essay introduction about war

Essays About War: Top 5 Examples and 5 Prompts

War is atrocious and there is an almost universal rule that we should be prevented; if you are writing essays about war, read our helpful guide.

Throughout history, war has driven human progress. It has led to the dissolution of oppressive regimes and the founding of new democratic countries. There is no doubt that the world would not be as it is without the many wars waged in the past.

War is waged to achieve a nation or organization’s goals, but what is the actual cost of progress? War has taken, and continues to take, countless lives. It is and is very costly in terms of resources as well. From the American Revolution to World Wars I and II to the Crusades and Hundred Years’ War of antiquity, wars throughout history have been bloody, brutal, and disastrous. 

If you are writing essays about war, look at our top essay examples below.

1. War Is Not Part of Human Nature by R. Brian Ferguson

2. essay on war and peace (author unknown), 3. the impacts of war on global health by sarah moore.

• 4.  The Psychosocial Impacts of War and Armed Conflict on Children by Iman Farajallah, Omar Reda, H. Steven Moffic, John R. Peteet, and Ahmed Hankir

5. ​​Is war a pre-requisite for peace? by Anna Cleary

5 prompts for essays about war, 1. is war justified, 2. why do countries go to war, 3. the effects of war, 4. moral and ethical issues concerning war, 5. reflecting on a historical war.

“Debate over war and human nature will not soon be resolved. The idea that intensive, high-casualty violence was ubiquitous throughout prehistory has many backers. It has cultural resonance for those who are sure that we as a species naturally tilt toward war. As my mother would say: “Just look at history!” But doves have the upper hand when all the evidence is considered. Broadly, early finds provide little if any evidence suggesting war was a fact of life.”

Ferguson disputes the popular belief that war is inherent to human nature, as evidenced by archaeological discoveries. Many archaeologists use the very same evidence to support the opposing view. Evidence reveals many instances where war was waged, but not fought. In the minds of Ferguson and many others, humanity may be predisposed to conflict and violence, but not war, as many believe. 

“It also appears that if peace were to continue for a long period, people would become sick of the monotony of life and would seek war for a changed man is a highly dynamic creature and it seems that he cannot remain contented merely with works of peace-the cultivation of arts, the development of material comforts, the extension of knowledge, the means and appliances of a happy life.”

This essay provides an interesting perspective on war; other than the typical motivations for war, such as the desire to achieve one’s goals; the author writes that war disrupts the monotony of peace and gives participants a sense of excitement and uncertainty. In addition, it instills the spirit of heroism and bravery in people. However, the author does not dispute that war is evil and should be avoided as much as possible. 

“War forces people to flee their homes in search of safety, with the latest figures from the UN estimating that around 70 million people are currently displaced due to war. This displacement can be incredibly detrimental to health, with no safe and consistent place to sleep, wash, and shelter from the elements. It also removes a regular source of food and proper nutrition. As well as impacting physical health, war adversely affects the mental health of both those actively involved in conflict and civilians.”

Moore discusses the side effects that war has on civilians. For example, it diverts resources used on poverty alleviation and infrastructure towards fighting. It also displaces civilians when their homes are destroyed, reduces access to food, water, and sanitation, and can significantly impact mental health, among many other effects. 

4.   The Psychosocial Impacts of War and Armed Conflict on Children by Iman Farajallah, Omar Reda, H. Steven Moffic, John R. Peteet, and Ahmed Hankir

“The damage done by war-related trauma can never be undone. We can, however, help reduce its long-term impacts, which can span generations. When we reach within ourselves to discover our humanity, it allows us to reach out to the innocent children and remind them of their resilience and beauty. Trauma can make or break us as individuals, families, and communities.”

In their essay, the authors explain how war can affect children. Children living in war-torn areas expectedly witness a lot of violence, including the killings of their loved ones. This may lead to the inability to sleep properly, difficulty performing daily functions, and a speech impediment. The authors write that trauma cannot be undone and can ruin a child’s life.  

“The sociologist Charles Tilly has argued that war and the nation state are inextricably linked. War has been crucial for the formation of the nation state, and remains crucial for its continuation. Anthony Giddens similarly views a link between the internal pacification of states and their external violence. It may be that, if we want a durable peace, a peace built on something other than war, we need to consider how to construct societies based on something other than the nation state and its monopoly of violence.”

This essay discusses the irony that war is waged to achieve peace. Many justify war and believe it is inevitable, as the world seems to balance out an era of peace with another war. However, others advocate for total pacifism. Even in relatively peaceful times, organizations and countries have been carrying out “shadow wars” or engaging in conflict without necessarily going into outright war. Cleary cites arguments made that for peace to indeed exist by itself, societies must not be built on the war in the first place. 

Many believe that war is justified by providing a means to peace and prosperity. Do you agree with this statement? If so, to what extent? What would you consider “too much” for war to be unjustified? In your essay, respond to these questions and reflect on the nature and morality of war. 

Wars throughout history have been waged for various reasons, including geographical domination, and disagreement over cultural and religious beliefs. In your essay, discuss some of the reasons different countries go to war, you can look into the belief systems that cause disagreements, oppression of people, and leaders’ desire to conquer geographical land. For an interesting essay, look to history and the reasons why major wars such as WWI and WWII occurred.

In this essay, you can write about war’s effects on participating countries. You can focus on the impact of war on specific sectors, such as healthcare or the economy. In your mind, do they outweigh the benefits? Discuss the positive and negative effects of war in your essay. To create an argumentative essay, you can pick a stance if you are for or against war. Then, argue your case and show how its effects are positive, negative, or both.

Many issues arise when waging war, such as the treatment of civilians as “collateral damage,” keeping secrets from the public, and torturing prisoners. For your essay, choose an issue that may arise when fighting a war and determine whether or not it is genuinely “unforgivable” or “unacceptable.” Are there instances where it is justified? Be sure to examples where this issue has arisen before.

Humans have fought countless wars throughout history. Choose one significant war and briefly explain its causes, major events, and effects. Conduct thorough research into the period of war and the political, social, and economic effects occurred. Discuss these points for a compelling cause and effect essay.

For help with this topic, read our guide explaining “what is persuasive writing ?”If you still need help, our guide to grammar and punctuation explains more.

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How to Write a Perfect Essay On/About War (A Complete Guide)

War is painful. It causes mass death and the destruction of infrastructure on an unimaginable scale. Unfortunately, as humans, we have not yet been able to prevent wars and conflicts from happening. Nevertheless, we are studying them to understand them and their causes better.

In this post, we will look at how to write a war essay. The information we will share here will help anyone craft a brilliant war essay, whatever their level of education.

Let’s commence.

What Is a War Essay?

A war essay is an essay on an armed conflict involving two states or one state and an armed group. You will be asked to write a war essay at some point if you are taking a history course, diplomacy course, international relations course, war studies course, or conflict management course.

When asked to write about a war, it is important to consider several things. These include the belligerents, the location of the conflict, the leading cause or causes of the conflict, the course of the event so far, and the possible solutions to the conflict.

The sections below will help you discover everything you need to know about how to write war essays.

An essay about war can take many forms, including:

• Expository essay – where you explore the timeline of the wars (conflicts), losses/consequences, significant battles, and notable dates.
• Argumentative essay . A war essay that debates an aspect of a certain war.
• Cause and Effect essay examines the events leading to war and its aftermath.
• Compare and contrast a war essay that pits one war or an aspect of the war against an
• Document-based question (DBQ) that analyzes the historical war documentation to answer a prompt.
• Creative writing pieces where you narrate or describe an experience of or with war.
• A persuasive essay where use ethos, pathos, and logos (rhetorical appeals) to convince your readers to adopt your points.

The Perfect Structure/Organization for a War Essay

To write a good essay about war, you must understand the war essay structure. The war essay structure is the typical 3-section essay structure. It starts with an introduction section, followed by a body section, and then a conclusion section. Find out what you need to include in each section below:

1. Introduction

In the introduction paragraph , you must introduce the reader to the war or conflict you are discussing. But before you do so, you need to hook the reader to your work. You can only do this by starting your introduction with an attention-grabbing statement . This can be a fact about the war, a quote, or a statistic.

Once you have grabbed the reader's attention, you should introduce the reader to the conflict your essay is focused on. You should do this by providing them with a brief background on the conflict.

Your thesis statement should follow the background information. This is the main argument your essay will be defending.

The introduction section of a war essay is typically one paragraph long. But it can be two paragraphs long for long war essays.

In the body section of your war essay, you need to provide information to support your thesis statement. A typical body section of a college essay will include three to four body paragraphs. Each body paragraph starts with a topic sentence and solely focuses on it. This is how your war essay should be.

Once you develop a thesis statement, you should think of the points you will use to defend it and then list them in terms of strength. The strongest of these points should be your topic sentences.

When developing the body section of your war essay, make sure your paragraphs flow nicely. This will make your essay coherent. One of the best ways to make your paragraphs flow is to use transition words, phrases, and sentences.

The body section of a war essay is typically three to four paragraphs long, but it can be much longer.

3. Conclusion

In the conclusion section of your war essay, you must wrap up everything nicely. The recommended way to do this is to restate your thesis statement to remind the reader what your essay was about. You should follow this by restating the main points supporting your thesis statement.

Your thesis and the restatement of your main points should remind your reader of what your essay was all about. You should then end your essay with a food-for-thought, a recommendation, or a solution. Whatever you use to end your essay, make sure it is relevant to what you have just covered in your essay, and it shows that you have widely read on the topic.

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How to write a war Essay? – The Steps

Several wars have taken place on earth, including:

• World War I and II
• Russian Civil War
• Chinese Civil War
• Lebanese Civil War
• Syrian Civil War
• The Spanish Civil War
• The American Civil War
• Afghanistan War

The list of wars that have happened to date is endless.

Writing a war essay is never easy. You need to plan your work meticulously to develop a brilliant war essay. If you are assigned to write a war essay or paper, follow the steps below to develop a brilliant essay on any conflict.

1. Read The Assignment Instructions Carefully

You must know precisely what to do to write a brilliant war essay. College professors typically provide multiple instructions when they ask students to write college essays. Students must then read the instructions carefully to write precisely what their professors want to see.

Therefore, when you get a war essay assignment, you must read the instructions carefully to understand what is needed of you entirely. Know exactly what conflict your professor wants you to focus on, what aspect of the conflict (the origin, the chronology of events leading to the war, external factors, etc.), what sources they want you to use, and the number of pages they want.

Knowing what your professor needs will help you to develop it nicely.

2. Do Your Research

After reviewing the war assignment instructions, you should research the topic you’ve been asked to focus on. Do this by Googling the topic (and its variations), searching it in your college database, and searching it in scholarly databases. As you read more on the topic, take a lot of notes. This will help you to understand the topic better, plus its nuances.

Once you understand the topic well, you should start to think about what precisely your essay should focus on. If you like, this will be the foundation of your essay or the thesis statement.

Once you settle on the thesis statement, read more on the topic but focus on information that will help you defend your thesis statement.

3. Craft A Thesis Statement and Create an Outline

At this point, you should have a rough thesis statement . Once you have read more information on it as per the previous step, you should be able to refine it into a solid and argumentative statement at this point.

So refine your thesis statement to make it perfect. Your thesis statement can be one or two sentences long but never more. Once you have created it, you should create an outline.

An outline is like a treasure map – it details where you must go comprehensively. Creating an outline will give you an overview of what your essay will look like and whether it will defend your thesis statement. It will also make it easier for you to develop your essay.

Ensure your outline includes a striking title for your conflict essay, the topic sentence for each body paragraph, and the supporting evidence for each topic sentence.

Related Read:

• Writing a compelling claim in an essay
• How to write sound arguments and counterarguments

4. Start Writing the Introduction

When you finish writing your essay, you should start writing the introduction. This is where the rubber meets the road –the actual writing of your war essay begins.

Since you have already created a thesis statement and an outline, you should not find it challenging to write your introduction. Follow your outline to develop a friendly compact, and informative introduction to the conflict your essay will focus on.

Read your introduction twice to make sure it is as compact and as informative as it can be. It should also be straightforward to understand.

5. Write The Rest of Your Essay

Once you have created the introduction to your war essay, you should create the body section. The body section of your essay should follow your outline. Remember the outline you created in step 3 has the points you should focus on in each body paragraph. So follow it to make developing your essay’s body section easy.

As you develop your essay's body section, ensure you do everything nicely. By this, we mean you develop each topic sentence entirely using the sandwich paragraph writing method.

Also, make sure there is a nice flow between your sentences and between your paragraphs.

6. Conclude Your War Essay

After writing the rest of your essay, you should offer a robust conclusion. Your conclusion should also follow your outline. As usual, it should start with a thesis restatement and a restatement of all your main points.

It should then be followed by a concluding statement that provides the reader with food for thought. You should never include new information in your conclusion paragraph. This will make it feel like another body paragraph, yet the purpose of your conclusion should be to give your reader the feeling that your essay is ending or done.

7. Proofread and Edit Your Essay

This is the last step of writing a war essay or any other one. This step is final, but it is perhaps the most important step. This is because it distinguishes an ordinary essay from an extraordinary one.

