First World War (1914-1918): Causes and Consequences

Introduction to World War I

World War I, also called the First World War or Great War, was an international
conflict that in 1914–18 embroiled most of the nations of Europe along with Russia,
the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the Central
Powers—mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey—against the Allies—
mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, from 1917, the United States. It
ended with the defeat of the Central Powers. The war was virtually unprecedented in
the slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused.

World War I was one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history. It
led to the fall of four great imperial dynasties (in Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary,
and Turkey), resulted in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and, in its destabilization of
European society, laid the groundwork for World War II.
Causes

The conflict between Imperialist countries: Ambition of Germany

 Conflict between old imperialist countries (Eg: Britain and France) vs new
imperialist countries (Eg: Germany).
 Germany ship – Imperator.
 German railway line – from Berlin to Baghdad.

Over the course of the 19th century, rival powers of Europe formed alliances. Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed the Triple Alliance. Great Britain, France, and
Russia formed the Triple. Political instability and competition threatened those
alliances. (Italy, for example, eventually entered World War I in opposition to Germany
and Austria-Hungary.)
Military Alliance

 Triple Alliance or Central Powers (1882) – Germany, Italy, Austria-

Hungary.
 Triple Entente or Allies (1907) – Britain, France, Russia.

Although Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance alongside Germany and
Austria-Hungary, it did not join the Central Powers, as Austria-Hungary had taken the
offensive, against the terms of the alliance. These alliances were reorganised and
expanded as more nations entered the war: Italy, Japan and the United States joined
the Allies, while the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers.
Balkan Wars

 Many Balkan nations (Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece and Montenegro)

were under the control of Turkey. They defeated Turkey in the First
Balkan War. The subsequent war was between the Balkan countries
themselves – Eg: Serbia vs Bulgaria.
 Defeated countries like Turkey and Bulgaria sought German help.

Tensions grew between Austria-Hungary and Serbia as Serbian nationalists attempted

to unite all Slavic peoples living in the Balkan region into a single state, including the
South Slavs of Austria-Hungary.

German success in the Franco-German War established the German Empire. Germany’s
takeover of Alsace-Lorraine created a desire for revenge by the French.
Immediate Cause: the assassination of Francis Ferdinand

The assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by Bosnian Serb
nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914, suddenly stirred up brewing conflicts in the
region.

Austria-Hungary used the assassination as an excuse to settle its dispute with Serbia.
In anticipation of Russia’s support of Serbia, Austria-Hungary gained support
from William II of Germany before presenting a warlike ultimatum to Serbia.

Serbia accepted most of Austria-Hungary’s demands but sought international

arbitration on some issues. Convinced that Austria-Hungary was ready for war, Serbia
appealed to Russia for support.

Austria-Hungary severed diplomatic relations with Serbia, and, on July 28, 1914,
declared war on Serbia. Within a week most of Europe was at war.
The Course of the War
July 28, 1914

World War I begins when Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. A chain of threats
and mobilizations soon results in a general war between the Central and Allied powers.

September 6, 1914

The First Battle of the Marne begins. The Germans advance to within 30 miles (48
kilometres) of Paris but are stopped by the British and the French. Trench
warfare begins.

November 5, 1914

Britain and France declare war on the Ottoman Empire.

April 22, 1915

The Second Battle of Ypres begins. The German army initiates the modern era
of chemical warfare by using chlorine gas as a weapon on Allied trenches. Some 5,000
French and Algerian troops are killed.

April 25, 1915

Allied forces land on the Gallipoli Peninsula of the Ottoman Empire, beginning the nine-
month-long Gallipoli Campaign. The campaign is a disaster almost from the beginning.
Altogether, the Allies suffer more than 200,000 casualties and fail to capture the
Ottoman capital of Constantinople (now Istanbul).

May 7, 1915

A German U-boat sinks the British ocean liner Lusitania off the southern coast of
Ireland during the ocean liner’s crossing from New York to England. Nearly 1,200
people are killed, including 128 U.S. citizens.
February 21, 1916

The Battle of Verdun begins. Over the next 10 months, the French and German armies
at Verdun, France, suffered more than 700,000 casualties, including 300,000 killed.

May 31, 1916

The British and German fleets meet 60 miles (97 kilometres) off the coast of Jutland,
Denmark, marking the start of the Battle of Jutland. It is the war’s only major battle
between the world’s two largest sea powers. The clash of the battleships is largely
indecisive.

July 1, 1916

The first day of the First Battle of the Somme marks the single bloodiest day in the
history of the British army, with nearly 20,000 British soldiers killed in action. By the
time the Somme campaign ends, some four and a half months later, the combined
casualties of both sides surpass 1,000,000.
March 15, 1917

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the throne after a week of riots in the Russian
capital of St. Petersburg. The Russian Revolution will ultimately place the Bolsheviks in
power.

