<P> Chile's international trade collapsed and state income was reduced to half of its previous value after the start of the World War I in 1914 . The Haber process, first applied on an industrial scale in 1913 and later used as part of Germany's war effort due to its lack of access to Chilean saltpetre, ended Chile's monopoly on nitrate and led to an economic decline in Chile . In addition to this the opening of Panama Canal in 1914 caused a severe drop in traffic along Chilean ports due to shifts in the maritime trade routes . </P> <P> Conditions on the Continent were bad for every belligerent . Britain sustained the lightest damage to its civilian economy, apart from its loss of men . The major damage was to its merchant marine and to its financial holdings . The United States and Canada prospered during the war . The reparations levied on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles were, in theory, supposed to restore the damage to the civilian economies, but little of the reparations money went for that . Most of Germany's reparations payments were funded by loans from American banks, and the recipients used them to pay off loans they had from the U.S. Treasury . Between 1919 and 1932, Germany paid out 19 billion goldmarks in reparations, and received 27 billion goldmarks in loans from New York bankers and others . These loans were eventually paid back by Germany after World War II . </P>

Industrial output of the ottoman empire during ww1