The Second World War: causes and consequences
The Second World War: causes and consequences
What are the causes and consequences of World War II?
World War II (1939-1945) was a large-scale armed conflict, largely derived from World War I (1914-1919).
Admittedly, the conflicts arising from the Treaty of Versailles, added to a set of factors of a diverse nature, were fertile ground for the growing hostility that would result in the most violent of the wars that humanity would face.
What then were the main causes and consequences?
Causes of WWII
The Treaty of Versailles and German humiliation
Session of the Treaty of Versailles, in the Hall of Mirrors.
The Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to accept full responsibility for the conflict of World War I. As a result, absolutely humiliating and inordinate surrender conditions were imposed on him.
The Treaty of Versailles obliged Germany among others to:
- hand over arms and military ships to the Allies;
- reduce the German army to 100,000 soldiers;
- to distribute among the conquerors the territories annexed or administered by Germany;
- pay compensation to the Allies.
Such conditions prevented the economic recovery of Germany, which aroused popular unrest in German, resentment and the desire for revenge.
Ignorance of agreements with Italy after the Treaty of Versailles
During World War I, Italy did not go to war alongside Germany, although it had signed the declaration of war of the Triple Alliance, to which it belonged with Germany and the Austria-Hungary. For its part, Italy accepts the Triple Entente proposal on territorial compensation in exchange, instead of continuing to fight.
The commitment made by the Allies was unknown in the Treaty of Versailles, and Italy only received Ethnic tensions developed during this period and prepared the atmosphere of confrontation. These tensions were one of the consequences of the territorial distribution decided in the Treaty of Versailles.
only part of what had been agreed. This aroused the desire to defend themselves among some Italians, in particular among those who had fought at the front of the First World War, such as Benito Mussolini for example.
Growing ethnic tensions
So, on the one hand, there was a resentful Italy that longed for an explanation against the Allies; on the other, an oppressed Germany. This context aroused the desire to return to before Verssailles and to return to territorial expansion.
At the same time, in Germany, the rise of growing anti-Semitism, supported by the belief that the Jews with economic power were an obstacle to the development of the national economy.
The rise of National Socialism and fascism
Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler in a military parade.
Discontent gave rise to the emergence of a new far-right ideological current, which sought to confront the advance of liberal capitalist democracies and Russian communism, through a discourse of nationalist, ethnocentric, protectionist and imperialist vocation.
This tendency was represented by the Italian fascism of Benito Mussolini, who came to power in 1922, and German National Socialism or Nazism.
The great Depression
By the early 1920s, countries like France and the United Kingdom had experienced rapid economic recovery. However, the Depression of the 29s sparked the Great Depression, defeating liberal democracies.
The Great Depression took its toll around the world, but the backlash was most notable in Germany and Italy, countries previously affected by the Treaty of Versailles. There, popular rejection of economic liberalism and the democratic model was exacerbated.
It can be said that the Great Depression revived German National Socialism which, before the Depression of 1929, tended to lose its political force. In this way, he facilitated the rise to power of Nazism in 1933, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler.
Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931
By the turn of the 20th century, Japan had grown into an economic and military power, but after the Great Depression it ran into new tariff barriers. The Japanese wanted to secure their market as well as access to raw materials. So after the train incident in Manchuria, in which a section of the railway exploded, Japan blamed China and drove its army out of the region.
The Japanese formed the Manchukuo Republic, a sort of protectorate under the collaborationist leadership of the last Chinese emperor, Puyi.
The League of Nations, in solidarity with China, refused to recognize the new state. Japan withdrew from the Society in 1933. In 1937, it invaded China and started the Sino-Japanese War. This has opened a new flank on the international stage.
The Italian invasion of Abyssinia-Ethiopia in 1935.
At the start of the 20th century, Italy had already guaranteed control over Libya, Eritrea and Somalia. However, the territory of Abyssina (Ethiopia) was more than desirable. Thus, on October 3, 1935, they invaded Abyssinia with the support of Germany.
The League of Nations tried to sanction Italy, which withdrew from the League of Nations. Sanctions were suspended soon after. Faced with the weakness of the League of Nations, Mussolini maintained his point, succeeded in making the emperor Haile Selassie abdicate and finally proclaimed the birth of the Italian Empire.
Failure of the League of Nations
Created after World War I to guarantee peace, the League of Nations attempted to reduce the harshness of measures against Germany, but its comments were not heard.
Moreover, fearing to start an armed conflict, the organization did not know how to deal with the expansionist initiatives of Germany, Italy and Japan. Unable to cope with its mission, the League of Nations was dissolved.
