WORLD WAR I

World War I - An Astonishing Revolution

World War I - An Astonishing Revolution

Introduction

First World War (August 1914-November 1918) arose out of the Eastern Question and the collapse of Ottoman power in Europe, as was shown by her defeat in the Balkan War of 1912. Austria-Hungary felt threatened by the vast increase in the size of Serbia and was given an opportunity to strike at her when the heir to the Habsburg throne was assassinated at Sarajevo (28 June 1914). In the July crisis which followed Germany pushed Austria into war. Russia had been humiliated in the Bosnian crisis of 1908 and felt bound to support Serbia (Todman 2005, p.210). Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August and on France, Russia's ally since the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1892-1894, on 3 August. Britain had guaranteed Belgian independence since 1839 and declared war on 4 August when Germany invaded Belgium.

The Allies — Russia, France, Britain and Serbia — were joined by Japan (1914), Italy (1915), Portugal and Romania (1916), the USA and Greece (1917). The Central Powers - Germany and Austria-Hungary — were supported by Turkey (1914) and Bulgaria (1915). The world premiere was a long war and intense violence. Companies have been fully mobilized for the war effort. The battles have been particularly deadly in part because of the use of artillery. The soldiers fought in trenches with harsh conditions. It is a war novel in many respects: an industrial war which saw the emergence and use of new weapons (tanks, planes). Nationalism has been exalted to follow through the sacrifices required by war. It is also the first genocide of the twentieth century against the Armenians (1915).

Discussion

Impact on Human Life

The consequences of the conflict in the long term are major: the soldiers had sustained heavy injuries in the fighting, war memorials were erected in memory of military combatants and civilians, Europe no longer dominates the world, then it owes that the United States emerge gradually. The Treaty of Versailles, presented as a diktat by many Germans, leaves unresolved territorial questions are often complex (Marshall 2002, p.81). The accompanying document states that the program must consider the conflict in its original aspect of the total violence that marked the twentieth century and focus on highlighting its main characteristics: its total aspect and the "brutalization" of human relationships it was involved (as the neologism "savagery" would have done better understand).

The first genocide of the century, the Armenians, violence against civilians (like the French and especially the French region of Lille who were deported to East Prussia) must also find its place in the presentation of the professor. All of the proposed sequence, while keeping a strict time frame, wants to put into perspective the work on the violence of war, the mobilization of companies (how soldiers could they take four years in a war of a kind new and intense and unprecedented violence?). The general problem of the sequence is: how Europe between does in "the era of ...