April 6, 1917

The United States declares war on Germany. By June, American forces arrive in
France.

November 20, 1917

A British offensive at Cambrai, France, marks the first large-scale use of tanks in
combat. British advances are short-lived, however. British forces are driven back
almost to their original positions two weeks later.
September 26–November 11, 1918

The battles of the Meuse-Argonne take place. The battles are the final confrontations
on the Western Front in northeastern France in World War I. The Argonne Forest is
cleared of German troops by the end of October, and the Allies soon advance to the
town of Sedan, France. The Armistice is declared on November 11, before a final
offensive against Germany itself can begin.

June 28, 1919

The Allied and associated powers and Germany sign the Treaty of Versailles peace
agreement.
Consequences
As many as 8.5 million soldiers and some 13 million civilians died during World War I.

Four imperial dynasties collapsed as a result of the war: the Habsburgs of Austria-
Hungary, the Hohenzollerns of Germany, the sultanate of the Ottoman Empire, and
the Romanovs of Russia.

The mass movement of soldiers and refugees helped spread one of the world’s
deadliest influenza pandemics, also called the Spanish flu.

The map of Europe changed forever as territories were divided among the victorious
Allied powers.

The war led to the October Revolution in Russia, which put the Bolsheviks in power of
the Russian government.

The fall of the Russian empire after the October Revolution (1917) which resulted in
the formation of the USSR (1922)
The United States emerged as a world power.

Chemical weapons, such as mustard gas and phosgene, and new technologies and
developments, such as machine guns, tanks, and aerial combat, were introduced. A
protocol signed at the 1925 Geneva Conference for the Supervision of the
International Traffic in Arms restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in
warfare.

The monarchy was abolished in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey and Russia.

The growth of nationalism in central and eastern Europe set the foundation for World
War II.
World War II, also called the Second World War, involved virtually every part of the
world during 1939–45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy,
and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union,
and, to a lesser extent, China. The war was in many respects a continuation, after an
uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left unsettled by World War I. The
40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II make it the bloodiest
conflict and the largest war in history.

Along with World War I, World War II was one of the great watersheds of 20th-
century geopolitical history. It resulted in the extension of the Soviet Union’s power to
nations of Eastern Europe, enabled a communist movement to eventually achieve power
in China, and marked the decisive shift of power in the world away from the states of
Western Europe and toward the United States and the Soviet Union.
World War 2 Causes

The Unjust Treaty of Versailles (1919)

Allied powers after the end of World War I forced Germany to sign the Treaty of
Versailles Taking advantage of the treaty, France took vengeance on Germany. She
humiliated Germany for the next 20 years. Under this treaty lost its territories and
was also prohibited to maintain a large army. The humiliation that Germany faced after
the First World War led to the spread of Ultra-Nationalism in Germany.

Failure of the League of Nations

It was formed in 1919 after the end of World War I to check military aggression, it
also intended that all its member and disputes between different nations could be
settled through negotiations instead of aggression. League of Nations failed to
maintain to settle disputes between nations as Italy invaded Ethiopia, Japan invasion of
Manchuria in China and not all countries joined the league.
Demands of Imperialism

New Imperialists, like Japan and Germany, wanted to compete with old Imperialist
nations such as the UK, France, etc., for resources and various territories in Africa and
Asia.

Great Depression of 1929

It was the worst economic disaster in the history of the Industrialized world it took
its way differently in Europe and Asia. In European nations such as Germany, Italy, and
Spain, the political power shifted from totalitarian to imperialist government, whereas
in Asia recourse less Japan opted for an aggressive expansionist policy by invading
China and trying to control the Pacific.

Rise of Imperialism in Japan

Japan was becoming very aggressive. Taiwan became the first colony of Japan in 1895.
In 1931, Japan invaded the territories of Manchuria of China and all islands all around
the Pacific Ocean. War in Asia started mainly due to the 2nd Sino-Japanese War of
1937. These concerned USA, so the US declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941,
one day after Japan attacked Perl Harbour.
Rise of Hitler and NSDAP

The National Socialist German Workers Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party, was
anti-semitic (anti-Jews), anti-Marxist, believed in the Superiority of the Aryan Race,
and that all othe r races should be excluded. Hitler became Chancellor (PM) of Germany
in January 1933, though he was elected, it was not a complete majority, rather hung
Parliament still he was called to make government, and slowly, he transformed into a
Dictator.

