HISTORIC PRESENTATION

World War I & World War II

History Project

By Sharanya Bhanushali X C 30

index

7. Introduction to WWII

1. Cover Page

8. Causes of WWII

2. Index

9. Impact of WWII

3. Acknowledgement and Preface

10. Maps of the world after World Wars

4. Introduction to WWI

11. Conclusion and Manner of Conducting Research

5. Causes of WWI

6. Impact of WWI

12. Bibliography

13. Thank You

Preface

This project was given to me as an assignment for school and I am glad that I had this opportunity to complete it. I tried to go as much into detail as I could and I hope that it helps other people understand the topic as much as I was able to while conducting my research for the project. I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to our Principal, Shalini Ma’am, our coordinator, Jinal Ma’am and our teacher Pratima Miss who gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful project. It encourages me to do a lot of research about the World Wars and I came to know about many new things that I am really thankful for. I would also like to thank my parents, family and friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this project within the limited time frame.

Acknowledgement

First and foremost, I would like to thank our History Teacher, Pratima Miss who guided me in doing this project. She provided me with invaluable advice and helped me in difficult periods. Her motivation and help contributed tremendously to the successful completion of the project.I would also like to thank her as she helped me by giving me advice and providing the equipment which I needed. Also I would like to thank my family and friends for their support. Without that support I couldn’t have succeeded in completing this project. I would also like to thank everyone who helped and motivated me to work on this project.

World War 1

In the end, World War I would see the continent of Europe split into two major opposing alliances; the Allied Powers, primarily composed of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland, the United States, France, the Russian Empire, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and the many aforementioned Balkan States such as Serbia and Montenegro; and the Central Powers, primarily composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural, economic, and social climate of the world. The war and its immediate aftermath sparked numerous revolutions and uprisings. The Big Four (Britain, France, the United States, and Italy) imposed their terms on the defeated powers in a series of treaties agreed at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the most well known being the Treaty of Versailles with Germany. Ultimately, as a result of the war, the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian Empires ceased to exist, and numerous new states were created from their remains. However, despite the conclusive Allied victory (and the creation of the League of Nations during the peace conference, intended to prevent future wars), a second world war followed just over twenty years later.

World War I or the First World War, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously known as the Great War or "the war to end all wars". It led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It also was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated 8.5 million combatant deaths and 13 million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the related 1918 Spanish flu pandemic caused another 17–100 million deaths worldwide, including an estimated 2.64 million Spanish flu deaths in Europe and as many as 675,000 in the United States.

Serbian Nationalism

Causes

Nationalism was one of many political forces at play in the time leading up to World War I, with Serbian nationalism in particular, playing a key role. Serbian nationalism can be dated to the mid- and late-1800s, though two precipitating nationalism events are directly linked to the start of WWI. In the Balkans, Slavic Serbs sought independence from Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, and in 1878, they tried to gain control of Bosnia and Herzegovina to form a unified Serbian state. With the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Serbian nationalism continued to rise, culminating in the assassination of the Archduke of Austria in 1914 by a Bosnian Serb and officially triggering the start of the Great War.

European Expansionism

In the 1900s, several European nations had empires across the globe, where they had control over vast swaths of lands. Prior to World War I, the British and French Empires were the world’s most powerful, colonizing regions like India, modern-day Vietnam and West and North Africa. The expansion of European nations as empires (also known as imperialism) can be seen as a key cause of World War I, because as countries like Britain and France expanded their empires, it resulted in increased tensions among European countries. The tensions were a result of many colonies often being acquired through coercion. Then, once a nation had been conquered, it was governed by the imperial nation: many of these colonial nations were exploited by their mother countries, and dissatisfaction and resentment was commonplace. As British and French expansionism continued, tensions rose between opposing empires, including Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, leading to the creation of the Allied Powers (Britain and France) and Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) during World War I.

The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip. Ferdinand was chosen as a target because he was to be the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While Ferdinand was traveling in an open car in Sarajevo, Princip fired into the car, shooting Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. Following the assassination, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia, which was rejected and led Austria-Hungary to declare war against Serbia, with German support. Russia then came to Serbia’s defense, therefore initiating the First World War.

Causes

The Blank Check Assurance: Conspired Plans of Germany and Austria-Hungary

Conflicts over Alliances

The alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary at the start of World War I is also commonly known as the “blank check assurance.” In July 1914, during a meeting between members of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, the Ambassador to Berlin, the German Emperor and the German Chancellor, Germany offered Austria-Hungary unconditional support in the wake of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. This “blank check,” via unconditional support, sought military and political triumph in securing the Balkans. It also gave Austro-Hungarian leaders the confidence needed to embark on war against Serbia. Today, historians regard it as one of the most controversial decisions in the history of modern warfare, particularly because Germany failed to withdraw the unconditional support when given the opportunity. It is also widely recognized as one of the main reasons Germany is seen as responsible for the escalation and continuation of World War I.

