1845 - 1945 Hundred Years of War Set the World - From Table Clocks, Pocket Watches to Wristwatches
The 100 years from 1845 to 1945 were almost spent in uninterrupted wars. The second industrial revolution, with the achievements of trains, ships, chemical industry, and electricity, made the ability of mankind to transform nature unprecedentedly enhanced, and it also made The old world pattern has changed drastically. Japan completed the Meiji Restoration, France gradually grew into a modern democratic country under the influence of Napoleon, Germany and Italy were unified one after another, the United States found a new path through the civil war, and traditional eastern empires such as Russia, Ottoman, and China were dismembered and subverted. With the two global wars, World War I and World War II, which lasted for nearly 30 years, the colonial world system with Britain and France as the sovereign country was broken, and small nation-states emerged one after another.
In the past century, watches have gradually developed from the playthings of princes and nobles to the daily tools of ordinary people. Among them, the most influential are the pocket watches (Lange, Ball, etc.) made by various countries for the timing of the railway system, as well as the military watches (Elgin, Hamilton, twelve watch factories) that are indispensable to the coordination of combat operations by officers and soldiers in the field. Participate in the customized "Mark 10", the "Tank" table presented by Cartier to the American leader of the First World War, Marshal Pershing).
War brings trauma, but also brings technological leaps and space for reconstruction. When World War I broke out in 1914, the world population was about 1.8 billion, and when World War II ended in 1945, the world population was about 2.2 billion. In the same three decades, by 1975 the world population exceeded 4 billion.
In the past three decades, countries around the world have been healing the wounds of war and restoring and developing their national economies. Due to ideological reasons, the camp headed by the Soviet Union and China placed more emphasis on national defense construction and the improvement of the large-scale industrial system. The United States, Britain, France and Germany seem to place more emphasis on people's livelihood, believe in the market economy, and highlight their own advantageous industries instead of "small and complete." In France, these thirty years are called "Trente Glorieuses".
Thanks to the support of the Marshall Plan, West Germany has also achieved an average annual economic growth of about 10% in the past three decades. The United States has obtained a unique "international currency issuance right" due to a series of institutional arrangements such as the Bretton Woods system, and has further risen to become a world power. The countries headed by the Soviet Union and China basically completed the construction of an independent industrial system and a national defense system within the time frame of about six five-year plans, and completed the post-war reconstruction by implementing the most direct national will to the whole society.
In the past three decades, the business etiquette formed by the restorative development of the world economy has continued to this day. Modern service industries such as finance, advertising, and consulting were basically formed in the past 30 years. A mechanical watch has become an essential accessory in business communication.
Urban leisure sports such as racing, flying, diving, golf, and tennis are flourishing. Various watch brands have also gradually launched various sports watches for different leisure sports, which have continued to this day.
Human science and technology adhere to the foundation formed during the World War, and there have been many breakthroughs in cutting-edge fields such as computers and aerospace. In particular, iconic events such as manned spaceflight and the moon landing have made the general public have a deeper impression of scientific development. The aerospace timing tools represented by Omega and Breitling have also become one of the imprints of this era.
Although a watch is only a small accessory within a square inch, its market size is nothing compared to the global economy. Even Switzerland, which is often referred to as the "country of watches and clocks", only accounts for the annual sales of the watch industry. About 3.3% of the national GDP. However, as the most classic timekeeping tool in the modern history of mankind, the inner core that drives its timekeeping may change with the development of the times, but its external aesthetic connotation seems to play a timeless role in human society.
Seventy years after the war, the world economy has been ups and downs, and the political landscape has changed, but it seems that the beauty of the clock on the wrist has always recorded the passage of time. Looking back at the past, the changes of the times reflected in the development of the watch industry are indeed thought-provoking.