You should proofread your essay at least thrice, especially if it is short. When you do it the first time, you should look for grammar errors and other basic mistakes. Eliminate all the errors and mistakes you find. When you do it the second time, you should do it to ensure the flow of your essay is perfect.

And when you do it the third and last time, you should use editing software like Grammarly.com to catch all the errors you might have missed.

When you proofread your war essay in this manner, you should be able to transform it from average to excellent. After completing this step, your war essay will be ready for submission.

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Tips for Writing a Brilliant War Essay

Follow the tips below to develop a brilliant essay.

• A brilliant topic is always vital.

When you are assigned a war essay, you should do your best to choose or create a brilliant topic for your essay. A boring topic focusing on something discussed and debated a million times will never be brilliant.

• A strong thesis statement is essential.

Along with a brilliant topic, you need a strong thesis statement to make your war essay brilliant. This is because a strong thesis statement is like a lighthouse – it will guide safely to the harbor (conclusion).

• Do not be afraid to discuss the tragedy.

Sometimes war details can feel too graphic or gruesome, leading to hesitance on the part of students when they are writing articles. Do not hesitate or be afraid to discuss tragedy if discussing tragedy will add to the substance of your essay.

• Be impartial.

Sometimes it can be challenging to write an impartial essay, especially if you relate to or strongly support one side in a conflict. Well, this should never happen. As a researcher, you must be as impartial as you can be. You must inform your reader of all the facts available to you without bias so they have an accurate impression of whatever you are talking about.

• Ensure your work has flow.

This is one of the most important things you must do when writing a war essay. Since war essays sometimes discuss disparate issues, ending with a disjointed essay is straightforward. You should do all you can to ensure your workflows are well, including using transition words generously. 

• Proofread your work.

You should always proofread your essays before submission. This is what will always upgrade them from ordinary to extraordinary. If you don’t proofread your work, you will submit subpar work that will not get you a good grade.

• Explore unexplored angles.

Chances are, whatever war or conflict you write about has already been written on or reported on a million times. If you want your essay to be interesting, you should explore unexplored angles on conflicts. This will make your work very interesting.

War Essay Sample to Inspire your Writing

Here is a short sample of a war essay on the Russia-Ukraine War.

The most affected cities in the Russia-Ukraine War 2022

The Russia-Ukraine war has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions across Ukraine. It has also led to the destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure across Ukraine. The eastern cities of Bakhmut, Kharkiv, and Mariupol are the most affected cities in the Russia-Ukraine War 2022.

Bakhmut in southeastern Ukraine is the site of the bloodiest and longest-running battle between Russian and Ukrainian forces. The city is strategic as it is close to supply routes that the Russians use in the occupied territories of southern Ukraine. It is estimated that as much as 90% of Bakhmut has been destroyed in Russia’s bid to take over the city.

Mariupol is a Ukrainian port city between Russia and the Russian-occupied Crimea. Russia decided to take the city early on to deny Ukraine a foothold close to its border and operation areas in the south. Yet the city was defended by a fanatic Ukrainian military battalion that swore not to give it up. This led to Russia bombing much of the city to the ground. In the end, Russia won the battle for Mariupol and now controls the city and the surrounding area.

Kharkiv is Ukraine’s second biggest city. It is less than 45 minutes away from the Russian border. Taking the city was one of the top priorities for Russia at the start of the war because of its proximity to Russia. Nevertheless, Ukraine deployed much of its army to defend the city and has managed to do so. Nevertheless, this has come at a cost. Much of Kharkiv’s infrastructure is destroyed. Its power lines, highways, roads, railways, dams, and industries are destroyed.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has affected much of Ukraine, especially the eastern cities of Bakhmut, Kharkiv, and Mariupol. All three cities have suffered tremendous infrastructure damage in the past few months. Efforts must be made by the two state parties and the international community to prevent further destruction of Ukrainian cities in this conflict.

War Essay Topic Ideas

Not sure what to write about in your war essay? Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

• Causes of Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022
• What led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014?
• Causes of Tigray conflict in Ethiopia
• Somalia-Kenya border conflict
• Conflict in eastern DRC
• Secessionist movements in the UK
• Western Sahara versus Morocco
• Causes of the Libyan Civil War
• The American war of independence
• The American civil war
• The English civil war
• The Napoleonic wars
• The French invasion of Russia
• Causes of the crusader wars
• The German invasion of Poland and its consequences
• The battle of Stalingrad and its bearing on the cause of WWII
• The causes of World War I
• The Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia
• What caused America to end the Vietnam War
• The Cuban Missile Crisis
• The fall of the Berlin Wall
• The Arms Race
• Role of the cold world war in shaping the world we live today
• The causes and consequences of the Syrian Civil War
• The role of propaganda in the Iraq War
• Implications of the Syrian Civil War

As you Come to the End, …

An essay on war is not easy to write, but it can be written when you have the right information. This post provides you with all the vital information needed to write a brilliant war essay. We hope that this info makes it easy for you to write your war essay.

If you need assistance writing your war essay, don’t hesitate to order an essay online from our website. We’ve essay experts who can develop brilliant war essays 24/7. Visit our home page right now to get the assignment help you need.

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How to Write War Essay: Russia Ukraine War

Understanding the Purpose and Scope of a War Essay

A condition of armed conflict between nations or between groups living in one nation is known as war. Sounds not like much fun, does it? Well, conflicts have been a part of human history for thousands of years, and as industry and technology have developed, they have grown more devastating. As awful as it might seem, a war typically occurs between a country or group of countries against a rival country to attain a goal through force. Civil and revolutionary wars are examples of internal conflicts that can occur inside a nation.

Your history class could ask you to write a war essay, or you might be personally interested in learning more about conflicts, in which case you might want to learn how to write an academic essay about war. In any scenario, we have gathered valuable guidance on how to organize war essays. Let's first examine the potential reasons for a conflict before moving on to the outline for a war essay.

• Economic Gain - A country's desire to seize control of another country's resources frequently starts conflicts. Even when the proclaimed goal of a war is portrayed to the public as something more admirable, most wars have an economic motivation at their core, regardless of any other possible causes.
• Territorial Gain - A nation may determine that it requires additional land for habitation, agriculture, or other uses. Additionally, the territory might serve as buffer zones between two violent foes.
• Religion - Religious disputes can stem from extremely profound issues. They may go dormant for many years before suddenly resurfacing later.
• Nationalism - In this sense, nationalism simply refers to the act of violently subjugating another country to demonstrate the country's superiority. This frequently manifests as an invasion.
• Revenge - Warfare can frequently be motivated by the desire to punish, make up for, or simply exact revenge for perceived wrongdoing. Revenge has a connection to nationalism as well because when a nation has been wronged, its citizens are inspired by patriotism and zeal to take action.
• Defensive War - In today's world, when military aggression is being questioned, governments will frequently claim that they are fighting in a solely protective manner against a rival or prospective aggressor and that their conflict is thus a 'just' conflict. These defensive conflicts may be especially contentious when conducted proactively, with the basic premise being that we are striking them before they strike us.

How to Write War Essay with a War Essay Outline

Just like in compare and contrast examples and any other forms of writing, an outline for a war essay assists you in organizing your research and creating a good flow. In general, you keep to the traditional three-part essay style, but you can adapt it as needed based on the length and criteria of your school. When planning your war paper, consider the following outline:

Introduction

• Definition of war
• Importance of studying wars
• Thesis statement

Body Paragraphs

• Causes of the War
• Political reasons
• Economic reasons
• Social reasons
• Historical reasons
• Major Players in the War
• Countries and their leaders
• Military leaders
• Allies and enemies
• Strategies and Tactics
• Military tactics and techniques
• Strategic planning
• Weapons and technology
• Impact of the War
• On the countries involved
• On civilians and non-combatants
• On the world as a whole
• Summary of the main points
• Final thoughts on the war
• Suggestions for future research

If you found this outline template helpful, you can also use our physics help for further perfecting your academic assignments.

Begin With a Relevant Hook

A hook should be the focal point of the entire essay. A good hook for an essay on war can be an interesting statement, an emotional appeal, a thoughtful question, or a surprising fact or figure. It engages your audience and leaves them hungry for more information.

Follow Your Outline

An outline is the single most important organizational tool for essay writing. It allows the writer to visualize the overall structure of the essay and focus on the flow of information. The specifics of your outline depend on the type of essay you are writing. For example, some should focus on statistics and pure numbers, while others should dedicate more space to abstract arguments.

How to Discuss Tragedy, Loss, and Sentiment

War essays are particularly difficult to write because of the terrible nature of war. The life is destroyed, the loved ones lost, fighting, death, great many massacres and violence overwhelm, and hatred for the evil enemy, amongst other tragedies, make emotions run hot, which is why sensitivity is so important. Depending on the essay's purpose, there are different ways to deal with tragedy and sentiment.

The easiest one is to stick with objective data rather than deal with the personal experiences of those who may have been affected by these events. It can be hard to remain impartial, especially when writing about recent deaths and destruction. But it is your duty as a researcher to do so.

However, it’s not always possible to avoid these issues entirely. When you are forced to tackle them head-on, you should always be considerate and avoid passing swift and sweeping judgment.

Summing Up Your Writing

When you have finished presenting your case, you should finish it off with some sort of lesson it teaches us. Armed conflict is a major part of human nature yet. By analyzing the events that transpired, you should be able to make a compelling argument about the scale of the damage the war caused, as well as how to prevent it in the future.

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Popular War Essay Topics

When choosing a topic for an essay about war, it is best to begin with the most well-known conflicts because they are thoroughly recorded. These can include the Cold War or World War II. You might also choose current wars, such as the Syrian Civil War or the Russia and Ukraine war. Because they occur in the backdrop of your time and place, such occurrences may be simpler to grasp and research.

To help you decide which war to write about, we have compiled some facts about several conflicts that will help you get off to a strong start.

Russia Ukraine War

Russian President Vladimir Putin started the Russian invasion in the early hours of February 24 last year. According to him. the Ukrainian government had been committing genocide against Russian-speaking residents in the eastern Ukraine - Donbas region since 2014, calling the onslaught a 'special military operation.'

The Russian president further connected the assault to the NATO transatlantic military alliance commanded by the United States. He said the Russian military was determined to stop NATO from moving farther east and establishing a military presence in Ukraine, a part of the Soviet Union, until its fall in 1991.

All of Russia's justifications have been rejected by Ukraine and its ally Western Countries. Russia asserted its measures were defensive, while Ukraine declared an emergency and enacted martial law. According to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the administration's objective is not only to repel offensives but also to reclaim all Ukrainian land that the Russian Federation has taken, including Crimea.

Both sides of the conflict accuse the other of deploying indiscriminate force, which has resulted in many civilian deaths and displacements. According to current Ukraine news, due to the difficulty of counting the deceased due to ongoing combat, the death toll is likely far higher. In addition, countless Ukrainian refugees were compelled to leave their homeland in search of safety and stability abroad.

Diplomatic talks have been employed to try to end the Ukraine-Russia war. Several rounds of conversations have taken place in various places. However, the conflict is still raging as of April 2023, and there is no sign of a truce.

World War II

World War II raged from 1939 until 1945. Most of the world's superpowers took part in the conflict, fought between two military alliances headed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, and the Axis Powers, led by Germany, Italy, and Japan.

If you'd like to explore it more in-depth, consider using our history essay service for a World War 2 essay pdf sample!

After World War II, a persistent political conflict between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies became known as the Cold War. It's hard to say who was to blame for the cold war essay. American citizens have long harbored concerns about Soviet communism and expressed alarm over Joseph Stalin's brutal control of his own nation. On their side, the Soviets were angry at the Americans for delaying their participation in World War II, which led to the deaths of tens of millions of Russians, and for America's long-standing unwillingness to recognize the USSR as a genuine member of the world community.

Vietnam War

If you're thinking about writing the Vietnam War essay, you should know that it was a protracted military battle that lasted in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. The North Vietnamese communist government fought South Vietnam and its main ally, the United States, in the lengthy, expensive, and contentious Vietnam War. The ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union exacerbated the issue. The Vietnam War claimed the lives of more than 3 million individuals, more than half of whom were Vietnamese civilians.

American Civil War

Consider writing an American Civil War essay where the Confederate States of America, a grouping of eleven southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860 and 1861, and the United States of America battled each other. If you're wondering what caused the civil war, you should know that the long-standing dispute about the legitimacy of slavery is largely responsible for how the war started.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

After over a century, the Israel-Palestine conflict has evolved into one of the most significant and current problems in the Middle East. A war that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people destroyed their homes and gave rise to terrorist organizations that still hold the region hostage. Simply described, it is a conflict between two groups of people for ownership of the same piece of land. One already resided there, while the other was compelled to immigrate to this country owing to rising antisemitism and later settled there. For Israelis and Palestinians alike, as well as for the larger area, the war continues to have substantial political, social, and economic repercussions.

The Syrian Civil War

Pro-democracy protests broke out in southern Deraa in March 2011 due to upheavals against oppressive leaders in neighboring nations. When the Syrian government employed lethal force to quell the unrest, widespread protests calling for the president's resignation broke out.

The country entered a civil war as the violence quickly increased. After hundreds of rebel organizations emerged, the fight quickly expanded beyond a confrontation between Syrians supporting or opposing Mr. Assad. Everyone believes a political solution is necessary, even though it doesn't seem like it will soon.