The ideological confrontation
The Second World War, unlike the First, is the result of the ideological confrontation between three different politico-economic models which clashed to dominate the international scene. These trends in the debate were:
- capitalist liberalism and liberal democracies, represented in particular by France and England, then by the United States;
- the communist system, represented by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics;
- German National Socialism (Nazism) and Italian Fascism.
Consequences of World War II
From a demographic point of view, there are human losses.
German Concentration Camp.
The direct and terrible consequence of World War II was the loss and / or disappearance of over 66 million people.
Of this figure, taken from W. van Mourik, in Bilanz des Krieges (Ed. Lekturama, Rotterdam, 1978), only 19,562,880 correspond to soldiers.
The remaining difference corresponds to civilian casualties. We are talking about 47,120,000 people. These figures include the death by extermination of nearly 7 million Jews in Nazi concentration camps.
Economic consequences: bankruptcy of belligerent countries
World War II resulted in true mass destruction. Europe was not only devastated by human losses, but also deprived of the conditions to develop its economy.
At least 50% of Europe's industrial park has been destroyed and agriculture has suffered similar losses, causing deaths from starvation. The same fate has been suffered by China and Japan.
To recover, countries at war had to receive financial aid from the so-called Marshall Plan, whose official name is the European Recovery Program (PER).
This financial assistance came from the United States of America, which also advocated for the establishment of alliances to stop the advance of communism in Western Europe.
Creation of the United Nations (UN)
After the obvious failure of the League of Nations, at the end of World War II in 1945, the United Nations (UN) was founded, in force to this day.
The United Nations officially came into being on October 24, 1945, with the signing of the United Nations Charter in the city of San Francisco, United States.
Its objective was to safeguard international peace and security through dialogue, the promotion of the principle of brotherhood among nations and diplomacy.
Division of German territory
Zones of occupation in Germany after the end of the war.
One of the consequences of World War II was the division of German territory between the victors. After the 1945 Yalta Conference, the Allies took control of four autonomous zones of occupation. To do this, they initially created an Allied Control Council. The decision was ratified in Potsdam.
The territory was divided as follows: France would administer the south-west; The United Kingdom would be in the north-west; The United States would administer the south and the USSR would take control of the east. Poland would also receive the former German provinces east of the Oder-Neisse line.
This whole process involved persecutions, expulsions and waves of migration to the east and south-east, which left the Germans in a frank fragility.
The strengthening of the United States and the USSR as powers
Above all, the end of the conflict brought about the spectacular growth of the North American economy, both in industry and in agricultural production. To this would be added the advantages of being a creditor of Europe.
The United States secured for itself a market and international hegemony, reaffirmed through the military might that represented the invention and use of nuclear bombs.
America's growth extended even in culture. If before the war the cultural center of the West was in Paris, then attention shifted to the United States, where many European artists took refuge. Unsurprisingly, American cinema experienced tremendous growth in the 1950s.
In 1949, North American hegemony met a competitor: the USSR, which progressed as a military power by creating its first atomic bomb. Thus, the tensions between capitalism and communism polarized the world towards the Cold War.
Beginning of the cold war
Shortly after the establishment of the occupation of German territory, the growing tensions between the capitalist bloc and the communist bloc gave rise to a reorganization of this administration.
The western occupation zones united and formed the German Federal Republic (FRG) in 1949, to which the USSR responded by forming the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the area under its control.
This culminated in the onset of the Cold War, which would only end with the fall of the USSR in 1991.
Dissolution of the Japanese Empire and union of Japan with the Western bloc
Hiroshima nuclear bomb, August 6, 1945
After the impending defeat in World War II, after the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan had to surrender. On September 2, 1945, the Japanese Empire was dissolved and Japan was occupied by the Allies until April 28, 1952.
During this process, the imperial model was replaced by a democratic model through the design of a new constitution, promulgated in 1947. It was only after the occupation, which would end with the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco on April 28, 1952, that Japan would join the so-called Western or Capitalist Bloc.
Finally, in 1960, the US-Japanese security treaty between leaders Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nobusuke Kishi was signed, making the two nations allies.
Beginning of the decolonization process
Part of the UN's goals, in dealing with the causes and consequences of the two world wars, was to promote decolonization around the world.
Decolonization is the process of emancipating the territories of a colony from the foreign government that directs it. Decolonization leads to independence, that is, the right to have one's own government.
Decolonization was reinforced from 1947, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated.