what aspects of europes nineteenth-century history contributed to the first world war

Download Article

Introduction

The Get-go World State of war was a calamity for Federal republic of germany and Europe. The Second World War was an fifty-fifty bigger cataclysm for Germany and Europe. But without both World Wars at that place would exist no European Marriage (Eu) today. The Eu has provided the essential infrastructure to bargain with 'the German language Question' – the office of the largest and nearly powerful state in Europe. When Europeans commemorate the Nifty War of 1914-18 this summer they should be reflecting non only on the diplomatic blunders and the enormous waste of lives just also the start of a new approach to international relations epitomised by the Eu.

The First Globe War destroyed empires, created numerous new nation-states, encouraged independence movements in Europe's colonies, forced the United States to get a earth power and led straight to Soviet communism and the rise of Hitler. Diplomatic alliances and promises fabricated during the First World War, especially in the Middle Eastward, besides came dorsum to haunt Europeans a century later. The rest of power approach to international relations was broken but non shattered. It took the Second World State of war to bring about sufficient political forces to commence on a revolutionary new arroyo to inter-land relations.

Afterwards both wars Europe was exhausted and devastated. The departure was that the second major internecine war in Europe in a generation led to a profound change in political thinking, at least in Western Europe, about how states should acquit their relations. Dice Stunde Null was the backdrop to the revolutionary ideas of the EU'due south 'founding fathers,' statesmen such as Robert Schuman, Alcide De Gasperi, Jean Monnet who developed the novel idea of a community of states establishing a political system based on sharing sovereignty. This organisation has brought many benefits to Europeans just in recent years the organisation has been nether challenge by the rise of Euroscepticism, populism and nationalism. As Europe reflects on the titanic struggle of 1914-18 it is important to recall the advances made since 1945 through European integration and redouble efforts to combat nationalist and extremist forces.

Responsibility for the Great War remains hotly debated today with very different dimensions of the war accentuated past the diverse combatants. What is incontestable, nevertheless, is the number of advances in science, applied science and medicine, too as the revolutionary changes in social behaviour that occurred as a result of the 1914-18 disharmonize. The aristocracy was overthrown or its role greatly macerated. The socialist and labour movements seized the opportunity to make considerable advances; simply so also did communism and fascism.  Germany was at the centre of both failed experiments and was unable to achieve a peaceful unification as a autonomous country until 1990. But Germany's neighbours accept not forgotten Germany's function in both World Wars and hence the burden of history weighs more than heavily on German language shoulders than for any other nation in Europe. Yet Germany has dealt with Vergangenheitsbewältigung better than any land in history; certainly much ameliorate than Japan or the Soviet Marriage/Russia. Europeans should dissimilarity and compare today'south Germany with that in 1914 or 1939 when they await dorsum on the ii baleful wars of the twentieth century. Today's Germany, embedded in the EU, is the virtually successful, progressive, democratic state in its entire history. All Europeans thus have a stake in the connected success of the EU every bit information technology provides a safe anchor for the most powerful country in Europe.

This paper considers how the 1914-18 state of war led to cardinal changes in European politics, economics and club, paving the fashion later on 1945 for a celebrated new way of dealing with inter-state relations in Europe. It suggests that the horrors of the Great War remain alive in Europe today and colour the reluctance of virtually Europeans to resort to war to achieve political ends. Information technology argues that the process of European integration has been extremely benign to Germany and that the German Question may finally be put to rest.

Who caused the state of war?

Office of the debate in today's Europe almost Frg goes back to the origins of both earth wars. Many believe that considering of Germany'south role in both World Wars it is too big to human action as an independent nation land and has to be embedded in structures such as the Eu and NATO for its own good. Thousands of books have been written about the 1914-18 conflict with many seeking to apportion responsibility for the outbreak of war. The renowned German historian, Fritz Fischer, caused a sensation in the 1960s when he published a volume Griff nach der Weltmacht claiming that Germany was primarily responsible for starting the state of war equally information technology had clandestine ambitions to annex most of Europe. In more recent times, historians such as Margaret Macmillan The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abased Peace for the First World War and Christopher Clark The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 have adopted more nuanced arguments. Macmillan agrees that Federal republic of germany should behave much of the responsibility every bit it had the ability to put pressure on its Austria-Hungary marry and stop the drift to war. Clark argues that Germany, similar the other major powers, slumber-walked into the war. Another famous historian, Neil Ferguson, has argued in The Pity of State of war that Britain should not have go involved as the stakes were too low and the ultimate costs too high.

