Download We understand the First World War through the heart

Singh
Positive and Negative Effects of the Two World Wars
By
Bhavanjot Singh
HSS 213-105
Dr. Oguine
15 November 2001
1
Singh
2
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
Singh
3
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. Italy, Germany and Japan formed an alliance called “Axis”
against the allied forces of Britain, France and Russia. After Germany’s invasion of Russia and
Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor, United States joined the allied forces. Second World War
ended with Germany’s defeat in Russia and Japan’s surrender after America dropped two
Atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as shown in the film, World War II in Color.
“We understand the First World War through the heart-rending verse of poets Wilfred
Owen and Siegfried Sassoon - a pointless, bloody carnage that went on and on and on,
sacrificing people's fathers, brothers and sons with impunity” (Bristow 1). Altogether, the Great
War killed 8 to 10 million people, with nearly a third of them civilians and almost all of them
young men (Bulliet et al. 762). The loss of loved ones on the battlefield was especially
disturbing, for in some parts of Western Europe, one out of four young men had lost his life in
battle. The optimism of previous decades was abandoned and a bleak, pessimistic outlook on life
was adopted after people had experienced the brutality of warfare.
When Second World War started, many people feared that it would be the repletion of the
First. Instead it was much grander and was fought all over the world. The death toll of the
Second World War is recently estimated to sixty million, six to eight times more than in First
World War (Bulliet et al. 798). Nearly half of the dead were civilians killed by bombing raids,
massacres, and famines. Altogether, both world wars claimed nearly 68 to 70 million human
lives, which is simply mind blowing.
Singh
4
Besides ending over so many millions lives, the world wars dislocated whole populations,
creating millions of refugees. The recent estimates of both the wars place the figure close to over
30 million refugees as seen in the film. The movement of refugees to new places, often raised
tensions between the inhabitants and the refugees, because of difference in ethnicity or simply
because the inhabitants thought they were being invaded. After the Great War when Palestine
became a British colony in 1920, many Jews from Europe immigrated to their homeland and
purchased land to establish communal farms. The purchases of land by Jews angered the
Palestinians, especially tenant farmers, who had been evicted to make room for settlers (Bulliet
et al. 772).
During Second World War, mankind witnessed what was never thought to be possible –
Holocaust – the almost complete destruction of Jews in Europe by Nazi Germany. Jews were the
most prosperous minority in Western Europe before World War II. As it is reflected in Heritage:
Jews and Civilizations, that Jews were the most hardworking minority in Western Europe, which
was the reason why they were advancing in every walk of life. However, Nazis party led by
Hitler disliked their prosperity and blamed them for Germany’s loss in the First World War.
Soon after Hitler came into power, he unleashed hell on German Jews. Hitler ‘deprived’ Jews of
their rights and mandated them as ‘second-class’ citizens. Jewish buildings and business were
wrecked and destroyed. The Nazis forced majority of the Jews to move into ghettos and “as a
final solution to Jew problem,” the Nazis made special gas and slaughter chambers to
exterminate every single Jew under their rule (Bulliet et al. 800).
Jews were not the only targets of Nazis’ persecution despite their status as the main
"problem." Nazis’ hatred extended to groups deemed racially or genetically "inferior." “Besides
Jews, the Nazis also killed 3 million Polish Catholics, . . . and exterminated homosexuals,
Singh
5
Jehovah’s witnesses, Gypsies, the disabled, and the mentally ill – all in the interests of ‘racial
purity’” (Bulliet et al. 800).
This systematic slaughter, which claimed 6 million Jews (two-thirds of the total European
Jewish population) and 5 million others, is by farthest the most inhumane act of hatred and
animosity. It is hard to grasp the idea that it is not just 11 million deaths, but 11 million people
whose lives were cut off because of racism and hate, all in just a period of 11 years.
The horrors of the Second World War still were not over, as what yet to come was, one of
the most controversial military decisions of the war. “On August 6, 1945, the United States
dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing some 80,000 people in a flash and leaving about
120,000 more to die an agonizing death from burns and radiation” (Bulliet et al. 797). Three days
later, on August 9, another Atomic Bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, which claimed about 40,000
lives. Bombs were dropped in quick succession for maximum psychological impact on Japanese.
President Truman, in the film, said, "The atom bomb was no 'great decision.' . . . It was merely
another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness." To the American people who were
weary from the long and brutal war, such a drastic measure also seemed necessary to convince
Japan to surrender and end the madness of World War II. On August 14, Japan surrendered and
two weeks later, the Second World War officially ended with Japanese leaders signing the terms
of surrender.
With the massive destructions of human lives, the two world wars also caused serious
damage to the environment. During the First World War, the British and French troops dug vast
trenches across to hold the German advance. After the war was over, the earth was gouged by
trenches, pitted with craters, and littered with ammunition, rubble and dead bodies. As Bulliet et
al. describe, “No place on earth was ever so completely devastated as the scar across France and
Singh
6
Belgium known as Western Front” (763). Destructions of the cities and the towns in the areas,
where wars were fought, were so massive that when President Truman visited Berlin after
Second World War, he said, “Never have I seen a more sorrowful sight. . . . I fear that machines
are ahead of morals by some centuries” as seen in the film World War II In Color.
