The Two World Wars

WORLD WAR I

• World had undergone many changes with industrialization and nationalism, states now
were able to fight larger wars.
• A unified Germany becoming powerful under its Emperor and Chancellor Otto von
Bismarck.
• Germany had annexed Alsace and Lorraine, two territories from France. Bismarck sought
to keep status quo by making a number of alliances with other nations to isolate France.
• New emperor Wilheim II dismissed Bismarck and took impulsive decisions- wanted to
conquer more colonies outside of German territories.
• The rising power of Germany was a concern for other European nations leading them to
make more alliances to gang up against Germany.
• two blocks of alliances were formed- Triple Entente(Great Britain, France, Russia) and
Otto von Bismarck
Triple Alliance(Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy)
• Alliance making, arms race and spread of nationalism
• Germany defeated Russia in the East.
• German forces over-ran Belgium rapidly in
August 1914 and moved deeply into France
• By the end of 1914, the British and French had
pushed German forces back from Paris.
• US declared war on Germany in 1917 after
German submarine attack
• With American help the allies could defeat
Germany in 1918.
Soldiers walk on a track laid across a muddy, shattered
battlefield in Belgium, on October 29, 1917. This was
during the battle fought by British forces and their allies
against Germany for control of territories in Belgium
Peace of Versailles,
1919
• France, Britain, and the United States essentially
dictated peace terms to the Central Powers (Germany,
Austria-Hungary and Italy).
• harsh peace treaty for Germany. Germany was held
responsible for all the destruction.
• Germany returned to annexed territories of Alsace
and Lorraine to France
• Germany was forbidden to have an air force or an
army that exceeded 100,000 troops The “Big Four” (left to right): David Lloyd
George of Britain, Vittorio Orlando of Italy,
• Germany had to pay a lot of repatriations. Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow
• Wilson of the United States, the principal
Wilson’s 14 points and the principle of national self
architects of the Treaty of Versailles.
determination.
Inter war period
• Established the League of Nations
• designed to provide states with an ongoing international legal and institutional framework to
solve their disputes and avoid war
• provide collective security (instead of balance of power)
• Reparations were crippling German economy
• 1925 Locarno Accords- Germany accepted its borders with France and Belgium, Britain and
Italy promised to guarantee Germany’s compliance with those commitments.
• Germany was admitted into the League of Nations
• 1928 Kellogg- Brian Pact which outlawed war.
 Inter war period
• Great Depression 1920s
• Failure of Democracy in Germany with Hitler coming to power.
• The League of Nations could not provide security to its members.
• the main threat to world peace in the 1930s emanated from
Germany. Hitler brought Germany out of the League of Nations in
1933.
• France, Britain, and Italy reached an agreement in April 1935 to
resist German expansionism and in May 1935, France signed a
security accord with the Soviet Union.
• British and French leaders followed a strategy of appeasement of
Germany and the Munich Agreement. Adolf Hitler is welcomed by supporters at Nuremberg
in 1933
World war II
• in August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Nazi–Soviet Non-
Aggression Pact.
• WWII starts with Germany invading Poland from the west and the Soviet Union did so from
the east. Britain and France declared war on Germany.
• Germany occupied Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. German forces
then defeated both the French army and the British expeditionary force in Belgium and
France, causing the British to retreat from the port of Dunkirk.
• Hitler then turned east and launched in June 1941 a massive surprise attack against the Soviet
Union.
• on December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise air strike
against Pearl Harbor. America declared war on Japan on
December 8; and Hitler and Mussolini, allied to Japan from
September 1940, declared war on the United States.
• WWII grand alliance- Allied Powers(US, USSR, Britain) Axis
Powers(Germany, Italy, Japan)
• Battle of Stalingrad Soviet destroyed a massive German army.
• Soviet forces thrust into eastern Germany in early 1945, and
Anglo-American-Canadian forces also moved into Germany in
the spring of 1945. Soviet forces attacked Berlin in mid-April;
Hitler committed suicide on April 30.
• On August 6th 1945, US dropped an atomic bomb on the
Japanese city of Hiroshima, and on August 9 it dropped a
second bomb on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered.
Aftermath of WWII
• Creation of the United Nations in 1945- allied powers established the UN in an effort to
create lasting peace.
• Two global superpowers, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), rose in the
aftermath of World War II.
• The war's aftermath was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare
• the decolonization of Asia and Africa by European and east Asian powers, most notably by
the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.