Russia-Ukraine War Essay Sample

With the Russian-Ukrainian war essay sample provided below from our paper writing experts, you can gain more insight into structuring a flawless paper.

Why is there a war between Russia and Ukraine?

Final Words

To understand our past and the present, we must study conflicts since they are a product of human nature and civilization. Our graduate essay writing service can produce any kind of essay you want, whether it is about World War II, the Cold War, or another conflict. Send us your specifications with your ' write my essay ' request, and let our skilled writers help you wow your professor!

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Annie Lambert

specializes in creating authoritative content on marketing, business, and finance, with a versatile ability to handle any essay type and dissertations. With a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a passion for social issues, her writing not only educates but also inspires action. On EssayPro blog, Annie delivers detailed guides and thought-provoking discussions on pressing economic and social topics. When not writing, she’s a guest speaker at various business seminars.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

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Home Essay Samples

Essay Samples on War

People always see the subject of war differently, yet it always comes down to the loss, destruction, and the political powers at play. Writing about this topic is never easy unless you are taking a historical approach and explaining the events that have taken place a long time ago. Nevertheless, it’s still challenging to provide reasoning and work with the chronology of specific events. See our war essay examples that address both modern and old-time events that are related to the armed conflicts and the famous battles in American history. Depending on your essay prompt, you should take a closer look at the structure and see how to narrow your ideas down to keep things concise. Check the dates twice and always start with the past by moving towards the future as you offer analysis and explanations. An essay about war shouldn’t be biased as your purpose is to research and explain the facts the way you can, based on evidence. If you are writing a personal or a reflective essay on war, you can provide your thoughts and turn to philosophical aspects of the issue. Check twice with an academic advisor to ensure that you’re on the right track.

The Cold War: A Comprehensive Examination (DBQ)

The Cold War, a geopolitical and ideological conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, left an indelible mark on the 20th century. This essay employs a Document-Based Question (DBQ) approach to delve into the multifaceted aspects of the Cold War, analyzing its origins,...

• International Politics

Ronald Reagan and the Cold War: A Transformational Era

Amidst the intense geopolitical rivalry of the 20th century, ronald reagan cold war emerged as a central figure whose strategic policies and leadership greatly influenced the course of the Cold War. As the 40th President of the United States, Reagan played a pivotal role in...

• Ronald Reagan

NATO, the Cold War, and Civil Rights: Struggles and Achievements

NATO, the Cold War, and civil rights are three interconnected threads that defined the latter half of the 20th century. This essay delves into the complex interplay between these forces, exploring how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) influenced the global landscape during the Cold...

• Civil Rights

NATO in the Cold War: Unity, Security, and Strategic Alliance

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) emerged as a central pillar of stability and cooperation during the tumultuous era of the Cold War. As a military and political alliance formed in the aftermath of World War II, NATO played a crucial role in shaping the...

The Last Stand of Fox Company during the Korean War

The battle known as the "Last Stand of Fox Company" stands as a testament to the extraordinary courage, resilience, and sacrifice displayed by a small group of American Marines during the Korean War. This essay delves into the historical significance of this harrowing battle, examining...

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The Devastating Aftermath: An Analysis of the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

World War II marked a pivotal moment in human history, characterized by unprecedented destruction and loss of life. One of the most controversial events of this era was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two Japanese cities, by the United States in August 1945. This...

• Atomic Bomb

Examining a Complex Tapestry of the Causes of the First World War

The First World War, often referred to as the Great War, was a global conflict that reshaped the course of history. Its origins and causes are complex, involving a web of political, economic, social, and military factors. This essay delves into the multifaceted causes of...

• World War I

Greta Thunberg's Visit to Ukraine: Highlighting the Environmental Damage from War

The ongoing war in Ukraine has caused immense suffering and loss of life, as well as widescale destruction of homes, infrastructure and livelihoods. However, the environmental consequences of the conflict have received relatively little global attention. This changed when Greta Thunberg, the well-known Swedish climate...

• Environmental Issues
• Russia and Ukraine War

JP Morgan and BlackRock Involvement in Ukraine

Ukraine has faced immense challenges since the Russian invasion began in February 2022. The country's infrastructure, businesses, and economy have suffered catastrophic damage. As Ukraine looks to rebuild and recover, major financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock have pledged support through investment funds and...

Revealing the Pentagon's Accounting Error: Implications for Ukraine Aid and Ongoing Debates

The Pentagon has revealed that an accounting error led to Ukraine aid being significantly overvalued, with the mistake totaling $6.2 billion across fiscal years 2022 and 2023. This is far higher than the $3 billion accounting error the Pentagon first disclosed in May. According to...

Cluster Munitions in Ukraine: Balancing Military Necessities and Ethical Concerns

The war in Ukraine has raised difficult questions for the United States and its allies about how far to go in supporting Ukraine militarily against the Russian invasion. One of the most controversial decisions was the Biden administration's move in September 2022 to send cluster...

The Perils of Warfare Around Nuclear Reactors: Risks and Concerns of the Situation at Ukraine's Power Plants

The Situation at Ukraine's Nuclear Power Plants Ukraine relies heavily on nuclear energy, with a network of 15 reactors spread across four power plants, supplying over fifty percent of the nation's electrical needs. However, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 has raised...

• Nuclear War

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant: Unveiling the Complexity

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, situated in the southeastern region of Ukraine, stands as an illustrious emblem of European nuclear prowess and global significance. Boasting an impressive array of six nuclear reactors with a staggering total capacity of 6,000 megawatts, this energy behemoth has the...

The Vietnam War: Analysis of Media Representation in America

Introduction “Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America-not on the battlefields of Vietnam” (McLuhan, 1975). The Vietnam War was not the bloodiest or most expensive war, but it left a...

• Impact of Media
• Tet Offensive
• Vietnam War

The Devastating Impact of Atomic Bombs: Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Without learning our past, whether that be filled with justice finally being restored or injustice, we must learn it in order to move forward. As Martin Luther King jr. has once said in his book from strength to love, “We are not makers of history;...

• History of Asia

Politicians as the Decision Makers Must Share the Blame

Throughout world war 1, 1914, there were several campaigns fought by the ANZAC’s. The most well-known was the Gallipoli campaign of 1914 fought by the British allies against the Turkish forces. The campaign caused several heavy casualties. Most individuals now days would say that these...

• Politicians
• World History

A Comparative Analysis: Gunpowder and Nuclear Weapons in Military History

Since the establishment of civilizations, man has been interested in inventing simple tools to defend himself, but with the development of lifestyles and the rise of nations. The interest has become greater in developing military methods and developing weapons. In this article I will discuss...

• Nuclear Weapon

Was the Cold War Inevitable: an Unavoidable Taciturn Warfare

There are many questions raised concerning the taciturn confrontation amid U.S.A and U.S.S.R. People still raise concerns about whether the cold war was unavoidable and if so, what the factors that made it inevitable were. The cold war was coined on politically aware, monetary as...

• American History

Who Won the Cold War: Indicators of the US Victory

The Cold War is regarded as the period from 1945 to 1991, although some people would argue that it ended in 1990. The Cold War pitted the US against the Soviet Union due to differing attitudes in politics and military between the superpowers. There has...

Rethinking the Causes of Cold War: Aggression or Misunderstandings

The Cold War, an epic proxy struggle of the 20th century, remains an enigma wrapped in perplexity and burstiness. It emerged from the complex and hostile relations between the newly established superpowers, the US and USSR, which led to the infamous divide between the East...

Iraq Invasion: Reflection on Why the War Went So Badly

We had the opportunity to watch a video on the class of government at South Texas College, the video it’s about one and a half-hour long, so this is a brief summary and making some personal notes about what the video contains and interesting topics...

Unveiling the Complex Factors Behind the Invasion of Iraq

The invasion has also been referred to as the third gulf war. It was undertaken as a military invasion into Iraq in order to end the regime of Saddam Hussien and in the hope to establish democracy in the region. However from the very start...

• United States Army

Analysis of Three Perspectives to Explain the Dynamic of Iraq War

Within this paper we will take a look at the Iraq War from three different perspectives: realism, the theory of Power Transition and constructivism. All of them describe possible causes of this war from different viewpoints.  To start with realism, according to this perspective Bush's...

The Impact of Nazi Germany's Intervention in the Spanish Civil War

If Nazi Germany's intervention in the Spanish Civil War were examined in isolation, one might conclude that it was a tremendous success. In the military sphere, they achieved their principal aim when Franco's Nationalist forces emerged victorious. Additionally, Nazi Germany was able to use the...

• Nazi Germany

The Global War on Terror (GWoT) as the Iraq War Discourse

After the 911 attacks, the US launched a Global War on Terror (GWoT) and this subsequently formed a discourse which had a major role in the Iraq War, particularly the initial phases. The GWoT discourse can be explored through ideas of Orientalism because of the...

• Global Governance

Articles of Confederation: The Effects These Policies Had on the American Government

Introduction The early years of America presented issues of a fragile nation that could easily plunge into retrogression. Various ideologies propagated by the first president shaped the direction to which the current state took. In view of the new nation, the early years rarely receive...

• Articles of Confederation

Articles of Confederation, Colonization and Slavery as Factors That Formed America

A vast interchanging of crops, animals, disease, metals, and goods between the Old World and New World after Christopher Columbus went to the Americas in 1492. Goods that were transported from the Old World to the New World included livestock, crops, and other items. Some...

• American Colonies

Antonio Luna: Significant Figure of Spanish American War

Antonio Luna who was delineated by the American General James F. Toll himself 'he was the primary general the Filipino furnished power had.' But he and his kin were against savage turmoil. Like Rizal, he and his kin, Juan and Jose believed it was possible...

• Spanish American War

The Issue of Immigration After the Spanish American War

Primary reasons for American intervention in foreign affairs were for foreign trade with other nations and to gain territory in other regions to expand. The “yellow journals” contributed to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War because it pushed America’s involvement further by turning American’s opinion...

The Effect of World War I and the Concept of Anzac Legend

The First and Second World Wars were two of the most significant wars in recent history that profoundly shaped the world as we know it today, bringing with them waves of change in all its participants and many bystanders. Australia was no exception to this,...

The ANZAC Spirit as the Essence of the Soldier in World War I

World War 1, also known as The Great War, began in 1914 and lasted until 1918. It was a global conflict. Described as ‘the war to end all wars’, it caused over 15 million deaths and left many more permanently and severely disabled. The Australian...

The Harmful Impact of Conscription and ANZAC Legend

Conscription also called the draft, is a military action of recruiting and putting up the hand of young, fit men and woman. Conscription hasn’t been in action in Australia for over 45 years. It was abolished in December of 1972 and remaining men in prisons...

The Idea of Anzac Legend Among the Australian Soldiers

Australia’s Anzac history is a vital part of the country’s national identity. On the 25th of April 1915, Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed on the Gallipoli beach, as they were part of an allied expedition to capture the Gallipoli peninsula and to get the...

The Role of USS Maine in Spanish American War: Clandestine Destruction in Cuban Waters

A “false flag” is defined as being an action or attack through a clandestine identity while implying another nation or group of people as the culprit (False flag, n.d). The 15th of February, 1998 marks the date the famous U.S. Navy battleship called the “USS...

The Articles Of Confederation Vs The Constitution

The Articles of Confederation, the fledgling nation's first constitution, were enacted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. The Articles of Confederation established a system in which the colonies, which are now states, kept the majority of authority. As a result, the central government...

• Comparative Analysis
• Constitution

Who Won The Cold War: United States Or Soviet Union

Following the second World War America experienced a period filled with highs and lows. They went from a golden age as a result of their success in World War II and establishing themselves as the leading world power, to facing one of the most dangerous...

• United States

World War I As An Impetus For The Development Of The World's Armies

Militarism alone didn't begin World War I yet it made a situation where war, instead of arrangement or discretion, was viewed as the most ideal method for settling universal questions. To prove this, this essay will encompass progress made in militarism. To this end, this...

• Treaty of Versailles

"Slaughterhouse-Five": Main Character Analysis

In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim is not time traveling nor going to an alien planet. Time-traveling and going to an alien planet becomes coping mechanisms through which he can deal with traumatic events that he experiences during his lifetime. Billy is suffering from post-traumatic...

• Mental Illness
• Slaughterhouse Five
• World War II

Hundred Years War And It's Impact On France

Hundred years war has it's significant role in the history of English language and in the development of English language. This war leads to the some uncertain events in the western world. These events changed the shape of politics territory beliefs and religion of west....

• Great Britain
• Hundred Years War
• Middle Ages

The Mexican Drug War: Main Problems

In 2007, the Mexican Drug Cartel controlled 90% of the Cocaine brought to the United States. Cocaine, however, doesn’t come without its close relatives, violence and death. The Mexican War on Drugs is as much a concern to the United States as it is to...

• Drug Trafficking
• Mexican War

Holocaust: Dr. Josef Mengele Biography

 You ask someone, “what is the worst crime in living memory?” And their answers will most likely be “the Holocaust.” How could someone be so cruel and want to kill 6 million Jews? Well, that’s exactly what happened with Dr. Josef Mengele. The first time...

