In what is being called “Europe’s big freeze,” a deadly cold front, high winds, heavy snow, and layers of ice have killed about 400 people, torn apart buildings, and disrupted supplies since the end of January. Thousands have been trapped in their villages, cut off from food, medicine, and fuel as avalanches and ice block roads and rivers. Eight European nations are suffering from a shortage of gas, London’s Heathrow airport has cut flights, and French authorities are appealing to households to save energy. This deadly chill is a particularly unwelcome development at a time when Europe is in the midst of a financial crisis.
The situation is reminiscent of the winter of 1946-1947 in Europe. At a time when 25 million Europeans were homeless following World War II, stockpiles of coal froze solid and could not be moved. Heavy snow blocked roads and railways. Nations still struggling to recover from the devastation of the war had to cut industrial production, impose blackouts, and restrict food rations to levels lower than during the war. Crops and livestock perished. Hundreds of Germans died from cold and famine in this “Hunger Winter.” In Ireland, over 600 people died as a direct result of the two-month freeze, and many more from related outbreaks of flu and tuberculosis.
The climate conditions added to a number of factors that led to political crisis. Winston Churchill said in March 1947 that due in part to the past severe winter, Europe appeared on the verge of economic collapse and the situation was undermining political authority. He lamented that Britain was obliged to suspend assistance to Greece and Turkey, “which are striving to ward off Communist take-overs.”
U.S. occupation authorities in Europe also cautioned that Communists were capitalizing on widespread demoralization. In June 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall warned that the shortages of food and fuel could lead Europe to “face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character” and called for creation of what would become known as the Marshall Plan. The $13 billion aid program would help 16 European nations get back on their feet, to become allies against the Soviet Union in the burgeoning Cold War.
Scholars of strategic geography could point to a series of turning points in history in which weather accelerated political change. Freezes, floods, droughts, and earthquakes have been most influential in altering history when societies were already vulnerable and demoralized due to political or economic upheaval. The environmental degradation, population displacement, epidemics, and poverty resulting from World War II stripped Europeans of the resilience and resources to withstand the brutally cold winter.
Europe has suffered previous climate catastrophes. In 1315-1316, cold, wet summers devastated crop production, and in the 1520s and 1590s, bitterly cold winters caused widespread food shortages. These natural disasters helped catalyze changes in social and economic patterns, which ultimately led to political transformation. The bitter winter of 2011-2012 comes at a time of economic struggle in Europe, when austerity measures needed to shore up the euro could stir up popular discontent. Based on past history, one might wonder whether political change is blowing in the icy wind.
Judith Baroody is a senior resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC.
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