By the early twentieth century, the forces of imperialism, nationalism, and militarism led to increasingly volatile relationships among the nations of Europe. The political disarray of Europe would lead to two devastating global wars.
World War I
In the years leading up to the outbreak of World War I, Europe was divided along political lines. Most notable among political divisions were the Triple Alliance (formed 1882) of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, and the Triple Entente (formed 1894) of Britain, France, and Russia. At the heart of these divisions was the belief of Germany's chancellor Otto von Bismarck that France was a serious threat to European security. With the Triple Alliance, the Germans hoped to isolate France from other nations. The Germans also entered an alliance with Russia, but when Kaiser Wilhelm II took power and ended the relationship between the two nations, Russia formed the Triple Entente with France and, later, Great Britain.
Compounding this tense situation was the decline of the Ottoman Empire, which led to the rise of several new rival states in the Balkans. The tensions between the nations of Europe were at a boiling point, and any incident had the potential to ignite a major conflict. Such an incident occurred on June 28, 1914, when the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. In response, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Because of the alliances in place, the majority of Europe was drawn into battle. World War I had begun.
This conflict was fought between the Central powers and the Allied powers. The Central powers included Germany, Austria-Hungary, and, later, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. The Allied powers included Britain, France, Russia, and Italy, which had broken its alliance with Germany after the German invasion of Belgium.
The bulk of the war was fought on separate fronts in Europe. In the west, the two sides engaged in the north of France. Both sides eventually employed trench warfare tactics. This strategy produced little in the way of territorial gains and caused massive casualties on both sides. In the east, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians fought the Russians. After initial losses, the Russians struggled to maintain their war effort and suffered significant human losses.
For the first several years of the war, the United States maintained a policy of isolationism, believing that the conflict was a matter that should be settled by Europeans. Two important events changed that stance. The first was the sinking of the British vessel, the Lusitania, in 1914, which resulted in the deaths of 128 American civilians. Later, in 1917, a German telegram outlining a plan to help Mexico recover territory it had lost to the United States in exchange for its support in the war was intercepted by British intelligence. This telegram, known as the Zimmermann telegram, convinced the Americans to join the war effort.
Just as the Americans entered the war, the Russians were leaving it. Food shortages and other hardships brought on by the war led to political unrest among the Russian people. Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, and the new communist regime signed a treaty with Germany ending Russia's involvement in the war.
The arrival of American forces turned the war. As they began to advance on Germany, the Bulgarians and Ottomans surrendered, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, and the Germans began to turn against their government. After Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced from power, the war was officially ended. An armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.
Once the conflict ended, the process of establishing peace and rebuilding Europe began. The key element of European restoration was the Treaty of Versailles. This treaty was designed to ensure that Germany was disarmed and punished for its role in the war.
PROVISIONS OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES
Germany to return Alsace-Lorraine territory to France Germany to relinquish its African and Pacific colonies Germany to be restricted as to the size of its army
Germany to be restricted from making or importing weapons, operating an air force, or using submarine crafts
Germany to pay $33 billion in war reparations over thirty years
Germany to accept full responsibility for the war
The League of Nations to be formed, excluding Germany and Russia
The one-sided nature of the Treaty of Versailles did little to improve the situation in Europe. Germany was devastated, humiliated, and desperate for survival—a situation that made it vulnerable to extreme political movements. Other countries, notably Italy and Japan, were unsatisfied with the territorial gains granted to them in the treaty. Even at peace, Europe was still fractured.
Russian Revolution
The roots of the Russian Revolution were deeply influenced by Russia's attempts to modernize as well as by Marxism. As Nicholas II began industrializing the nation, economic challenges and difficult conditions arose. Two dominant Marxist revolutionary groups emerged, although each had different ideas on how a revolution should be undertaken. The Mensheviks were in favor of allowing industrialization to continue before organizing a proletariat revolution, whereas the Bolsheviks favored an immediate, radical revolution led by an elite group of revolutionaries.
The growing political crisis in Russia came to a head during World War
I. The Russians' war effort placed a tremendous strain on the country's food and fuel resources and caused widespread shortages of both. These shortages prompted the people to call for the abdication of Nicholas II. When he did abdicate, a new provisional government was established. In the meantime, the leader of the Bolsheviks, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, who had been previously exiled to Germany, returned to Russia. Upon his arrival, Lenin and an army of factory workers overthrew the provisional government. Lenin instituted a communist system and pulled Russia out of the war.
