WORLD WAR I.   Term Paper ID:30380 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Examines causes and consequences. Nationalism and separatism. Class struggle; industrial nations against one another and Imperialist nations against social ferment. Views of historians of the period regarding causes. Role played by Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Role of treay commitments. U.S. neutrality and entrance into the war. Various battles. Treaty of Versailles. Paper Introduction: WORLD WAR I: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES Introduction. “’Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans,’ Bismarck had predicted, would ignite the next war….War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off” (Tuchman, 1962, p. 93). But, like a snow avalanche careening down a steep hill, the impetus was impossible to stop and turn back. The war so many had predicted, some had counted on, yet few really wanted, began. “When the war was over the dead per capita were 1 to 28 for France, 1 to 32 for Germany, 1 to 57 for England, and 1 to 107 for Russia” (Tuchman, 1962, 488). By 1918, “the conflagration involved 93% of the world’s population; the countries classified as neutral had a population of 130,000,000 whereas those participating in the war had a c Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. An exact"cause may not be precisely defined" (Abbot, 1914, p. Nevertheless, the U.S. In effect, thecauses for America's official indifference to the rise of conflicts inEurope was its need to establish cordial economic relations to get itsdomestic economy growing with increased exports. An overview of key events of the four years of War would begin in theWest with the invasion and overrunning of Luxembourg, Belgium, and themarch into France in 1914. Belgium received backMalmedy, among other territorial concessions. It would bankrupt Germany, there would be high unemploymentand the aforementioned inflation. Cuddy (1989) lists four basic causes: (1) theincompetence of the Serbian government; (2) an almost complete lack ofunderstanding of the concepts and principles of international relations bythe Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, Count von Berchtold; (3) Germany'scarte-blanche offer of support to Austria-Hungary following theassassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo; and (4) thehesitancy and inappropriate reactions of the British Foreign Secretary, SirEdward Grey, in the crisis that followed the assassination. The Turks, fighting onthe German side, repulsed the Allied attack at Gallipoli. Tuchman, B. Apriority was to find foreign markets, in the mid-Thirties. This country was still mired in the Great Depression. In the West came the innovation of aerial warfare, including thebombing of London by German Zeppelins, and dog fights among some of the aceaviators on both sides. In essence, the Empire stillbelieved that the world revolved around Vienna (with capable assistance byBerlin).1914-1918 Britain did not enter the war because of its love or pity of France,but because it was honoring a commitment made at the Treaty of London, in1839, which guaranteed Belgium's neutrality. It may have been an uneasy neutralityfor America, but President Wilson was reelected on his promise to stay outof the War. 28New York: The Americana Corporation Tindall, G. Germany and Austria agreed to an armistice and to ending thewar. Instead, the U.S. Theconcern of the government was to find jobs, to reestablish the economy. The epitaph to World War I is expressed eloquently by Barbara Tuchman: The four years that followed (1914) were...four years of the most intense and heroic efforts the world has ever made. While there was certainly more of an affinity forAmericans toward the British, it was not until German submarines began tosink supposedly "neutral" ships that the tide swung heavily against theGermans. (1995). WORLD WAR I: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCESIntroduction. America: A Narrative History. B. This treaty, signed in revenge, hatred and Western arrogance bypolitical mediocrities including Clemenceau of France and Lloyd George ofGreat Britain, imposed such severe penalties and restrictions on Germanyand created "new" nations whose nationalism continued to be in jeopardy. References Abbot, W.J. Where was U.S.foreign policy when neither France nor Britain did anything to stopannexation of the Rhineland and Alsace and the Saar, and then Austria andthe Sudetenland? And, where was the U.S. (1962). And, all that vengeance wrought againstGermany would come back to haunt the Western powers as the German citizenswere willing to restore their national [pride and honor at what many ofthem felt, at the time, would be little cost: the accession of Adolf Hitlerand his National Socialist party to take over the nation. A People's History of the United States New York:HarperPerennial Books. Would war have been avoided, or shortened, if Wilson had notcampaigned so strongly in 1912 about keeping America out of Europeanentanglements? 1125). Serbia, Rumania, and Bulgaria had some successesin keeping the Austrians from taking more territory. Among the famous names here were EddieRickenbacker, of the U.S. While facts abound when it comes to naming battles, showingcasualties, advances, retreats, changes of governments, what is difficultto define is the specific cause or causes of the first World War. As longas there was an impenetrable Atlantic Ocean, Americans were largelyunconcerned. When the submarine campaign increased, and no longer werewarnings given to passenger liners, Wilson seemingly had no choice but tobreak diplomatic relations with Germany. But, while one could go on for pages aboutspecific limitations, conditions and assessments, [perhaps the worst of allwas that Germany would pay some 2 BILLION gold marks within four years, inaddition to paying to Belgium what that nation had to borrow to fight offthe Germans. whileHitler rose to power, while the Nuremberg laws inflicted economic andfinally deathly consequences on Jews and other opponents? But, if the war caused tremendous problems, the peace treaty thatconcluded hostilities created worse disasters.1919, Versailles and the disastrous aftermath leading to WW II. In the South, the Austrians had moderate successes in the Balkans,even invaded Italy which had joined the Allied side. The Proud Tower. "'Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans,' Bismarck had predicted,would ignite the next war....War pressed against every frontier. Cuddy, D.L. Norton Co. At theBelgian city of Ypres came another atrocity new and novel to this conflict:the German use of poison gas. Tuchman, B. (1999). Suddenlydismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off" (Tuchman, 1962,p. The U.S. E. & Shi, D. 93). "When the warwas over the dead per capita were 1 to 28 for France, 1 to 32 for Germany,1 to 57 for England, and 1 to 1 7 for Russia" (Tuchman, 1962, 488). On March 2 , 1917, war wasofficially declared. Zinn, H. Power (either for, or against "something") was the key. Yes. While this waswritten at the very outbreak of war, hindsight has given historians moreopportunity to list causes. Wouldthere have been a war even if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had not beenassassinated? (February 1989) "Immediate Origins of the First World War"International Review of history and Political Science Vo. Eventually, Russia was driven out ofPoland, and by 1917, Lenin and the Communists overthrew the civiliangovernment of Kerensky, captured the Czar and his family, eventuallyexecuting them all. (1966). One also has to look at the belated entry into the war by the UnitedStates. 