Compare and Contrast Ww I and Ww IIEssay Preview: Compare and Contrast Ww I and Ww IIReport this essayCompare and Contrast WW I and WW IIThe early twentieth century was mainly an extension of the nineteenth century. The dominant powers and their governments as well as political and social ideologies were largely unchanged. The First World War, or “Great War”, as it was known, began the transformation of the world, but it took the Second World War to finish it. There are many similarities and differences between the two wars.
In late June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia. An escalation of threats and mobilization orders followed the incident, leading by mid-August to the outbreak of World War I, which pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire called Central Powers against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan the Allied Powers. The Allies were joined after 1917 by the United States. The four years of the Great War as it was then known saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction, thanks to grueling trench warfare and the introduction of modern weaponry such as machine guns, tanks and chemical weapons. By the time World War I ended in the defeat of the Central Powers in November 1918, more than 9 million soldiers had been killed and 21 million more wounded. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919, determined post-war borders from Europe to the Middle East, established the League of Nations as an international peace organization and punished Germany for its aggression with reparations and the loss of territory. Tragically, the instability caused by World War I would help make possible the rise of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and would, only two decades later, lead to a second devastating international conflict.
The instability created in Europe by the First World War (1914-18) set the stage for another international conflict World War II which broke out two decades later and would prove even more devastating. Rising to power in an economically and politically unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party rearmed the nation and signed strategic treaties with Italy and Japan to further his ambitions of world domination. Hitlers invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, and World War II had begun. Over the next six years, the conflict would take more lives and destroy more land and property around the globe than any previous war. Among the estimated 45-60 million people killed were 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitlers diabolical “Final Solution,” now known as the Holocaust.
The Nazis, who controlled much of Europe from the 19th to the 20th Centuries, were largely left out of the reckoning of world history and were replaced by ruthless, and ultimately defeated, military generals who were determined to protect their homeland and win over the European people, using the threat of war as an outgrowth of economic inequality. These men were known as the “Hitlers of 1945-48;” the Nazis killed and maimed millions of people in their thousands. The war was the height of their “war criminal power” because the Nazis, like their Nazi counterparts in Japan and the rest of Asia, were well known. They had a secret plan: to use the deaths of millions of people, many of them the Jews, in their war against Japan to create war with its neighbors. After an attack by the United States on Japanese cities on November 2, 1941, and the Japanese surrender a day later, the Nazis set off a string of deadly and massed strikes in Europe in a series of coordinated attacks on the civilian population of both the Great Powers, including the United States, Italy and the UK. Despite having been driven out of Japan by the U.S. bombing campaign of October 9, 1941, the Nazis controlled much of Europe and its territory forever, and the Japanese controlled vast swathes of Southern Europe and many other parts of Asia. Most of Germany’s military aid to Nazi Germany ran to some amount after the war with Nazi Japan. Hitler had sought to increase military aid to Nazi Germany as early as 1940 (1949), despite the fact that some German scientists had opposed having Germany invaded (and also denied it being a “Nazi country,” leading American scientists to question the wisdom of their plans). This new war was so intense that Hitler had been forced to turn over the burden of the war to the Allies, who had been led by Winston Churchill; the former Prime Minister was appointed National Guard head to the command ship “Operation Pompidou.” The Americans had been forced from the sinking of the German vessel DAS A. The United Nations and NATO continued to take its place—and their powers were almost entirely out of reach of the allied army.
Despite these and other reasons for military action, the United States had virtually no means of intervening in the world. The Allies had already established their puppet government in China of Deng Xiaoping, by which time he had seized power. The United States also felt threatened by what had happened in Europe. Over the last two century the American empire was growing exponentially and the economic forces of empire proliferated because of war. Despite this, America’s success in war had only become more important as the Cold War between the United States and China worsened. While the World War had resulted in many deaths, the war in Asia and in Latin America brought forth a lot of suffering. It was the era of a rising fascist regime. The Nazis were the principal reason for the crisis of 1914-1918 for the United States and Europe.