What is perhaps more interesting is how the major powers involved have presented different narratives about their involvement in the Great State of war. In Germany the shame of the Nazi period including the Holocaust has meant that at that place has been petty appetite to reflect well-nigh the 1914-18 conflict. For Russian federation, it is has always been the heroism and sacrifice of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 that remain uppermost in the national psyche rather than the disasters of the Offset Globe State of war, including defeat and revolution. President Putin has recently lamented the changes after the Outset Earth State of war that left millions of Russian speakers in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine. The state of war also means different things to the constituent parts of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austria looks back with regret tinged with nostalgia for its celebrity days. Hungary still finds it difficult to accept the injustice of the Treaty of Trianon. Czechoslovakia gained its independence merely to be swallowed up by Federal republic of germany xx years subsequently. France views the war equally a tragic but massive endeavour to save the motherland from Les Boches. The Get-go Earth War certainly plays better in the French national memory than the defeat in 1940 followed past occupation and collaboration. For Britain, the 2nd World War was the 'good state of war' whereas the rights and wrongs of Britain's participation in the Kickoff Globe War were less clear - and are still debated today.  Each year millions of Britons clothing red poppies to commemorate Armistice Day and hold memorial services around state of war memorials on which the names of the dead in the First World State of war vastly outnumber those of the 2d.

The controversies nearly the causes, strategies and consequences of the Slap-up War remain matters of gimmicky concern. In March 2014, the British pedagogy secretary, Michael Gove, tried to repossess this year'south commemorations for those for whom the war was a merely crusade fought for liberal values. He complained that for too long the conflict had been portrayed as a series of catastrophic mistakes past an aristocratic elite. The impact of the 2 world wars has been such that in other parts of the world politicians have been competing to draw analogies. At the World Economical Forum in Davos in February 2014, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speculated that the Sino-Japanese territorial disputes over tiny rocky islands in the East China Sea might be analogous to the various crises that led to the outbreak of the First Globe State of war. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and former US Secretarial assistant of State Hillary Clinton both likened Russian President Vladimir Putin's annexation of the Crimea to Nazi Deutschland'due south looting of the quondam Czechoslovakia in 1938.

More recently Putin has spoken of the demand to protect indigenous Russian minorities in the former Soviet republics including Ukraine. But Hitler had a geopolitical vision – the domination of Europe – and the reunification of German-speaking peoples was merely the means by which he could acquire the critical mass needed to attain that geopolitical end-state. Putin appears to want to restore Russia to a primal global position in international politics, something the former Soviet Wedlock enjoyed for much of the mail service-World War II era. It does not hateful, however, that Putin seeks to restore the former Soviet empire. Surprisingly Putin's actions have found more than sympathy in Deutschland than other European countries with at least two old Chancellors expressing understanding for Moscow'south deportment. German public stance also seems to show more than forgiveness to Russia's deportment than in other European countries, perhaps reflecting some latent war guilt. Although politicians frequently use historical analogies to describe an unfolding situation it does non mean that analogical reasoning is non fraught with potential dangers. It is important to note that each state of affairs is unique although some unscrupulous political leaders often exploit these opportunities for their ain ends.

The changes resulting from the Start World War

The human cost of the Outset World War was horrendous. More than than 16 million people, both military and civilian, died in the war. An entire generation of immature men was wiped away. In 1919, the year after the state of war was over in French republic, there were fifteen women for every homo between the ages of 18 and 30. It is tragic to consider all of the lost potential, all of the writers, artists, teachers, inventors and leaders that were killed in 'the state of war to end all wars.' But although the touch of the Get-go Earth State of war was hugely destructive it also produced many new developments in medicine, warfare, politics and social attitudes.