• Josef Mengele

Women In Combat: Inclusion Of Women In The Selective Service

A recent article written by Ruth Ben-Ghiat and published by CNN is shining light on the issue of the Selective Service only requiring men to register. In the modern world of equality the question begs; why exclude women of this mandatory requirement for every American...

• Women in Combat

Road War To The Civil War: Mexican American War And How It Was Justified

Missouri Compromise/ Compromise of 1820 Missouri compromise was passed into law in 1820 and it regulated slavery, although it took place 41 years before the civil war it played a huge role in the civil war. After the Louisiana purchase, Missouri wanted to be admitted...

• Mexican American

Women In Combat: Women In The World War II

By 1943, a couple of years into World War ll, the war recruiting departments were having a hard time finding enough men to send off to war. That began a movement to recruit women into the military. They were going to be allowed to take...

Atomic Bomb: Was The Dropping Of It Justified

The initial stages of World War II was a difficult transition for the US. From an isolationist period, FDR was reluctantly moving the US to confront the “non-democratic” threats of Germany and Japan. Not long, however, did the Pearl Harbor attack instigate the immediate transition...

Japanese Internment Camps And The Unethical Behavior

The United States has a history of unethical behavior that affected several American citizens, these events remind us what came before and how we grew to where we are today. A prime example of this can be shown through the Japanese internment camps. The Japanese...

• Japanese Internment Camps

The Discriminatory Actions Of The Japanese Internment Camps

Racism towards Japanese goes way back to 1877 when white settlers excluded the first Japanese man Manzo Nagano in BC, 65 years before the Japanese Internment during WWII. Not to mention, the Provincial Government of British Columbia passed laws that made it hard for Japanese...

The Horrific Tragedies Of Japanese Internment Camps

In the year 1942, Executive Order 9066 was issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and this day denoted the start of the use of Japanese internment camps and denoted the completion of the Japanese populace being seen and viewed as of particular people (Wenger, 2016)....

Comparison And Contrast Of World War I And World War Ii

Have you ever wondered how the allied powers became victorious in World War I and World War II? In 1914 World War I began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand heir to the Austrian-Hungary throne. Austria-Hungary decided to invade Serbia and Germany sided with...

Civil War And Reconstruction: Failure Or Success

The United State had to go through many wars to become the most powerful country in the world like nowadays. At that hard and long history, the Civil War and the Reconstruction were the names of those famous wars that not only every single person...

• Reconstruction Era of The United States

The Bombings Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki And Justified Reasoning Behind

The second World War was the largest and bloodiest war in human history, with an estimated 75 million casualties, and it was all brought to a close by the dropping of the atom bombs. By the summer of 1945, the fighting with Germany had already...

The Effect Of Slavery And Westward Expansion On Civil War

A long-argued debate among historians is whether the Civil War was inevitable or not, it can be seen as an 'impending crisis' or a conflict that could’ve been avoided if not for a 'blundering generation' of leaders. By examining the events leading up to the...

• Slavery in The World
• Westward Expansion

Slavery: The Main Cause Of The Civil War

The Civil conflict was fought within the years 1861-1865 over the problem of slavery. In simplistic phrases the number one causes of Civil battle were the variations in reviews approximately the issue of slavery, and politics approximately the identical. Political agendas are rife in conditions...

• American Civil War

Slavery As The Cause Of The Civil War

In the book, The Civil War, it starts off with how the early Americans were mostly farmers and how they believed to be the happiest people in the world, and how slavery became an uprising effort in the south. Thus leading the North and the...

The Context Behind Hiroshima And Nagasaki Bombings Justified

I decided to write about detonation of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Relevance and significance of this topic is certainly present because the problem of applying atomic weapons is now more relevant than ever in our contemporary world. Even since 1940s, a lot of...

Separating Families During The Korean War

In 1953, Korea’s sudden division tore families apart. The absence of viable solutions for reunification means the pain and plight of separated families remain the most emotional legacies of the Korean War (Source 1 & 4). For 66 years, communication services between the Koreas remain...

Role Of Women In The Korean War

Women have always been the backbone to the success in war. Captain Viola McConnell should be recognized for her outstanding contributions to the Korean War. Often women are overlooked for the accomplishments they have done especially in war. Since the beginning of the first war,...

Literature Review Of The "Armies Of Manifest Destiny"

The Mexican American War was a two-year-long war between the United States and Mexico over the land of Texas, New Mexico, and California. This battle took place in Mexico and ended with the United States being victorious. The U.S gained the land as a reward...

• Manifest Destiny

The Goals Of Mexican Revolution

Revolutions are supposed to bring changes, but do you think the Mexican Revolution was truly useful? Civil wars have occurred throughout history, trying to achieve a change, either a positive or a negative. For example, we have the Russian Revolution, where the Bolsheviks, led by...

• Economic Problem

Crucial Event For American History: The Attack On Pearl Harbor

The most tragic events concerning the history of the U.S. are the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, and September 11, 2001. Particularly, the Attack on Pearl Harbor marked the point of no return, when America could not refrain from the intervention in the Second World War....

• Pearl Harbor

What Historical Events Led To The Civil War

In my view, I think that westward expansion was one of the biggest reasons why the American civil war broke out in 1861. The main reason why westward expansion started was that the president of the United States started to buy more land to add...

George Washington In The Revolutionary War

Introduction In this paper you are going to read, you may find some things about George Washington you may never have known. (Like me) Get ready to read about George Washington! Who was George Washington George Washington was a very important man in the late...

• American Revolutionary War
• George Washington

The Atomic Bomb: The Development And Devastation

On October 11, 1939, Alexander Sachs, an economic advisor for Franklin D. Roosevelt, personally delivered the president a letter. Before this, in 1938, a lab in Berlin, Germany had discovered nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is when an atom of radioactive material splits, and there is...

The Cuban Missile Crisis: Breaking The Communication Barrier In The Cold War

Imagine a world where a nuclear war had taken place and much of the United States and modern Russia were annihilated in a fiery holocaust. In this world, the Cold War escalated into a full-on war. Our world came within mere millimeters of this fate...

• Cuban Missile Crisis
• John F. Kennedy

Short Term Effects Of Cuban Missile Crisis

Never has the world been closer to nuclear war as it was 13 days in October 1962. The Soviet Union and the US, both great nations, challenged each other immensely and almost let the rest of the world pay the price. The world held its...

It's All About The Patriots, Not Loyalist In The Postcolonialism

In 1776 we as colonist were faced with the tough decision of what side we were going to take, if the event of a war were to happen. There were three options that we could have taken. The first, was siding with the British, which...

• Thirteen Colonies

The Progression Of Japan's Attack On Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor was one of the most devastating attacks on the U.S. in history. It was a complete surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. naval base of Pearl Harbor. I will be talking about what led up to the attack, what transpired during the...

The Significance And Outcomes Of The First Hague Peace Conference

In order to understand and summarise the significance of The First Hague Peace conference, it is imperative to locate it not only within the twentieth-century, but as a derivative of nineteenth-century political events. One segment of World War 1 historians who focused on diplomacy either...

• Disarmament

International Court Of Justice Decisions On Nuclear Arms.

Introduction Summarized Facts In April 2014, legal proceedings were initiated against nine states, India, Pakistan, the U.K., the U.S., France, Russia, China, Israel and North Korea by the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) for their alleged disrespect of duties as for the discontinuance of...

• The United Nations

Reasons Why Articles Of Confederation Need To Be Replaced

As all historians and anybody who has studied the brief period between the end of the revolutionary war and the ratification of the constitution, there was total chaos. That chaos can be attributed to the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were like the...

How New Warfare Technologies Introduced In The Ww1 Changed History

The face of military combat was changed when new technology was invented. Clubs, javelinas, crossbows and swords were once the technology used in combat, but once the Great War began, counties were not messing around with their weapons of choice. Some time ago firing shots...

• Trench Warfare

Fictional Report Assignment: World War Ii As A Burden On Japan

I am Yamashita Kouji, an anti-war resistance fighter in Japan, 1945. Since Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931, I have seen how the militaristic government’s policies have been ruining the country and our society. Hence, to save our beloved homeland, I have been taking part...

• Battle of Midway

Beginning And Development Of Israeli-palestinian Conflict: A Dispute Without A Foreseeable End

Ever since the dawn of time, humans have been starting conflicts. Every war ever started has been a conflict that people still talk about today. There have been so many conflicts that it would be hard to count due to it being a problem globally....

• Arab-Israeli Conflict
• Israeli Palestinian Conflict

The Three Major Historical Developments Of 1914

We learned about World War 1, World War 2, the Cold War, the global south, and global challenges. While learning about these wars and challenges of the south, World War 1, World War 2, and the Cold War really stood out as major historical developments...

• Adolf Hitler

The Factors of the Success of Insurgency Groups: Analysis of Examples

Introduction The motivation behind insurgency groups often stems from experiencing harsh mistreatment, lack of social necessities, repression, discrimination, and violence from the ruling party. These experiences fuel their desire to retaliate against the legitimate government or authoritative power in place. When violence from the perceived...

Taglit-birthright And The Upholding Of The Palestinian Occupation

Over 600,000 Jews from around the world have embarked on the informal educational, all expenses paid, Taglit Birthright trip to Israel. What this paper will draw to question is whether this is simply a free trip. This paper will look at the graphics of Birthright...

How Women In The Nightingale Took The War By Storm Leading To Victory

Throughout the ages women have been pushed aside and seen as people who stay at home, clean all day, too fragile to handle combat but, with Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale it proves all of those statements wrong. Her book shows women who pushed against the...

• The Nightingale

Zachary Taylor: Last Stand Of The Hero Of The Mexican War

The Mexican War was a major power struggle attempting to see who would have the rights to Texas. Texas had gained its independence as a result of war during the years of 1835 and 1836. The United States, as well as other countries were willing...

Questioning Rationality Behind Suicide Bombing

Suicide bombing, probably the most shocking tactic employed by terrorists, is becoming increasingly common around the world. The first suicide bombings having gained significant media attention were carried out by Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist organization in 1983. This led to the misconception that suicide attacks...

• Suicide Bombing
• War on Terror

Analysis Of Alternative Policies To Replace Articles Of Confederation

Abstract Concerning may parcel examination it tends to be seen as that the constitution is material with scriptural start's relating to social and political conviction frameworks. The affirmation of the Article of Confederations in 1781 didn't simply fathom contentious issues, yet also made additional challenges...

• American Government

Articles Of Confederation: Creation And Management Of Early Republic

The Articles of Confederation was the first document that help started the government of the United States. The Articles of Confederation was weak and fragile. It did not have the authority or ability to for example to collect taxes, or police trade but under the...

• American Constitution

Story Summary Of The Nightingale By Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale starts with a nameless woman who was dying and looks in her attic and a memorable box of world war two. she then finds an id of Julia Gervase and her son comes to try to help her down from the attic. she...

• Fascism in World War II

Tinker V. Des Moines: The Tinkers That Broke A Free Speech Barrier

Freedom of speech and expression, a fundamental human right, allows the U.S. to communicate on important issues in society. Unfortunately, it is frequently ignored during times of war. In 1919, in the Schenk V. United States case, Justice Holmes wrote, “When a nation is at...

• Free Speech

Propaganda Spread and the Rise of Fascist Groups in Canada During the Great Depression

Imagine living during one of the worst economic depression in history, the Great Depression. For ten years, many found themselves out of work with little job opportunities, had little or no money for necessities such as food and clothing, and are forced to travel in...

• Great Depression
• War Propaganda

What Can Account for the Strong Relationship Between Israel and the US

The special relationship between the US and Israel can be shown to stem back all the way to Harry Truman's administration. Over the years the relationship has increased in strength with support being highest during President Raegan' tenure. His administration waived loans by giving them...

• International Relations

Why War and Leader Pride Will Become the End of Humanity

“If the humanity will go beyond more advanced, then it will be The End of the Humanity” The weapons of the war are getting more advanced, they’re getting more deadlier than ever before and then one day, with only a tap of the button, and...

Chronology of the Syrian Civil War and Its Impacts on the Country

Cause and effect of issue Prior to the conflict, many Syrians were complaining about the high unemployment rate, corruption and a lack of political freedom due to President Bashar al-Assad, who rose to power and succeeded his father, Hafez, after his death in 2000. What...

• Syrian Civil War

The Horrifying Reality of War in Ishmael Beah's Novel A Long Way Gone

“A Long Way Gone” written by author Ishmael Beah is a book about a young boy named Ishmael who went through a lot of early teenage trauma because of a war that was happening in his home country. The author wrote this book about his...

• A Long Way Gone

Sierra Leone's Robbed Childhood in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

The war deprives kids of childhood, distorts humanity, and brings despair and fear. People living in a peaceful world can never feel the same about the reality and cruelty of wars. This book tells the reader about the actual miserable situation of Sierra Leone during...

Timeline of the Impactful Events in the History of the U.S. During 17th-19th Centuries

To begin with, the establishment of Jamestown is a significantly important event. Jamestown is the first permanent English colony; therefore, Jamestown, Virginia marks the beginning of U.S. history. It’s remarkable, but it is much more fascinating to know that the culture and way of thinking...