In the age of imperialism prior to World War I, countries throughout Europe had created alliances. The alliances promised that each country would support the other if war ever broke out between an ally and another Great Power. Prior to WWI, the alliances of Russia and Serbia; France and Russia; Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary; Britain, France and Belgium; France, Britain and Russia; and Japan and Britain were firmly in place. The alliance, between France, Britain and Russia, formed in 1907 and called the Triple Entente, caused the most friction among nations. Germany felt that this alliance surrounding them was a threat to their power and existence. As tensions continued to rise over alliances, the preexisting alliances fed into other countries declaring war against one another in the face of conflict. These conflicts over alliances — which forced nations to come to the defense of one another — led to the formation of the two sides of World War I, the Allied and Central Powers. By the start of the war, Italy and the United States entered on the side of the Allied Powers, which consisted of Russia, France and Great Britain. The Central Powers, alternately, consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria.

Impact of World War 1

Multicultural and multi-ethnic Empires came to an end and in their place largely culturally and ethnically homogenous nation states emerged. These included Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Yugoslavia. Alsace and Lorraine were returned to the French and Schleswig-Holstein was returned to Denmark.

League of Nations

One of the most signifant consequesnces of the war was the creation of the League of Nations. The horrors convinced the leaders of the world that there must be a mechanism to prevent war and promote international cooperation. This culminated in the setting up of the League of Nations. An importanr part of the peace treaties was the Covenant of the League of Nations. Wilson's Fourteen Points included the creation of an international organisation for the preservation of peace amd to guarantee the independence of all states. Thus, the League of Nations was created as a world organisation of all Independant States in 1920.

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919 at the Palace of Versailles in Paris at the end of World War I, codified peace terms between the victorious Allies and Germany. The Treaty of Versailles held Germany responsible for starting the war and imposed harsh penalties in terms of loss of territory, massive reparations payments and demilitarization. The Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany while failing to resolve the underlying issues that had led to war in the first place. Economic distress and resentment of the treaty within Germany helped fuel the ultra-nationalist sentiment that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, as well as the coming of a World War II just two decades later. In a speech to Congress in January 1918, Wilson proposed the founding of a “general association of nations” that would mediate international disputes and foster cooperation between different nations in the hopes of preventing war on such a large scale in the future. This organization eventually became known as the League of Nations.

Territorial Rearrangement

The peace treaties signed after the First World War dramatically altered the political map of the world, and Europe in particular. Three grand old dynasties of Europe were destroyed. The Romanov dynasty of Russia was dethroned during the war itself. The Hohenzollerns of Germany and the Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary too were dethroned. Soon after the conclusion of the war, the Ottoman Empire of Turkey too ceased to exist. Austria and Hungary became separated and so did Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. The United Kingdom and France subsequently declared war on Germany on the 3rd. The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories, and the invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops, Hitler's suicide and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender on its terms, the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima, on 6 August, and Nagasaki, on 9 August. Faced with an imminent invasion of the Japanese archipelago, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, and the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August, then signed the surrender document on 2 September 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies.World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the globe. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts, and the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—became the permanent members of its Security Council. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century-long Cold War.

World War 2

World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. In a total war directly involving more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and the only two uses of nuclear weapons in war to this day. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history, and resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, a majority being civilians. Tens of millions of people died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, massacres, and disease.

Hitler tried out his new weapons on the side of right-wing military rebels in the Spanish civil war (1936-9). This venture brought him into collaboration with Mussolini who was also supporting the Spanish revolt after having seized (1935-6) Ethiopia in a small war. Treaties between Germany, Italy, and Japan in 1936-7 brought into being the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. For example, Japan and Germany signed the Anti-Comintern pact in 1936 and then Italy joined in 1937. This pact denounced communism and it showed their unity in the matter. The Axis thereafter became the collective term for those countries and their allies.

Causes

Formation of the Axis Coalition

Adolf Hitler, the Leader of the German National Socialist (Nazi) party, preached a racist brand of fascism. Hitler promised to overturn the Versailles Treaty and secure additional Lebensraum (“living space”) for the German people, who he contended deserve more as members of a superior race. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression hit Germany. The moderate parties could not agree on what to do about it, and large numbers of voters turned to the Nazis and Communists. In 1933 Hitler became the German Chancellor, and in a series of subsequent moves established himself as dictator. Japan did not formally adopt fascism, but the armed forces’ powerful position in government enabled them to impose a similar type of totalitarianism. As dismantlers of the world status quo, the Japanese were well ahead of Hitler. They used a minor clash with Chinese troops near Mukden, also known as the Mukden or Manchurian crisis, in 1931 as a pretext for taking over all of Manchuria, where they proclaimed the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932. In 1937-8 they occupied the main Chinese ports. Having denounced the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty, created a new air force, and reintroduced conscription,

The Rise of Fascism

One of the victors’ stated aims in World War I had been “to make the world safe for democracy,” and postwar Germany adopted a democratic constitution, as did most of the other states restored or created after the war. In the 1920s, however, the wave of the future appeared to be a form of nationalistic, militaristic totalitarianism known by its Italian name, fascism. It promised to minister to peoples’ wants more effectively than democracy and presented itself as the one sure defense against communism. Benito Mussolini established the first Fascist, European dictatorship during the inter war period in Italy in 1922.