The Get-go World War changed the nature of warfare. Engineering science became an essential element in the art of war with airplanes, submarines, tanks all playing important new roles. Mass production techniques adult during the war for the edifice of armaments revolutionised other industries in the mail-state of war years. The beginning chemical weapons were also used when the Germans used poisonous gas at Ypres in 1915. A century afterward the international community was seeking to prohibit President Assad of Syria from using chemical weapons against his own people. The Peachy War likewise led to mass armies based on conscription, a novel concept for Britain, although not on the continent. It is ironic that the principle of universal military service was introduced in Britain without the adoption of universal developed male suffrage. The war also saw the first propaganda films, some designed to assist enlist US back up for the Allies. The Charlie Chaplin motion-picture show Shoulder Arms offers a bright illustration of the horrors of life at the front. Propaganda films would later on exist perfected under the Nazis.
Modernistic surgery was born in the Kickoff World War, where civil and military machine hospitals acted as theatres of experimental medical intervention. Millions of veterans survived the war only were left maimed, mutilated and disfigured. These were the so-called 'cleaved faces' whose plight was frequently eased by the development of skin grafts. Claret banks were developed later the discovery in 1914 that claret could be prevented from clotting. The Outset World War also led doctors to start to report the emotional every bit opposed to the physical stress of war. Crush shock and traumatic daze were identified as common symptoms. But despite these insights and countless more sufferers in the Second World War, it was not until the aftermath of the Vietnam War that this condition was formally recognised equally postal service-traumatic stress disorder. Information technology was also establish in troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and was oft cited as a cause for many gun killings in the U.s..

The war also had major implications for the class structures in Europe. The upper classes suffered proportionately greater losses in the fighting than any other course, a fact that ensured that a resumption of the pre-state of war status quo was impossible. The decline of the upper classes was further hastened by the introduction of broad universal suffrage in Europe. The extension of the franchise, coupled with an explosion in trade unionism, afforded the working classes greater political and social representation. The various armies had too to promote new officers from humble backgrounds who were non willing to proceed the culture of deference to the upper classes.

The horrors of the Bully State of war also gave an impulse to Christian socialism with the rally cry of 'never over again'. Information technology likewise forced women into jobs that had previously been a male preserve. Many of the women whom the war endeavour had forced out of domestic service and into factories found themselves unwilling to relinquish their new independence. The War thus gave a boost to demands for women's emancipation. The State of war also sparked a peace movement that had disarmament as its main aim. It flourished briefly in the inter-war years, was reborn during the Vietnam War and constitute many adherents in Europe e.g. the entrada for nuclear disarmament (CND). Although less formally organised than during the 1980s, the anti-war motion in Europe showed its strength in the mass demonstrations against the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The state of war also had major consequences for the European socialist and labour movement. Although well organised in many countries, including Uk, France and Germany, the socialist motility failed to stop the war in 1914. Initially skilled workers in the armaments industry were not only exempted from military service just also enjoyed college wages and better food in return for the banning of strike activity. Simply every bit the war connected living and working weather for factory workers gradually declined. Socialist groups began to agitate for peace, a process that received a boost equally a result of the 1917 Russian revolution. At the terminate of the state of war in 1918 the socialist and trade union move was much stronger than in 1914.
The Great State of war likewise saw the introduction of the planned economy and a much bigger role for the state. Soon after the outbreak of war the German language government took control over banks, foreign trade and the production and sale of food as well as armaments. It also gear up maximum prices for various goods. When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in 1917 they embarked on a vast nationalisation program and later a comprehensive planned economy. The planned economy also had its adherents in other countries, especially after the twin shocks of hyperinflation in the 1920s and the Great Crisis of 1929.

Strange policy implications

The 1914-18 conflict had a global touch on. In the Middle E, for example, the British and French promised different things to the Arabs and the Jews in return for their back up against the Ottoman Empire. Under the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement, London and Paris carved out respective spheres of influence in what was to become Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. But at the aforementioned fourth dimension the British promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine under the equally infamous Balfour Declaration laying the foundations for the emergence of Israel and the world's virtually intractable contemporary conflict. When the British deceit was exposed it led to a permanent feeling of mistrust between many Arabs and European colonial powers.  Many analysts point to the European carve upwardly of the Middle East in 1918 with the many artificial borders as the root crusade of the standing turmoil in the region today. Ethnic, sectarian and tribal differences were of little concern to the colonial-era map-makers. Republic of iraq was formed by merging 3 Ottoman provinces - dominated respectively by Shias, Sunnis and Kurds. It was as well cutting off from Kuwait – the genesis of problem later. The biggest losers of the mail-war lottery in the Heart Due east were the Kurds. Nowadays this still stateless people bask a high caste of regional autonomy – as well as relative peace – in federal Iraq while their compatriots in Syrian arab republic and Turkey face challenges from Damascus and Ankara.

As regards the map of Europe, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires were broken upwardly and drastically shrunk, while Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were all built-in or reborn as nation states. Russia underwent the Bolshevik Revolution that would take a major impact on European and world history. Frg was reduced in size and forced to pay substantial reparations. The Kaiser went into exile, and Germany plunged into economical and political chaos that paved the way for the rise of Hitler. The new countries were poor and often in conflict with each other. United states President Wilson had talked about transparent international agreements, unfettered admission to the seas and the lifting of trade barriers. These would testify utopian as was his concept of borders based on ethnicity, a concept that would exist the precursor to many conflicts. The biggest of the new countries was Poland, which had disap-peared from the map for over a century after being partitioned in 1795. In 1923 when its bor-ders were finally settled, Poland had relatively adept relations with only two neighbours – tiny Republic of latvia to the north and a distant Romania to the south. If the Treaty of Versailles was deemed harsh then the Treaty of Trianon was arguably much harsher, leaving Hungary as a much reduced country with millions of Hungarians outside its borders. These minority issues were suppressed during the communist era but resurfaced post 1989 causing major problems betwixt Romania and Hungary and Slovakia and Hungary. Inevitably the EU was also drawn into attempts to resolve these minority issues. The Stability Pact, or Balladur Program, was devised to provide Eu guidance and back up for the treatment of minorities.

The existent winner of the First World War was the United States. Information technology was late in entering the war, but in 1917, but emerged far stronger than virtually other nations equally it had not suffered either the bloodletting or the wasted industrial endeavor of the major European nations. It became, al-most overnight, the leading financial ability in the globe, elbowing Britain out of its mode en route to becoming the globe'due south banker. The war also involved hundreds of thousands of sol-diers from the European colonies and British Dominions, including Republic of india, Australia, New Zea-land, Canada and South Africa. Their experience and loss of life helped push demands for independence. India solitary sent some 100,000 troops to fight for Britain. More than 10,000 never returned habitation. The First World War also heralded the birth of the League of Nations, a body of nation states to promote international peace and security. Regrettably its staunchest supporter, President Woodrow Wilson was unable to persuade the American Congress that the US should join. In 1945 the U.s.a. would adopt a dissimilar arroyo.

The financial crash of 1929 brought misery beyond Europe. Adolf Hitler seized the opportunity to seize power, nether dubious semi-legitimate circumstances, and showtime building up Frg's armed forces in contravention of the Versailles Treaty. Few in Western Europe believed that Hitler was deadly serious about creating a Greater Reich across the European continent. At that place were also concerns that the reparations that had been demanded past France at Versailles had been too harsh, a view expressed eloquently in The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes. When London and Paris finally awoke to the threat it was too belatedly. By 1941 Hitler controlled half of Europe subsequently a stunning series of Blitzkrieg victories. Only Hitler over-reached himself by declaring war on the United states of america earlier defeating the Soviet Spousal relationship. In 1945, simply thirteen years after the proclamation of the i thou year Reich it was all over. Germany was divided and lay in ruins.

Changes from the Second World War

The Second Earth War was directly related to the First World State of war. Information technology was the greatest and deadliest war in human history, with over 57 million lives lost. In gainsay, approximately 8 million Russians, four one thousand thousand Germans, two million Chinese and one million Japanese soldiers lost their lives. U.k. and French republic each lost hundreds of thousands. The civilian toll was probably higher – an estimated 22 meg Soviet citizens were killed, and six million Jews in the Holocaust. It would take a coalition of the UK, the US and the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler subsequently half-dozen years of bloody warfare that once more brought widespread death and devastation to Europe – and to many other parts of the world. The state of war was non confined to Europe. It affected the Middle East, Africa and Asia causing untold suffering, not least when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The war likewise increased demands for independence throughout much of the colonial empires withal in European possession – the Dutch in Republic of indonesia, the French in S East asia, the Belgians in Fundamental Africa, the British in India, etc. This was a particularly traumatic and drawn out process for the French, in Algeria and in Vietnam where they fought prolonged and bitter wars in an attempt to maintain their colonial control. The residual of global power moved from London, Paris, Berlin to Washington and Moscow. The defining paradigm for the next half century would be the Cold State of war. The Russian people had suffered immeasurably during the war, and western Russia was devastated by the country warfare which was primarily on Russian territory. But, in the process of defeating the Germans, the Russians had built a large and powerful regular army, which occupied most of Eastern Europe at the end of the war. The Us economy was greatly stimulated by the war, even more so than in World War I. Spared the physical destruction of state of war, the U.s. economy dominated the globe economic system by 1945. The US was besides the major armed services power in the world and de facto 'leader of the Free World.'

