PROYECT A08

Compare and Contrast Worl War I and World War II

        There are a lot of similarities and differences between the two world wars. A main factor, however, is that the events in the first world war basically caused most of the events to happen in the second world war.

         If we compare the costs of the two world wars, the difference is outstanding. It is estimated that the First World War cost 380 billion dollars, while the Second World War cost 42,000 billion dollars.(militaryhistory.com). The ways people fought in the First World War had very little in common with the way they fought in the Second World War. World War I started the trend that there was no difference between the citizens of a nation and the military, while World War II finishes off this trend by bombing and killing any member of a nation, including the normal citizen . Life did not matter as much in the Second World War.

        Trench warfare was dominant in the First World War, but bombings and sudden aerial attacks, with highly mobile armies took dominance in the Second World War. The Second World War was not greeted with the same frame of mind like the First World War was. This war had men and women remembering the horrors of the first. It had them entering the Second World War with determination and a better appreciation of the devastation that war could bring .There were also some similarities to both world wars.

         Both wars were started by threats to the balance of power, and both were conflicts between entire nations and people, not the governments . Both wars started with a general war in Europe and escalated to a worldwide situation. Eastern Europe also went under transformations after both World Wars . Both World Wars included the falling of major empires. The First World War saw the fall of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires. The Second World War saw the end of the British, French, and Dutch empires. The collapse of these empires caused similar results after both World Wars, they started conflicts among ethnic peoples with many different religions.(Historychannel.com) The major cause for the First World War was the assassination of the Austrian archduke.

         The darkness of the First World War shaped the next 20 years for the Second World War. Many events from the First World War are directly related to the Second World War. Many people agree that Adolf Hitler could not have done what he did without the First World War occurring. The cause of the Second World War was related to the failure of the peace terms from the First World War. These peace terms created as many problems as they may have solved . Another point was made that Lenin's plans for international revolution in the aftermath of World War I, which were not fulfilled, would be fulfilled in the course of World War II .(Discoverychannel.com) At the end of the First World War, Britain, France, and Italy establish their indirect and direct rule throughout the remaining Ottoman l and s except for the territory of the Turkish Republic. At the same time, the retreat of Western colonialism was happening and accelerated dramatically in the aftermath of World War II. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought more independence to Muslim societies (Historychannel.com). 

         The conclusion of the Second World War was quite deadlier. The United States ended this war by dropping two atom bombs on Japan's infamous cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . The peace settlement was started by Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt after Japan gave its unconditional acceptance of Allied demands.   

          To conclude, there are two main points to be made when comparing the effects of the two world wars on the international system: first of all, there was continuity in some issues after the two wars. Examples include the rise of America to the status of a superpower, the decline of Europe and imperialism as well as a shift toward liberalism in international relations. Secondly, the leaders learned from the mistakes made in the new ordering after World War One and tried to avoid repeating the same mistakes with regards to the exclusion of Germany, US isolationism and the stability of international organizations. Given that another world war has not occurred so far, one could argue that they were more successful.

Junnior Nolasco