department.

1820s

 * 1821 - Carlo Meratti, an Italian, living in Alexandria, establishes a post office to send and receive mail to and from foreign countries.
 * 1825 - The US establishes a dead letter office.
 * 1828 - Hellenic postal service established.

1830s

 * 1830 – First mail train in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
 * 1831 - Independent Irish and Scottish Post Offices united under the Postmaster General of the United Kingdom, 31 years after the Act of Union
 * 1839 5 December - Uniform Fourpenny Post starts throughout the UK.

1840s

 * 1840 10 January - Uniform Penny Post starts throughout the United Kingdom.
 * 1840 1 May - United Kingdom issues the Penny Black and Two Pence Blue, the world's first postage stamps.
 * 1840 6 May - The Penny Black and Two Pence Blue, world's first postage stamps, become valid for the pre-payment of postage.
 * 1842 1 February City Despatch Post New York local post.
 * 1843 1 March - Zürich issue their first stamps: Zürich 4 and 6.
 * 1843 1 August - Bull's Eyes, first stamps of Brazil
 * 1843 30 September - Geneva issue their first stamps: Double Geneva.
 * 1845 - Creation of the New York Postmaster's Provisional
 * 1845 - The US star routes begin operation.
 * 1847 1 July The United States issues its first stamps.
 * 1847 21 September Mauritius issues its first stamps, the Mauritius "Post Office" stamps, or the Red Penny and Blue Penny.
 * 1848 - first use of Perot Provisionals in Bermuda
 * 1849 1 January - first stamps of France
 * 1849 1 July - first stamps of Belgium, known as the "Epaulettes" type
 * 1849 1 November - first stamps of Bavaria

1850s

 * 1850 1 January New South Wales issues its first stamps.
 * 1850 1 January Spain issues its first stamps.
 * 1850 3 January Victoria issues its first stamps.
 * 1850 7 April Federal Switzerland issues its first stamps.
 * 1850 1 June Austria and Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia issue their first stamps.
 * 1850 29 June Saxony issues its first stamps.
 * 1850 1 July British Guiana issues its first stamps.
 * 1850 15 November Prussia issues its first stamps.
 * 1851 1 April Denmark issues its first stamp.
 * 1851 23 April - The Province of Canada issues its first stamp, the Three-Penny Beaver, designed by Sandford Fleming.
 * 1851 - Kingdom of Hawaii issues Hawaiian Missionaries, first stamps.
 * 1852 - New Brunswick issues its first stamps.
 * 1852 - The Netherlands issues its first stamps.
 * 1852 - Scinde Dawks in India
 * 1852 - first stamps of Barbados
 * 1852 - US issues its first stamped envelopes.
 * 1853 - first stamps of Portugal
 * 1853 1 November - first stamps of Tasmania
 * 1854 - first stamps of India
 * 1854 - first stamps of Western Australia
 * 1855 - first stamps of South Australia
 * 1855 - US initiates registered mail service.
 * 1855 - US makes prepayment of postage compulsory.
 * 1855 - first stamps of New Zealand
 * 1856 1 August - first stamps of Mexico
 * 1856 21 August - first stamps of Corrientes
 * 1856 - first stamps of Danish West Indies
 * 1856 - British Guiana 1c magenta issued
 * 1857 - 1 April - Ceylon(Sri Lanka) issues its first stamp.
 * 1857 - Newfoundland issues its first stamps.
 * 1858 29 April - Buenos Aires issues its first stamps.
 * 1858 1 May - Argentine Confederation issues its first stamps.
 * 1858 21 July - Moldavia issues its first stamps, just a year before the state's dissolution.
 * 1858 28 October - Cordoba issues its first stamps.
 * 1858 - London is divided into postal districts, precursor of British Postcode System.
 * 1859 - Bahamas issues its first stamps.

