write the causes and consequences of world war 1 and 2
Answers
The main motive behind World War I and World War II was the desire of European countries to “rule the world.” Britain fought to preserve her hegemony on the seas in order to control her overseas colonies. France was trying to maintain the superiority in continental Europe she had held since the 19th century. Bismarck’s unification of Germany had created an imbalance amongst the European powers, however. After becoming an economic and military superpower, unified Germany tried to get its “fair share” in the world, a prospect that other European powers were unwilling to tolerate and that led to two world wars. If an advanced society is wrongfully held hostage or mistreated, that society will definitely one day retaliate when it reaches a position of strength, and that is what happened with Germany between World War I and World War II. Had Wilson been successful in implementing his 14-point charter, and had France not insisted on reparations in the Treaty of Versailles, we would most probably have never seen a Hitler rise to power.
After Wilson failed to convince colonial powers Britain and France to follow his more generous peace plan, the U.S. became introverted, isolationist, and withdrew from global politics. This may have accelerated the path towards World War II.
The origins of World War I remain controversial and debated questions. The war began in the Balkans in late July 1914 and ended in November 1918, leaving 17 million dead and 20 million wounded.
A long-term analysis of its origins seeks to explain why two rival sets of powers – Germany and Austria-Hungary on the one hand, and Russia, France, Serbia and Great Britain on the other – had come into conflict by 1914. It examines political, territorial and economic conflicts, militarism, a complex web of alliances and alignments,imperialism, the growth of nationalism, and the power vacuum created by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Other important long-term or structural factors were unresolved territorial disputes, the perceived breakdown of the balance of power in Europe,[1][2] convoluted and fragmented governance, the arms races of the previous decades, andmilitary planning.[3]
A short-term analysis focuses on why the conflicting sets of powers went to war when they did. The immediate causes lay in decisions made by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis of 1914, triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, on 28 June 1914. The assassin,Gavrilo Princip, was an ethnic Serb and Yugoslav nationalist from the group Young Bosnia, which was supported by the Black Hand, a nationalist organization in Serbia.[4] The crisis escalated as the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia came to involve Russia, Germany, France, and ultimately Belgium and Great Britain. Other factors that came into play during the diplomatic crisis that preceded the war included misperceptions of intent (e.g., the German belief that Britain would remain neutral), fatalism that war was inevitable, and the speed of the crisis, which was exacerbated by delays and misunderstandings in diplomatic communications.