However from the horrors of the world wars, there were a lot of positive effects that lead
many people to believe that world wars were for good. With the end of the First World War,
class distinctions in most of Europe began to fade, because the result of working together for a
common goal unified European societies. Death knocked down all barriers between people,
wartime scarcities made luxury an impossibility and unfavorable, and reflecting this, clothing
became uniform and utilitarian.
As a result of the First World War, women became more of a part of society than ever.
During wartime, they undertook a variety of jobs previously held by men. They started working
as clerks, secretaries, and teachers and were also more widely employed in industrial jobs. Many
restrictions on women disappeared during the war. It became acceptable for young, employed,
single middle-class women to have their own apartments, to go out without chaperones, and to
smoke in public. By 1920s, women received the right to vote in many European countries,
Russia and America (Bulliet et al. 774).
Before the Second World War started, most of the world was experiencing The Great
Depression, but the war brought jobs and lifted the economies back to normal. After the war,
technology experienced a great boost. Many technologies used during wartime found
commercial value after the war and raised the standard of living. The production of automobiles,
airplanes, radios and even certain chemicals skyrocketed. The advantages of mass production
Singh
7
and the use of machinery to perform former human labor tasks, along with the implementation of
the eight-hour workday, stimulated the economy, especially in the United States.
After the Second World War, United Nations was formed to keep world peace. The
representatives of 50 countries at the United Nations Conference drew up the United Nations
Charter on International Organization, which met at San Francisco from 25 April to 26 June
1945 and then signed the Charter on 26 June 1945. The United Nations officially came into
existence on 24 October 1945, when the Charter had been ratified by China, France, the Soviet
Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States and by a majority of other signatories.
Moreover, the Second World War weakened the European colonial powers so much that
they simply did not have resources to manage their vast colonial empires all over the world. As a
result, countries like India, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, and many more in Africa gained
their independence. “Within fifteen years of the end of the war, almost every European colonial
empire had disappeared” (Bulliet et al. 803). After World War II Jews were displaced all over the
world. United Nations knew that Jews had suffered a lot and their afflictions must be
compensated. So, they granted Jews their own united place in their homeland, which now is
called the State of Israel. This although, good for the Jews raised tensions in the Middle East,
which still persist.
One of the greatest outcomes of the war was the great world power shift. For more than a
century Great Britain had been the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. But it used
up too many resources in the wars and its status greatly decreased. The film narrator even said, “
. . . it is not Great Britain any more... it is just Britain.” The fact is that all of the countries,
excluding the US, lost much more than what they gained. Britain lost its power, France lost lives
Singh
8
and land, Germany lost everything and Japan was totally crushed after the bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So the United States emerged as the greatest world power.
Finally, both world wars were about politics and had no moral justification at all.
Although, according to an online article, “World War 2,” the nations fought and gained the
fragile “peace they have today and have had for almost fifty years, that August morning, which
brought the Second World War to an end, proclaimed the dawn of the nuclear age.” Today, the
entire globe lives with the fear of total annihilation, the fear that has forever changed world
politics. Now, as the same article puts it, maybe if governments “use the past as a guide to the
future the world will not have to fight such bloody battles ever again, especially with nuclear
weapons so easily obtainable.” As in History Channel’s Special Presentation, Manhattan Project
– The Century, Hans Bethe says, “If there is another large scale war, it would be the end of
civilization.” Therefore, the negative effects of the two world wars outweigh the positive ones.
Singh
9
Works Cited
Bristow, Jennie. “Good v Evil need not apply.” Spiked Politics. 23 October 2001. Online.
Internet. 15 November 2001. Available http://www.spikedonline.com/Printable/00000002D290.htm
Bulliet, Richard W., et al. The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History. 2nd ed. New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Heritage: Jews and Civilization by Brian Winston. Directed by Tim Gunn. Produced by John G.
Fox. Thirteen Productions. August 12, 2001. Class film. HSS 213-105. Fall semester,
October 11, 2001.
Manhattan Project – The Century. Narrated by Christy and Hans Bethe. History Channel Special
Presentation. December 31, 1999. Class film. HSS 213-105. Fall semester, September 27,
2001.
Suen, Gary. “The Sleeping Giant Awakens.” Online. Internet. 15 November 2001. Available
http://www.angelfire.com/la/raeder/Unitedstates.html
World War II In Color. Compilation of color documentary films of great battles of World War II.
History Channel Special Presentation. Class film. HSS 213-105. Fall semester, November
27, 2001.
“World War 2.” 29 August 2001. Online. Internet. 15 November 2001. Available http://www.
essaydepot.com/essayme/393/.
Singh 10