The Great War

The Great War is also known as the World War 1 which was mainly experienced in Europe which began in 1914 and had a continued fight up to 1918. The war was mainly as a response to many crises that were being experienced by most of the European countries which most of them would have been easier to resolve if they were approached individually. To many people, the magnitude of the war seemed like it was the end of the world. It used weapons that caused massive destruction to the earth surface which made it look like the war would only end after the last life is lost. It began with the assassination of Austro-Hungarian throne and the monarchy responded with massive attacks to the suspected perpetrators. It was difficult to stop the war as it was mainly fueled by the ministries and not the simply the armed forces. The fight was basically a show of might and power and most naval and military leaders thought that a war would forcefully bring the desired change and send the intended message.

As it is observed today, war has never been a solution to any variation in opinion or seeking independent judgment. It never materialized even back then. The war only caused damage to property as the leaders failed to agree on resolving the problem through dialogue. The Great War remained with the same name for long as no one thought it would make sense having a similar experience in future. It was thought that the perpetrators had learnt from it having seen the kind of damage that required most of the economies to redraft their schemes to aid recovery using science and technology. However, this never came to be the case as the leaders were at it again fueling what came to be known as the Second World War. Before then no one had thought of keeping a chronological record of wars as it was thought they were dropped but Second World War led to the renaming of the Great War to First World War.

The unique feature of the Great War is that it involved at least two militaries from sovereign states. Before then, there used to be civil wars similar to those ones experienced in America. To talk of the Great War, one must not avoid mentioning Otto von Bismarck who so much involved in the war. He first participated in ensuring that the French Napoleon was powerless and after this war he partnered Austria-Hungary with Germany and later on with Russia forming what was commonly known as the three empires. They became so strong that they merely run Europe in their own terms.  Turkey later repelled these forces but the likes of Russia were too strong and Russia actually remained to control the whole of South Europe.

The first fallout came when German refused to honor the promise to support Austria-Hungary in the planned invasion of Serbia. This brought mistrust between the two allies and they started parting ways. Even as the war was raging in Europe, there were other spillover effects which led to conflicts in the African territories controlled by the European superpowers. This fuelled the mistrust between the different allies formed in Europe and the rush for the resources in Africa made it seem like an individualistic approach for each of the empires. The British and French forces in Africa fought the Germans considering that even back in Europe they also did not have such a strong relationship and were often at war though not as massive as it was in this case. As the war continued in Africa with the main aim being territorial protection so as to occupy more space for resource exploitation, there was a similar war in Europe.

Germany tried to attack France through Belgium as Belgium held neutral stand at this stage of the Great War.  The months of August and September, 1914 saw some of the fiercest attacks of the war with Germany and France occupying the centre stage of the war. There were heavy military attacks from Germany which went all the way to Paris. This was very oppressive to France and following this, French allies headed by Britain came in support of France. The combined force was too much for Germany to handle and so the Germans were quickly silenced by the coalition. At about the same period, Germany advanced to Russia and following a series of wars Russia was defeated. However, by this time more and more countries ganged up against Germany. Japan, New Zealand and Austria all set up themselves forcefully into German territories and they were very strong for Germany as the German allies had almost completely withdrawn their partnership.

Technological advance in most of the European regions had made it difficult to control the numerous wars that sprout with no warning signs. The use of machine guns, barbed wire and poisonous gas were the main methods used to attack opponents and also defend against unprecedented attacks. As time went by, there was the use of the tanks which made the attacks more destructive. From the same technology, Britain experienced its biggest bloodshed in 1 July 1916. Up to 19,240 of the British soldiers died that day with another 57,470 casualties from the same attacks.

During the numerous attacks, Italy used the defensive strategy of forming allies with both sides of the confrontations. Italian empire formed allies with France in 1902 which was helpful to France but as the threat of Germany was too much later on the Italians a formed an alliance with the Germans. This was a very effect defensive mechanism as the allies could not fight Italy. In fact Italy failed to commit its army in the wars as this would have broken the bond between Italy and the allies.

Just when technological advance was threatening to ruin the whole of Europe, with highly sophisticated war technology being developed, the events in 1917 marked the start of reversing the situation. It was at this time that the British blockade had begun showing serious impacts on the Germans who had seemed undefeatable. The French army literally refused to go to war reporting to camps drunk and with no weapons of war. Germany and her allies were still in for war but the other countries were slowly withdrawing from the war. Due to the persistence from Germany to continue the war, America tried to broker the situation and bring peace without oppression of any of the parties, Germany sunk seven American marine ships showing a strong sign of rebellion. It is after this stage that America declared war on Germany and although it was destructive, it helped the British, the French and other opponents to Germany to regenerate and face Germany with more power. This then continued until 1918 when the war ended around September. Peace treaties were later on signed and some of them have been useful up to the present day. Others have been revised but more amicable ways of resolving differences have been developed.

Conclusion

European alliances were the main cause of the Great War. There were two major power houses developed by these alliances and they proved that they could cost the world a lot if they were not formed with a mind set to bring positive change. Alliances formed around Germany and those formed around Britain and France were the main reason as to why the war was much persistent. Both camps could rely on support given by their allies and so even when they were uncertain of the outcome of the war they still could go into war backing on the support they would get from their allies. There was also a high tendency of using force back then while some of the differences would have been solved through dialogue and democracy. The strong hunger for power by most of the war lords made it difficult for anyone to seek peace whether forcefully or through dialogue. The leaders were unrelenting and could not see the value of human life as compared to their greed for power. However, from the destruction caused by the war, it ought to be the best learning tool to the present generation and even in future that war is only destructive and it can never give a solution to the differences experienced throughout humankind. People should seek better means of resolving the disputes such as dialogue and democracy to avoid a repeat of what happened during this Great War.