World War I and World War II: comparative analysis

World War I and World War II

World War I was also known as the Great War and the War to End All Wars, a global military upheaval, which occurred from 1914 to 1918 (Wikipedia 2006). It claimed millions of lives and is said to have helped shape the modern world. It was fought between the Allied Powers and the Central Powers and won by the former. The Allied Powers, or Allies, were led by Britain, France, Russia, Italy and the United States. The Central Powers, on the other hand, were led by Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Much of it occurred on the Western Front within systems of opposing manned trenches and fortifications from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. It caused the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman and Russian empires. It ultimately created a decisive break with the old world order and important factors in the development of World War II roughly 20 years later (Wikipedia).

President Woodrow Wilson announced that break in the U.S.'s official relations with Germany on account of its policy of insisting on neutral rights and in mediating a compromise settlement (Wikipedia 2006). The President warned that the U.S. would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, which he said violated America's dignity. Germany stopped for a while, but announced the following month that they would resume unrestricted submarine warfare. After the War came the signing of the Versailles Treaty, which required Germany to pay enormous reparations, which it borrowed from the U.S. until the suspension of the borrowings in 1931.As a whole, the experiences of this war developed into a collective national trauma for all the countries, which participated in it. These experiences completely wiped out the optimism of the 1900s and those who fought in that War came to be known as the Lost Generation because they never fully recovered from their experiences. The social trauma took many forms. One was a revolt by nationalism and what it supposedly caused and began doing towards a more internationalist world in support of organizations like the League of Nations. Another form was pacifism, which became popular. Still another was the view that only strength and military might could be relied upon for protection in this inhuman and chaotic world, which did not respect civilization. The defeated ones or losers developed their own psychological state, which rejected the lesson of the War. There was a pronounced sense of disillusionment and cynicism, specifically Nihilism, which became popular. This disillusionment toward humanity reached a cultural climax with the establishment of the Dadaist artistic movement. Many also believed that the War signaled the end of the world, including the collapse of capitalism and imperialism. It was observed that communist and socialist movements gathered strength from this theory and became popular (Wikipedia).

The most lasting effect of World War I in the U.S. is the systematization of society or the centralization of government power and regulation (West 1999). It combined with the Great Depression in rationalizing the concentrating power in Washington. The central government resists curtailment. The military may shrink fast when peace comes but civilian masters do not. After 1917, the federal government began exercising a more penetrating authority over the private sector. Another legacy of World War was the rise of liberal democracies as the prevailing governments all over the Continent. This development took 81 years to render much of the world safe for democracy but at a great cost. Byron Farwell said that the U.S. did not win the War but without its economic help to ease the strain and the arrival of its troops to turn the balance, along with the moral impact of American intervention, victory would have been impossible for the Allies (West).

World War II or the Second World War occurred between 1939 and 1945 between the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers (Wikipedia 2006). The Allied Powers were led by the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the U.S. The Axis Powers were led by Germany, Italy and Japan. World War II claimed 12 million lives and began in response to the military aggression of Nazi Germany under Adolph Hitler and Japan's imperialist ambition in Asia. Nazi aggression was aimed at the conquest of Lebensraum to increase the German Empire but at the expense of the peoples of Eastern Europe and the destruction of the Jews. Records say that approximately 62 million or 6.2% of the world, perished in this War and that 60% of them were civilians, who died because of disease, starvation, genocide, massacres and aerial bombing. After the War, power shift from Western Europe and the British Commonwealth to the United States and the Soviet Union. Britain ended this War in great financial debt to America and this necessitated a change in policy. One notable example was the Marshall Plan, established by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall. It called for the allocation of billions of dollars by the U.S. Congress for the reconstruction of Europe (Wikipedia).