The Great Wars

The Great Wars were a global-scale event that impacted greatly how the modern world is. But most people don’t know in detail about how the Great Wars happened, how they developed and eventually how they turned out to affect the modern world.

Most people don’t know about how World War I happened and transcured, being centered on the more influential World War II

## World War I

World War I came out of a very tense period of time at the start of the 20th century. It was a very scary  situation to be in. Generally speaking, most people were stressed about how it would turn out for everyone at the end of the period. It all came down to political and economical complications for the center of the world for power, Europe.

It all exploded as a European war when a Bosnian-Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand from Austria during a visit to Sarajevo (June 28th, 1914), which eventually led to a chain of events that culminated in World War I, the first Great War. The war in Europe lasted 4 years from 1914 to 1918.

The war eventually divided into two sides, the Allies, composed of countries like Serbia, Russia, Britain, Italy and the United States and the Central Powers composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. The instability of the Balkans was one of the factors of why this conflict grew to a global scale. The major conflict of the war was that the Austrian government blamed the Serbian government for the attack that killed the archduke.

The war also was one of the most destructive, with the addition of the new more destructive guns and modern warfare machinery that came with the Industrial Revolution. This eventually led to the Great War of Europe that culminated with the defeat of the Central Powers by the side of the Allies.

### Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was an agreement between all the countries involved in World War I, made to guarantee global peace. It was made with the intention of being a declaration of peace for future generations, with the League of Nations, being the main enforcer of international peace according to the Treaty. It wanted to prevent any other conflicts from any country possible.

### The League of Nations

The League of Nations was the organization responsible for making the reforms of the Treaty of Versailles happen. It was an assembly composed of the countries that participated in World War I, it was supposed to maintain world peace in the world between its members. And to become a world-helping organization that would seal a better world for everyone.

This brilliant idea was put into action on January 10th, 1920. But later, it stopped working after the Japanese conquest of Pacific Islands grew exponentially, and the Nazi party in Germany started a raid and later and invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939. which led to the start of the second world war by the next day (September 2nd, 1939).

## World War II

### Hitler and the Jews

The Jews are a very important part of the background and context for World War II. It was a very concentrated hate over the Jews that the Nazi German supporters had before the war, that they tortured, enslaved and even straight out killed Jew people during the war. It is a very horrifying aspect of the war. Which was endorsed by the Nazis and Hitler.

The Jew massacre in concentration camps is because of one thing: Nazi Nationalism. When World War I ended, the German people became impoverished and the country’s economy started to crumple, and after the Great Depression of 1920, it collapsed. The Nazi party in Germany blamed this loss of stability on the Jews. In fact, the Nazis blamed all the problems the world had on the Jews. That’s why they tortured them in concentration camps before and during the war..

### The Holocaust (1933-1945)

The Holocaust was the great hunting of Jewish people during the second great war. This hunting was being put to action by Nazi Germany and Hitler, which ended up in the famous Jew famine, and stories like Anne Frank emerged after their remaining possessions where found years later. The event was a huge massacre over the course of the 30's-40's and the results were catastrophic for the millions of Jews that had previously established in Germany, and Europe in general.

### Invasion of Poland (September 1st, 1939)

The second world war officially started on September 1st of 1939. It was started when Nazi Germany invaded and immediately annexed former polish territories near the east German border such as West Prussia, Poznan, Upper Silesia and the city of Danzig (which was previously a German city before the first world war, later given to Poland after the Treaty of Versailles). This alerted the international community and the League of Nations, and eventually led to the uprising of German growth of territory by conquering land from surrounding countries, and the start of World War II.

This started, just as World War I, as a European war over an unexpected conflict, only that this time it was intentionally convicted by a nation. To protect itself from danger from power like the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France and possibly even the United States (That wasn’t originally interested in participating in the war), Germany controlled by the Nazis and its political leader, Adolf Hitler had to create relationships of friendship to protect itself from invasions from all sides.

Germany did this by establishing relationships with countries supportive of Hitler and its mission of “Making Germany great again”, this thanks to the failing economy and the uprising of nationalism in Germany which led to the election of Hitler as the German leader.

The relationships Germany made to protect itself were with the fascist Italy (or the fascist Italian regime), with a newly formed fascist government led by Benito Mussolini and with the Japanese leader; Emperor Showa (Hirohito).