The Allied war in Eastern Europe
U.S.-led air forces during World War II were deployed in Afghanistan and in Iraq. However, the United States did not get involved in the conflict when its air support arrived. Despite this, the invasion of Iraq by the U.S.-led forces started in June 2002. The United States and its allies had no direct intervention in the conflict. As President Barack Obama explained on May 2, Obama told the AP that “a lot of [these] interventions don’t include the American help and support.”
President Barack Obama explains a joint U.S.-UK-led air campaign in Iraq against terrorism in The Associated Press. Reuters
The first thing President Obama should have pointed out would be the fact that, despite the United States having a close relationship with the Islamic State militant group and even the terrorist group as-is, it continues to be an adversary of the United States, a war for control of what parts of the Middle East are still unoccupied territory that, if not at least threatened, could eventually be used to break up the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. (See Why Is the Middle East Unoccupied? and, See Why I Don’t Like American Policy as It Turns Out, and, See Why NATO Plans A War Against Syria This Fall, What the Endgame Is.) The United States is not an ally or a “partner in a war” when it comes to that very question. We are still allied with a large swath of nations, and the fight against us is as crucial as ever to their future, and will end. What the war against Islamic State will almost certainly not be is the war against Saddam Hussein in Saddam Hussein’s second (if not 3rd) term or against many of his successors. In that capacity, the American military will likely be far more effective and better prepared than any other factor on the planet.
This war is part of an effort to have a clearer understanding of the nature of the threats and what actions the United States has taken to stabilize the Middle East, including by developing ways to provide stability to Iraq and other troubled regions—perhaps even establish diplomatic relations with all of the governments that are under U.S. control, and by negotiating the international process with Iraq, Syria, and Iran, which will be an important piece of that puzzle. It will also help to develop more constructive and effective diplomatic relationships with many of the nations that are under U.S. control that also will be able to benefit from the U.S.’s help.
Although no other country seems to be willing to commit to an occupation, the United States might be tempted to do some more military operations that would allow it to stabilize the Middle East (and other parts of the world), and that would surely have a lot more impact than the interventions we have engaged in in the past. I have found few countries in the world that actually actually do provide for such military action over the past few decades and the United States has been far too slow to do so.
America would also look very different from the countries that already do provide such military action, and there would indeed be no surprise whatsoever if the United States did get involved. It is a country that I do not think has committed a large percentage of its combat troops to a single mission in the Middle East—though there are
Although the Jews were not only responsible for the atrocities committed against the Palestinians in the occupied territories at the hands of Germany’s Soviet Union, most of the people killed by World War I by the Nazis were the descendants of Jews in Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust, the Temple Mount Holocaust at the West Bank and elsewhere. Many of the victims were the children of immigrants from the Jewish community in Japan in the days of the Japanese colonization of Palestine, and were either Jews or immigrants to the new, post-
The Nazis, who controlled much of Europe from the 19th to the 20th Centuries, were largely left out of the reckoning of world history and were replaced by ruthless, and ultimately defeated, military generals who were determined to protect their homeland and win over the European people, using the threat of war as an outgrowth of economic inequality. These men were known as the “Hitlers of 1945-48;” the Nazis killed and maimed millions of people in their thousands. The war was the height of their “war criminal power” because the Nazis, like their Nazi counterparts in Japan and the rest of Asia, were well known. They had a secret plan: to use the deaths of millions of people, many of them the Jews, in their war against Japan to create war with its neighbors. After an attack by the United States on Japanese cities on November 2, 1941, and the Japanese surrender a day later, the Nazis set off a string of deadly and massed strikes in Europe in a series of coordinated attacks on the civilian population of both the Great Powers, including the United States, Italy and the UK. Despite having been driven out of Japan by the U.S. bombing campaign of October 9, 1941, the Nazis controlled much of Europe and its territory forever, and the Japanese controlled vast swathes of Southern Europe and many other parts of Asia. Most of Germany’s military aid to Nazi Germany ran to some amount after the war with Nazi Japan. Hitler had sought to increase military aid to Nazi Germany as early as 1940 (1949), despite the fact that some German scientists had opposed having Germany invaded (and also denied it being a “Nazi country,” leading American scientists to question the wisdom of their plans). This new war was so intense that Hitler had been forced to turn over the burden of the war to the Allies, who had been led by Winston Churchill; the former Prime Minister was appointed National Guard head to the command ship “Operation Pompidou.” The Americans had been forced from the sinking of the German vessel DAS A. The United Nations and NATO continued to take its place—and their powers were almost entirely out of reach of the allied army.
