The Pros and Cons of the Two World Wars

One would like to think about a world war as a war for the improvement of the whole world, but history ascertains that that was not the case in the two world wars of the twentieth century. Both world wars had vast global effects, which affected almost everyone in the world. The effects had both positive and negative aspects. The positive effects, in the areas of technology, world peace and global economy, make world wars look like “wars for good” but the massive destructions of the human lives supersede them all, as Voltaire said, “No opinion is worth burning your neighbor for” (Bulliet et al. 468). One can never put the world wars into the black-and-white categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ into which they have often been placed. But it will be interesting to explore the positive and negative effects of the wars, which changed the world forever as shown in The Earth and Its Peoples: A global History by Richard W. Bulliet et al., historical films like History Channel’s Manhattan Project - The Century and Heritage: Jews and Civilizations -a documentary by Brian Winston.

The twentieth century began with a period of relative peace and economic growth in most parts of the world. But on June 28, 1914, “the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered a chain of events” and escalated into a global war because of the competition between nationalism and imperialism as practiced by major European powers (Bulliet et al. 752-753). Britain, France and Russia formed Entente, “understanding,” against the “Triple Alliance” of Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary. In April 1917, United States declared war on Germany, mainly because of which “on November 11 of 1918 at 11 A.M., the guns on the Western Front went silent” (Bulliet et al. 762).

“On June 28, 1919, the German delegates reluctantly signed the Treaty of Versailles” (Bulliet et al. 763). The Peace Treaty of Versailles obliged the Germans to accept “responsibility for causing all the loss and damage” of the war (Bulliet et al. 763). The hostile Germany was humiliated and forced to pay for a large deal of war reparations. The open hostility and simmering feelings of revenge in German soldiers after the treaty foreshadowed the start of World War II.

Second World War – often called a continuation of First World War, started in 1939 with Germany’s invasion of Poland.