After the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was not allowed to make an army. But Hitler
started building a huge army and air force. He allotted special symbols for Jews people
to distinguish them from the mass. He also declared to restore the glory of
Fatherland…
The Course of the War

Political and economic instability in Germany, combined with bitterness over its defeat
in World War I and the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, allowed Adolf
Hitler and the Nazi Party to rise to power. In the mid-1930s Hitler began secretly to
rearm Germany, in violation of the treaty. He signed alliances with Italy and Japan to
oppose the Soviet Union and intervened in the Spanish Civil War in the name of anti-
communism.

By 1938 (the Anschluss), he invaded Austria and then annexed Czechoslovakia, feigning
resistance from other European powers. In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland
after signing a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union. The following day, France and
Britain declared war on Germany. A period of inactivity on the Western Front followed
Poland's defeat.

German submarines attacked merchant ships bound for Britain during World War II.
Poland was separated from Germany by 1940, the Baltics occupied, and Finland subdued.
Norway's conques t began in April 1940 following Germany's takeover of Denmark.
France succumbed to German invasion in May and capitulated in June. Germany launched
bombings on Britain to prepare for a cross-channel invasion, which was indefinitely
postponed after Hitler's defeat in the Battle of Britain..
By early 1941, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria joined the Axis, and German troops
swiftly overran Yugoslavia and Greece in April. In June, Hitler broke his pact with the
Soviet Union and launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive surprise invasion of Russia.
They reached Moscow's outskirts before Soviet counterattacks and winter weather
halted their advance.

In East Asia, Japan expanded its conflict with China and captured European colonies. In
December 1941, Japan attacked U.S. bases at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines. The
U.S. responded by declaring war on Japan, prompting other Axis powers to join the
global conflict. Japan swiftly invaded and occupied Southeast Asia, Burma, the
Netherlands East Indies, and numerous Pacific islands. Following the decisive U.S. naval
victory at the Battle of Midway in 1942, American forces started advancing through
island chains towards Japan.

The British and Americans defeated Italian and German forces in North Africa by
1943. They invaded Sicily and Italy, overthrowing the Fascist government in July 1943.
Despite ongoing fighting in Italy until 1945, the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 halted the
German advance in the Soviet Union, and Soviet reinforcements gradually pushed the
German armies back.
The massive Allied invasion of Western Europe began with the Normandy Campaign in
western France (1944), and the Allies’ steady advance ended in the occupation of
Germany in 1945.

After Soviet troops pushed German forces out of the Soviet Union, they advanced into
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania and occupied the eastern third of
Germany by the time the surrender of Germany was signed on May 8, 1945. In the
Pacific, an Allied invasion of the Philippines (1944) was followed by the
successful Battle of Leyte Gulf and the costly Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa
(1945). The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and
Japan’s formal surrender on September 2 ended the war.
The Post War World
Allied victory: The war resulted in the defeat of the Axis Powers, including Nazi
Germany, fascist Italy, and imperial Japan. The major Allied powers, including the
United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China, emerged as the
victors.

Creation of the United Nations: In 1945, shortly after the end of the war, the Unitedk
Nations (UN) was established as an international organization aimed at promoting
peace, security, and cooperation among nations. Its formation aimed to prevent future
global conflicts.

Cold War and division of Europe: The post-war period led to the emergence of the Cold
War, a political and ideological struggle between the United States and the Soviet
Union. Europe became divided into two major blocs: Western Europe, aligned with the
United States, and Eastern Europe, under Soviet influence.

Devastation and rebuilding: The war caused immense destruction and loss of life. Entire
cities were leveled, and infrastructure was damaged. Post-war efforts focused on
rebuilding war-torn countries and promoting economic recovery. The Marshall Plan,
initiated by the United States, provided significant financial aid to rebuild Europe.
Redrawing of borders: The war led to significant territorial changes. Germany was
divided into East and West Germany, while Poland's borders shifted westward. The
Soviet Union annexed several Eastern European countries and exerted influence over
others.

Emergence of superpowers: The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as
superpowers with vast military, economic, and political influence. This led to an intense
rivalry and arms rac e between the two countries during the Cold War.

Technological advancements: World War II spurred technological advancements in

various fields, including aviation, weaponry, medicine, and communications. These
developments laid the groundwork for subsequent innovations and shaped the modern
world.

Global shift in power: The war marked a decline in European dominance and a shift in
power to the United States and the Soviet Union. This shift set the stage for future
geopolitical dynamics and the establishment of the bipolar world order during the Cold
War.
 Bibliography
https://www.britannica.com/summary/World-War-II

https://www.britannica.com/summary/Causes-and-Effects-of-
World-War-I