The Origin of First World War in Europe - Essay Example

QUESTION This task will describe the causes and the origin of First World War in Europe. It will explain the reasons for the US entering the war and its objectives. Causes and origin. The fall of the Roman Empire made Europe scatter. The German became much aggressive in 1890 and this made them to demand for a greater emperor like England and france.Europe settlers provided land for the Germans, Australia and Belgium for the sake of peace.Ceasor claimed not to stay in Caribbean forever and this made German angry. Therefore the Germans build a stronger navy than England making England nervous. In 1890, Thermal a proposed that the US should have a strong navy as German and Japan build the same. There was a system of military alliance. The Germans made an alliance with Australia while Belgium and Netherlands were neutral.UK alleged protection for Belgium. German declared war since it did not like the encirclement from the Russia and France. War communed when Serbia was fired from the Hungarian moved against Serbia while German helping them, Russia rose to defend the slave. The war began against Serbia by Austria- hungaria.This made Russia o come to defend the Serbia of which they invited their ally France to assist with the war German colluded with Belgium and France then moved to Russia. Paris was then evacuated in France causing the French warfare to start. This British were therefore killed by the French US in war.US entered in war in 6 April 1917 when German put a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. This was threatening America’s commercial shipping and they had to fight against these policies. QUESTION 2 The Second World War was as a result of the rise of dictatorial, military regimes in Germany, Japan and Italy, an occurrence arising from the Great Depression that was present in the world in the early 1930s. This part will examine the occurrence of the Second World War. The American depression produced effects especially in Europe. Germany had an economic disaster that resulted into social displacement. This made Hitler to rise. When the League failed to stop the second Japanese war in 1931, there were treaty violations. Hitler recreated German army in 1933 to prepare for war. In 1936 Hitler regrouped the Rhineland. Between 1935 and 1936 Mussolini won Ethiopia for Italy. From 1936 to 1939 the Spanish war started. Germany and Italy assisted the forces of Francisco to win the victory. “In 1938, Germany annexed Austria, and in September1938, the British and French policy of conciliation toward the Axis reached its height with the sacrifice of much of Czechoslovakia to Germany in the Munich Pact”. (Anonymous) In 1939, Germany engaged all of Czechoslovakia while Italy detained Albania. Britain and France deserted the policy of conciliation and creating alliances with Turkey, Romania, and Poland. In May, Germany and Italy signed a military alliance. Germany alliance was ready to open an attack on Poland army The Second World War began on Sept 1939, when Germany attacked Poland without declaring war. Britain and France confirmed war on Germany on third September. Other members of the Commonwealth followed the war trend though the war in Poland was short lived. The German defeated the Polish defenses, and the conquest was almost complete when Soviet forces entered Poland. The war campaign ended with the division of Poland as USSR conquered Finland in the Finnish-Russian War between 1939 and 1940. (Anonymous) QUESTION 3 Following the World War I, the defeated Germany, Italy, and Japan were keen to increase their power. The three countries finally got other dictatorship forms. This made the states to be uppermost and they also called for growth at the expense of other neighboring countries. The three countries were also championing against communism. What really united the two wars together is when the League of Nations destabilized and weakened by the defection of the US ensuring that it was unable to encourage disarmament. The common long term economic depression increased the national rivalries, fear and distrust, and made the masses vulnerable to the demagogues. (Anonymous) QUESTION 4 Cold war The Cold War is the name given to the relationship that developed primarily between the USA and the USSR after World War Two. The Cold War was to dominate international affairs for decades and many major crises occurred - the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Hungary and the Berlin Wall being just some. For many, the growth in weapons of mass destruction was the most worrying issue. (Paul) A clash of very different beliefs and ideology - capitalism versus communism - each held with almost religious conviction, formed the basis of an international power struggle with both sides vying for dominance, exploiting every opportunity for expansion anywhere in the world. Note that USSR in 1945 was Russia post-1917 and included all the various countries that now exist individually (Ukraine, Georgia etc) but after the war they were part of this huge country up until the collapse of the Soviet Union (the other name for the USSR). Logic would dictate that as the USA and the USSR fought as allies during World War Two, their relationship after the war would be firm and friendly. This never happened and any appearance that these two powers were friendly during the war is illusory. Before the war, America had depicted the Soviet Union as almost the devil-incarnate. The Soviet Union had depicted America likewise so their ‘friendship’ during the war was simply the result of having a mutual enemy - Nazi Germany. In fact, one of America’s leading generals, Patton, stated that he felt that the Allied army should unite with what was left of the Wehrmacht in 1945, utilize the military genius that existed within it (such as the V2’s etc.) and fight the oncoming Soviet Red Army. Churchill himself was furious that Eisenhower, as supreme head of Allied command, had agreed that the Red Army should be allowed to get to Berlin first ahead of the Allied army. His anger was shared by Montgomery, Britain’s senior military figure. So the extreme distrust that existed during the war was certainly present before the end of the war……..and this was between Allies. The Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, was also distrustful of the Americans after Truman only told him of a new terrifying weapon that he was going to use against the Japanese. The first Stalin knew of what this weapon could do was when reports on Hiroshima got back to Moscow. So this was the scene after the war ended in 1945. Both sides distrusted the other. One had a vast army in the field (the Soviet Union with its Red Army supremely lead by Zhukov) while the other, the Americans had the most powerful weapon in the world, the A-bomb and the Soviets had no way on knowing how many America had. Rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union for control over the postwar world emerged before World War II had even ended. U.S. presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S Truman and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin never really trusted one another, even while working together to defeat the Nazis. This mutual mistrust actually began as far back as 1917, when the United States refused to recognize the new Bolshevik government after the Russian Revolution. Stalin also resented the fact that the United States and Great Britain had not shared nuclear weapons research with the Soviet Union during the war and was unhappy with the countries’ initial unwillingness to engage the Germans on a second front in order to take pressure off of the Soviets. Additionally, Stalin was irked by the fact that Truman had offered postwar relief loans to Great Britain but not to the USSR. QUESTION 5. “The important ideological differences separated the two countries as well, especially during the postwar years, when American foreign policy officials took it upon themselves to spread democracy across the globe. This goal conflicted drastically with the Russian revolutionaries’ original desire to overthrow capitalism. Having been invaded by Germany twice in the last fifty years, Soviet leaders also wanted to restructure Europe so that a buffer existed between the Germans and the Soviet border. Both the United States and the USSR believed that their respective survival was at stake, and each was therefore prepared to take any steps to win. As a result, both countries found themselves succumbing to the classic prisoners’ dilemma: working together would produce the best result, but with everything to lose, neither side could risk trusting the other.” (Anonymous) “At the same time, however, both the United States and the USSR did much to prevent the Cold War from escalating, as both countries knew how devastating a nuclear war would be. Truman, for example, kept the Korean War limited by refusing to use nuclear weapons against North Korea and China, aware that doing so would force the USSR to retaliate. President Dwight D. Eisenhower kept his distance from the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, knowing full well that the USSR would not tolerate interference in Eastern Europe. Likewise, the Soviet Union made sacrifices to keep the war “cold” by backing down from the Cuban missile crisis. Many Cold War historians believe that both countries worked hard to keep conflicts limited and used tacit signaling techniques to communicate goals, fears, concerns, intensions, and counteractions.” (Paul) “The Cold War had an enormous impact on the United States politically, socially, and economically. In addition to spawning fear-induced Red hunts and McCarthyism in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Cold War also shaped U.S. presidents’ political agendas. Eisenhower, for example, sought to reduce government spending at home in order to halt what he called “creeping socialism” and to save money for more urgent needs such as defense. Kennedy’s New Frontier inspired patriotic fervor and visions of new hope in American youth. Even Eisenhower’s farewell warning of a growing military-industrial complex within the United States, which would come to dominate American political thinking, proved to be eerily accurate during the Vietnam War era the following decade. At the same time, federal dollars feeding this complex helped produce one of the greatest economic booms in world history.” (Paul) “The question as to whether the United States or the USSR was more to blame for starting the Cold War has produced heated debate among twentieth-century historians. For years, most historians placed blame squarely on Soviet shoulders and helped perpetuate the notion that Americans wanted merely to expand freedom and democracy. More recent historians, however, have accused President Truman of inciting the Cold War with his acerbic language and public characterization of the Soviet Union as the greatest threat to the free world. Although conflict between the two powers was arguably inevitable, the escalation into a full “hot” war and the attendant threat of nuclear annihilation might have been avoidable.” (Paul) QUESTION 6 End of cold war In 1985 Michael who was a general of Soviet army reduced tension. His objective was to harmonize communist government. He wanted people to speak honestly. At the time the Soviet Union was falling. Michael started withdrawing soviet troops in countries which gave people power to maneuver the system, collapsing it in two years. The east and West Germany united. In 1991 the Russian state declared itself a country and the war ended. The war ended because there was need for sovereignty and existence of a nation. The military system collapsed giving rise to peace The representatives from the eleven Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Belarus, the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and others met in the Kazakh city. They agreed that they would no longer be part of the Soviet Union and that they would form a commonwealth of independent states just like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia Baltic republics who affirmed their independence from the USSR. Soviet Union had fallen due to much great number of reforms that the Soviet leader Gorbachev had implemented during his tenor as USSR leader.Gorbachev was very dissatisfied in the dissolution of his nation and this made him to leave the job on 25 December. (Maxwell) QUESTION 7 “The Cold War world was separated into three groups. The United States led the West. This group included countries with democratic political systems. The Soviet Union led the East. This group included countries with communist political systems. The non-aligned group included countries that did not want to be tied to either the West or the East. Harry Truman was the first American president to fight the Cold War. He used several policies. One was the Truman Doctrine. This was a plan to give money and military aid to