World War I and World War II: historical overview

World Wars

Explain how each of the following contributed to the start of the first World War: Imperialism; nationalism; militarism; and secret alliances.

Imperialism helped fuel World War I by giving some European countries great wealth (Author not given, 2004). With a booming economy they were able to finance the development of war materiel needed to wage war on a large scale. Nationalism caused because each country's great pride in itself. This national pride also led Germany in particular to celebrate the military and Germany's large body of myths and legends celebrating militarism. Germany believed it was its destiny to govern Europe, and since the individual companies were not likely to peaceably acquiesce, to the Kaiser it seemed that use of military was the obvious solution. The kind of almost xenophobic nationalism each country held, most of them monarchies who viewed their right to rule as divine, frictions grew between countries. When the Archduke Ferdinand of Bosnia was assassinated in 1914, Austria saw the event as requiring intervention from them. This dispute drew in the allies of each side, resulting in World war.

Secret alliances: Germany made a secret alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy. Later, Russia and France signed a pact. England and other countries became concerned about Germany's Kaiser William, who apparently wanted world domination. Eventually England also signed a pact with Japan. These pacts divided the formerly squabbling European nations into two larger pacts opposing each other, making wide-scale armed conflict possible

2) What were the major causes of the second World War? How did the end of World War2 lead to the Cold War? Explain the goals of each side during the Cold War and to what extent they were achieved.

World War II was a direct result of World War I and its aftermath. Great Britain and France were particularly interested in punishing Germany for its actions and insisted on war reparations Germany was ill-prepared to pay. Germany lost territory while France gained it. The new German government was not popular and ineffective. Notably, the treaty that ended World War I significantly shrank Germany's military, which wounded their pride.

Economic hardships followed World War I but hit Germany particularly hard because its colonies were given to victorious nations. Inflation was devastating, throwing even people who had been well-to-do into poverty. All of this made Germans an easy target for someone like Adolph Hitler, who promised to return German to its deserved glory.

The "Cold War" that followed World War II resulted because the United States and the U.S.S.R. were uneasy allies during World War II. They united for a negative reason -- they were both opposed to Hitler's Germany.

After the war, however, the U.S.S.R. showed the same desire that Germany had prior to both world wars: they wanted to dominate Europe. They imposed Communist regimes on a number of weaker countries including Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. The United States was adamantly opposed to any expansion of Communism, and both battled over control for Berlin.

In the short run, both countries achieved some of their goals. The U.S.S.R. expanded its sphere of influence considerably, but the United States managed to check its spread. It forced a stalemate in Korea and checked the spread of communism into southeast Asia. The United States and the U.S.S.R. both acquired nuclear weapons, making war between the two countries unwise for both.