463). What happened, of course, was that Germany was now in the throes of aterrible inflation -- buckets of marks just to pay for a bus ride, highunemployment, most factories quiet, and the beginning of a genuine hatredby Germans against their traditional enemy, France, as well as Britain.Hitler won, not so much by popular vote, as the decision of his politicalopponents not to opt for electoral power. 259).Causes: real and in hindsight To some degree, nationalism and separatism were among the principalcauses of the First World War. was tenuouslyneutral before World War I, and it reassumed the same position right up toPearl Harbor, despite every sign that this time the war would not belimited to trench warfare along the Marne or in Verdun. 3). Senate ratified America'sjoining the League. embarked on a policy of Isolationism-something that remained almost until Pearl Harbor, and even afterwards,there were still apologists, such as Charles Lindbergh, who suggested thatAmerica not go to war with Nazi Germany. More than World War II, theFirst World War was also a class struggle -- not merely the industrialnations against one another, but Imperialist nations against socialferment. and Baron von Richthofen, the German ace. As we have seen in the Cold War and beyond,Europe's nations and its ethnic populations were engaged in a powerstruggle. The terms of the Versailles Treaty were harsh. While the League of Nations was formed, there is still some concern thatit might have been more powerful, had the U.S. (1959). 1128). As such, without the powerfulUnited States involved, the League of Nations was almost like a toothlesstiger. The Guns of August New York: Dell Publishing. By 1918, it was obvious there was no winning this war of attritionsuccessfully. 28 New York: Americana Corporation By1918, "the conflagration involved 93% of the world's population; thecountries classified as neutral had a population of 13 , , whereasthose participating in the war had a compiled population of over1,7 , , " (Klein, 1959, p. In the East, here too there were advances by the Germans as well ascounterattacks by the Russians. For too long, America was an inept bystander. When Pershing's American Expeditionary Forces landedin France, it would still take almost eighteen moths for an armistice to besigned. (Shades ofNeville Chamberlain in 1938!!!) If one reads some of the historians of the period of the First WorldWar as well as those whose opinions followed over the years, much of theblame for the actual outbreak of war falls on the inability of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (already beset by nationalist uprisings in Hungary) tounderstand what the Balkans were all about. 26 1-78 Klein, H. 13 1).So, if World War I was a power struggle, based on statism and social order,the beginnings of World War II was the revenge of Germany and economicpower of Japan. Perhaps there was no more significant cause for World War II and therise of fascism and Hitler in Germany than the financial toll imposed onthe Germans in 1919 atVersailles. WORK ACCESSED IN ADDITION:Various authors: "War, European"Encyclopedia Americana Vol. "First World War". France regained AlsaceLorraine. Within a few months, the Germans took Alsace-Lorraine, overran most of Belgium, and while the French suffered one defeatafter the other, within a year, the war turned into trench warfare, withfirst one side, then the other, fighting and suffering enormous lossesmerely to take or retake a few hundred precious yards. NewYork: W.W. As writer Randolph Bourne is quoted by Howard Zinn: "Waris the health of the state" (Zinn, 1995, 35 ). (1914) The Nations At War London UK: Syndicate PublishincCo. When the German high commanddecided that the key to winning the war lay in the territory betweenBrussels and Paris and invaded Belgium, Britain did the honorable thing:She declared war on Germany and its allies. But, like a snow avalanche careening down a steep hill, theimpetus was impossible to stop and turn back. The war so many hadpredicted, some had counted on, yet few really wanted, began. The worst of these sinkings was the Lusitania, with more than athousand passengers, including 128 Americans, according to Tindall (1999,p. When the effort was over, illusions and enthusiasms possible up to 1914 sank beneath a sea of massive disillusionment (Tuchman, 1966, p. This was also atime for Lawrence of Arabia to unite some Arab nomad forces to repulse theTurks in the Middle East. The only move madewas an economic one: In 1935, President Roosevelt signed the first in a series of neutrality acts...(which) forbade the sale of arms and munitions to all belligerents whenever the president proclaimed that a state of war existed (Tindall, 1995, p. was blessed, in a way, by its geographicaldistance from the struggle in Europe. For some time, American diplomats at the State Department triedto get the belligerents to adhere to the Declaration of London, "draftedand signed in 19 9 by leading powers, but never ratified by Britain"(Tindall, 1999, p. New York: The MacMillan Company. Hungarybecame independent, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in effect, dissolved.Germany would lose all her African colonies, the city of Danzig would bedeclared a Free City, any and all territories of Poland that Germany hadclaimed would be restored. Encyclopedia Americana Vol. The Balkans had a new Nation in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia,into which Serbia, Croatia and other smaller states were combined. There was simply no understanding of European antagonisms,diplomacy, nationalist and political entanglements and alliances. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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