World Wars I & II: Dates, Warfare, and Holocaust Key Concepts

World War I Date

28 July 1914 - 11 November 1918.

Treaty of Versailles Date

Signed 28 June 1919 (political settlement with long-term ramifications).

World War II Date

1 September 1939 - 2 September 1945.

Continuity in warfare method

Mass mobilisation, total-war economies, national conscription; enduring primacy of logistics and industrial capacity.

Change in warfare

Transition from attritional, linear warfare (WWI) to manoeuvre-centric, combined-arms and strategic air/armoured operations (WWII).

WWI weaponry

Machine guns, bolt-action rifles, massed artillery, poison gas, trench systems — produced tactical stalemate and attrition.

Interwar innovations

Mechanisation, radio communications, close air support doctrines, motorised logistics and combined-arms theory (Blitzkrieg conceptualised).

WWII weaponry

Widespread use of tanks in deep operations, aircraft for strategic bombing and close support, submarines (U-boat campaigns), radar, more effective combined-arms integration, early ballistic/nuclear modalities at war's end.

Tactical influence in WWI

Battles (Somme, Verdun) shaped by artillery-dominated attrition.

Tactical influence in WWII

Battles (Kursk, Normandy) shaped by operational manoeuvre, air supremacy, and logistics.

Civilian impact in warfare

Escalation from collateral damage to deliberate strategic targeting (area bombing, firestorms), mass evacuation, conscription of labour, home-front rationing.

Trench conditions

Narrow, excavated systems (front-line, support, reserve) with parapets, duckboards and drainage; endemic mud, poor sanitation, overcrowding.

Micro-hazards in trenches

Trench foot (prolonged immersion), dysentery, lice infestations, vermin (rats), and constant shell-crater churn.

Psychological effects of trench warfare

Chronic stress, "front-line neuroses" (shell shock), erosion of morale through static, punctuated terror from barrages.

Operational effects of trench warfare

Limited manoeuvre, costly small-scale raids, heavy reliance on coordinated artillery barrages; incremental gains at disproportionate human cost.

Tactical adaptations in trenches

Creeping barrage, improved tunnelling/mining, specialised stormtroop tactics (late WWI).

Social adaptations in trenches

Trench culture produced informal hierarchies, improvised economies, and resilient camaraderie that mitigated—but did not eliminate—psychological attrition.

Dolchstoßlegende

Post-WWI "stab-in-the-back" mythologising national betrayal; politicised grievance that Nazis exploited.

Treaty of Versailles impact

Reparations and humiliation narratives fuelled radical nationalism and antisemitic scapegoating.

Nazi Party ideology

Core includes racial antisemitism, ethno-nationalism, Führerprinzip; ascendance culminates in state-sponsored racial policy from 1933 onward.

Adolf Hitler

Architect/politician associated with Nazi Germany.

Heinrich Himmler

SS leader responsible for the administration of the Final Solution.

Joseph Goebbels

Nazi propaganda minister.

Reinhard Heydrich

Key figure in the coordination of the Wannsee Conference.

Adolf Eichmann

Logistics officer for the deportation of Jews.

Nuremberg Laws

Racist laws enacted in 1935 that institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology.

Kristallnacht

Night of broken glass on November 9-10, 1938, marking a significant escalation of anti-Jewish violence.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

Treblinka

Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland.

Sobibor

Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland.

Belzec

Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland.

Chelmno

First Nazi extermination camp where gas vans were used.

Majdanek

Nazi concentration and extermination camp located in Poland.

Einsatzgruppen

Mobile killing units responsible for mass shootings of Jews and others.

Wannsee Conference

Meeting held in January 1942 to plan the Final Solution.

Death toll of the Holocaust

Approximately 6 million Jewish victims and roughly 11 million total victims of Nazi persecution.

Nuremberg Trials

Series of military tribunals held after World War II to prosecute prominent leaders of Nazi Germany.

Japanese expansionism

Invasion of Manchuria in 1931 leading to a full-scale war in China from 1937.

Pearl Harbor

Attack on December 7, 1941, that led to the US entering World War II.

Fall of Singapore

Decisive British defeat on February 15, 1942, resulting in large POW populations.

Atomic bombs

Dropped on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945), leading to Japan's surrender.

Island-hopping campaigns

Military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific during World War II.

Repetition and simple tropes

Core propaganda techniques involving slogans and basic messaging.

Bureaucratic mechanisms of propaganda

Dedicated ministries and state surveillance used to enforce message discipline.

Normalization of atrocity

Process by which horrific acts become accepted in society through propaganda.