BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS

World War I (1916- 1918)

• It involved all the world’s great powers which were assembled in two opposing alliances:

  – the Allies (France, the British Empire, Russia and later, Japan, Italy and the United States)

  – and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey)).

• Until World War II, it was often called the Great War because it was the most destructive and widespread war the world had ever seen.

• It was a war fought in trenches all over Europe.

• It was modern war fought with aeroplanes, machine guns and tanks, but the commanders often behaved as if it were a 19th-century war.

• They marched their troops across open land to be slaughtered by the machine guns.

• The use of poison gas added to the horrors of the war.

• Two great battles fought on the Western Front in 1916, the Battle of Verdun the Battle of the Somme alone, claimed nearly two million lives

The effects of WWII

• World War I ended in 1918, leading to 38 million deaths, a worldwide economic depression, and political upheavals that set the stage for World War II in 1939.

• World War II was a global conflict from 1939 to 1945, triggered by Adolf Hitler's expansionist aims in an unstable Germany.

• World War II caused around 60 million deaths worldwide.

• The war's end led to the collapse of European imperialism due to weakened political and economic power.

• During the 1930s, numerous European intellectuals , fled to America to escape Nazi persecution.