countries threatened by communism. The Truman Doctrine effectively stopped communists from taking control of Greece and Turkey.” (Paul) “Another policy was the Marshall Plan. This strengthened the economies and governments of countries in Western Europe. A major event in the Cold War was the Berlin Airlift. After World War Two, the United States and its allies divided Germany. Berlin was a part of communist East Germany. The city was divided into east and west. In June 1948, Soviet-led forces blocked all roads and railways leading to the western part of Berlin. President Truman quickly ordered military airplanes to fly coal, food, and medicine to the city. The planes kept coming, sometimes landing every few minutes, for more than a year. The United States received help from Britain and France. Together, they provided almost two and one-half million tons of supplies on about two hundred-eighty thousand flights.” (Paul) Barbed wire bars passage through the Brandenburg Gate at the East-West border in Berlin in 1961By 1989, there was widespread unrest in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev did not intervene as one eastern European country after another cut its ties with the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall, the major symbol of communist oppression, was torn down in November of that year. In less than a year, East and West Germany became one nation again. A few months after that, Warsaw Pact countries officially ended the alliance. The Cold War was over. QUESTION 8 The US led to the structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 of which NATO military group purposed to defend Soviet forces in Europe. Soviet Union and other European friends from the east made a military group. In 1953, Stalin who was soviet leader died giving rise to a new president Eisenhower. In July 1955, Eisenhower proposed the inspection of the military base by Americans and Soviets of which Soviets rejected. This made the Cold War tensions to increase. This was because both sides tried to pressure political and economic developments across the globe. In the 1950s, the US began sending military advisers to help South Vietnam defend itself against communist North Vietnam. That aid would later expand into a long and bloody period of American involvement in Vietnam. “The Cold War also affected the Middle East. In the nineteen fifties, both East and West offered aid to Egypt to build the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. The West cancelled its offer, however, after Egypt bought weapons from the communist government in Czechoslovakia. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser then seized control of the company that operated the Suez Canal. A few months later, Israel invaded Egypt. France and Britain joined the invasion. For once, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a major issue. Both supported a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.” (Anonymous) In 1959, cold war tensions eased a little. The new Soviet leader, Khrushchev, visited Eisenhower in the US. “An American U-2 reconnaissance airplane was shot down over the Soviet Union. The plane and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, were captured. Eisenhower admitted that such planes had been spying on the Soviets for four years. In a speech at the United Nations, Khrushchev got so angry that he took off his shoe and beat it on a table. Kennedy followed Eisenhower as president in nineteen sixty-one. During his early days in office, Cuban exiles invaded Cuba.. The forces wanted to oust the communist government of Fidel Castro.” (Anonymous) “Americas Central Intelligence Agency had provided training for the exiles. But the United States failed to send military planes to protect them during the invasion. As a result, almost all were killed or taken prisoner by Cuban forces trained and supported by the Soviet Union and its allies. At the same time in Europe, tens of thousands of East Germans had fled to the West. East Germanys government decided to stop them. It built a wall separating the eastern and western parts of the city of Berlin. Guards shot at anyone who tried to flee by climbing over.” (Paul) QUESTION 9 The postwar consisted the genocide which enabled nations to kill groups of people based on culture and religion.UN actions were complicated, permanent council which was made of Britain,france,Russia,US which have Vito power. The UN revealed its effectiveness after Second World War in the case of various storms. The invasions brought the UN nations together, UN intervened the killing of the Kurd by Saddam Hussein. On the other hand tribes and clubs in Africa rose against each other and there was no trust with each other. Somali nation was a scene of war. The Cuban troops were against the US. The nations brought the weapons in Somali and left after the cold war. Mohammed rose and he had biggest clan. He seized the food provided by the Red Cross. The US sent the delta force to bring order but ended up fighting. There was a Rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of many in 1994.The fight was inter tribal and involved different clans fighting. This made it hard for the US to enter and intervene. In 1990s 18 clans were fighting to control Mogadishu.US army was deployed in the East coast of Africa in Mogadishu to bring order. QUESTION 10 The Cuban missile crisis easily would have resulted in a nuclear war. The Americans felt threatened with the Cuban missiles. Khrushchev accepted to get rid of the missiles only if the US agreed not to obstruct in Cuba. In 1963, the rival sides agreed to ban all the tests of nuclear armaments. They also formed a cellular phone link among the president house and the Kremlin. The relations among the East and West enhanced significantly when Richard was president. He met with Brezhnev several times and had several agreements. They agreed to reduce the number of missiles and also disqualified the tests and consumption of the missiles for 5 years. “A major change in the Cold War took place in 1985, when Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union. He met four times with President Ronald Reagan. Gorbachev withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan. And he signed an agreement with the United States to destroy all middle-distance and short-distance nuclear missiles.” (Paul) Works Cited Anonymous. World War II. 2010. 2015 . Maxwell, K. The fall of soviet union. 2014. 2015 . Paul, N. Cold awr. 2013. 2015 . Read More