User:Knightoftheswords281/sandbox/World Wars: Difference between revisions

20th-century global conflicts

The World Wars were two major global conflicts that occurred in the first half of the 20th century. Fought as total wars in every continent excluding Antarctica, the two wars were by some estimates, the deadliest military conflicts in human history, and profoundly shaped the course of the 20th and 21st centuries. They consisted of World War I, fought between 1914 and 1918, and World War II, fought from 1939 to 1945.

The wars saw their origin in the long-standing competition between European powers. A 99-year long era of general peace in Europe following the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1914, when long-standing ethnic and geopolitical tensions in the Balkans boiled over after the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb nationalist named Gavrilo Princip. This lead to a series of events leading to the eruption of war between an alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria against the United Kingdom, France, and Imperial Russia; the former faction (named the Central Powers), lost to the latter group (the Entente, or Allies) in 1918. This first World War resulted in the disintegration of the Russian, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and German Empires, paving the way for the formation of multiple new countries and much internal conflict throughout the continent after the war.

The war proved to be destructive for all major forces in Europe; the subsequent interwar period was characterized by widespread political, social, cultural, and economic turmoil across the continent. This precipitated the rise of radical ideologies across Europe. A civil war that began in Russia towards the end of the war resulted in the establishment of the Communist Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in Italy, Benito Mussolini, capitalizing on public discontent with Italian gains after the war and internal economic and political instability, overthrew the Italian government and became the first fascist leader on the continent; his movement inspired Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party in Germany in his rise to power in that country. Hitler believed that Germany had been stabbed in the back by a coalition of socialists, republicans, and in particular Jews. He came to power in 1933, and swiftly became the dictator of a new German Reich, beginning a rapid military buildup for a future quest of territorial expansion. Together, these two countries allied with Imperial Japan, which sought to explain its empire across the Asia-Pacific region.