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There is often a discourse among military historians that the First and Second World Wars are one event or two different ones. On the one hand, historically significant events seem similar: one enemy the Germans, one coalition of resistance. On the other hand, there are different scales, types of warfare, and many other factors. The main task of this work is to identify and review the main differences between the two world wars.
World War II the War of Ideologies
The First World War was called imperialist and was a classic for all wars. Empires fought among themselves for the redistribution of influence. The young German Empire challenged conservative Great Britain, Russia, and France, wanting to acquire new lands and colonies. Adolf Hitler, in turn, fancied himself the liberator of Europe from the unclean races (Goossen 32). This war was going to be destroyed, and the most powerful economic systems opposed each other: the American-British, German, and Soviet.
The Speed of Warfare
Like the Second, the First World War was fought mostly in Europe. However, Hitlers Germany won only victories during the entire initial war. In just two years, the whole of Europe was captured. The countries of Western Europe sat in the trenches, and a protracted war of attrition began (Löschnigg 146). The tank army of Nazi Germany quickly overcame the European plains and moved forward. Rapid blows broke Poland, France, Yugoslavia, and other European countries. Kaiser Wilhelms Germany led much slower offensives, not having the same technologies that the Nazis had.
Technologies for Its Management
As mentioned above, technological progress in the 30 years between the wars has become an important aspect. The arsenal of the countries at the beginning of the war included new, fast tanks and large and light aircraft for all purposes. The infantry was equipped with submachine guns and large-caliber rifles and could move to the front on armored personnel carriers, motorcycles, and armored vehicles. The countries that fought in the First World War had only armored vehicles and light aircraft, which did not even have weapons and machine guns at the beginning of the war (Smith 35). The Germans believed that the flamethrower they had invented would ensure their victory.
Territorial Scale
At this point, I would like to touch on the undeservedly forgotten Pacific, African, Chinese, and Indochina fronts of the Second World War. The war in Africa and Asia was also present during the First World War; however, it ended there in a year. In 1940, the Japanese Empire signed the Berlin Pact and officially joined the Axis. The Japanese fought with brutality; their German allies were very far away (Mann 42). Japan and the USA staged the largest naval battles in history; the entire Pacific Ocean became a battlefield for four years. Only after the USSR entered the war, which managed to destroy a group of Japanese troops in China, and two nuclear strikes on Japanese cities from America, did Emperor Hirohito agree to negotiate Japans surrender. The Empire of the Rising Sun became the last country to capitulate in World War II. All this is very far from the First World War, in which the Asian front had a purely formal meaning.
Results of the Wars
Four empires collapsed after the First World War: Russian, Ottoman, German, and Austro-Hungarian. France, the United Kingdom, and the United States have finally established themselves as world leaders. The Potsdam Agreement and the Act of Surrender of Japan made the Axis countries forget about their former greatness forever. Moreover, now the whole of Eastern and Western Europe was under different forces: Anglo-Americans in the west and Soviets in the east. It has already led to the Cold War, and the world has been divided into two blocs for 46 years: pro-Soviet and pro-American.
Works Cited
Goossen, Benjamin W. Terms of Racial Endearment: Nazi Categorization of Mennonites in Ideology and Practice, 19291945. German Studies Review, vol. 44 no. 1, 2021, pp. 27-46.
Löschnigg, Martin. How to Tell the War? Trench Warfare and the Realist Paradigm in First World War Narratives. An International Journal of English Studies, vol. 27 no. 3, 2018, pp. 143-161.
Mann, Michael. Have Wars and Violence Declined? Theory and Society, vol. 47 no. 1, 2018, pp. 37-60.
Smith, Nick. A history of first world war technology in 11 objects. Engineering & Technology, vol. 13 no. 11, 2018, pp. 34-37.
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