1860s

 * 1860 1 November - first stamps of Queensland
 * 1860 1 December - first stamps of Malta
 * 1860 - Jamaica issues its first stamps.
 * 1860 - The Pony Express operates in the western United States for a short time.
 * 1860 - A stamp is issued for British Columbia and Vancouver Island.
 * 1861 - American Civil War begins, postmasters in South make provisional issues.
 * 1861 - first official stamps of Confederate States of America
 * 1861 1 October - first stamps of Greece
 * 1862 11 January - first stamps of Argentine Republic
 * 1862 - first stamps of Antigua
 * 1863 - Bolivia creates a private contract for mail but rescinds it six weeks later.
 * 1863 - First stamps issued by the Ottoman Empire.
 * 1864 - United States establishes railroad post offices.
 * 1865 1 November - British Columbia issues first stamps.
 * 1865 - Bermuda has its first regular stamp issue.
 * 1865 - Vancouver Island issues only stamps solely for the island.
 * 1866 - first stamps of Serbia
 * 1866 - British Honduras issues its first stamps.
 * 1866 - Lombardy-Venetia annexed by Italy, including postal services
 * 1866 - first stamps of Egypt
 * 1867 1 July - The State of Prussia nationalizes the centuries-old private Thurn und Taxis Post.
 * 1867 1 July - The Province of Canada is joined by Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating the Dominion of Canada.
 * 1867 - first stamps of Bolivia
 * 1867 - first stamps of Austrian post offices in the Turkish Empire
 * 1868 - first stamps of Persia
 * 1868 - first stamps of Azores

1870s

 * 1870 - Angola issues its first stamps.
 * 1871 - Afghanistan issues its first stamps.
 * 1871 20 April - Japan issues its first stamps.
 * 1871 20 July - British Columbia joins Canada, which takes over postal services.
 * 1873 1 July - Prince Edward Island joins Canada, which takes over postal services.
 * 1873 - Iceland issues its first stamps.
 * 1874 9 October - General Postal Union (later Universal Postal Union) is formed.
 * 1878 - General Postal Union becomes the Universal Postal Union.
 * 1879 1 June - Bulgaria issues its first stamps a year after its independence.

1880s

 * 1882 - stamps of Straits Settlements overprinted at Bangkok
 * 1883 - first stamps of Siam (Thailand)
 * 1885 - United States initiates special delivery service.
 * 1886 - first stamps of British Bechuanaland
 * 1886 - first stamps of Congo Free State (Belgian Congo)
 * 1888 - first stamps of Bechuanaland Protectorate

1890s

 * 1890 - first stamps of the Republic of the United States of Brazil
 * 1890 - first stamps of British East Africa
 * 1891 - first stamps of British Central Africa
 * 1892 January 2 - first stamps of British South Africa Company, Rhodesia
 * 1892 - first stamps of Anjouan
 * 1892 - first stamps of Angra
 * 1892 - first stamps of Benin
 * 1893 - Hawaiian monarchy overthrown, first stamps of republic
 * 1895 - stamps of Dahomey supersede those of Benin
 * 1894 - first stamps of French Somali Coast (today Djibouti)
 * 1896 - United States experiments with rural free delivery, is made permanent in 1902.
 * 1897 - Germany issues first stamps for its colony of Kamerun.
 * 1898 - First stamps of Cuba under American military occupation
 * 1898 - Puerto Rico stamps issued under US administration
 * 1899 - US stamps overprinted for use in Guam
 * 1899 - first stamps of the Philippines (overprinted US issues)
 * 1899 - US stamps supersede those of Hawaii

1900s

 * 1900 - first stamps of Kiautchou, German colony in China
 * 1903 - first stamps of Aitutaki
 * 1903 - first stamps of Austrian post offices in Crete
 * 1904 - first stamps of Panama Canal Zone
 * 1906 - first stamps of Brunei, overprints on Labuan
 * 1908 - first stamps of the Belgian Congo under Belgian administration

1910s

 * 1911 - January 1 - first stamps of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.
 * 1911 - United States creates a postal savings system.
 * 1912 - last stamps of Anjouan, superseded by Madagascar
 * 1913 - first stamps of Australia, superseding those of the various former colonies
 * 1913 5 May - first stamps of Albania
 * 1913 - United States initiates parcel post service, using special stamps.
 * 1915 - 15 August - British forces overprint Iranian stamps in Bushire, use until 16 October.
 * 1915 - British and French occupation forces overprint stamps for Cameroon.
 * 1916 - United States postal inspectors solve the last known stagecoach robbery in the US.
 * 1917- British armed forces in Palestine issue the famous EEF stamps. December 1917
 * 1918 - United States issues its first airmail stamps; a sheet of the Inverted Jenny is discovered among them.
 * 1918 - first stamps of the Italian occupation of Trieste and Trentino
 * 1919 - first stamps of Armenia and Azerbaijan
 * 1919 - first stamps of Batum

