Tijdvak 9

The time of world-wars

On the 28th of June 1914 the Austrian arch-duke Franz Ferdinand was shot dead while going on a visit to Sarajevo by the Servian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. Austria-Hungary reacted by giving Servia an ultimatum where they stated that Austrian agents had the right to do research in Sarajevo. The Servians saw it as a threat to their rights and refused. Because of that, Austria-Hungary declared war on Servia. The murder of Franz Ferdinand was definitely the direct cause of the First world war, the actual reason for the war runs way deeper. Already since the end of the 19th century an arms race was occurring between Austria-Hungary and Servia because of imperialism and nationalism. The arms-race was already causing for some concern for the rest of Europe. Peace was being maintained by a complicated system of alliances, but when Austria-Hungary declared war on Servia, this system actually caused the war to spread even more throughout Europe. Russia backed Servia because it feared for the Austrian influence in the Balkan. After 4 years of grueling fighting, the first world war was over. After this horrifying experience of war for 4 years, people were relieved that it was over. Sadly, another tragedy like the first-world war was brewing. After the first-world war, the country of Italy was excited because of the fact that they were on the winning side, and of all the benefits that they would get. To their great disappointment they only got about a tenth of what they were promised. This angered the Italians and due to the fact that they had a very ineffective government at that time. This caused a certain man by the name Mussolini to begin preaching the idea of fascism. Mussolini used this fact to become the first fascist dictator. Under his command Italy occupied Ethiopia and Albania. At this time Germany was also recovering from the first world war, but unlike Italy they were on the losing side. Because of the Treaty of Versailles. They had to forfeit land, pay an insane amount to the Allies, and they couldn’t have a big army. Adolf Hitler had fought in the first world war himself and he definitely wasn’t happy with his country losing it. He promised to the German people that he would bring his country back to glory. After a failed coup against him he gained even more power, and he became a fascist dictator, just like Mussolini. And he went even farther than that. He reinstated the German army and declared the new goal of the German army to create more “lebensraum” for the arisian race. Also in Japan fascist ideas began sprouting among the common folk. In the first world war, they took over the German colonies in Asia. Already from 1938 they were already waging war against Korea and China. In China in 1938 the Marco-Polo bridge incident took place; the first fighting between Japanese and Chinese armies. Japan won this battle and took over even more parts of China. The three countries that have been stated to this point grouped together and formed the axis-powers. They had the same fascist beliefs, but more importantly they had the same enemies. After these countries made the “steel-pact”, they started the war and advanced on the allies. After this point and many years of grueling fighting, the allies finally reached Berlin and won the war.