Lenin then turned his attention to internal opposition. Russia was soon engulfed in a civil war that pitted Lenin's Red Army against the opposing White Army, backed by Western interests. Because many of the Russian people feared that the White Army would attempt to restore the czar, they supported the Reds, who eventually emerged victorious.
Firmly in control, Lenin set about restructuring the country. He divided the nation into self-governing republics under the control of a central government. He called his new nation the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or the Soviet Union. He instituted a series of social and economic reforms, including the “new economic policy,” aimed to rapidly introduce communist life to Russia. His plans met with limited success.
After Lenin died in 1924, control of the Soviet Union transferred to Joseph Stalin, who immediately turned the nation into a totalitarian state. He also installed a command economy and launched an ambitious five-year plan to turn the Soviet Union into a major industrial power. His violent, dictatorial reign would continue until his death in 1953.
The interwar Period
After World War I, Europe had to rebuild itself from the ground up. Initially, peace and order seemed to be returning to the continent. In particular, the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, a largely symbolic treaty, established at least the willingness to coexist peacefully. Even Germany, which had been economically devastated by the outcome of World War I, showed signs of increased stability by the end of the 1920s. Unfortunately, the peace and stability was shattered by the onset of the Great Depression.
In 1929, the world was thrust into an economic meltdown. Although European economies had grown stronger since World War I, they were still fragile. When the U.S. stock market crashed in October, the world economy went into a tailspin that devastated and destabilized European nations as well as nations around the globe.
Desperate for economic relief, some European nations, notably Italy and Germany, turned to radical political movements whose charismatic leaders vowed to restore stability and economic prosperity. In Italy, the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini came to power after forcing King Victor Emmanuel III to abdicate.
In Germany, the political activist Adolf Hitler rose to prominence and eventually installed a totalitarian state. Hitler believed that the German people were the descendants of a master race called the Aryans. In an effort to promote the “purity” of the Aryan race and to punish those he felt were responsible for Germany's problems, Hitler initiated a systematic program of anti-Semitism that stripped Jewish Germans of their legal rights and led to significant ethnic violence. He also targeted Polish and Slavic populations, the Rom people (also known as Gypsies), the disabled or mentally ill, homosexuals, political prisoners, and Jehovah's Witnesses.
In Asia, the Great Depression encouraged Japan to turn to militarism as a solution to its economic problems. Under the command of Emperor Hirohito, the Japanese, who were struggling to sustain a booming
population with insufficient raw materials, invaded Manchuria in 1931 with the intention of seizing control of their natural resources. In 1937 the Japanese continued their aggressive expansion by invading China.
As war erupted in the East, the seeds of war were planted in the West. In 1935 both Hitler and Mussolini took aggressive steps to assert their willingness to wage war. Mussolini, looking to establish an Italian colony in Africa, invaded Ethiopia. Hitler, meanwhile, began to mobilize troops in the Rhineland in defiance of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. In 1938, he made the long-pondered unification of Germany and Austria, known as Anschluss, a reality through annexation. Hitler also began strategically positioning Germany for control of Czechoslovakia and Poland. Europe was on the brink of another major war.
World War II
In 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact. No longer faced with the threat of the massive Soviet army, Hitler was ready to begin his European campaign. On September 1 of that year, Hitler launched a surprise attack, the blitzkrieg, on Poland. After a brief struggle, the Polish were defeated and their nation divided between Germany and the Soviets.
Soon after, Europe was plunged into another major military conflict. As in World War I, the battle was fought between two major alliances. The Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan allied themselves against the Allied powers of Britain, France, China, and, eventually, the Soviet Union and the United States. World War II had begun.
Early in the war, Hitler conquered Denmark and Norway and moved into Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. In June 1940 he set his sights on France and successfully took the country in less than a month. Hitler then turned his attention to Britain, launching a prolonged series of air strikes on its major cities. The British were able to withstand the attacks and, with the help of new radar technology, managed to force the Germans to retreat.
In 1941 Hitler seized several additional Eastern European countries in preparation for attacking his next major target: the Soviet Union. Despite the nonaggression pact between the two nations, Hitler was determined to conquer the Soviet Union. His armies, however, met strong resistance from the Russians and struggled to survive harsh living conditions. Although they eventually reached Moscow, the Germans lost around five hundred thousand soldiers over the Russian winter. Hitler's Soviet campaign would prove one of his worst blunders of the war.