1920s

 * 1920 - plebiscite stamps for Allenstein
 * 1920 - largest private US postage company, Pitney Bowes formed.
 * 1920 - first stamps of French Upper Volta
 * 1920 June - first stamps of La Aguera
 * 1921 - East Africa and Uganda Protectorates issues stamps.
 * 1921 - France issues first stamps for its mandate of Cameroon.
 * 1922 13 July - Barbuda overprints stamps of Leeward Islands.
 * 1922 - Karelia, briefly independent, issues stamps
 * 1922 - first stamps of British Kenya and Uganda
 * 1922 - first stamps of Ascension Island
 * 1922 - last stamps of La Aguera
 * 1922 - first stamps of Irish Free State
 * 1923 - first stamps of Jordan (as a British mandate)
 * 1923 - first stamps of Transcaucasian SFSR, superseding those of Armenia
 * 1923 - first stamps of Iraq
 * 1923 - first stamps of Kuwait
 * 1924 - first stamps of French Algeria
 * 1925 - first stamps of Alaouites
 * 1927- First new [4]stamps for the civil administration in Palestine.
 * 1928 - first stamps of Spanish Andorra

1930s

 * 1931 16 June - first stamps of French Andorra
 * 1933 10 August - first stamps of Bahrain, issued by Indian postal administration
 * 1933 1 December - first stamps of Basutoland
 * 1935 May - common issue of stamps for Silver Jubilee of King George V
 * 1935 15 November - first stamps of Commonwealth of the Philippines
 * 1935 - first stamps of Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika
 * 1935 - United States initiates Trans-Pacific airmail service.
 * 1937 1 April - first stamps of Aden
 * 1937 1 April - first stamps of Burma, overprints on India
 * 1937 12 May - common issue of stamps for coronation of King George VI
 * 1938 14 April - stamps issued for Alexandretta, last on 10 November
 * 1938 1 December - first stamps issued for Greenland
 * 1938 - Austrian stamps are phased out after the Anschluss.
 * 1939 - Postal censorship introduced in several countries, both combatants and neutrals, involved in World War II

1940s

 * 1940 - Pitcairn Islands issue their first stamps.
 * 1941 - United States creates highway post offices.
 * 1942 - United States uses V-mail to handle armed forces' mail.
 * 1945 May - provisional stamps issued for Austria
 * 1946 - first stamps of independent Jordan
 * 1947 - India gains independence from Britain
 * 1948 - Israel issues its first stamps-The Doar Ivri set. 16 May 1948 [The new country still has no name]
 * 1948 - Israel issues its first Israel stamps with the word ISRAEL on the stamps. 26 September 1948
 * 1948 - British postal administration takes over in Bahrain
 * 1948 - Pakistan issues its first stamps.
 * 1949 - Newfoundland joins Canada and issues its last stamps.
 * 1949 18 July - Ryukyu Islands issues its first stamps.

1950s

 * 1951 - Cambodia issues its first stamps.
 * 1951 - United Nations issues its first stamps.
 * 1955 - United States initiates certified mail service.
 * 1957 - United States establishes Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee to choose stamp designs
 * 1958 23 April - members of West Indies Federation make a joint stamp issue.
 * 1959 - UK Postcode scheme introduced.
 * 1959 - The Republic of Upper Volta issues its first stamps.
 * 1959 - The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.