The Reaction to the Westward Expansion and Its Consequences

Westward expansion negatively affected the Indians, not only did it cause more conflicts between Indian nations and the white settlers, it also created conflict between Indian nations and other Indian groups. Once gold was discovered in California, many prospectors migrated to California to gain riches....

To What Extent Education Contributed to Fidel Castro’s Cultural War Against The U. S. During the Cold War

Introduction One could argue that education was motivated by labor productivity (industrialization and economics) and politics, but “mass socialist” education to a significant extent most immediately contributed to revolution and cultural change towards a revolutionary awareness. The U.S. backed Batista during his term as president...

• Fidel Castro
• Role of Education

The Weaknesses and Loops in the Articles of Confederation

The governmental system that would work best for America in 1790, would depend on how a constitution organizes power between the central and subnational governments, a country may be said to possess either a unitary or a federal system. I believe America in 1790 would...

The Battle of Gettysburg: Leadership of General Robert E. Lee

This is a book review on the book “The Battle of Gettysburg” which is authored by Bruce Catton. During this time of the Civil War, Gettysburg, a little town in Pennsylvania, was one of the bloodiest battles fought on American soil. With the temperatures being...

• Robert E Lee

The Crucial Fighting Tactics Used in the World War I

WW1 started due to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June, 28, 1914. The assassination took place in Austria Hungary. The assassination was done by a terrorist group that is called the Black Hand. They succeeded in killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand which started WW1...

The Disarmament Acts and Efforts by the Worldwide Organizations

When the nuclear age emerged, worries of resource depletion towards mass-destruction weaponry were apparent. In 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki affirmed those concerns, making it clear that multilateral treaties will be needed to achieve peace. Initial attempts at allowing all States to have nuclear weapons within...

The Battle of Bunker Hill: The Fight for the American Independence

The Battle of Bunker Hill, also known as Breeds Hill, or the Battle of Charlestown took place in Massachusetts June 17th, 1775, where the British were trying to keep control of the city and it’s valuable sea port. This was a battle of bloodshed, a...

The Role of Oregon Trail in a Western Expansion

Manifest destiny and the Oregon Trail Play a huge role in westward expansion. Though Lewis and Clark set out on their expedition in 1804, the missionaries with a real main travels of the Oregon Trail. Merchant Nathan Wyeth led the first missionary group west in...

• Oregon Trail

Analysis of Influences on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The support from the United States, in particular, the money raised by the New York mayor and the diplomatic recognition, was the main cause that allowed Israel to win the war in 1948-49. The money raised by the mayor helped the Zionist cause a lot...

European Union's Policy Towards Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

A historical overview will help us understand that for modern society the 20th century was very cruel and tragic if we speak about the military confrontations and their results as the world had to face two World Wars, the colonisation process, or even totalitarian governments,...

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Essay on War and Its Effects

Students are often asked to write an essay on War and Its Effects in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on War and Its Effects

Introduction.

War is a state of armed conflict between different countries or groups within a country. It’s a destructive event that causes loss of life and property.

The Devastation of War

Wars cause immense destruction. Buildings, homes, and infrastructure are often destroyed, leaving people homeless. The loss of resources makes it hard to rebuild.

The human cost of war is huge. Many people lose their lives or get injured. Families are torn apart, and children often lose their parents.

Psychological Impact

War can cause severe psychological trauma. Soldiers and civilians may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

250 Words Essay on War and Its Effects

War, a term that evokes immediate images of destruction and death, has been a persistent feature of human history. The consequences are multifaceted, influencing not only the immediate physical realm but also the socio-economic and psychological aspects of society.

Physical Impact

The most direct and visible impact of war is the physical destruction. Infrastructure, homes, and natural resources are often destroyed, leading to a significant decline in the quality of life. Moreover, the loss of human lives is immeasurable, creating a vacuum in societies that is hard to fill.

Socio-Economic Consequences

War also has profound socio-economic effects. Economies are crippled as resources are diverted towards war efforts, leading to inflation, unemployment, and poverty. Social structures are disrupted, with families torn apart and communities displaced.

Psychological Effects

Perhaps the most enduring impact of war is psychological. The trauma of violence and loss can have long-term effects on mental health, leading to conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. Society at large also suffers, with the collective psyche marked by fear and mistrust.

In conclusion, war leaves an indelible mark on individuals and societies. Its effects are far-reaching and long-lasting, extending beyond the immediate physical destruction to touch every aspect of life. As we continue to study and understand these impacts, it underscores the importance of pursuing peace and conflict resolution.

500 Words Essay on War and Its Effects

The political impact of war.

War significantly alters the political landscape of nations. It often leads to changes in leadership, shifts in power dynamics, and amendments in legal systems. For instance, World War II resulted in the downfall of fascist regimes in Germany and Italy, giving rise to democratic governments. However, war can also destabilize nations, creating power vacuums that may lead to further conflicts, as seen in the aftermath of the Iraq War.

Social Consequences of War

Societies bear the brunt of war’s destructive nature. The loss of life, displacement of people, and the psychological trauma inflicted upon populations are some of the direct social effects. Indirectly, war also affects societal structures and relationships. It can lead to changes in gender roles, as seen during World War I and II where women took on roles traditionally held by men, leading to significant shifts in gender dynamics.

Economic Ramifications of War

The psychological impact of war.

War leaves a deep psychological imprint on those directly and indirectly involved. Soldiers and civilians alike suffer from conditions like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Moreover, societies as a whole can experience collective trauma, impacting future generations. The psychological scars of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings continue to affect Japanese society today.

In conclusion, war is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon with profound effects that can shape nations and societies in significant ways. Its impacts are not confined to the battlefield but reach deep into the political, social, economic, and psychological fabric of societies. Therefore, understanding its effects is not only essential for historians and political scientists but also for anyone interested in the complexities of human societies and their evolution.

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World War I

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 10, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

World War I, also known as the Great War, started in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder catapulted into a war across Europe that lasted until 1918. During the four-year conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers). Thanks to new military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers had won, more than 16 million people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe—especially in the troubled Balkan region of southeast Europe—for years before World War I actually broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the Ottoman Empire , Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the Balkans (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand —heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Great War

Watch The Great War . Available to stream now.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of events: Austria-Hungary , like many countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia’s ally, France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or “blank check” assurance of Germany’s backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms as to make it almost impossible to accept.

World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed.

Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

The Western Front

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen ), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east.

On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege , using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege cannons—to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France, shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of inciting civilian resistance. 

First Battle of the Marne

In the First Battle of the Marne , fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading German army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris. The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back to the north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both sides dug into trenches , and the Western Front was the setting for a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years.

Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.

HISTORY Vault: World War I Documentaries

Stream World War I videos commercial-free in HISTORY Vault.

World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works of art as “ All Quiet on the Western Front ” by Erich Maria Remarque and “ In Flanders Fields ” by Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae . In the latter poem, McCrae writes from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench warfare and exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes decimated by war.

The Eastern Front

On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland but were stopped short by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914.

Despite that victory, Russia’s assault forced Germany to move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had hoped to win under the Schlieffen Plan .

Russian Revolution

From 1914 to 1916, Russia’s army mounted several offensives on World War I’s Eastern Front but was unable to break through German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the bulk of Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime of Czar Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia’s simmering instability exploded in the Russian Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks , which ended czarist rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.

Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early December 1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by President Woodrow Wilson while continuing to engage in commerce and shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, it was increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of Germany’s unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships, including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and German U-boats sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S. ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania —traveling from New York to Liverpool, England with hundreds of American passengers onboard—in May 1915 helped turn the tide of American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign

With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915. The invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering 250,000 casualties.

Did you know? The young Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia , while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The First Battle of the Isonzo took place in the late spring of 1915, soon after Italy’s entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, also known as the Battle of Caporetto (October 1917), German reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy’s allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British and French—and later, American—troops arrived in the region, and the Allies began to take back the Italian Front.

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain’s Royal Navy was unchallenged by any other nation’s fleet, but the Imperial German Navy had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval powers. Germany’s strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal fleet of U-boat submarines.

After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German navy chose not to confront Britain’s mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.

8 Events that Led to World War I

Imperialism, nationalistic pride and mutual alliances all played a part in building tensions that would erupt into war.

World War I Battles: Timeline

For four years, from 1914 to 1918, World War I raged across Europe’s western and eastern fronts after growing tensions and then the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria ignited the war. Trench warfare and the early use of tanks, submarines and airplanes meant the war’s battles were devastatingly bloody, claiming an estimated 40 […]

10 Things You May Not Know About the Battle of Verdun

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World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes. Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany’s U-boats, the use of planes in World War I presaged their later, pivotal role in military conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903. Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions. During the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push Germany out of France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of 1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from. The Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The Morane-Saulnier Type L was used by the French, the British Royal Flying Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service and the Imperial Russian Air Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system in 1915. His “interrupter” synchronized the firing of the guns with the plane’s propeller to avoid collisions. Though his most popular plane during WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-engine bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long-range heavy bombers like Germany’s Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917) were used to strike cities like London. Their speed and maneuverability proved to be far deadlier than Germany’s earlier Zeppelin raids.

By the war’s end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft than the Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF, the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the navy or army. 

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne . The Allies successfully pushed back the German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany’s best hope of victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the months that followed.

The Harlem Hellfighters and Other All-Black Regiments

By the time World War I began, there were four all-Black regiments in the U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry. All four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War and American-Indian Wars , and served in the American territories. But they were not deployed for overseas combat in World War I. 

Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first African American troops sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance, removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the military formed two Black combat units in 1917, the 92nd and 93rd Divisions . Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September 1918. The 93rd Division, however, had more success. 

How World War I Changed Literature

World War I altered the world for decades, and writers and poets reflected that shift in literature, novels and poetry.

Was Germany Doomed in World War I by the Schlieffen Plan?

The Schlieffen Plan, devised a decade before the start of World War I, was a failed strategy for Germany to win World War I.

A Harlem Hellfighter’s Searing Tales from the WWI Trenches

Blue clouds of poisonous gas. Relentless shelling and machine gun fire. Horace Pippin's art‑filled journals recorded life in ‘them lonely, cooty, muddy trenches.'

With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and General John Pershing , commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial army. The 93 Division’s 369 regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters , fought so gallantly, with a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than any AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their heroism. More than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in World War I in various capacities.

Toward Armistice

By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts.

Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such a devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I “the War to End All Wars.” But the Treaty of Versailles , signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations , Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having believed any peace would be a “peace without victory,” as put forward by President Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points speech of January 1918.

As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II .

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.

The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the world’s deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of the technologies now associated with military conflict—machine guns, tanks , aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use. The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in warfare and remain in effect today.

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World War I

An introduction to world war i.

World War I was a defining event in world history. In August 1914 the nations of Europe tumbled into a war that would ravage their continent and shape the course of the next century. Mankind had known wars of destruction and folly before – but none approached the scale and barbarity of World War I. For four years Europe was paralysed and ravaged by the horrors of industrial weaponry, militarism and total war. The war lacerated the continent, creating two war fronts spanning hundreds of miles each. Millions of fit, healthy men were placed in uniform and marched into the killing fields of France, Belgium and the Eastern Front. Fighting also spread beyond the war’s European crucible, breaking out in the Dardanelles, the Middle East and the distant colonies of Africa and Asia. On the seas, cargo ships and passenger vessels were threatened by blockades and destroyed by submarines, a revolutionary form of naval warfare. World War I was also fought high in the sky, by flying machines that had not been conceived just two decades before. Conflict on this scale required ‘total war’: a war supplied and perpetuated by the coordinated efforts of governments, economies and entire societies. As Winston Churchill later said, “all the horrors of all the ages were brought together; not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them”.

Human error and misjudgement were tragic features of the conflict. The historian A. J. P. Taylor once wrote that blunders shape history more than wickedness; he might have said this with World War I in mind. Many elements of the war, particularly its causes, now seem avoidable, if not absurd. The war emerged not from a pressing dispute or territorial claim, but a poisonous mix of nationalism, xenophobia, paranoia, militaristic bravado, imperialist ambition, misunderstanding and folly. None of this caught anyone by surprise: these attitudes had prickled European relations since the late 19th century. Looking back a century later, it seems ridiculous that modern statesmen and intellectuals could be so blind to these dangers. But blind they were – and the consequences for those they ruled would prove catastrophic. Military and strategic incompetence and short-sightedness also played their part. For years Europe’s career generals had predicted, even expected an industrial war, yet they failed to anticipate what form it might take. Their battle plans were largely based on outdated modes of warfare, some dating back to the days of Napoleon. Strategists clung to the idea that any defensive line could be penetrated, if enough men, horses and bayonets were thrown against it. Germany’s Schlieffen Plan – an ambitious offensive and flanking attack, designed to knock the French out of the war before Russia could fully mobilise – fell short of its ultimate objectives. By late 1914 the Schlieffen assault, slowed by French and Belgian resistance, had run out of steam. As millions of troops poured into northern France, the war froze into stalemate. Armies dug into the ground so that they could hold it; the value of the offensive push was negated by the machine gun and the trench. In just a few weeks of war, the best plans of Europe’s military elite had been exposed as as balderdash.

