-
Nationalistic Aspirations
Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Habsurg throne, Franz Ferdinand. Princip was part of the terrorist group, the Black Hand, which was driven by a nationalistic Austro-Hungarian Empire, who like many, represented a threat to a unified state based on culture, as in this case a Serbian state for a land ruled by self-identified people who saw themselves as more Serbian than anything else. -
Understandings and Alliances
The death of Franz Ferdinand outraged Austrian leaders in Vienna, who wanted to severely punish the Serbs, and would declare war on Serbia for a "unsatisfactory" reply to their ultimatum. By the 19th century, the fear of nationalist uprisings from minorities, rivalries, and security spawned a web of alliances, which would create global war my a small international crisis, thus creating the Triple Alliance-Central Powers Germany/Austro-Hungary/Ottoman Empire-and the Triple Entente-Allies -
Period: to
WW1
-
Civilians are Targets
On August 30, 1914, Partisans looked to the sky to see a German zeppelin, which would drop several tons of bombs onto the city, only killing one person. This would mark the beginning of military campaigns against the civilians of enemy nation-states, either with direct or indirect attacks, such as air war against civilians, and naval blockades that prevented food from reaching civilians. Since civilians were crucial in war efforts to work in armaments and munitions, they became targets. -
The Home Front
In a war driven by nationalistic ideas, wars lasted longer, requiring governments to restrict civil autonomy and use propaganda to fuel the war effort. This made unemployment irrelevant as most of the population was either drafted into the war or working in defense job, especially seen in the increases in women labor. Governments used propaganda and restriction of civil liberties to continue the war effort, such as imprisoning opposers to the war and seeing the enemy as barbaric or subhuman. -
Great War Leftovers
Ruined nation-states, such as Germany and Austria, relied on U.S. loans and capital for their restoration plans, but due to the lack of economic output from Europe, and a diminishing market for the U.S. which became a creditor, the Great Depression occurred, causing Germany's economy to drop and halt, as well as the rest of Europe which became economically connected to Germany, caused economic nationalism to rise, eventually global trade diminished; leading to ideologies like facism to rise. -
Germany Breaks the Treaty of Versailles
Economic Nationalism that spawned from the Great Depression brought the rise of facism in Japan, Italy, and Germany, which began imperialistic ventures, where Germany would break the Versailles Treaty by beginning rapid re-militarization and began a plan of expansion that would lead to World War 2 -
The Blitzkrieg
Nazi Germany would prove to be a very effective fighting force in the early parts of WW2, especially in the first battle, Poland, where Germany used stealth and swiftness, mainly in its air force's ability to soften resistance on ground troops, "Panzer columns", that also moved quickly into Poland, where they conquered Poland within 1 month. -
Period: to
WW2
-
Pearl Harbor
With increasing sanctions from the U.S.A. on Japan during most of WW2 in hopes of economically pressuring the Japanese to withdrawal from China and southeast Asia. When Tojo Hideki assumed Prime Minister, he began his plans for Britain and the U.S.A., eventually leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor to destroy the US Pacific fleet and preventing Allied attacks on Japan itself. While not destroying the entire US Pacific fleet, the attack gave the US a reason to declare war on the Axis powers. -
The Cold War
The end of WW2 yet again put Europe in ruins, and the USA and the USSR were the only superpowers capable of providing aid to the damaged lands. This would be seen with the diffusion of ideology through the world, as the world slowly became divided between two ideologies, democracy and capitalism versus communism and totalitarianism, prompting the beginnings of the Cold War. -
The United Nations
Despite the hostility between the two superpowers, the US and USSR, they agreed on the creation of the United Nations (UN), a supranational organization meant to maintain world peace, friendly relations, peace and security, and offered global reconstruction.