1960s

 * 1960 July - Katanga secedes from Congo, issues stamps until 1961.
 * 1960 1 October - UK trust territory of the Cameroons issues stamps, in use into 1961.
 * 1961 1 October - Independent Cameroon issues its first stamps.
 * 1962 April - Bhutan issues its first stamps.
 * 1962 1 July - Burundi issues its first stamps.
 * 1963 - United States introduces the ZIP Code.
 * 1963 1 February - British Antarctic Territory issues its first stamps.
 * 1963 12 December - Kenya issues its first stamps.
 * 1964 - First stamps issued by independent Republic of Malta.
 * 1964 - 9 February - Sierra Leone issues the world's first self-adhesive stamps.
 * 1964 30 March - Abu Dhabi issues its first stamps.
 * 1964 20 June - Ajman issues its first stamps.
 * 1966 30 September - first stamps of Botswana
 * 1966 2 December - first stamps of independent Barbados
 * 1966 - United States ends its postal savings system.
 * 1967 21 August - first stamps of Afars and Issas
 * 1967 4 September - first stamps of Anguilla
 * 1968 17 January - first stamps of British Indian Ocean Territory
 * 1968 19 November - first regular stamps of Barbuda
 * 1968 - United States initiates priority mail as a type of first-class mail.

1970s

 * 1970 - United States passes Postal Reorganization Act, which changed the postal service from a government department to a corporation owned by the government.
 * 1970 - United States initiates experimental express mail service, makes it permanent in 1977.
 * 1971 - United States Postal Service begins operation as a corporation.
 * 1971 1 April - Canadian six-character postal codes introduced.
 * 1971 29 July - Bangladesh issues its first stamps.
 * 1973 1 June - Belize issues its first stamps.
 * 1974 - United States ends its use of highway post offices.
 * 1975 11 November - first stamp of independent Angola
 * 1975 8 December - first stamps of renamed Benin
 * 1976 1 January - first stamps of Tuvalu, formerly the Ellice Islands.
 * 1976 1 January - first stamps of the Gilbert Islands (changed to Kiribati in 1979)
 * 1977 30 June - United States ends use of railroad post offices.
 * 1978 - United States begins to copyright postage stamps and other philatelic items.
 * 1979 12 July - first stamps of Kiribati, formerly the Gilbert Islands.
 * 1979 - Canal Zone transferred to Panama along with postal service.

1980s

 * 1982 - United States introduces E-COM, an electronic message service.
 * 1983 - United States introduces ZIP + 4.
 * 1984 21 November - first stamps of Burkina Faso
 * 1985 - Jackie Strange, first female Deputy US Postmaster General
 * 1985 - United States terminates E-COM service.
 * 1986 1 January - first stamps of Aruba

1990s

 * 1992 20 March - Belarus issues its first stamps.
 * 1992 26 March - Azerbaijan resumes issuing stamps.
 * 1992 - Kazakhstan issues its first stamps.
 * 1994 28 January - Canada issues the world's first 2 part customizable greetings stamps.

2000s

 * 2000, 28 December - Canada issues the world's first 2 part personalized photo stamps, called "Picture Postage".
 * 2007, 12 April - USPS issues a non-denominated stamp called the forever stamp
 * 2011, 13 July - newly independent South Sudan issues its first postage stamps.
 * 2015, 1 February - Megan Brennan appointed first female US Postmaster General

