Blog #15

The most obvious division was among competing states, a long standing feature of European political life. Historical rivalries further sharpened as both Italy and Germany joined their fragmented territories into two major new powers around 1870. Arrival on the international scene of a powerful and rapidly industrializing Germany, Germany was a disruptive new element in European political life, especially for the more established powers such as Britain, France, and Russia. In the early twentieth century, that balance of power was expressed in two rival alliances, the Triple Alliance of Germany, Italy, and Austro Hungarian Empire and the Triple Entente of Russia, France, Britain.  These two commitments undertook in the interests of national security transformed a relatively minor incident in the Balkans into a conflagration that consumed almost all of Europe.

In June 28,1914, when a Siberian nationalist assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Surging nationalism of Serbian Slavs was a mortal threat to the cohesion of their fragile multinational empire, which included other Slavic people. A system of alliances intended to keep the peace created obligated that drew the Great Powers of Europe into a general war by early August 1914. Slavic nationalism and Austro-Hungarian opposition to it certainly lied at the heart of the war’s beginning. Rulers of the major countries of Europe saw the world as an arena of conflict and competition among rival nation states.

The Great Powers competed intensely for colonies, spheres of influence, and superiority in armaments. School, mass media, and identities were profoundly and personally meaningful. Public pressure of these competing nationalism allowed statesmen little room for compromise and ensures widespread popular support for the decision to go to war. British women were encouraged to present a white feather, a symbol of cowardice, to men not in uniform, thus affirming a warrior understanding of masculinity. While the conservative governments, prospected the of war as a welcome occasion for national unity in the face of the mounting class and gender based conflicts in European societies.

Another contribution was an industrialized militarism. Europe’s armed rivalries had long ensured that military men enjoyed great social prestige and most heads of state wore uniforms in public. All Great Powers had substantial standing armies, except for Britain, relied on conscription to staff them. An example of a quickening rivalry among these states was a mounting arms race in naval warships, mostly between Germany and Britain.Each major state developed “war plans” that spelled out in great detail the movement of men and materials that should be occur immediately upon the outbreak of war. Rapid industrialization of warfare had generated an array of novel weapons, such as submarines, tanks, airplanes, poison gas, machine guns, and barbed wire. This new military technology contributed to the staggering casualties of the war. Majority were male.  The Ottoman Empire entered the conflict on the side of Germany which then became the site of military actions and witnessed an Arab revolt against Ottoman control. After initially seeking to avoid involvement in European quarrels, United States joined the war in 1917 when German submarines threatened the American shipping.

The war relentlessly went on for more than four years before ending in German defeat in November 1918. Trench warfare resulted when the military experts expected a war of movement and attack but then went down on the western front into a war attrition. This warfare resulted in an enormous amount of casualties while gaining or losing only a few yards of muddy, bloody soaked ground. Everywhere it became a “total war” requiring the mobilization of each country’s entire population. The German state assumed such control over the economy that its policies became known as “war socialism”. Therefore, propaganda campaigns sought to arouse citizens by depicting a cruel and inhuman enemy that killed children and violated women. Labor unions agreed to suspend strikes and make sacrifices while the women abandoned the factories since they were replacing the men for the vote.