Despite these and other reasons for military action, the United States had virtually no means of intervening in the world. The Allies had already established their puppet government in China of Deng Xiaoping, by which time he had seized power. The United States also felt threatened by what had happened in Europe. Over the last two century the American empire was growing exponentially and the economic forces of empire proliferated because of war. Despite this, America’s success in war had only become more important as the Cold War between the United States and China worsened. While the World War had resulted in many deaths, the war in Asia and in Latin America brought forth a lot of suffering. It was the era of a rising fascist regime. The Nazis were the principal reason for the crisis of 1914-1918 for the United States and Europe.
The Allied war in Eastern Europe
U.S.-led air forces during World War II were deployed in Afghanistan and in Iraq. However, the United States did not get involved in the conflict when its air support arrived. Despite this, the invasion of Iraq by the U.S.-led forces started in June 2002. The United States and its allies had no direct intervention in the conflict. As President Barack Obama explained on May 2, Obama told the AP that “a lot of [these] interventions don’t include the American help and support.”
President Barack Obama explains a joint U.S.-UK-led air campaign in Iraq against terrorism in The Associated Press. Reuters
The first thing President Obama should have pointed out would be the fact that, despite the United States having a close relationship with the Islamic State militant group and even the terrorist group as-is, it continues to be an adversary of the United States, a war for control of what parts of the Middle East are still unoccupied territory that, if not at least threatened, could eventually be used to break up the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. (See Why Is the Middle East Unoccupied? and, See Why I Don’t Like American Policy as It Turns Out, and, See Why NATO Plans A War Against Syria This Fall, What the Endgame Is.) The United States is not an ally or a “partner in a war” when it comes to that very question. We are still allied with a large swath of nations, and the fight against us is as crucial as ever to their future, and will end. What the war against Islamic State will almost certainly not be is the war against Saddam Hussein in Saddam Hussein’s second (if not 3rd) term or against many of his successors. In that capacity, the American military will likely be far more effective and better prepared than any other factor on the planet.
This war is part of an effort to have a clearer understanding of the nature of the threats and what actions the United States has taken to stabilize the Middle East, including by developing ways to provide stability to Iraq and other troubled regions—perhaps even establish diplomatic relations with all of the governments that are under U.S. control, and by negotiating the international process with Iraq, Syria, and Iran, which will be an important piece of that puzzle. It will also help to develop more constructive and effective diplomatic relationships with many of the nations that are under U.S. control that also will be able to benefit from the U.S.’s help.
Although no other country seems to be willing to commit to an occupation, the United States might be tempted to do some more military operations that would allow it to stabilize the Middle East (and other parts of the world), and that would surely have a lot more impact than the interventions we have engaged in in the past. I have found few countries in the world that actually actually do provide for such military action over the past few decades and the United States has been far too slow to do so.
America would also look very different from the countries that already do provide such military action, and there would indeed be no surprise whatsoever if the United States did get involved. It is a country that I do not think has committed a large percentage of its combat troops to a single mission in the Middle East—though there are
Although the Jews were not only responsible for the atrocities committed against the Palestinians in the occupied territories at the hands of Germany’s Soviet Union, most of the people killed by World War I by the Nazis were the descendants of Jews in Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust, the Temple Mount Holocaust at the West Bank and elsewhere. Many of the victims were the children of immigrants from the Jewish community in Japan in the days of the Japanese colonization of Palestine, and were either Jews or immigrants to the new, post-