“The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict. Unnecessary because the train of events that led to its outbreak might have been broken at any point during the five weeks of crisis that preceded the first clash of arms, had prudence or common goodwill found a voice; tragic because the consequences of the first clash ended the lives of ten million human beings, tortured the emotional lives of millions more, destroyed the benevolent and optimistic culture of the European continent and left, when the guns at last fell silent four years later, a legacy of political rancour and racial hatred so intense that no explanation of the causes of the Second World War can stand without reference to those roots… Over half those who died in the Great War were lost as corpses to the wilderness of the battlefield.” John Keegan, historian

The human cost of World War I was staggering. At least 12 million people were killed on the battlefield, many of them utterly obliterated. Millions more were left wounded and disfigured, limbless, crippled or seriously injured. The weapons of industrial warfare, particularly artillery and machine gun fire, chewed through young men as a farm machine threshes through hay. Around ten per cent of all French men under the age of 45 were killed or reported missing. Russia lost so many soldiers it was unable to tally them accurately to the nearest million. Sparsely populated Australia sent more than 415,000 volunteer servicemen – almost ten per cent of its entire population – to the battlefields of Gallipoli, the Middle East and the Western Front. Of this number around one Australian serviceman in every seven would die. Very few of the wartime generation escaped physical suffering, psychological scarring or bereavement. Almost every civilian had a connection with casualties of war.

In some respects World War I was a confrontation between the old and the new, a transforming event that shattered traditional ideas and beliefs. The war certainly changed the political, social and cultural landscape of Europe. Its most visible fatalities were Europe’s old monarchies, which did not survive the maelstrom they themselves had unleashed. In Germany, the Hohenzollern monarchy was toppled from within by its starving people, the kaiser abdicating and taking refuge in Holland. In Russia, the Romanov tsar suffered an even worse fate, overthrown by his own people and later murdered. In Austria-Hungary, neither the Hapsburg royal house or its patchwork empire survived the war. While the removal of these old dynasties was celebrated by many as a step into modernity, their departure left power vacuums and new regimes that proved no better – and in the case of Russia was considerably worse. The war also fanned the flames of political and social reform. Left wing politics flourished as Europeans sought new answers and explanations. The melancholy post war years also gave rise to modernist artistic movements, that sought to capture the despair of the people.

The final battleground of World War I was in the meeting rooms of Paris in 1919. There the statesmen of Europe set about rebuilding their continent and crafting a peace they hoped would last for generations. History reveals it as a battle they lost. The worst decisions are often made in anger – and the ‘big men’ of Paris placed a higher store on blame and retribution than on reconciliation and reconstruction. Germany, excluded from the peace talks, was forced to admit absolute responsibility for starting the war. She was stripped of her industries, left with a skeleton military and slapped with crippling reparations payments. Already devastated by years of war and starvation, the German state soon became an economic basket case, leaving it open to the perils of political extremism. Thinking themselves betrayed and unjustly treated, Germany’s ex-soldiers, militarists and bigots embraced an even more intense and embittered nationalism. The Austro-Hungarian empire was torn apart, its land and people handed to existing nations or used to create new ones. The United States also contributed to the failure of post-war reconstruction. Washington’s refusal to accept membership of the League of Nations, a multi-national body intended to resolve crisis and prevent war, undermined this body before it was even formed.

Alpha History’s World War I section contains more than 400 different resources, including succinct yet informative topic pages, supplementary information and a wide array of primary sources. These resources will help you obtain a confident understanding of one of the 20th century’s most important historical events.

© Alpha History 2014. Content on this page may not be republished or distributed without permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use . This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation: J. Llewellyn et al , “An introduction to World War I” at Alpha History , https://alphahistory.com/worldwar1/introduction-to-world-war-i/, 2014, accessed [date of last access].

World War 1 - Essay Samples And Topic Ideas For Free

World War 1, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict that occurred between 1914 and 1918, chiefly among European powers. Essays on World War 1 might explore the causes of the war, the significant battles, the political dynamics, and the aftermath of the conflict. Discussions could also delve into the technological innovations and tactics employed, the impact of the war on civilian populations, and the cultural and literary responses to the war. Moreover, examining the war’s legacy on international relations, the changing geopolitics, and its role as a precursor to World War 2 can provide a comprehensive exploration of this monumental event in global history. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to World War 1 you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

How Technology Affected World War 1

In my paper I will be discussing the many inventions, weaponry, tools that were being released during that period of war. Many new weapons were being pushed out and provided for us to use against our enemies. One of the biggest inventions of the early 1900s was the tank, during this time it was a war of trenches filled with machine guns spraying down men before they could even make it past the 'no man's land' the solution to that […]

Causes of World War 1

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the world was seething with an explosive, hair-trigger force waiting to explode. Capitalism was undergoing a transition to imperialism. The world’s territory was divided among the world’s most powerful nations. Colonies were scattered throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The struggle between the new empires and the old ones was getting larger and larger. As new forces began to snatch resources, uneven economic development and inadequate […]

World War I: Deadliest War Ever

World war 1 lasted from august 1918 to November 1918. With this war being the deadliest with over 16 million deaths which was between the allied powers which included Serbia, Britain, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, and the united states versus the central powers which included Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the ottoman empire. There were many events that led up to the start of world war 1 such as Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassination which was believed to be […]

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What was the Underlying Cause of World War 1

The Great War, also known as the First World War or World War I, was a geopolitical struggle that emerged in 1914 and lasted for four years. In this essay on the underlying cause of World War 1, we'll look at a few things. This international conflict greatly influenced both the sociopolitical and economic development of most nations in Europe, Israel, Russia, the United States, and the Middle East. Notably, the war eroded the central powers in Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and […]

History of the World War 1

The First World War brought along a series of changes compared to the nineteenth century and peoples previous way of living. In America when the war broke out, housework was largely still a woman’s job and men worked to support the household. When America declared war in 1917 and a vast majority of men had to go fight in the war, the power shifted over to the women. “Middle class women often said that the war broke down the restrictions […]

Compare and Contrast in WW1 and WW2

The First World War (WWI) was battled from 1914 to 1918 and the Second World War (or WWII) was battled from 1939 to 1945. They were the biggest military conflicts in mankind's set of experiences. The two conflicts included military collusions between various gatherings of nations. While WWI included the coalition framework, WWII included the Axis Powers and the Central Powers. World War 1 began from 1914 to 1918 and it went on for a very long time. World War […]

Propaganda during World War 1

In the age of national socialism, and the rise of Hitler, media and the creation of art was controlled by the government in order to prevent anti-government propaganda from reaching the public sphere. By preventing artists and journalists from having the creative freedom to express their opinions the media became one sided. Everyone was fed the same anti-Semitic, pro hitler, pro-government news so that they would be brainwashed into believing that their government was protecting them and fixing Germany. Propaganda […]

Large-Scale World War 1

World War I started in 1914 and kept going until 1918, The Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) battled against the Allied Powers (Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States). Therefore, because of new military advancements and the detestations of channel fighting, World War I saw uncommon dimensions of the massacre. When the war was finished and the Allied Powers guaranteed victory, in excess of 16 million individuals—military and civilian people alike—were dead. […]

Reasons World War i Started

World War One was started because of many reasons, the British were doing everything in their power to make the United States angry. It worked.. The British tried their best to win U.S. support since at the beginning of the war Wilson declared the United States neutral. Many Americans weren't all in, some of them supported one side and the other supported the other side. The British used propaganda, it's information designed to help people create their opinion. Britain cut […]

Car Production during World War 1

This paper is based on two Primary Sources from Chapter 19, “Of Masses and Visions of the Modern, 1910 – 1939”. The first is “Bruce Barton’s Gospel of Mass Production” and the second is “Cult of the Dynamic Leader”. Both of these sources provide information that relates to the period of time covered in this chapter where major changes in both society and politics developed, especially after World War I. One of the major characteristics of the period was the […]

The Spanish Flu during World War 1

 Spain was the first to report the flu in 1918. Symptoms of the flu are like normal flus like fever, aches and feeling nauseous and fatigue. People with the flu first felt chills or Then they began to feel a headache and begin to have pains on their back which then spread to whole body pains causing tenderness in the muscles. Next came vomiting running eyes and a running nose and coughing plus sore throat. People infected then began to […]

Geography of World War i

World War I began in 1914, after Archduke was killed. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, which were the central powers fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States which were the allied powers. By the time the war was over the allied powers won, and more than 16 million people were killed. The assassination of Archduke set off a bunch of events that include, Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack. On […]

Women’s Role in World War 1

Before WWI women had to stay home to raise the family and do work around the house. The women would cook, clean, do laundry, and take care of the family while they raised their children when the men worked.[Women, wages and rights] Some women would become a teacher or librarian for the towns though it was not favored for women to work. In fact, there was a huge resistance to hiring women for “men’s work”. Women wore dresses and corsets […]

Homogenizing a Pluralistic Nation: Propaganda during World War 1

During the World War 1, President Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on Public Information with an attempt to mobilize the opinion of a diverse American community in support of the nation’s war effort. The Committee used many forms of media from posters to films to deliver messages, inspire, and persuade civilians. Shaping people’s thoughts required a compelling use of persuasion methods. We will analyze three main themes of propaganda: army recruitment, buying war bonds, and uniting a multiethnic society; and […]

The most Awarded Soldier in the History of the World War 1

On October 8, 1918, Sergeant Alvin York single-handedly fought off a rain of bullets from thirty-five German machine guns, along with a large battalion of soldiers; defeating them and capturing 129 soldiers. This remarkable war triumph amazed everyone around him, he earned several merit awards and became one of the most decorated and well-known soldiers in World War I history. However, he faced many tragic events leading up to that point, including being forced to fight and kill in that […]

The Raise of Authoritarian and Ultranationalists after World War 1

The rise of authoritarian and ultranationalist in 1930s was an accumulation of several factors such as economic collapse, mistreatment of peasant farmers and workers, and the need for raw material. The world’s economy after World War one was severely crippled and damaging as many nation were left with large debts and for some countries, the price for losing the war have further pushed their economy into ruins. After World War one, several countries were experiencing inflation, each to various degree. […]

Horror of World War i

Theworld war was as known as the great war between 1914 to 1918. During the war Germany Empire was the vital power in the fight in opposition to four big countries like Great Britain, Franc and United States well as. It brought a huge development of war technics and weapons. For examplethe country build up their military power that is mobilizing term and supping necessary war equipments. For instance In Britain developed a weaponry manufacturing company to lead the full […]

Patriotism during World War 1

Last Sunday marked the 100 year anniversary of the end of World War 1. In remembrance of World War 1, many of the world leaders met in Paris, France, where French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech at the Armistice Day Ceremony. According to the Washington State Post, Macron argued that “The millions of soldiers who died in the Great War fought to defend the universal values of France, and to reject the selfishness of nations only looking after their […]

Features of the World War 1

World War I was unlike any previous wars because of its reliance on advanced industrial technology and the economic and political organization of nations at war. World War I saw the first widespread use of machine guns, air power, submarine operations, poison gas and armored vehicles. The war was also characterized by mobilization of civilian resources to make the pace of combat much faster. The technology of World War I was unlike any the world had ever seen used in […]

The Coalition of Power: a Closer Look at the Central Powers in World War 1

Major international powers were split into two opposing coalitions during international War I, a struggle that fundamentally changed the direction of the 20th century. The alliance known as the Central Powers, which was mostly made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria, was very important to the course of the Great War. This article delves further into the Central Powers' participation in one of the bloodiest wars in history by examining its creation, tactics, and effects during World […]

The Puzzle of World War 1 Central Powers: Untangling the Threads of Global Turmoil

In the chaotic symphony of the First World War, the Central Powers orchestrated a performance that danced on the edge of geopolitics, blending the hues of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria into an enigmatic canvas. This alliance, a concoction of diplomatic intricacies and shared ambitions, unfolded a narrative that surpassed the conventional boundaries of global conflict. As we plunge into the heart of the Central Powers during WW1, we find a tapestry woven with alliances, strategic gambits, and […]

Review of World War One

World War One began in nineteen fourteen, right after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. The war lasted till nineteen nineteen. During the war many countries decided to work together to try and win the war. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire teamed up against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan, and the United States. The most important cause of World War One was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. In the summer of […]

The Alliance System: Unraveling the Threads of World War 1

As the curtains fell on the 19th century and the world stood at the threshold of a new era, an intricate web of alliances quietly wove itself across the geopolitical stage. This alliance system, conceived as a mechanism to foster stability, paradoxically became the harbinger of one of the most devastating conflicts in human history – World War I. In unraveling the threads of this complex tapestry, it becomes evident that the alliance system was not merely a backdrop to […]

The Alliance System of World War 1: a Prelude to Global Conflict

The commencement of World War I in 1914 was a watershed moment in history, ushering in an age of large-scale industrial warfare. The intricate alliance structure among Europe's leading nations was key to the conflict's intensification. This network of treaties and accords, forged over decades, laid the groundwork for a regional conflict to escalate into a worldwide war. This article investigates the development, nature, and significance of alliances prior to World War I, giving insights into how they led to […]

Beneath the Waves: the Role of Submarines in World War 1

The First World War, often characterized by its brutal trench warfare and massive land battles, also marked a significant chapter in naval history with the strategic use of submarines. These underwater vessels, relatively new to the theater of war, brought a unique dimension to naval combat and significantly impacted the war's course. This essay explores the role and evolution of submarines during World War I, examining their strategic significance, technological advancements, and the challenges they posed to traditional naval powers. […]

Was the World War 2 a Continuation of World War 1?

