This essay examines the defining characteristics and consequences of the two World Wars and their aftermath. It begins with World War I's unprecedented scale and brutality, exploring how the war transformed soldiers into marginalized symbols of collective trauma rather than celebrated heroes. It then analyzes Germany's initial military strength and ultimate defeat in World War II, focusing on both psychological disillusionment and strategic military failures. The essay proceeds to evaluate the postwar peace settlements, including the Vienna Treaty of 1955 and the Japanese Peace Treaty of 1951, arguing that hasty or unresolved negotiations sowed the seeds of the Cold War. The paper concludes that human nature is slow to learn from history, as the suffering of one world war failed to prevent a second.
Most obviously, World War I differed from other wars in its worldwide scale. Never before had a war been fought on such a large scale, nor had it ever been as brutal to soldier, citizen, and innocent alike. Bernd Huppauf describes the horror of this war in very specific terms when he mentions the return of mutilated soldiers from a war fought with an entirely new category of weapon.
The modernization of weapons also meant a new category of mutilation: limbs were far more easily torn off than had been the case in previous conflicts. The condition of survivors was much worse than in earlier wars. The wounds were not, however, only physical. Many soldiers suffered from psychological shock and other mental problems as a result of their war experiences. Spending hours in dugouts, for example, resulted in a loss of control over extremities, according to Huppauf.
A further element that differentiated WWI from all previous wars was the fact that soldiers became tragic relics rather than heroes. As a result of their injuries and shock, many were also unable to function in society after their war service was complete. Indeed, this inability was not only the result of the soldiers' own injuries, but also of the wider effect of the war: society in general could not face their crippled bodies as continual reminders of the nature of World War I. In this way, returned soldiers were cast out not only because of their physical differentiation from society at large, but also as symbols of the psychologically crippling effect of the war.
In this way, the soldier served as symbolic of all that was different, eerie, and wrong about the war. It was wide-scale, cruel, and crippling, with benefits to very few. This war changed the thinking about war as a romanticized quest into a reality of horror, shock, and injury — one impossible to mitigate and that the world attempts to avoid by any means possible, even if it means demonizing those citizens who were most affected by its cruel nature.
It appears strange, perhaps in retrospect, that the world would choose to engage in a second worldwide conflict after the horrors of the first. The reality is, however, that certain factors made a second World War unavoidable, complete with its horrific effects upon both the soldier and the citizen, as well as the guilty and the innocent. Germany was an initially powerful force, perpetrating its own brand of horror during the Second World War as it had during the First. While Germany was initially successful for a variety of reasons, the country became overwhelmed by a combination of factors that led to its ultimate defeat.
In terms of its strength, the country had both physical size and historic military prowess behind it. Germany won the first few battles simply on the strength of numbers. While the force was considerable, it was not unified. As Huppauf notes, many German citizens soon became disenchanted with the war and all that lay behind it. According to the author, they felt that the war had been forced upon them by their leaders. This resulted in a generally negative feeling and an erosion of Germany's internal strength. There were also more concrete reasons for Germany's final defeat.
According to Wolfgang Mommsen, Germany's self-image was the basis of its initial and long-term plans for success. From a military point of view, it was seen as vital to invade Belgium and defeat all resistance during the first days of the campaign. The invasion of Belgium, however, did not go quite as planned, and Germany was considerably slowed by a completely unsuspected active resistance. This defeated Germany's plan to advance into France before the arrival of the British Expeditionary Force.
Hitler's rise to prominence during the Second World War marked the beginning of a new and brutal era. He fought the war on the belief of total victory. The impetus of this belief carried the Germans during the early stages of the war, but could not survive the increasing hostility from the Allies. In the end, Germany's defeat was the result of the Allies withdrawing their support and overriding Germany's war aims to emerge as the main victor of the Second World War. In light of the massacres and atrocities committed by Hitler and the Nazis during WWII, it is little wonder that such support was ultimately withdrawn.
"Postwar conferences, disputes, and Cold War roots"
"1951 San Francisco treaty terms and reparations"
The World Wars and the Cold War are sad episodes in human history. Furthermore, the kind of peace treaties created and the reactions of the various countries to these leave something to be desired. It appears that, once there was a taste of the nature and horrors of war, it was almost impossible to stop its momentum. Indeed, some critics, such as Huppauf, hold that both wars became so filled with momentum that, although the majority recognized the senselessness of the fighting, officials appeared incapable of stopping it.
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