First World War Legacies

Because people have diverse goals, conflicts and hostilities frequently arise. If mediation is not initiated as soon as feasible, disputes brought on by divergent interests may escalate into physical altercations. There have been many conflicts throughout history, including the two world wars, the first of which lasted from 1914 to 1918 and the second from 1939 to 1945. A sequence of occurrences in Serbia sparked the start of the First World War. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was motivated by competing interests in Serbia. The assassination was as a result of disagreements and different ideologies over the ruling of the Empire. The war that erupted was between the allies, (Russia, France, and Britain) and the central powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). The impacts of the war left a huge mark on the subsequent decisions made by the Western allies such as the appeasement strategy.

One of the legacies of the First World War is the fact that, there was an extraordinary destruction of humanity. Millions of both combatants and noncombatants died during the war. There was also collateral damage to a great scale as the war involved the use of bombs, chemical weaponry as well as types of machinery such as tankers and guns. The subsequent actions undertaken by the Western allies as well as the resulting appeasement strategy developed in the early 1930s were to a greater extent impacted by the war. The decisions were made following the experiences of the events of the war.

The development of the cold war is as a result of the legacies of the First World War. The First World War catalyzed the transformation of Russia into the USSR (Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic) World War. The USSR developed to be the first communist state in the world, and it later came to form the foundation of the cold war. The victors of the war included Russia and the United States. However, the two nations had different ideologies and that both of them wanted the recognition of being a superpower nation. As a result, the two western allies developed a cold war.

The appeasement after WWI happened as a result of the consequences of the war. In the strategy, Britain, Germany, France, and Italy made an agreement that Sudetenland was going to be returned to Germany and Germany was warned from taking any more territories. The appeasement made Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia hence breaking the terms of the agreement. The appeasement is one of the leading causes of the Second World War. Were it not for the appeasement the Second World War wouldn’t have happened.

The appeasement strategy was not logical as the decisions were made based on the hatred and the desire to destroy Germany in warfare. The decisions were also not reasonable as it had devastating impacts such as the eruption of the Second World War. The appeasement policy allowed Hitler to gain a clinch over Europe that ended with the Blitzing of London. Also, the British didn’t consider how appeasement would strengthen Hitler. Hitler occupied Poland and built his army, and by the time western allies realized, he had gone too far regarding military and territorial expansion.

In conclusion, therefore, the legacies of the First World War overshadowed the decisions made by the Western allies. The decisions such as the appeasement strategy were not logical as it allowed Hitler to establish himself firmly and stage the foundation of another war.

Bibliography

Goddard, Stacie E. “The rhetoric of appeasement: Hitler’s legitimation and British foreign policy, 1938–39.” Security Studies 24, no. 1 (2015): 95-130.

Goemans, Hein Erich. War and punishment: The causes of war termination and the First World War. Princeton University Press, 2012.

Hewitson, Mark. Germany and the causes of the First World War. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.

Strachan, Hew, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War: New Edition. Oxford University Press, 2014.