Causes of World War I

111 · #1 Saturday, June 10, 2006

Causes of World War I

The causes of World War One are complicated and unlike the causes of World War Two, where the guilty party was plain to all, there is no such clarity. Germany has been blamed because she invaded Belgium in August 1914 when Britain had promised to protect Belgium. However, the street celebrations that accompanied the British and French declaration of war gives historians the impression that the move was popular and politicians tend to go with the popular mood.

Was much done to avoid the start of the war?

By 1914, Europe had divided into two camps.

The Triple Alliance was Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary.

The Triple Entente was Britain, France and Russia.

----The alliance between Germany and Austria was natural. Both spoke the same language - German - and had a similar culture. In previous centuries, they had both been part of the same empire - the Holy Roman Empire.

----Austria was in political trouble in the south-east of Europe - the Balkans. She needed the might of Germany to back her up if trouble got worse. Italy had joined these countries as she feared their power on her northern border. Germany was mainland Europe's most powerful country - so from Italy's point of view, being an ally of Germany was an obvious move. Each member of the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria and Italy) promised to help the others if they were attacked by another country.

----The Triple Entente was less structured than the Triple Alliance. "Entente" means understanding and the members of the Entente (Britain, France and Russia) did not have to promise to help the other two if they got attacked by other countries but the understanding was that each member would support the others - but it was not fixed.

----France was suspicious of Germany. She had a huge army but a poor navy. Britain had the world's most powerful navy and a small army. France and Britain joining together in an understanding was natural.

---- Britain was also concerned about Germany because she was building up a new and powerful navy. The inclusion of Russia seemed odd when Russia was so far from France and Britain. However, Russia's royal family, the Romanovs, was related to the British Royal Family. Russia also had a huge army and with France on the west of Europe and Russia on the east, the 'message' sent to Germany was that she was confronted by two huge armies on either side of her borders. Therefore, it was not a good move by Germany to provoke trouble in Europe - that was the hoped for message sent out by the Triple Entente.

----Certain specific problems also helped to create suspicion throughout Europe. The first was Germany's fear of the huge British Empire.

----By 1900, Britain owned a quarter of the world. Countries such as Canada, India, South Africa, Egypt, Australia and New Zealand were owned by Britain as part of the British Empire. Queen Victoria had been crowned Empress of India. Huge amounts of money were made from these colonies and Britain had a powerful military presence in all parts of the world. The Empire was seen as the status symbol of a country that was the most powerful in the world. Hence Britain's title "Great Britain".

----Germany clearly believed that a sign of a great power was possession of overseas colonies. The 'best' had already been taken by Britain but Germany resolved to gain as much colonial territory as possible.
Her main target was Africa. She colonised territory in southern Africa (now Namibia) which no-one really wanted as it was useless desert but it did create much anger in London as Germany's new territories were near South Africa with its huge diamond and gold reserves. In reality, Germany's African colonies were of little economic importance but it gave her the opportunity to demonstrate to the German people that she had Great Power status even if this did make relations with Britain more fragile than was perhaps necessary for the economic returns Germany got from her colonies.

----A second issue that caused much friction between Britain and Germany was Germany's desire to increase the size of her navy. Britain accepted that Germany, as a large land-based country, needed a large army. But Germany had a very small coastline and Britain could not accept that Germany needed a large navy.

Postcard from 1912 of the Spithead review of Britain's Navy

Britain concluded that Germany's desire to increase the size of her navy was to threaten Britain's naval might in the North Sea. The British government concluded that as an island we needed a large navy and they could not accept any challenges from Germany. As a result, a naval race took place. Both countries spent vast sums of money building new warships and the cost soared when Britain launched a new type of battleship - the Dreadnought. Germany immediately responded by building her equivalent. Such a move did little to improve relations between Britain and Germany. All it did was to increase tension between the two nations.

HMS Dreadnought

17,900 tons; 526 feet in length; ten 12 inch guns, eighteen 4 inch guns, five torpedo tubes; maximum belt armour 11 inches; top speed 21.6 knots.

With Europe so divided, it only needed one incident to spark off a potential disaster. This incident occurred at Sarajevo in July 1914.

111 · #2 Saturday, June 10, 2006

Causes of World War II

A Summary of the Causes of World War II

The causes of war have long been a source of mystery, but many ideas have been developed along the lines of what causes war. It might be said that the most spoken of causes for wars are as follows:

---A common enemy to a nation
---An outside threat to a nation
---Mob mentality, or the power of inspiration in the masses
---Inspiration by some other outside cause

All of the above can be tied many times over to Hitler and Nazi Germany.

***Anti-Communism (outside threat and a common enemy);many of the forces which Hitler was able to bring under control in Germany were actually opposed to Nazi rule, but accepted the rule, if only as temporary, for the greater goal of eliminating the spreading Bolshevism in Russia. Hitler often expounded upon these ridiculous fears in his propaganda , promising an end to Bolshevism and the threat of communist takeover.

***Anti-Semitism (outside threat and a common enemy); Anti-Semitist policies of Nazi Germany were closely tied to Anti-Communism and the "Red Scare," and the Jews were blamed for Bolshevism and its spread. Anti-Semitism, too, was magnified in German lands by the use of subtle and not-so-subtle propaganda.

***Adolph Hitler's charisma (inspiration); when studying the causes of World War II, perhaps the most baffling aspect of the Nazi rise to power involves the leader himself. Hitler seemed to have a hold over his people by use of a steady and unwavering charisma. Even when the war was inevitably to belost and the people of Germany were disgusted with the entire war, many blamed the other Nazi leaders, never removing Hitler from his pedestal. Furthermore, Hitler had a strongly developed understanding of the desires of the German people, and was always able to aim his promises in exactly the right directions.

***The Propaganda used by the Nazi party (Mob mentality); again, Hitler and Goebbels made explicit use of the mob mentality to rally the masses behing the Nazi flag. Hitler stated many times that the only way to use propaganda effectively was to aim it at the stupidity of the masses rather than the intellectuals. He used short slogans repeated again and again to drive ideas home into the minds of his followers. More importantly, however, Hitler staged massive Nazi support rallies such as the Nuremburg Rallies in November each year, in which the people could look around and see how many "fellow countrymen" were upholding the ideals of the Nazis. This mass support Hitler used to demonstrate the power of the Nazi government, and to encourage continued support for the Third Reich.
The idea of the November Criminals and the Treaty of Versailles (A common enemy to the nation); again, while the Treaty of Versailles had been a thorn in the sides of Germans for almost twenty years, Hitler was an opportunist when it came to building upon this shame and humiliation. Not only did he denounce the powers who had written the treaty, trying to hold Germany down, but he blamed the signing on Jewish-Bolshevik rule.

***The ideals of the Aryan race and subhuman races (a common enemy to the nation); in adding to his ideas of the evil and sub-humanity of other races, such as the Slavs and Jews, Hitler gave a sense of pride to all Germans, who, he claimed, were innately superior.
The Lost Generation from World War I (Mob mentality); World War I had produced an entire generation of youth who had gone into a war of an extent which none could have guessed. This youth had no training in peace time careers, and, when the first Great War ended in 1918, knew nothing but the art of war. Thus, the "Lost Generation" of German youth, displaced by its own society, played a major role in supporting Nazi rule and the onset of WWII, as well as many of the brutalities which occurred under Nazi occupation of other countries.

***The Great Depression, Dawes Plan and German Reparation Payments (Inspiration -- in rebuilding Germany to its former glory); Hitler was able to add to the sense of pride which many felt at the acknowledgement of their "pure and superior Aryan blood" by claiming responsibility for the growing economy after the Great Depression and the Treaty of Versailles. The inspiration of a new German nation rebuilding itself to its former glory, in addition to the security of finally having jobs and food, tempted many possible resistors of Nazi rule to ignore the regime.

111 · #3 Saturday, June 10, 2006

Causes for World War II were vast and critical. To be general, the following were responsible for World War II:

1.Humiliation and economic draught inflicted upon Germany by the Treaty of Versailles

2. Appeasement from democratic powers in response to Adolf Hitler's desire for territories that once belonged to Germany

3. Lack of enforcement by the international community for the Treaty's demands, most noteworthy being the open showing of military build up in Germany

4. Failure of the League of Nations to determine conflicts in reference to Japan, Italy, Egypt and new Stalinist Russia

5. Nationalistic emotions erupting throughout the world

6. Economic disaster of the Great Depression, and the United States' high tariffs.

7. United States' desire to remain isolationist

8. World War I resentment and thirst for revenge

Causes and Outbreak

---This second global conflict resulted from the rise of totalitarian, militaristic regimes in Germany, Italy, and Japan, a phenomenon stemming in part from the Great Depression that swept over the world in the early 1930s and from the conditions created by the peace settlements (1919–20) following World War I.

---After World War I, defeated Germany, disappointed Italy, and ambitious Japan were anxious to regain or increase their power; all three eventually adopted forms of dictatorship (see National Socialism and fascism) that made the state supreme and called for expansion at the expense of neighboring countries. These three countries also set themselves up as champions against Communism, thus gaining at least partial tolerance of their early actions from the more conservative groups in the Western democracies. Also important was a desire for peace on the part of the democracies, which resulted in their military unpreparedness. Finally, the League of Nations, weakened from the start by the defection of the United States, was unable to promote disarmament (see Disarmament Conference); moreover, the long economic depression sharpened national rivalries, increased fear and distrust, and made the masses susceptible to the promises of demagogues.

---The failure of the League to stop the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1931 was followed by a rising crescendo of treaty violations and acts of aggression. Adolf Hitler, when he rose to power (1933) in Germany, recreated the German army and prepared it for a war of conquest; in 1936 he remilitarized the Rhineland. Benito Mussolini conquered (1935–36) Ethiopia for Italy; and from 1936 to 1939 the Spanish civil war raged, with Germany and Italy helping the fascist forces of Francisco Franco to victory. In Mar., 1938, Germany annexed Austria, and in Sept., 1938, the British and French policy of appeasement toward the Axis reached its height with the sacrifice of much of Czechoslovakia to Germany in the Munich Pact.

---When Germany occupied (Mar., 1939) all of Czechoslovakia, and when Italy seized (Apr., 1939) Albania, Great Britain and France abandoned their policy of appeasement and set about creating an “antiaggression” front, which included alliances with Turkey, Greece, Romania, and Poland, and speeding rearmament. Germany and Italy signed (May, 1939) a full military alliance, and after the Soviet-German nonaggression pact (Aug., 1939) removed German fear of a possible two-front war, Germany was ready to launch an attack on Poland.

---World War II began on Sept. 1, 1939, when Germany, without a declaration of war, invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany on Sept. 3, and all the members of the Commonwealth of Nations, except Ireland, rapidly followed suit. The fighting in Poland was brief. The German blitzkrieg, or lightning war, with its use of new techniques of mechanized and air warfare, crushed the Polish defenses, and the conquest was almost complete when Soviet forces entered (Sept. 17) E Poland. While this campaign ended with the partition of Poland and while the USSR defeated Finland in the Finnish-Russian War (1939–40), the British and the French spent an inactive winter behind the Maginot Line, content with blockading Germany by sea.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
The Religion Of Islam	MUKHTIAR ALI	Islamiat	3	Friday, April 03, 2020 10:31 AM
Islamic Information	safdarmehmood	Islamiat	4	Thursday, June 28, 2018 08:09 AM
The Globalization of World Politics: Revision guide 3eBaylis & Smith:	hellowahab	International Relations	0	Wednesday, October 17, 2007 03:13 PM
What Is The New World Order??	MUKHTIAR ALI	International Relations	1	Monday, January 08, 2007 09:39 PM

The Following User Says Thank You to 111 For This Useful Post:
RidaZehra (Wednesday, April 05, 2017)