title: Timeline of postal history


text:
Talk:Led Zeppelin IV

Led Zeppelin's signature song.
The article states that the album contains a number of songs "...and the band's signature song, "Stairway to Heaven"." There is no reference for the claim that Stairway to Heaven is their signature song. There is no basis for the statement so I will remove it in several days if a reference isn't added. FillsHerTease (talk) 12:36, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Fair point.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 15:58, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I searched Google books for the two terms "signature song" and "Led Zeppelin", without specifying which song. Here are the results:
 * The Intellectual Devotional Modern Culture. "'Stairway to Heaven' is considered by many fans to be the group's signature song."
 * Led Zepplin - Uncensored on the Record. "'Rock and Roll'... is yet another track that became a signature song for the band."
 * Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World. "The signature song of the band, 'Stairway to Heaven'..."
 * Celtic Music: A Complete Guide. "And even its signature song, 'Stairway to Heaven'..."
 * Back to Schoolin'. Discusses how "Whole Lotta Love" and "Stairway to Heaven" are both signature songs of the band. The first one was the climactic show closer for years in the early '70s, but then the second one took over, with the first one pushed back to become the encore song in concert.
 * Understanding Aesthetics for the Merchandising and Design Professional. Discusses how "Rock and Roll" retained its signature song status even though Cadillac was allowed to use the song in TV advertisements.
 * The Story Behind the Song: 150 Songs that Chronicle the 20th Century. "The song 'Stairway to Heaven' became a staple of rock music and became their signature song."
 * So it looks like most people say Stairway but there are two other contenders. Binksternet (talk) 17:00, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It is a bit hard to know how to phrase that. "One of the band's signature songs" perhaps? It doesn't sound very decisive.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 17:33, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Hmmm ... probably if you asked the person in the street they would say 'Stairway To Heaven'? The only reason I flagged it was that as a fan I thought 'Whole Lotta Love' might be up there too. Then there are songs like 'Dazed And Confused which was played at pretty much every show they ever did throughout their entire career. In fact that song may have actually been played at every single concert. Anyway ... I know that what the person in the street and I think are irrelevant - I'm just saying that perhaps, given that there are a number of references, none of the references don't mention it ('Rock and Roll' is mentioned as A signature, not THE signature), most people would say 'Stairway To Heaven', and your point about "one of..." sounding indecisive is correct, perhaps we should just add the references you have found and leave it at that? P.S. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! ;-) FillsHerTease (talk) 09:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment & Support - I to would Like 'Dazed and Confused' to be included as one their signature songs, because I'm also quite certain they played that at every single concert they ever played, as it was one of the first tracks they composed as a band. Nuro   msg me  00:07, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Could say "one of the band's best-known songs" or "perhaps the band's best-known song"? 86.185.70.240 (talk) 11:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

US sales ranking
, I am confused about this edit. As far as I can see, the linked article, List of best-selling albums in the United States, quite clearly shows this album ranked second, not fourth. I don't see how I can be misunderstanding it. Do you see something that I don't? 86.185.70.240 (talk) 20:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I see the confusion. I thought you were talking about the cited reference, which lists it fourth. It is indeed listed second on the List of best-selling albums in the United States, but this is due to a difference in ranking methodology. That list ranks albums by their "shipments" whereas this article uses the RIAA certification, which is what is cited as the reference for that sentence. I don't think it's contradictory to say it's the fourth best-selling album because that's what the citation says, and other articles on best-selling albums also use the same RIAA ranking. I feel like the contradiction is more in the List of best-selling albums in the United States article because it uses two different ranking methodologies without specifying which one is more accurate.
 * BTW I left a message on your talk page when reverting your edit but you may not have gotten it since it was a different IP.
 * OK, thanks. 86.185.70.240 (talk) 11:16, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

The Battle of Evermore, inclusion as "one of the band's best-known songs" ?
I'm not sure about charting but, I would tend to believe that it qualifies for the list. Mlpearc ( open channel ) 18:44, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that the list is quite long already, do we need to list the entire track list ?  Mlpearc  ( open channel ) 18:48, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Every song except "Four Sticks" is quite well-known, but I agree that it's a little excessive to have six or seven of eight songs mentioned. --BenStein69 (talk) 19:08, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

 * If there is a song in the list that didn't chart as well as Evermore but is more popular ? If so they can be swapped.  Mlpearc  ( open channel ) 23:53, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

 * What list? Piriczki (talk) 00:07, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Original photographer
Does anybody know the *original* source of the photos used with the album?

"Unseen photos of East End London in glorious colour" (by the late David Granick) from the BBC looks about right, the original album has a credit for the internal illustration but not for the photos. MarkMLl (talk) 14:42, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Ian Stewart
As much as I love Ian Stewart he did NOT appear on piano for the song Rock And Roll. He didn't. I have the original album and the only person who is credited to have been a guest on Led Zeppelin IV was Sandy Denny. Allmusic.com does not have him listed on there either. Please stop adding him! He appeared on Physical Graffiti but not IV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.136.108.234 (talk) 01:36, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
 * He is not credited, but Dave Lewis, a Led Zeppelin expert who has been endorsed by the band, confirms his appearance. The jam from the same recording session, "Boogie With Stu" (named after him) appears on Physical Graffiti. Because the Rolling Stones were signed to a different label than Led Zeppelin, it may not have been possible to credit him for legal reasons. As you can see from a brief summary at WP:WikiProject Led Zeppelin, Lewis is one of the very few authors on this subject who the band themselves consider a reliable source, and in my opinion it's the best you can get. Some background reading :, , Ritchie333 (talk)  (cont)  16:07, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Genres, yet again
It seems every now and again, an argument flares up over what the "genre" field in the infobox should be, and it looks like it's this article's turn this week. I have reverted back to the version that passed the GA review as a starting point. If anyone feels hard done by, say so. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  09:43, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