Like the Offset Globe State of war, the 2nd World War too brought advances in medicine and technology. Vaccinations helped lower mortality rates and additional population growth. Pro-gress in electronics and computers fundamentally transformed the mail-war world. The de-velopment of the atomic bomb past European and American scientists during the war, not only changed the nature of potential future wars, but also marked the beginning of the nuclear power industry. World War II also gave the impetus for the establishment of the United Na-tions in 1945, with the full backing of the US and other major powers. The US as well helped establish the other multilateral organisations such every bit the IMF, Globe Depository financial institution and the GATT, the forerunner of the WTO. There was a determination to avoid the mistakes of the interwar years which had exacerbated the Great Depression.

I of the main results of the 2nd Globe State of war was the division of Europe. Huge armies stared at each other through an Atomic number 26 Mantle that ran through the eye of Europe. The US marshalled Western Europe into a system of containment aimed at limiting and ultimately diminishing Soviet ability. NATO was established in 1949 while a huge financial parcel (the Marshall Programme) helped Western European economies to recover. The sectionalisation of Europe froze political change for several decades. Attempts past some Soviet satellite states to break gratuitous (Eastward Federal republic of germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968) were brutally suppressed by the Red Regular army. There was no possibility for the nations that had been bolted together in the country of Yugoslavia to plant their own identities. The pent up demand for independence would later tear the Balkans autonomously in the 1990s after the decease of President Tito. 1954 likewise saw Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev souvenir Crimea to Ukraine, a motility that would afterwards come up back to haunt the European trunk politic in 2014 when Putin reclaimed the territory in a bloodless insurrection.

By the 1980s it became clear that Soviet communism was declining to evangelize the standard of living that most people enjoyed in the West. The engagement of a new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1984, opened the path for a fundamental realignment of the European political landscape. His policies of glasnost and perestroika offered hope to the peoples of Eastern Europe and in 1989 he declined to ship in the Cerise Army to suppress demonstrations for greater liberty in East Germany. In November that year the Berlin Wall came downwardly leading to the swift unification of Germany and opening up the possibility of East European countries 'returning to Europe' past joining the Eu.

The rise of the European union

Ane of the strongest motivations for the birth of the European union was 'never once more' should at that place exist state of war in Europe, or at least not betwixt the members of the EU. The prescient founding fathers took the highly symbolic coal and steel industries as the starting point for a new community method of government. If France and Germany shared responsibility for the industries that were at the middle of the armaments industry and so in that location really could be no farther state of war betwixt these two rivals. This logic continued with the nascency of the European Community in 1957. The desire to develop a new organization of governance and avoid war as an instrument of policy was at the very heart of the discussions leading upwards to the Treaty of Rome. The EU was viewed and so and continues to exist viewed as a peace project. The Eu has become a 'security community' in which the members eschew war or the threat of war in their inter-state relations. Past edifice up a community covering most aspects of economic life, from trade to a mutual currency, the EU has achieved a unique model of regional           integration.

The EU (and NATO) also provided the context in which Germany was able to return to a seat with the international community. Until unification in 1991 Germany was content to have a back seat to the US on security matters and to France on EU matters. Federal republic of germany was a Musterknabe of the EU and 1 of the strongest supporters of a federal Europe. This ap-proach began to change under the chancellorship of Gerhard Schroeder and accelerated under Angela Merkel. Federal republic of germany began to play a more believing office in defending its national interests. A further boost to Germany's leadership role was provided past the 2008-09 financial crisis that shook the EU to its foundations. It swiftly became apparent that merely Federal republic of germany had the financial and economic musculus to rescue the debt-laden members of the eurozone. But Germany received piffling thanks for its bail-out assistance. Indeed in Greece and other Mem-ber States there were open references to Germany throwing its weight around as during the Offset and Second Earth Wars. Anti-German sentiment was also to be constitute in many other countries, from Spain to Hungary. There was resentment at Deutschland forcing thrift poli-cies on highly indebted countries and also resentment at Germany's huge export surplus which some economists considered was one of the causes of the euro'due south issues.

