World Wars (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what the two world wars were, what their causes and consequences were. Also, movies that narrate them.

world wars normandy landings 1945 — The two world wars were the most devastating in history.

What were the world wars?

The world wars were two war conflicts of the first half of the 20th century that involved the great international powers of the time and a large part of the countries of the world. were the wars most destructive and with the greatest number of victims in history of humanity.

Although they were not the longest wars in history, they had a high level of destruction and deaths because they affected many civilian populations and used the technological innovations of the industry for the development of weapons (such as war planes, tanks, machine guns, toxic gases or the atomic bomb).

The two world wars were: World War I and World War II.

	World War I	Second World War
Dates	1914-1918	1939-1945
Sides	Entente: United Kingdom, France, Russian Empire Central Powers: Germany, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire	Allies: France, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, United States Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan
triggering event	Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria	German invasion of Poland
Characteristics	It was a conflict led by the European colonial powers. It was fought mainly in Europe but had fronts in various parts of the world. It was called the “Great War” because of the number of nations involved, the magnitude of troops mobilized and the millions of deaths it caused. It was characterized by trench warfare and the use of industrial technology (machine guns, tanks, airplanes, toxic gases)	It was the most destructive war in history. It was characterized by the extreme methods used by the fighting armies, such as massive bombing and the use of two atomic bombs. Nazism applied the so-called “final solution” (the mass murder of the Jewish population in concentration and extermination camps)
End of the conflict	Defeat of the Central Powers and signing of the Treaty of Versailles	Defeat of the Axis Powers and Allied occupation of Germany, Austria and Japan

Key points

The world wars were two conflicts that involved nations from multiple continents and had devastating effects due to the military use of technological innovations derived from industrialization.
The First World War (1914-1918) pitted the Entente and the Central Powers against one another. The Second World War (1939-1945) pitted the Allies and the Axis Powers against one another.
Both wars had causes derived from imperialist rivalries, nationalist ideologies, territorial ambitions, alliance systems, and economic competitions or crises.
One of its consequences was the reconfiguration of the world political map, with the fall of the great empires after the First World War and the rise of two rival superpowers after the Second World War (the United States and the USSR).

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The sides

World War I (1914-1918)

The Entente: the United Kingdom, France and the Russian Empire, along with other countries such as Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro, Japan, Italy, Romania, Portugal, Greece and the United States.
The Central Powers: Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, along with Serbia and some satellite nations or states such as the Sultanate of Darfur, the Dervish State, the Emirate of Jabal Shammar and Azerbaijan.

Second World War (1939-1945)

The allies: France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, along with other countries or governments such as China, Poland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the British Raj, Nepal, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands , Greece and Yugoslavia;
The Axis Powers: Germany, Italy and Japan, along with their partners and puppet states such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Thailand, Croatia, Slovakia, Serbia, Iraq and Albania.

ccauses of the First World War

assassination franz ferdinand first world war 1914 causes — The assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria sparked the war in 1914.

The causes of the world wars were multiple. Some were more immediate and triggered the outbreak of violence, while others had to do with conflicts that had been developing for several years.

In the case of The First World War, the causes were mainly the tensions between the European powers over the colonial distribution of Africa and Asia and the system of alliances that committed nations to support each other in the event of external aggression. Added to this were competition for industrial dominance and nationalist impulses.

However, the event that triggered the start of the war was the assassination of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The murderer had been a Bosnian Serb nationalist and the Austro-Hungarian government declared war on Serbia on July 28. In early August, Germany invaded Belgium and France, and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.

Causes of World War II

The root causes of the Second World War lie in the end of the First World War and the humiliating conditions imposed on the defeated (especially Germany) through the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (1919).

Expensive war reparations created economic problems that were worsened by the Great Depression of 1929 and the resulting increase in poverty, unemployment, and debt.

Consequences of the world wars

world wars destruction europe consequences — After World War II, much of Europe was left in ruins.

