A Comparative Study: World War I, World War II, and the American Civil War

Posted on Aug 16, 2024 in History

The Great War (World War I)

Causes of World War I

• Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (immediate cause)
• Alliances
• Militarism
• Nationalism
• Imperialism

Alliances

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed at the end of World War I. It officially ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles.

Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points

The Fourteen Points were proposals made on January 8, 1918, by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to create a new world order morally defensible for the Triple Entente that could be the basis for peace negotiations with the Central Powers.

Trench Warfare

Trench warfare is a type of fighting where both sides built trenches as a defense against the enemy. By the end of 1914, both sides had built elaborate trench systems that stretched from the North Sea to Switzerland.

Impact of World War I

Countries That Disappeared:

• Russian Empire
• Ottoman Empire
• Bosnia
• Serbia
• Austria-Hungary
• German Empire
• Montenegro

Countries That Changed:

• Great Britain
• Romania
• Germany
• France
• Austria
• Hungary
• Italy

Countries Created:

• Turkey
• Syria
• Iraq
• Lebanon
• Cyprus
• Iran
• Yugoslavia
• Hungary
• Austria
• Czechoslovakia
• Danzig
• Albania
• Ireland
• Poland
• Lithuania
• Latvia
• Estonia
• Finland

Wilson’s Fourteen Points in Detail

1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.
9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
10. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
11. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
12. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.
14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

The American Civil War (1861-1865)

Causes of the Civil War

• Slavery
• Sectionalism and the Cotton Trade
• Territorial Crisis
• Nationalism and Honor
• Protectionism
• Slave Power and Free Soil
• National Elections
• Lincoln’s Election

The Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. In a single stroke, it changed the legal status, as recognized by the United States federal government, of 3 million slaves in the designated areas of the South from “slave” to “free.”

The Missouri Compromise

The Missouri Compromise was a federal statute in the United States that regulated slavery in the country’s western territories. The compromise, devised by Henry Clay, was agreed to by the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress and passed as a law in 1820. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north, except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. The passage of the Missouri Compromise took place during the presidency of James Monroe.

Manifest Destiny

In the 19th century, Manifest Destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that American settlers were destined to expand throughout the continent.

World War II

Causes of World War II

• Hitler’s Actions
• Treaty of Versailles
• Failure of Appeasement
• Failure of the League of Nations

Alliances

(Information about the alliances of World War II was not provided in the original text.)