Implications for Europe today

Fifty-fifty though Germany has become the undoubted leader of the EU it is still reluctant to play a dominant function in military matters. It contributes less to European security than Britain or France: in 2013 it spent 1.4 per cent of Gross domestic product on defence, while France spent i.9 per cent and Britain two.3 per cent. This reflects a continuing horror of state of war in full general and a conclusion that High german troops should never once again be used for the purposes of aggrandizement. This had led to Berlin beingness at odds with its EU partners, especially France and the Great britain, over issues such as the intervention in Libya and the proposed intervention in Syria. The burden of the two globe wars is much more obvious in Berlin than Paris or London. But the reluctance to use forcefulness to achieve political aims is widespread in the EU. Only the UK and France, two members of the UNSC with a long tradition as military powers, regularly testify a willingness to employ force, whether in the Balkans or Africa. The The states continually presses the Europeans to spend more on defence, a plea that ordinarily falls on deaf ears. The encarmine conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s, still, showed that war every bit a ways to achieve political goals has not disappeared from the European continent. The Russian war machine intervention in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008 and its annexation of Crimea in 2014 showed that the Russian bear was also ready to use force to achieve its aims.

The Eu response equally a conflict prevention manager and peacemaker has been patchy. Tony Blair hoped that the Balkans tragedy would push button the Europeans to do more than. Together with Jacques Chirac he promoted a plan for the EU to have its own defense force forces. Germany remained a reluctant follower although the SPD/Green coalition government did authorise German forces to be used in the NATO operation in Kosovo. The ambitious aims outlined in 1999, still, have never been realised. Truthful, the European union has engaged in some useful peacekeeping operations in the Western Balkans and in parts of Africa. But overall the Eu is not perceived as a hard security actor. This again reflects the deeply ingrained memories of the horrors of war on the European continent, especially in Germany.

The Russian de-stabilisation of Ukraine in the first half of 2014 has also brought challenges to Germany. Traditionally Frg has enjoyed a close and privileged relationship with Russian federation, partly due to historical ties (including state of war guilt) and partly due to economical and trade interests. Germany gets more than thirty% of its energy from Russia. These economic ties led Germany to be very cautious about agreeing to pursue a sanctions policy against Russia. The group of Russlandversteher crossed party lines epitomised by one-time Chancellor Schroeder greeting Putin with a acquit hug in St Petersburg at his 70th altogether party. Merkel and Steinmeier, withal, seem to have grasped the enormity of Putin'southward move against Ukraine and have sought to steer Deutschland into a middle position regarding EU policy towards Russia. Germany has also been to the fore in seeking a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis although information technology remains to be seen whether this volition produce acceptable results.

Conclusion

The shadow of 1914-xviii (and 1939-45) is thus still present in Europe today. Perchance the biggest change is that military ability is far less pregnant in European politics than it was a century ago. There is little or no ambition for using force to achieve political goals. Defence spending remains low. The numbers in Europe's armed forces have been dramatically reduced since the end of the Cold State of war and despite Russian incursions into Ukraine in that location is petty or no appetite to increment numbers. The ascension of tv and social media has brought the horrors of land wars and casualties instantly to a broad public. 1 has only to compare the public and media reactions to one soldier killed in Afghanistan to the huge numbers killed at the Somme.

But as the earth moves from a hegemonic system based on the The states hyper-power to a more than multi-polar world this volition have serious consequences for Germany and Europe. For Federal republic of germany, volition it be content to behave as a 'big Switzerland' or will it have, as some politicians including President Gauck and Foreign Minister Steinmeier take argued, that Berlin should play a political/military office commensurate with its economic and financial power? For Europe, will it redouble efforts to deepen the European integration project, trying to ensure a closer connectedness between the EU institutions and European citizens? Or will information technology migrate back into a system of nation states adopting ragamuffin thy neighbor policies? As leader of Europe Federal republic of germany again has a key office to play. Information technology has as well profited hugely from the EU and thus has a moral duty to ensure the continued success of the European project. Deutschland's European partners should also pause to reflect on how the EU has contributed to a resolution of the historic 'German question'. These gains should not be under-estimated.

The anniversary of the Offset Earth War should give united states the occasion to reflect on what kind of Europe nosotros desire. A Europe dominated by populists and nationalists has never brought a more peaceful or prosperous Europe. Information technology has merely led to conflict. But as the results of the European Parliament elections in May 2014 demonstrated we cannot have the progress in European integration since 1945 for granted. We owe information technology to the fallen in both world wars to fight for a closer and more than integrated Europe.

No Images have been found.

No Images have been found.

mcanallyhimeaugh.blogspot.com

Source: https://eu.boell.org/en/2014/06/02/impact-first-world-war-and-its-implications-europe-today

Share this post