The Italian relationship granted Germany protection from the south. The Japanese alliance brought defense from the Pacific Ocean, although it didn’t shield Germany very much from land attacks, and the allies could still access from the Atlantic Ocean, the Danish straits and the Soviet Union. And the north was controlled by Germany, as they had just conquered and occupied the Scandinavian peninsula on the side of Norway (Sweden continued neutral). That’s how the Germans could concentrate entirely on the Northern, Western and Eastern fronts, and forget the more vulnerable southern front. These alliances became the Axis Powers.

> **"Poland is not yet lost"** - National Polish Anthem
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### Blitzkrieg (1940)

By this point of the war, Germany had conquered Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium and France (By going around the Maginot Line), like that having secured the Northern front and having gained control over a bit of the western front by conquering the western line of France by famously going around the Maginot line through Belgium.

### Pearl Harbor (December 7th, 1941)

The Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack on the United States’ naval base of Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii by the Imperial Japanese Air Force (formally the Navy Air Service), which included the Kamikaze pilots. The United States was a neutral country by the time of the attack, since America thought that this was a European war, and that it wasn’t their business. The attack was the main reason why the U.S. entered the war, and started the Pacific Showdown against Japan.

### D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge (1944-1945)

#### D-Day

D-Day, also known as the Normandy Landings was an Allied invasion of the German-controlled Normandy (in France), this was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The invasion also started the liberation of France, and later of Western Europe and helped the allies win the battle on the western front. They reconquered the Normandy region and pulled the German army back, as well as giving France some of its lost territory back.

#### Battle of the Bulge

After the D-Day invasion, the Allies got out of Normandy and advanced towards Germany through Belgium and France. Hitler wanted to stop the Allies from getting closer to mainland Germany, so he deployed a surprise Blitzkrieg with several armored divisions put into the Ardennes with the hope of breaking through allied lines. Later, both sides found themselves on the Ardennes and started a battle that lasted six weeks. Germany didn’t have enough resources for battling for this much time, which made the Germans back out from the battle and from the allied strategy of bulging the armed line and not breaking with thousands of reinforcements deployed into the area.

## The End of World War II

After the D-Day invasion, Germany was pulled back to its mainland, with allied powers advancing through Europe rapidly. Throughout the following months, the allied powers started to break the axis lines and enter Germany. The USSR won the battle on the eastern front and also entered the German mainland. On May 8th, 1945 the news of Germany’s surrender reached the world. Crowds of people gathered to celebrate on the streets and newspapers across the world announced the allied victory over the axis powers.

### Nukes and the Manhattan Project

Across all of the war, the United States with the support of the UK and Canada gathered various of the most brilliant minds of the time, such as *Edward Teller, Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi* and the undirect help of *Albert Einstein*, which said a couple of quotes about the nukes that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This project was called the **Manhattan Project**, which is owed to have produced the first nukes (Little Boy and Fat Man). These nukes where dropped in Japan to completely end the war after Germany's surrender in May, 1945.

The first nuke was dropped in the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945 at 8:15 am. The nuke was called "Little Man" and it was dropped on Hiroshima via Enola Gay, a B-29 Bomber that took of from the pacific island of Tinian, on the Northern Mariana Islands. The second nuke was dropped the same day (August 6th, 1945) in the city of Nagasaki. The original target for the second nuke, which the USA called "Fat Man" was the city of Kokura, though thanks to weather problems, and the fog on the atmosphere, Kokura was spared due to weather problems. Thanks to this, they moved the bomb to the secondary target, Nagasaki. Fat Man was dropped in Nagasaki on August 6th, 1945 at 11:02 am. The bomb was dropped from the B-2 Bomber; Bockscar.

Later that year, in 1945, United States president Harry Truman announced Japan’s surrender (thanks to the nukes), and the subsequent end of World War II. The news spread across the globe and the global population celebrated the allied victory. With the formal surrender documents being signed aboard the USS Missouri, and marking the end of the Great Wars on September 2nd, 1945.

## The United Nations

The United Nations was formed after the end of WWII, it was a much better version of the League of Nations, this time counting with the United States’ support. And the Declaration by the United Nations was signed by more than 47 nations after the war to secure global peace.

Various other organizations like NATO, or the European Union were formed in the aftermath of the second world war too, and much of modern-day society has been centered around the changes the war came with.

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Albert Einstein said this quotes about the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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**"I made one great mistake in my life, when I signed a letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made"**

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**"I don't know with which weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"**

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