It is not a secret that those people, who saw war with their own eyes, love their life more than anything in the world. They remember what it is like – to see blood and death, to lose family. They remember famine, cold, violence, terror, battles, the sound of bombing and the sound of missiles and bullets flying. They know that peace is the greatest human value. At the same time, we know that violence is in human nature, and despite enormous loses, and defeats, a great number of wars and armed conflicts took place in the course of history.
W. B. Breuer said:
Force and fraud have been the two cardinal principles of warfare since Sun Tzu, the Chinese warlord who conquered huge expanses of Asia, recorded his military theories in 550 b.c.: “Undermine the enemy, bewilder and confuse him, strike at his morale, then his army will fall to you” (Breuer 1).
We know that many centuries later, all sides in World War I and World War II sought to gain military, economic, political advantage by an ongoing series of masquerades, lies, deceit, and fakery – the fraud equation about which Sun Tzu had written (Breuer 1).
To understand the scale of these two wars, we should tackle human losses that the sides incurred. F. Coetzee said about the World War I that
The human cost of those four years was appalling enough: nearly 9 million people died and millions more were maimed, crippled, grief stricken, or psychologically scarred (Coetzee 11).
R. Higham added that “Some 61 million troops of 16 nations were directly involved and suffered … 19.6 million wounded … and survived, and 7 million missing or prisoners of war” (Higham ix). So, the results of this war were awful, but still, speaking about the losses of the World War II, it can be said, that it was the bloodiest conflict in human history. The most obvious example of this was the massacre of the Jews by the Nazis. Overall, an awful price was paid for this war – 67 million of human lives.
Now let us tackle the casus belli – causes of the wars under consideration. The beginning of the WWI was caused by deep crisis of international relationship, mutual refusal of nations to find a compromise. However, the official cause of war was that on 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo. A regional conflict turned into a global conflict very quickly.
Speaking about the beginning of the World War II, it also had a formal cause. Adolf Hitler said that he would make up a propagandistic cause of the war and he did not care if it looked real or not. No one would judge the victor and victory was his aim. Therefore, the official cause of the war was a framed-up attack of a German radio station by the Poles. The real cause was nationalistic tension and unresolved issues of the previous war. Therefore, the war began.
Let us present short chronology of the WW I. The first months of the wartime showed that the hopes of the Central Powers were groundless. 38 countries, that was 75% of the world population, joined into the military action. 73 million people fought on different battlefronts. During 1915-1916, the strategic superiority of the Entante became evident. Main battlefields of this period were in Serbia, Montenegro and the Eastern front. The diplomatic victory of the Entante was the involvement of new ally – Italy. On the 6 of April 1917 the USA entered the war.
Nearly 5 million Americans served in the armed forces during World War I—the largest fighting force the country had ever seen. Some 2 million of them served in Europe where U. S. presidents had traditionally promised never to interfere. Nearly 80,000 of them died there (Hallas 1).
In 1917, Greece joined the war. In 1918, the battles were concentrated on the Western front. The last attack was made on the Palestinian front and it brought the end of the war.
Speaking about WWII, we may define several periods in it: 1939 – December 1941 – the beginning of war and the time when The USA and The USSR started military actions; December 1941 – autumn 1942 – the aggression in zenith; 1942-1943 – the crisis and collapse of the aggressive alliance, 1944 – 1945 – Germany’s defeat.
War is awful time, but there are always two sides of one coin. This saying may be applied in the case of war as well. F. Coetzee said:
Yet amid the destruction, the period was also one of extraordinary creativity and innovation. The industrialized killing of those four years spurred technological innovation whose positive applications would be felt in the rapid studies in aircraft and automobile design and production in the 1920s (Coetzee 12).
It must be mentioned that “to make all weapons effective, scientists spent time and money on explosives, propellants, fuses, and sighting devices, and gases, which meant physics, chemistry, and metallurgy” (Higham xi). That is why the usage of new technologies, but old-fashioned tactics of the 19th century marked the beginning of war. However, by the end of war in 1918, the armies used armored cars, tanks, aircraft and other inventions. The first all-metal plane, called “Junker”, was projected, but the first time it was produced, was only in 1918. During this war, gas attacks with the usage of chlorine gas were made, and, consequently, special gas shells and masks were invented in the course of war. Rifles, machine guns and sniper scopes contributed to the losses during the war.
About two decades passed between the wars under discussion and incomparable levels of technological development of the belligerent powers was more than evident. Concerning technology in the WW II, we should mention that precursors to computers were invented, first long range missiles (Doodlebugs) were applied by German troops, radar engineering was developing, and, of course, the cruelest invention of the World War were the Atomic Bombs that were dropped on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Unfortunately, the inventions of this war are still able to bring harm to humanity in future. Still, during wartime, peaceful discoveries were also made, such as plastic, rubber and canned food.
Let us think over the question, if it is easy to make one nation fight some other nation. We think that in order to do that, a very persuasive and authoritative ideology and charismatic leaders are needed. In the World War II Adolf Hitler and I. Stalin were those people. Besides, they were the bearers of opposing ideologies: racial ideology of the Nazis and the Bolshevik ideas of class and nation. In the WW I the nature of ideology may be formulated as “offensive” and “defensive”. Eisenhower’s antifascist ideology was famous during wartime. Its main principles were self-restraint and loyalty to duty. Fascism was presented as representation of selfishness.
Speaking about social factors that were significant in the wars, we should mention the outcome of the treaty of Versailles for Germany. It is known, that after the WWI Germany was devastated and ruined. Moreover, they had to pay a huge indemnity to the victors (England, Russia, France). That is why the economical and social status of the country was very poor and when Adolf Hitler promised prosperity to his fellow-citizens, he got immediate response. That is why, we may say that the World War II was caused by World War I.
To conclude, let us say that we hope that humanity has learned the lesson that is written in blood on the pages of our history and such horrors as two wars of the 20th century will never occur again.
Works Cited
Breuer, William B. Deceptions of World War II. New York: Wiley, 2001.
Coetzee, Frans, and Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee. World War I: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Hallas, James H. Doughboy War: The American Expeditionary Force in World War I. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000.
Higham, Robin, and Dennis E. Showalter, eds. Researching World War I: A Handbook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003.