 * What an arbitrary point of revision to revert back to; will doing this magically deter something like this from happening again? Why not just revert and report the anonymous, genre-warring IP vandal, whose edits and argument carry no weight here? As opposed to pretending like the several sources cited in the article, mentioning metal, don't exist. Dan56 (talk) 14:58, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

 * All I see is an editor who disagrees with you. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  15:01, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

 * I'm sorry you feel that way. Dan56 (talk) 16:50, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Heavy metal
"Heavy metal" is unfit for purpose as a genre describing this album. Within the article indeed, sourced content states that this album is one pertaining to the genre in question, and indeed there are copious inferences as to its influence on the metal genre. However, this genre is unsuitable for inclusion in the infobox; if an article were to include any genre in its infobox, be it "heavy metal" or otherwise, one would expect a corpus of songs of this type on the album. To the contrary, all of the songs within have articles with info-boxes and of these none describe the relevant song as "heavy metal".

I thus propose the removal of this genre, as it is inapposite in describing this album's songs. I am willing to discuss this point at length, and will not make any changes without prior approval. JoeyofScotia (talk) 19:54, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Headley Grange
The picture in the article identified as Headley Grange is NOT Headley Grange. 50.34.131.75 (talk) 00:02, 16 May 2020 (UTC) Jon Allen

Hard Rock Cafe guitar authenticity questioned
Hi, would anyone here be able to confirm or deny this claim, that stop bars were further from the bridges on Page's guitar, and thus this is merely a similar guitar? There may not be a reliable source, but if that seems true, I'd say there's enough reasonable doubt to remove the photo from the article.

Paging, as based on the GAN, I believe you're the subject expert. -- Zanimum (talk) 01:41, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:11, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Zoso-square-layout.svg

I added a free version of the ZoSo symbol
Hello, I found and uploaded to the Commons a free version of the Saturn sigil used by Page for his symbol. See File:Zoso from p 31 of Le triple vocabulaire infernal from 1847.jpg. It is a sigil for the planet Saturn from p. 31 of Le Triple vocabulaire infernal, manuel du démonomane, ou Les ruses de l'Enfer dévoilées, published in Paris, France, Printed by Typ. de Blocquel-Castiaux, in 1847 ; from a public domain book at Internet Archive, see: https://archive.org/details/BIUSante_73618/page/n35/mode/2up and https://ia903105.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/19/items/BIUSante_73618/BIUSante_73618_jp2.zip&file=BIUSante_73618_jp2/BIUSante_73618_0036.jp2&id=BIUSante_73618&scale=2&rotate=0; a similar symbol was used by Jimmy Page as his personal symbol/logo for the untitled Led Zeppelin album commonly called Led Zeppelin IV.

See also:

I have put this free-use, public domain image into the article. If you think it should be put somewhere else, that's acceptable. TuckerResearch (talk) 17:10, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

 * I've used Inkscape to make a vectorized version of the symbol based on this illustration. I'm unfamiliar with the procedures of editing pages, so it may be some time before I can post it. 128.92.153.146 (talk) 13:13, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Cover
"The typeface for the lyrics to "Stairway to Heaven", printed on the inside sleeve of the album, was Page's contribution. He found it in an old Arts and Crafts magazine called The Studio which dated from the late 19th century. He thought the "lettering was interesting and arranged for someone to create a whole alphabet."

 * This may be of interest for further information if you feel it is pertinent: Led Zeppelin IV: Jimmy Page versus Little Bo-Peep (John Coulthart, 2 May 2022) Dorian Grumbler Chatterbox No XVI 121 The Merchant They are all obviously out of copyright by now. 213.122.219.12 (talk) 02:22, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Led Zeppelin IV