World War II Research and Family Paper, The Second World War was one of the most tragic wars facing us in the 1900s. The Second World War is the continuation of the First World War but at a completely new level. I'll explain an overview of the war and what it was like to live through it in this research paper. The Genesis of World War II There were many things that could be considered to have caused the war, […]

Information about World War i

World War 1, also known as the first world war and the great war, had started conflicts throughout the world. 1914-1918 most of the european countries, Russia, and the middle east were at war. The United States would also be entering the war later as it went on. Germany, Austria, and Turkey were the Central Powers, they fought against the Allies which was France, Great Britain, Russia and later the U.S. 19 million soldiers and civilians died in World War […]

Comparing World War i and World War II

World War I was one of the greatest wars of all time. It was very hard times for the world, as people all around were constantly in fear of what could be their tomorrow. But it wasn't always this horrid, as certain events let to this point in history. Everyone surrounded by moods changing before, during, and after the Great War. The conflict between different countries led to what could've been an even greater disaster. Before World War I, the […]

United States Joining and Involved in World War i

On April 6, 1917, the United States joined its allies, Great Britain, France, and Russia, and fought in World War I. The U.S. army was under the command of General John J. Pershing. More than 2 million U.S. soldiers battled and fought on France battlefields during this war. When World War 1 began in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality (the United States would not support or take part in World War I) for the United States. Many U.S. citizens […]

The Guns of August (1962) by Barbara W. Tuchman

The book “The Guns of August” explains many topics throughout it, such as, imperialism, political alliances, the diplomacy of royalty amongst national rivalries, and even the social darwinism in the years leading up to the Great War. The Great War lasted from 1914-1918. This book starts by explaining the scene of the funeral for King Edward VII. There were many royal people that attended this event, such as 5 heirs, 40 imperials or royal highnesses, 7 queens, and a whole […]

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How To Write an Essay About World War 1

Introduction to world war 1.

When embarking on an essay about World War 1, it's essential to first establish a clear understanding of the historical context and significance of the war. Known as "The Great War," World War 1 was a pivotal event in world history, marked by its unprecedented scale, the involvement of numerous nations, and the introduction of new warfare technologies. In your introduction, outline the basic timeline of the war, from its origins in 1914 to its conclusion in 1918, and the main countries involved. This initial section should set the stage for a comprehensive exploration of the war's causes, major battles, political dynamics, and its profound impact on the 20th century.

Analyzing the Causes and Key Events

The main body of your essay should delve into the complex causes and key events of World War 1. Explore the intricate web of alliances, militarism, imperialism, and nationalism that set the stage for the war. Discuss critical battles and campaigns, such as the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Verdun, and the Gallipoli Campaign, highlighting their strategic importance and the human cost involved. It's crucial to use specific examples and historical data to illustrate the progression of the war and the shifts in momentum among the warring nations. This section should provide a detailed and nuanced understanding of how World War 1 unfolded and the factors that drove its progression.

The Impact of World War 1

In this section, focus on the wide-ranging impact of World War 1. Analyze the immediate consequences, including the massive loss of life, the physical and psychological toll on soldiers, and the political upheaval in many participating countries. Discuss the broader implications of the war, such as the redrawing of national borders, the dissolution of empires, and the setting of the stage for World War 2. Consider also the social and cultural impacts, including how the war influenced art, literature, and public attitudes towards war and peace. This part of the essay should highlight the transformative effect World War 1 had on the world.

Concluding Reflections on World War 1

Conclude your essay by summarizing the key points of your analysis, emphasizing the historical significance of World War 1. Reflect on the lessons learned from the war and its relevance to modern society. Consider how understanding the complexities of World War 1 can provide insights into current global conflicts and international relations. A well-crafted conclusion will not only bring closure to your essay but also underscore the enduring legacy of World War 1 in shaping the contemporary world.

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World War I Introduction and Overview

Belligerent nations.

• Origins of World War I

World War I on Land

World war i at sea, technical innovation, modern view.

• M.A., Medieval Studies, Sheffield University
• B.A., Medieval Studies, Sheffield University

World War I was a major conflict fought in Europe and around the world between July 28, 1914, and November 11, 1918. Nations from across all non-polar continents were involved , although Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary dominated. Much of the war was characterized by stagnant trench warfare and massive loss of life in failed attacks; over eight million people were killed in battle.

The war was fought by two main power blocks: the Entente Powers , or 'Allies,' comprised of Russia, France, Britain (and later the U.S.), and their allies on one side and the Central Powers of Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey, and their allies on the other. Italy later joined the Entente. Many other countries played smaller parts on both sides.

Origins of World War I

To understand the origins , it is important to understand how politics at the time. European politics in the early twentieth century were a dichotomy: many politicians thought war had been banished by progress while others, influenced partly by a fierce arms race, felt war was inevitable. In Germany, this belief went further: the war should happen sooner rather than later, while they still (as they believed) had an advantage over their perceived major enemy, Russia. As Russia and France were allied, Germany feared an attack from both sides. To mitigate this threat, the Germans developed the Schlieffen Plan , a swift looping attack on France designed to knock it out early, allowing for concentration on Russia.

Rising tensions culminated on June 28th, 1914 with the assassination of  Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand  by a Serbian activist, an ally of Russia. Austro-Hungary asked for German support and was promised a 'blank cheque'; they declared war on Serbia on July 28th. What followed was a sort of domino effect as more and more nations joined the fight . Russia mobilized to support Serbia, so Germany declared war on Russia; France then declared war on Germany. As German troops swung through Belgium into France days later, Britain declared war on Germany too. Declarations continued until much of Europe was at war with each other. There was widespread public support.

After the swift German invasion of France was stopped at the Marne, 'the race to the sea' followed as each side tried to outflank each other ever closer to the English Channel. This left the entire Western Front divided by over 400 miles of trenches, around which the war stagnated. Despite massive battles like Ypres , little progress was made and a battle of attrition emerged, caused partly by German intentions to 'bleed the French dry' at Verdun and Britain's attempts on the Somme . There was more movement on the Eastern Front with some major victories, but there was nothing decisive and the war carried on with high casualties.

Attempts to find another route into their enemy’s territory led to the failed Allied invasion of Gallipoli, where Allied forces held a beachhead but were halted by fierce Turkish resistance. There was also conflict on the Italian front, the Balkans, the Middle East, and smaller struggles in colonial holdings where the warring powers bordered each other.

Although the build-up to war had included a naval arms race between Britain and Germany, the only large naval engagement of the conflict was the Battle of Jutland, where both sides claimed victory. Instead, the defining struggle involved submarines and the German decision to pursue Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (USW). This policy allowed submarines to attack any target they found, including those belonging to the 'neutral' United States, which caused the latter to enter the war in 1917 on behalf of the Allies, supplying much-needed manpower.

Despite Austria-Hungary becoming little more than a German satellite, the Eastern Front was the first to be resolved, the war causing massive political and military instability in Russia, leading to the Revolutions of 1917 , the emergence of socialist government and surrender on December 15. Efforts by the Germans to redirect manpower and take the offensive in the west failed and, on November 11, 1918 (at 11:00 am), faced with allied successes, massive disruption at home and the impending arrival of vast US manpower, Germany signed an Armistice, the last Central power to do so.

Each of the defeated nations signed a treaty with the Allies, most significantly the Treaty of Versailles which was signed with Germany, and which has been blamed for causing further disruption ever since. There was devastation across Europe: 59 million troops had been mobilized, over 8 million died and over 29 million were injured. Huge quantities of capital had been passed to the now emergent United States and the culture of every European nation was deeply affected and the struggle became known as The Great War or The War to End All Wars.

World War I was the first to make major use of machine guns, which soon showed their defensive qualities. It was also the first to see poison gas used on the battlefields, a weapon which both sides made use of, and the first to see tanks, which were initially developed by the allies and later used to great success. The use of aircraft evolved from simply reconnaissance to a whole new form of aerial warfare.

Thanks partly to a generation of war poets who recorded the horrors of the war and a generation of historians who castigated the Allied high command for their decisions and ‘waste of life’ (Allied soldiers being the 'Lions led by Donkeys'), the war was generally viewed as a pointless tragedy. However, later generations of historians have found mileage in revising this view. While the Donkeys have always been ripe for recalibration, and careers built on provocation have always found material (such as Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War ), the centenary commemorations found historiography split between a phalanx wishing to create a new martial pride and sideline the worst of the war to create an image of a conflict well worth fighting and then truly won by the allies, and those who wished to stress the alarming and pointless imperial game millions of people died for. The war remains highly controversial and as subject to attack and defense as the newspapers of the day.

• World War I: A Battle to the Death
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• The Major Alliances of World War I
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• The Controversial Versailles Treaty Ended World War I
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American History: The Civil War (1861-1865) Essay

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Introduction

The civil war, northern versus southern interests, causes of the civil war, aftermath of the civil war.

Bibliography

American history is considered as the most inquisitive worldwide. Traditionally, American history started by a declaration of independence in the year 1776. This declaration was due to threats of British government towards American self-governed system. Declaration of Independence led to war in 1775 that was to liberate Americans.

With help of France in providing military and financial support, the patriots won American Revolution. In 1789, war hero George Washington became the first president of federal government by virtue of Constitution. With influence of European community, coping with scope of central government proved to be a challenging issue for American people.

In 1790s, creation of political parties was initiated, and later fought for the second independence in 1812. Consequently, this brought about expansion of US territory westwards. With this, the US managed to overcome modernizers who were solely interested in deepening its economy rather than helping American people in expanding their geography.

Heavy demand for cotton in southern states encouraged slavery of Africans even though it was illegal in northern states. In 1860, came the election of Abraham Lincoln as president and this triggered a crisis in slave states as he dejected the expansion of slave trade. Amongst the slave states, some of them seceded in forming the Confederate States of America in 1861. This brought about American Civil War, which was from 1861 to 1865.

In the American history, Civil War is the most momentous event that ever happened in the US. This iconic event redefined the American nation, as it was a fight that aimed at preserving the Union, which was the United States of America. From inauguration of the Constitution, differing opinions existed on the role of federal government.

It was a belief of Federalists that in order to ensure the union did not collapse, there was need for the federal government to hold on to power. Anti-federalists on the other hand, were of the opinion that sovereignty of the new states were to remain within their countries. Anti-federalists believed that each state had the right to determine their own set of laws and it is not right to indict them in following mandates of the federal government.

With the advent of the slavery, Northern states completely squared off against Southern states. The main reason for this being economic interests of north and south which were opposed to each other. In addition, Southerners largely depended on large-scale plantations of cotton, which was more labor-intensive.

On the other hand, northerners were more of a manufacturing region who produced finished goods by making use of raw materials. Southern ingrained culture of the plantation era encouraged slavery because it gave them an inexpensive labor source. The compromise of each group was the fear that one could gain an unequal amount of power. For example, northerners feared that if more slave states existed, then they would garner an unequal power in the nation.

The causes of the American Civil War, which claimed of over 618,000 casualties, are traceable back to early days in history of the US when tensions escalated. The main cause was difference in economic and social capabilities between the North and the South. The South mainly depended on cotton, which meant the urgent need for cheap labor most probably slaves, as they became one crop economy. On the other hand, northerners depended solely on industrial products.

This disparity, which existed between the two, was the major difference in their economies. The second cause was due to the infighting between those who favored states’ rights and those who favored federal rights. Emergence of these two camps that had differences in opinions ignited the war.

Third, the American Civil War was caused by in-fight between those who were proponents of slavery and those who were against slavery. Another cause of the American Civil War was the growth of the abolition movement. The fact that northerners were against slavery led to the increase of abolitionists who were against slaveholders. Lastly, when Abraham Lincoln was elected as president, it catalyzed the Civil War, as Southerners believed that he favored interests of the northerners because he was against slavery.

Surrender of General Robert E. Lee on April 9, 1865, marked an end to the Confederacy era. However, this did not stop the war completely as some small battles continued to occur. This was later to end when the last general, Stand Watie, surrendered on June 23, 1865.

Abraham Lincoln’s vision of reconstructing the nation did not bear much fruit as it failed to become a reality because of his assassination on April 14, 1865. The Radical Republicans imposed military rule on the southerners dealing with them harshly until Rutherford B. Hayes ended it in 1876. In the American history, Civil War is a watershed event and most importantly an event that officially ended slavery.

In conclusion, the Civil War was an important event in history of the American people. Moreover, its iconic stature is very vital, as the proponents who were against slavery became victors because their wish of anti-slavery was satisfied. In addition, it helped in liberating the people who had different opinions and gave them reasons to live for better ideals.

Foner, Eric. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery . New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.

Kelly Martin. “ Overview of the American Civil War-Secession. ” About. Web.

Kelly Martin. “Top Five Causes of the Civil War: Leading up to Secession and the Civil War.” About. Web.

The History Channel. “ American Civil War. ” History. Web.

