World War I began on the 28th of June with the assassination of the Archduke François Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Bosnia. A Serbian nationalist is the culprit. Since the Archduke was Austro-Hungarian, this is a good excuse for the Austria-Hungarian Empire to pressure Yugoslavia and in particular Serbia. The relations between the empire and Serbia had been tense and Austria-Hungary addresses an ultimatum to Serbia July 23rd in which it basically imposes Serbians to accept the presence of Austro-Hungarian police to investigate the murder of their Archduke. Serbia doesn’t want another empire’s police on their territory and refuse to be controlled. This is when Austria-Hungary declares war to Serbia. At this point, alliances start to form. Russia partners with Serbia, but Germany demands Russia take away their military troops and France must take a public position. Germany later declares war to Russia then France. Mid-August 1914, seven European countries are involved in this war. The United States of America will not be a part of the conflict before 1917 but they did send military material earlier in order to help Serbia, France, the UK and other countries part of the alliance.
World War II began because of multiple reasons; we can distinguish them by grouping them in two categories.
The first category is the direct cause: Poland was invaded September 1st 1939. In order to help defend Poland, the United Kingdom and France declare war to Germany September 3rd. They protect Poland because of the mutual defense alliances signed between the democracies.
Sadly, the War declaration, not being backed up by a true intervention of France and the UK, results in a victory by the Nazis over the Polish territory.
We can also distinguish a second category where the causes are deeper:
- In Europe, the coexistence of countries with very different political beliefs and point of views factors in the beginning of the war as Germany has become Nazi and is a dictatorship whereas France and the UK are democracies and defend the nation’s rights.
- Adolf Hitler as the head of Germany wants to invade the “Lebensraum” in order to create a German Europe and impose Nazism.
The two World Wars were caused by similar factors as they both use new weapons. WWI saw a huge technological upgrades as tanks, sub-marines and fighter-aircrafts were introduced to the military. It was a fight where the winner was the country was the one who could invent and develop the deadliest weapons. The first weeks of this war are marked by massive bombardments which causes considerable human losses.
In WWII, the biggest innovation is the nuclear bomb, capable of destroying cities. But except from the incident in Japan, this is more of a dissuasion weapon.
The two World Wars also started because of tensions in between countries. No one is ever happy with their territory and always wants to expand their nation to become bigger, richer, and to my mind, “rule the world”. For World War I, the murder of someone turned into a global conflict because one nation used it as an excuse to declare war. For World War II, the invasion of one country into another turned into yet again another global conflict and this one was way more terrible as acts against humanity were committed and so many civilians died. WWII was a continuity of WWI as the nations involved in WWII were fighting to protect democracy and for what was installed after WWI. Also, the two wars were similar because they involved most of Europe.
During the interwar years, a lot of tension remained between European countries so how did they remain peaceful for 20 years? The tensions were mostly due because the allies tried to inforce their way of world order and it didn’t work. Germany was punished following the Versailles Treaty in 1919, one of the consequences was that Germany wasn’t allowed to have a Navy. The blame was put solely on Germany, and the country was forced to pay the Entente for all of the damages that occurred during the whole war. The bill was estimated at $32 billion. This left Western Europe with bitter taste.
In France, a pacifist movement developed under the impulse of the federal Union of the French veterans. They fought for veterans’ rights but also an anti-war movement founded on the idea that the security of the whole Europe is more important than the security of the individual States. This idea that the States should give up part of their sovereignty in order to protect the global security constitutes the origin of the European Union. Sadly, the European Union only executed the ideas of French veterans after WWII. The interwar years weren’t very successful though as first of all, a second World War happened and was very similar but way more destructive. And also because the treaties that were put in place to maintain order in Europe didn’t work as Poland was invaded by Germany, who was punished after WWI and was supposed to follow the Armistice of November 11th. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, Staline becomes the only master of USSR and in Germany, Hitler becomes chancellor. Both men start a totalitarian regime in their respective countries. Staline starts communism and Hitler Nazism. In Italy, an important social and political crisis begins and some workers begin to take the spots of employees. There are a lot of complaints on the democracy, antiparliamentary and antidemocracy movements arise. Mussolini takes advantage of the chaos situation and he takes over the government to install fascism. In France, an economic crisis begins around 1930. Trying to stay pacifist, France refuses to take part in combatting the totalitarian regimes and with Great-Britain, they have to sign a humiliating treaty during the conference of Munich. It is only when Germany invades Poland that Great-Britain and France declare war to Germany.
We can see that the ways that were employed to settle down the nations after WWI didn’t work as expected because WWII followed WWI closely, only 21 years after. Also, I don’t think that people were happy with what the 1st war brought to their countries so they wanted to fight for something better. Little did they know how much worse WWII would be. WWII also started so quickly after because the totalitarian regimes were rapidly growing and becoming more powerful.