Causes

A popular joke ran at the time: “A guarantee a day keeps Hitler away”. France already had a mutual defense treaty with Poland. The turn away from appeasement brought the Soviet Union to the fore. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, had offered military help to Czechoslovakia during the 1938 crisis, but had been ignored by all the parties to the Munich Agreement. Now that war threatened, he was courted by both sides, but Hitler made the more attractive offer. Allied with Britain and France, the Soviet Union might well have had to fight, but all Germany asked for was its neutrality. In Moscow, on the night of August 23, 1939, the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed. In the part published the next day, Germany and the Soviet Union agreed not to go to war against each other. A secret protocol gave Stalin a free hand in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, eastern Poland, and eastern Romania.

German Aggression in Europe

Hitler launched his own expansionist drive with the annexation of Austria in March 1938. The way was clear: Mussolini supported him; and the British and French, overawed by German rearmament, accepted Hitler’s claim that the status of Austria was an internal German affair. The U.S. had impaired its ability to act against aggression by passing a neutrality law that prohibited material assistance to all parties in foreign conflicts. In September 1938 Hitler threatened war to annex the western border area of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland and its 3.5. million ethnic Germans. The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain initiated talks that culminated at the end of the month in the Munich Pact, by which the Czechs, on British and French urging, relinquished the Sudetenland in return for Hitler’s promise not to take any more Czech territory. Chamberlain believed he had achieved “peace for our time,” but the word Munich soon implied abject and futile appeasement. Less than six months later, in March 1939, Hitler seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Alarmed by this new aggression and by Hitler’s threats against Poland, the British government pledged to aid that country if Germany threatened its independence.

The Worldwide Great Depression

The costs of carrying out World War I, as well as the costs to rebuild Western Europe after years of fighting, resulted in enormous debts on the part of the Western European powers to the United States. The enormous reparations put on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles also increased the debts. Coupled with ineffective governments in many of these European States (notably the Weinmar Republic, pre-Mussolini Italy and Socialist France) led to slow reconstruction and poor economic growth.

Impact of World War 2

Cold War

During the Second World War, the USA and the Soviet Union fought together in cooperation with each other. However, towards the end of the War, the apparent harmony between the USA and the soviet Union declined and old suspicion and ideological differences came to the forefront. Though both the countries did not engage in an actual fight against each other, there was a state of extreme political tension between the two. This state of tension between countries in which each side adopted policies designed to strengthen itself and weaken the other without armed conflict, is known as the 'Cold War'.

United Nations

The United Nations replaced the League of Nations, which had been created at the end of the First World War to provide states with an international forum for the peaceful resolution of disputes. Even though US President Woodrow Wilson was one of the key supporters of the League of Nations, the United States never officially joined the organization due to intense opposition from isolationist members of Congress. The League of Nations ultimately proved ineffective in preventing the outbreak of another world war and was formally dissolved in 1946. The United States played an instrumental role in the founding of the United Nations. The UN Charter, with its emphasis on peace, security, international law, economic development, and human rights, reflected the influence of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who shared a vision for the postwar world.2^22squared In 1941, the two leaders drafted the Atlantic Charter, which declared that there would be no territorial aggrandizement as a result of the war, that postwar international relations would be cooperative, and that disputes between states would be resolved through peaceful negotiation and not the use or threat of force. The Atlantic Charter eventually became the basis for the UN Charter.

Division of Germany

After the Potsdam conference, Germany was divided into four occupied zones: Great Britain in the northwest, France in the southwest, the United States in the south and the Soviet Union in the east. Berlin, the capital city situated in Soviet territory, was also divided into four occupied zones. Germany also lost territory east of the Oder and Neisse rivers, which fell under Polish control. About 15 million ethnic Germans living in this territory were forced to leave, suffering terrible conditions during their expulsion. Many froze or starved to death on over-crowded trains, while others were subject to forced labor camps under Polish and Czechoslovakian governments.

Maps of the world after World Wars

Manner of Conducting Research

This project was very knowledgable for me as it gave me more of a in-depth knowledge about World War I and World War II. I went through various stages of project development as i compiled the data with the help of my parents, siblings, friends and neighbours. I then compiled the data collected together with my research work. I am very glad to have had the opportunity to do this project and i believe it will be very useful not just to me but also hopefully to the people reading it. Thus I completed my project with a lot of research work.

Conclusion

Working on this project was a wonderful learning experience for me. It took me through various stages of project development and it gave me real insight into the world of History.This project also helped me gain an in-depth knowledge and understanding of History especially about World War I and World War II. I have also provided full details about them. I hope that this is a useful and knowledgeable project and helps other people gain the knowledge I gained while researching for this project.

Bibliography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Ihttps://online.norwich.edu/academic-programs/resources/six-causes-of-world-war-i https://www.topperlearning.com/answer/explain-the-territorial-rearrangements-that-resulted-from-the-first-world-war/mhp2y2tii https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/treaty-of-versailles-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-tcc-worldciv2/chapter/causes-of-world-war-ii/ https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-world-power/us-wwii/a/the-united-nations https://europe.unc.edu/the-end-of-wwii-and-the-division-of-europe/

thank YOu!