The result of both world wars was the victory of the sides led by the Western powers: the Entente (World War I) and the Allies (Second World War). In the first case, the entry of the United States into the war in 1917 was of great importance. In the second case, the entry of the United States and the Soviet Union in 1941 was decisive for the Allied victory.

In human and material terms, the consequences of the two wars were devastating. On both occasions, much of Europe was left in ruins, especially after World War II, and the loss of life reached unprecedented levels: 16 million people died in World War I (between civilians and military), and between 40 and 60 million died in World War II (in addition to six million Jews murdered in Nazi death camps).

In both cases there was an important political, economic and territorial reconfiguration in the affected areas. After the First World War, four empires ceased to exist: the German, the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman and the Russian (where the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917). Germany not only lost its colonies and many European territories, but was subjected to paying war reparations that fueled the resentment of nationalist groups.

After World War II, the powers of Western Europe took a backseat to the two new superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. These faced each other in a new conflict called the Cold War, which lasted more than four decades and divided Europe and the rest of the world into American or Soviet areas of influence. The United Nations (UN) was also created and the decolonization processes in Asia and Africa began.

How did World War II end?

world war hiroshima nagasaki 1945 atomic bomb — World War II ended with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

World War II lasted for six years. In 1944 the Allied invasion of France took place which began with the famous Normandy landings. This event marked the beginning of the end of German domination in Europe.

Previously, adverse events had already occurred for the Axis powers, such as the American victories in the Pacific starting in 1942 or the defeat of the Germans in Soviet territory and the fall of Benito Mussolini in Italy in 1943. The latter had forced the Germans to invade central and northern Italy.

The launch of the Soviet offensive in the winter of 1944 was another blow against Hitler's Germany which was progressively losing ground on all fronts. This caused uprisings against the German Third Reich in many occupied nations, while the alliance between China and the United States achieved the same against Japan on the Pacific front.

The Allies entered Paris in August 1944. Meanwhile, German resistance delayed the Soviets' arrival in Berlin until the beginning of the following year. Given this definitive panorama for the Nazis, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker on April 30, 1945 and left Germany in ruins and adrift. Two days earlier, Mussolini had been shot by a group of partisans.

The German surrender was signed in May but did not mean the end of the conflict, given that Japan remained fighting in the Pacific. The fight on that front was fierce and the government of USA with the argument of avoiding the prolongation of the conflict, decided to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two atomic bombs.

The bomb on Hiroshima was dropped on August 6, 1945, causing the instant death of around 70,000 people. The bomb on Nagasaki, dropped on August 9, killed around 40,000 people. To them were added tens of thousands of other victims due to the effects of radiation. The Japanese government announced its unconditional surrender on August 15, which was signed on September 2, 1945. This event ended the Second World War.

Movies about world wars

*Lawrence of Arabia* narrates events of the Arab revolt during World War I.

Some films about the First World War are:

Weapons on your shoulders! (1918)
The price of glory (1926)
hell's angels (1930)
All quiet on the front (1930)
The great illusion (1937)
the queen of africa (1951)
Paths of glory (1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
eternal love (2004)
The Red Baron (2008)
They won't grow old (2018)
All quiet on the front (2022)

Some films about World War II are:

The Great Dictator (1940)
Casablanca (1942)
Rome, open city (1945)
The bridge over the River Kwai (1957)
Twelve of the scaffold (1967)
patton (1970)
Torah! Torah! Torah! (1970)
the empire of the sun (1987)
Schindler's List (1993)
life is beautiful (1997)
The thin red line (1998)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
The pianist (2002)
The fall (2004)
The enigma code (2014)
To a man (2016)
Dunkirk (2017)

References

Hughes, T.A. & Royde-Smith, J.G. (2023). World War II. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
Showalter, D.E. & Royde-Smith, J.G. (2023). World War I Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
Stone, N. (2013). Brief history of World War I. Ariel.
Stone, N. (2013). Brief history of World War II. Ariel.