On a social aspect, both wars had multiple consequences over the countries that fought. The World War, like indicated in their names, involved most of the globe. The populations were involved and rallied and had to take part in the conflict, whether they wanted to or not. The face of Europe is retraced and transformed, and societies have deeply changed.
After WWI, the implication of civilians and mostly women, opened up new rights like the universal suffrage. Women were allowed to vote in 1919 in Belgium, in England unemployment benefits were put into place, and there was a law project about the 8-hour work day in France to be voted.
Also, the war was consistently present in the minds of millions of soldiers who were affected physically by the disaster. They had to live among the population and move on.
There was a major demographic decline that was translated by a major drop in birthrate over the years 1914-1918 but also during the second war. WWII was marked by the number of civilian deaths that is higher than the number of military deaths. This shows how horrendous and devastating this war was. The mentalities of soldiers coming back from the war or Jews who were captive and survived must be destroyed. We can imagine that the populations affected by WWII want to move on and forget about the atrocities they were put through. Right after the war though, a large portion of the population was left with nowhere to live.
The economic aspect of both wars is startling. WWI and WWII have repairs to do on buildings, factories, houses, roads and bridges. The entirety of the cities have to be rebuild from top to bottom. With the nuclear weapon entering in the end of WWII, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are erased from the map. The power of the nuclear bomb was thought to be less and the effect it had on those 2 cities was gigantic. All of these repairs and reconstructions do come at a cost but Europe became terribly impoverished during the war. To buy military material, the countries became heavily indebted. They now have to reimburse their loan and give pensions to the families of soldiers who died during the war. The reconstruction of Europe after WWI partially depends on the United States who were the beneficiaries of the war. The Americans lent money to the whole world, that is how the American dollar became the most used currency in international trade.
After WW2 and the reconstruction of Europe which coasts a lot of money, there are multiple European crisis that are marked by the increase of taxes and larges inflations. The USA and USSR come out of WWII as the true winners because they become creditors of the European countries. The United States create the United Nations based in New York. This organization’s goal is to keep European countries close and to preserve peace in the world. France, Great Britain, the USA, China and USSR are represented in the organization. USSR, on the other hand creates the Warsaw Pact in order to reunite Eastern European countries. The United States gaining all of this power by helping these European countries rebuild themselves, now has a sort of supreme power over Europe. I believe this is when the ruling of Europe over the world comes to an end. Since the American dollar is now the most used trading currency, the United States become master of trades and its weight in the international politics amplifies.
This reshaped the economic international system as the United States started capitalism. I think that the two worldwide conflicts and the development of the weapon systems that followed them, played a critical role determining in the transformation of capitalism. The 30 years that followed the second world war, from 1945 to 1975, represent a huge economic growth phase that can’t be compared to anything because it was a first (and maybe last) in history. The United States show a triumphing economic model that encourages occidental Europe to follow in their steps if they ever want to become leading powers again. The baby boom and the emergence of a consumer society creates an increase of the number of consumers between the years 1950 and 1960. It is also at that time that the USA attract new comings looking for the “American Dream”. The nation appears like an affluent society with mass consumption pushed by advertisement. The American living standard is increasing and new comers want the “American way of life”. So after a terrible time for Europe, they want to move forward and change their society to something that can help them during the rebuilding phases and start somewhere new. It was the beginning of the American supremacy.
The political aspect changed after WWII as the UN was created by the United States and some European countries that took part in the war joined the association. This helped have more control over what was going on in different countries and they are able to overlook on the countries. Democracy is the political government that “won” WWII as all of the nations represented in the UN have a government that applies democracy. These nations try to combat violations of human rights and dictatorship. They want to install democracy in every country.
Like mentioned earlier, WWII was followed by a long period of relative peace in Europe because of how devastating this war was. All of the countries involved, except the United States, had sustained major destruction. Everything had to be rebuilt. Hospitals, maternities, churches, factories and many houses. The weapons used during this war were engineered for mass destruction. This war caused more civilian deaths than soldiers. Once the concentration camps were opened and the people who were held captive were freed, that is when the majority of people realized what had actually happened and to what extent these mass killings were done. I think Europeans were in shock and it left a lot of people speechless. I can’t imagine just hearing about these killings and wanting to continue with another war. The inhumanity of these crimes needed to be put in the spotlight to show and make people realize what had happened.
Also, during the war, the industries are focused on producing what is needed during the war. There is a reorientation of production as the industries now have to catch up with the United States economic status. The complete reconstruction of France lasted ten years. It is ten years of rebuilding entire cities that have been completely destroyed, finding money to support the country in which its population is increasing rapidly.