• Civil War Paper: Valley of the Shadow
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IvyPanda. (2018, October 25). American History: The Civil War (1861-1865). https://ivypanda.com/essays/american-history-the-civil-war-1861-1865/

"American History: The Civil War (1861-1865)." IvyPanda , 25 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/american-history-the-civil-war-1861-1865/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'American History: The Civil War (1861-1865)'. 25 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "American History: The Civil War (1861-1865)." October 25, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/american-history-the-civil-war-1861-1865/.

1. IvyPanda . "American History: The Civil War (1861-1865)." October 25, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/american-history-the-civil-war-1861-1865/.

IvyPanda . "American History: The Civil War (1861-1865)." October 25, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/american-history-the-civil-war-1861-1865/.

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World History

Cold war introduction.

The uneasy alliance between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union that defeated Nazi Germany began to unravel after World War II, giving rise to an ongoing political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies that became known as the Cold War, a name coined separately by English writer George Orwell  and American presidential adviser Bernard Baruch . The United States and the Soviet Union had emerged from the World War II as the planet’s only superpowers, and, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, while the U.S. was employing  the Marshall Plan to help resurrect the economies and democracies of western Europe, the U.S.S.R. was establishing communist regimes in eastern Europe and keeping them on a tight leash. By the mid-1950s the two camps had formed competing military alliances, the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. With the triumph of the communists in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the Soviet bloc had gained another formidable ally in the People’s Republic of China.

Over the next four plus decades the two sides engaged in ideological battle for the hearts and minds of the rest of the world, especially the decolonized nations of the so-called Third World. Sometimes that competition heated up in wars fought indirectly through surrogates or by one side facing forces supported by the other (most notably the Korean and Vietnam wars). In 1962, with both sides in possession of arsenals of nuclear weapons, the world was poised on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. Thereafter the Soviet Union and United States threatened Earth with massive annihilation as they raced each other in the accumulation of thermonuclear weapons even as they sought to negotiate disarmament. Seeking to persuade the world of the superiority of their respective ideologies—Soviet communism, American democratic capitalism—the U.S.S.R and U.S., each convinced of their opponent’s unquenchable desire to dominate the world, competed on every field imaginable, from the race to space to the dash for Olympic finish lines. Their tools also included persuasion, propaganda, and lots of military and financial aid. By the early 1990s, the Cold War came to end with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its bloc, though why that came about is still debated.

Iron Curtain

Berlin wall, third world, video: berlin wall escapes.

Learn about the construction of the Berlin Wall and how East Germans tried to find a way past it.

Wartime Big Three Conferences​

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Major Cold War Events

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World of 1898: International Perspectives on the Spanish American War

Overview essay.

• Introduction
• Cuba in 1898
• Chronology of Cuba in the Spanish-American War
• Philippine Perspective
• The Changing of the Guard: Puerto Rico in 1898
• The Spanish-American War of 1898: a Spanish View
• American Perspective
• Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy
• Russell Alexander Alger
• Thomas McArthur Anderson
• Basilio Augustin y Dávila
• Ramón Auñón y Villalón
• Román Baldorioty de Castro
• José Celso Barbosa
• Clara Barton
• Segismundo Bermejo
• Ramón Emeterio Betances
• Ramón Blanco y Erenas
• Andrés Bonifacio
• John Rutter Brooke
• Jules-Martin Cambon
• Pascual Cervera y Topete
• Grover Cleveland
• Stephen Crane
• George W. Davis
• Federico Degetau y González
• George Dewey
• José de Diego
• Manuel V. Domenech
• Enrique Dupuy de Lôme
• Oswald Herbert Ernst
• Maximo Gómez Baez
• John Milton Hay
• Guy Vernon Henry
• Eugenio María de Hostos y Bonilla
• Tulio Larrinaga
• Fitzhugh Lee
• William Ludlow
• Antonio Maceo
• Manuel Macías
• William McKinley
• Nelson Appleton Miles
• Luis Muñoz Rivera
• Whitelaw Reid
• Lola Rodríguez de Tió
• Manuel Rojas
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Práxedes Mateo Sagasta
• William T. Sampson
• Juan Manuel Sánchez y Gutiérrez de Castro
• Theodore Schwan
• William Shafter
• Martín Travieso
• Joaquín Vara de Rey y Rubio
• James Franklin Wade
• Richard Wainwright
• Valeriano Weyler
• Walt Whitman
• Henry H. Whitney
• James Harrison Wilson
• Coamo and Aibonito
• Mayagüez, Hormigueros, and Arecibo
• Cienfuegos Bay
• Abolition of Slavery in Puerto Rico
• American Ships in the Spanish-American War
• Balzac v. Porto Rico
• Foraker Act (Organic Act of 1900)
• Grito de Balintawak
• Grito de Lares
• Hurricane San Ciriaco
• Anti-Imperialist League
• Military Government in Puerto Rico
• Olmsted Amendment
• Peace Agreement in Puerto Rico
• Reconcentration Policy
• Rough Riders
• Spanish Ships in the Spanish-American War
• Teller and Platt Amendments
• Treaty of Paris of 1898
• U.S.S. Gloucester
• Additional Resources
• Acknowledgements

The Spanish-American War

By david trask.

Between 1895 and 1898 Cuba and the Philippine Islands revolted against Spain. The Cubans gained independence, but the Filipinos did not. In both instances the intervention of the United States was the culminating event.

In 1895 the Cuban patriot and revolutionary, José Martí, resumed the Cuban struggle for freedom that had failed during the Ten Years' War (1868-1878). Cuban juntas provided leadership and funds for the military operations conducted in Cuba. Spain possessed superior numbers of troops, forcing the Cuban generals Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo, to wage guerrilla warfare in the hope of exhausting the enemy. Operations began in southeastern Cuba but soon spread westward. The Spanish Conservative Party, led by Antonio Cánovas y Castillo, vowed to suppress the insurrectos, but failed to do so.

The Cuban cause gained increasing support in the United States, leading President Grover Cleveland to press for a settlement, but instead Spain sent General Valeriano Weyler to pacify Cuba. His stern methods, including reconcentration of the civilian population to deny the guerrillas support in the countryside, strengthened U.S. sympathy for the Cubans. President William McKinley then increased pressure on Spain to end the affair, dispatching a new minister to Spain for this purpose. At this juncture an anarchist assassinated Cánovas, and his successor, the leader of the Liberal Party Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, decided to make a grant of autonomy to Cuba and Puerto Rico. The Cuban leadership resisted this measure, convinced that continued armed resistance would lead to independence.

In February two events crystallized U.S. opinion in favor of Cuban independence. First, the Spanish minister in Washington, Enrique Dupuy de Lóme, wrote a letter critical of President McKinley that fell into the hands of the Cuban junta in New York. Its publication caused a sensation, but Sagasta quickly recalled Dupuy de Lóme. A few days later, however, the Battleship Maine, which had been sent to Havana to provide a naval presence there exploded and sank, causing the death of 266 sailors. McKinley, strongly opposed to military intervention, ordered an investigation of the sinking as did Spain. The Spanish inquiry decided that an internal explosion had destroyed the vessel, but the American investigation claimed an external source.

The reluctant McKinley was then forced to demand that Spain grant independence to Cuba, but Sagasta refused, fearing that such a concession would destroy the shaky Restoration Monarchy. It faced opposition from various domestic political groups that might exploit the Cuban affair by precipitating revolution at home. Underlying strong Spanish opposition to Cuban freedom was the traditional belief that God had granted Spain its empire, of which Cuba was the principal remaining area, as a reward for the conquest of the Moors. Spanish honor demanded defense of its overseas possessions, including Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Spain sought diplomatic support from the great powers of Europe, but its long-standing isolation and the strength of the U.S. deterred sympathetic governments from coming to its aid.

On 25 April Congress responded to McKinley's request for armed intervention. Spain had broken diplomatic relations on 23 April. The American declaration of war was predated to 21 April to legitimize certain military operations that had already taken place, particularly a blockade of Havana. To emphasize that its sole motive at the beginning of the struggle was Cuban independence, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution, the Teller Amendment, that foreswore any intention of annexing Cuba.

Neither nation had desired war but both had made preparations as the crisis deepened after the sinking of the Maine. McKinley, having opposed war, hoped to end it quickly at the least possible expenditure of blood and treasure. The U.S. possessed a small well-trained navy, but the army was composed only twenty-eight thousand regulars. Spain had large garrisons in Cuba and the Philippines, but its navy was poorly maintained and much weaker than that of the U.S. Prewar planning in the U.S. had settled upon a naval blockade of Cuba and an attack on the decrepit Spanish squadron at Manila to achieve command of the sea and preclude reinforcement and resupply of the Spanish overseas forces. These measures would bring immediate pressure on Spain and signal American determination. The small army would conduct raids against Cuba and help sustain the Cuban army until a volunteer army could be mobilized for extensive service in Cuba. Spain was forced to accept the U.S. decision to fight on the periphery of Spanish power where its ability to resist was weakest.

The war began with two American successes. Admiral William Sampson immediately established a blockade of Havana that was soon extended along the north coast of Cuba and eventually to the south side. Sampson then prepared to counter Spanish effort to send naval assistance. Then, on 1 May, Commodore George Dewey, commanding the Asiatic Squadron, destroyed Admiral Patricio Montoyo's small force of wooden vessels in Manila Bay. Dewey had earlier moved from Japan to Hong Kong to position himself for an attack on the Philippines. When news of this triumph reached Washington, McKinley authorized a modest army expedition to conduct land operations against Manila, a step in keeping with the desire to maintain constant pressure on Spain in the hope of forcing an early end to the war.

On 29 April a Spanish squadron commanded by Admiral Pascual Cervera left European waters for the West Indies to reinforce the Spanish forces in Cuba. Sampson prepared to meet this challenge to American command of the Caribbean Sea. Cervera eventually took his squadron into the harbor at Santiago de Cuba at the opposite end of the island from Havana where the bulk of the Spanish army was concentrated.

As soon as Cervera was blockaded at Santiago (29 May) McKinley made two important decisions. He ordered the regular army, then being concentrated at Tampa, to move as quickly as possible to Santiago de Cuba. There it would join with the navy in operations intended to eliminate Cervera's forces. Also on 3 June he secretly informed Spain of his war aims through Great Britain and Austria. Besides independence for Cuba, he indicated a desire to annex Puerto Rico (in lieu of a monetary indemnity) and an island in the Marianas chain in the Pacific Ocean. Also the United States sought a port in the Philippines, but made no mention of further acquisitions there. The American message made it clear that the U.S. would increase its demands, should Spain fail to accept these demands. Sagasta was not yet ready to admit defeat, which ended the initial American attempt to arrange an early peace.

Major General William Shafter then conducted a chaotic but successful transfer of the Fifth Army Corps from Tampa to the vicinity of Santiago de Cuba. The need to move quickly caused great confusion, but it was a reasonable price to pay for seizing the initiative at the earliest possible moment. The navy escorted his convoy of transports around the eastern end of Cuba to Santiago de Cuba, where he arrived on 20 June. After landing at Daiquirí and Siboney east of the city, he moved quickly toward the enemy along an interior route, fearful of tropical diseases and desirous of thwarting Spanish reinforcements on the way from the north.

The navy urged a different course, suggesting an attack on the narrow channel connecting the harbor of Santiago de Cuba to the sea. An advance near the coast would allow the navy's guns to provide artillery support. Sweeping of mines in the channel and seizure of the batteries in the area would enable the navy to storm the harbor entrance and enter the harbor for an engagement with Cervera's forces. Shafter rejected this proposal, perhaps because of army-navy rivalry. The Spanish commander did not oppose Shafter's landing and offered only slight resistance to his westward movement. He disposed his garrison of ten thousand men along a perimeter reaching entirely around the city to the two sides of the harbor channel, hoping to prevent Cuban guerrillas under General Máximo Gómez from getting into the city. Three defensive lines were created west of the city to deal with the American advance. The first line was centered on the San Juan Heights, but only five hundred troops were assigned to defend the place. The Spanish intended to make their principal defense closer to the city.

Shafter's plan of attack, based on inadequate reconnaissance, envisioned two associated operations. One force would attack El Caney, a strong point of the Spanish left to eliminate the possibility of a flank attack on the main American effort, aimed at the San Juan Heights. After reducing El Caney, the American troops would move into position to the right of the rest of the Fifth Corps for an assault in the San Juan Heights that would carry into the city and force the capitulation of the Spanish garrison. Shafter's orders for the attack were vague, leading some historians to believe that Shafter intended only to seize the heights.

The battle of 1 July did not develop as planned. Lawton's force was detained at El Caney where a Spanish garrison of only five hundred men held off the attackers for many hours. Meanwhile the rest of the Fifth Corps struggled into position beneath the San Juan Heights. It did not move against the Spanish positions until the early afternoon. Fortunately a section of Gatling guns was able to fire on the summit of San Juan Hill, a bombardment that forced the Spanish defenders to abandon the position to the American force attacking on the left. Another group on the right that included the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, commanded that day by Theodore Roosevelt, moved across an adjacent elevation, Kettle Hill. The Spanish retreated to their second line of defense, and the Fifth Army Corps, exhausted and disorganized, set about entrenching itself on the San Juan Heights. Having failed to seize the city, