There is an easy historical perspective that operates on the most plausible explanations and the complex historiographical perspective that takes a deeper look at events to arrive at what really happened. Over twenty million people died in the Great War, later named the First World War, hence it is not enough to blame a gun-toting youngster who happened to shoot a Duke dead. Instead, it is important to look deeper at the underlying events to understand why the seemingly docile and friendly world exploded soon after the fatal shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Further, the entry of the USA into the fray changed not only the outcome of the war but also most of the history of the 20th century, including the advent of the Second World War and the Cold War. Why America joined the war and why they did so at some point in time is also an important aspect of history. The instant essay looks at the issues about the Great War that is not common knowledge and events that are commonly known based on the concept that there is always a history behind the history.
One of the principal causes of the Great War was nationalism based on pride in the individual nations amongst the greatest nation on earth. During the Dark Ages, all of Europe united around the Roman Catholic Church to fight against the barbarians as well as the Muslims. When the war was won, the great European powers developed national identities and sought to outdo each other. Several attempts were made by different powers to be the best in the world. By the advent of the 20th century, Russia, The Byzantine Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other European powers had a nationalistic approach mainly based on ethnicity (Roe, 2015). Yet the Slavs, a powerful ethnic block was cut up and spread across many of these Empires and Kingdoms. It is in the 19th century that the Slavs began to work on their own nationalism, seeking to establish themselves as a unified kingdom. The death of Archduke Ferdinand was indeed a direct result of Slavic nationalism.
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Most of this power was vested in the militarization of this great powers. The UK, for example, believed it had the greatest Navy in the world, the Russians had arguably the largest Armies while the Germans believed they had the best-equipped land forces (Roe, 2015). Fear is a great preventer of wars and militarization eliminated fears and even made European powers eager to engage one another. Imperialism had a major effect on the advent of competitiveness in Europe as well as the cause of the eagerness to fight what led to the advent of the war. Most of the European powers were seeking to expand as much as possible, both within Europe and in their intercontinental satellites in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In Asia, the Europeans were pushing east and the Japanese were also embracing imperialism and pushing west, leading to events such as the Chinese Boxer Rebellion (Roe, 2015). Thus, imperialism caused the aforementioned European powers to have well trained and vastly experienced armies since there were always wars within the colonies. These colonies also provided fighting resources and men whom the European powers were eager to use. Finally, at the advent of the 20th century, an incident in Morocco created friction between Germany on the one part and France alongside the UK on the other (Mulligan, 2017). This was just one of the major colonial disputes between the European powers which unfortunately maintained a smoldering enmity between them, awaiting an explosion.
Nationalism, imperialism, and militarism created the background for the advent of the war. It was, however, the formation of treaty-based alliances that led to the advent of the real war (Roe, 2015). Indeed, it would be accurate to state that if there were no solid alliances, the war might never have happened. Each of the European powers seemed to have an alliance with another. The Russians had an alliance with the British and the British had an alliance with the French (Mulligan, 2017). Those were the secondary alliances. The primary alliances were that Austria-Hungary had an alliance with the Kaiser led Germany and the Serbians had an alliance with the Tsar led Russia. At the very moment when the war could have been stemmed, the Kaiser left on a cruise in his yacht. In his absence, Austria-Hungary issued an impossible ultimatum to Serbia, then marched soon after. The Russians responded, based on an existing treaty-based alliance with Serbia (Mulligan, 2017). This compelled Germany to intervene for Austria-Hungary which roped in the UK on behalf of Russia and France on behalf of the UK. In a very short duration, a World War was already taking shape.
The United States of America is one of the most ethnically diverse nations on earth since its indigenous population forms a very small minority of its populace. The rest came from a wide cross-section of European, Asian and African countries. As indicated above, among the major causes of the Great War was nationalism based on ethnic identities. Most of these ethnic identities were well represented in the US. As the Great War commenced, the American President Woodrow Wilson issued a Declaration of Neutrality (Becket, 2014). He indicated inter alia that the ethnic diversity in the USA represented the different fronts fighting in the Great War including the British, Germans, French and the Poles. Many of the non-British were fresh immigrants who had at least a parent born in their native countries. Therefore, if the USA was to get involved, there was a possibility that Americans might side with their respective ethnicities within the war, leading to civil war or even tearing up the American society. Further, there was a large, rich, and powerful Jew population in the USA who would have a problem fighting for the allies since the Tsar had denied Jews Civil rights in Russia (Becket, 2014).
Eventually, the USA was so terribly provoked that its neutrality was no longer tenable. In all fairness, however, it is important to also state that in spite of America’s neutrality, its material and industrial contribution in the allied war effort stood in the way of any German victory (Becket, 2014). Therefore, the Germans in January 1917 decided to use their submarines to indiscriminately sink ships in the Atlantic, whether or not they flew the American flag. In March 1917 five American ships were sunk by German naval forces. Americans could no longer remain neutral and declared war on the side of the allies and against the alliance on the second day of April 1917.
It would be understandable for the Germans not to have anticipated the impact of the American entry into the war when they provoked them. The Americans had not been seen actively engaging in wars for some time and just a few centuries before were just a motley collection of rebelling British colonies. This impact was, however, so monumental that in a very short time after the Americans actively entered the war, it was clear which side was winning. Among the key contributions of the Americans was in their industrial might which was unmatched. Powerful weapons and artillery devices, transport facilities and other amenities were provided by Americans in unmatched quantities (Blum & Eloranta, 2016). Secondly, the Western European theatre was almost at a stalemate with both sides deeply dug into the trenches. The Americans poured in tens of thousands of new and well-trained soldiers into this trenches creating a massive advantage against the Germans. Finally, food is among the most important contributions to the war and the Americans provided the same in abundance (Blum & Eloranta, 2016).
The massive impact of America’s entry into the war leading to the end of the war is also marked as the beginning of America’s identity as a superpower (Ebeling, 2010). This superpower unfortunately immediately got into the heads of the Woodrow Wilson presidency. Among the most important qualities at the end of any war is magnanimity and President Wilson clearly lacked the same. The Great War’s end was marked by the execution of the treaty of Versailles where American dominance and Germany’s decline were prominently established (Blum & Eloranta, 2016). Alongside Germany on the list of nations humiliated and inconvenienced by aforementioned treaty was the Byzantine Empire which eventually collapsed, and The Empire of Japan which felt shortchanged.
The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles were both prohibitive and punitive to countries such as Germany and would have required a strong force to enforce them (Ebeling, 2010). This force was to be established through the League of Nations, superintended by the winners of the First World War. All this was spearheaded by President Woodrow Wilson and perhaps may have succeeded had the force necessary to keep the defeated alliance been put in place. Unfortunately, President Wilson, albeit able to sell and/or force the Treaty of Versailles upon most of the losers and winners in the war could not manage to sell the same at home in America (Blum & Eloranta, 2016). In the end, America neither ratified the aforesaid treaty nor joined the League of Nations. The absence of War, therefore, did not result in the presence of speech and the world slowly degenerated into another war that was so cataclysmic that it caused the title of Great War untenable when referring to the First World War.
References
Beckett, I. F. (2014). The Great War: 1914-1918 . New York: Routledge.
Blum, M., & Eloranta, J. (2016). The economics of total war and reconstruction, 1914–1922. The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914-1945 , 97-119
Ebeling, R. M. (2010, July 09). Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's great blunder led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and World War II . Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://fee.org/articles/wilsons-war-how-woodrow-wilsons-great-blunder-led-to-hitler-lenin-stalin-and-world-war-ii/
Mulligan, W. (2017). The Origins of the First World War (Vol. 52). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
Roe, J. (2015). Into the Abyss: The origins of the First World War . Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/11761305/Into_the_Abyss_The_Origins_of_the_First_World_War
