In any case, the fact that a capital levy was not widely adopted did not mean that Europe’s elite escaped unscathed. Everywhere tax rates were pushed to unprecedented levels. Despite the failure of ambitions to outright revolution, whether through inflation or taxation, one of the consequences of World War I was to initiate an unprecedented levelling of wealth across Europe. This was not a shift limited to one country. None of the major European combatants would ever be the same again.