While Hitler waged war abroad, he also implemented genocide at home. Over time, Hitler's anti-Semitic policies became increasingly abusive as he placed further restrictions on the rights of Jews and forced them into segregated ghettos. Eventually, he began to relocate the Jews, along with any others he considered “undesirables,” to concentration camps. In 1942 he implemented the “Final Solution”: mass extermination of the Jewish people. Nazi forces began transporting the Jews to death camps, where they were killed in gas chambers and cremated in large ovens. By the end of the war, approximately 6 million Jews and others targeted by the Nazis had been killed in the camps.
As in World War I, the United States initially adhered to a policy of isolationism. That changed on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The day after the attack, the United States declared war on Japan and officially entered World War II.
Soon after the Americans joined the war effort, the Allies began to make major progress. While the American navy worked its way across the Pacific toward Japan, the Allies forced the Axis powers out of Africa and defeated Mussolini in Sicily and Italy. In April 1945, Mussolini was assassinated.
On June 6, 1944, known as D-Day, the Allies invaded France through the beaches of Normandy and began to force the Germans into retreat. After France was liberated the following month, the allies continued to push the Germans back into their own territory. At the same time, the Soviets moved into German territory and advanced from the east. By
April 1945, the Soviets and Americans were both inside Germany and were rapidly approaching the capital city of Berlin. Faced with imminent defeat, Hitler committed suicide in an underground bunker. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, bringing an end to the war in Europe.
The war in the Pacific was still raging, however. American forces had pushed the Japanese back onto their mainland and were preparing for a ground invasion. Concerned that such an invasion would result in massive casualties, President Harry Truman opted for an alternative method to force surrender: the atomic bomb. In early August 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki. Within weeks, Japan surrendered. World War II was over.
Review Questions
1. Why were Hitler's attacks on Great Britain during World War II ultimately unsuccessful?
A. The Luftwaffe was unable to inflict significant damage.
B. American forces came to Britain's aid.
C. The attacks were too costly for the Nazis to sustain.
D. German forces could not carry out a ground attack.
E. The British were able to track Nazi planes with radar.
2. In 1917, the United States entered World War I after learning of a German plot to
A. seize control of U.S. territories in Southeast Asia
B. launch a surprise attack on U.S. naval forces
C. help Mexico retake land it had lost to the United States
D. attack several U.S. major coastal cities
E. destroy any U.S. ocean liners encountered
3. During the civil war in Russia, most of the people supported Lenin's Red Army because they
A. feared the White Army would return the czar to power
B. were promised great economic prosperity by Lenin
C. wanted to isolate themselves from Western influences
D. were coerced by aggressive communist propaganda
E. believed the Red Army would attack them otherwise
4. What did the term Anschluss mean to Hitler and the Germans?
A. A surprise attack on enemy forces
B. The purification of the Aryan race
C. An invasion of France and Britain
D. The unification of Germany and Austria
E. A secret police force
5. The American military resorted to the use of atomic weapons because
A. American troops had no way to enter the Japanese mainland
B. a ground invasion would result in too many casualties
C. American forces would not be able to access necessary resources on the mainland
D. Japanese ground forces were supported by additional Korean forces
E. the American public wanted the war to end as quickly as possible
Answer Explanations
1. E. The German air strikes against Britain were unsuccessful because the British were able to track Nazi planes using radar. This new technology allowed the British to track incoming German planes and attack them before they reached the mainland.
2. C. The American entry into World War I was largely precipitated by the interception of a telegram that outlined a deal between Germany and
Mexico. According to the agreement, the Germans would help Mexico to reclaim territory it had lost to the United States in return for Mexico's support in the European war. This direct threat to American security convinced the United States to forgo its policy of isolationism and enter World War I.
3. A. Lenin's Red Army enjoyed the support of most Russian people during the civil war primarily because many of the peopled feared the potential consequences of a victory by the White Army. Many Russian peasants believed the White Army would return the czar to power.
4. D. Anschluss referred to the unification of Germany and Austria. The idea of uniting Germany and Austria had been discussed for many years, but no such plan came to fruition until Hitler annexed Austria before World War II.
5. B. The American military opted to use the atomic bomb instead of ground attacks on the Japanese mainland because it believed that an invasion would produce too many American casualties.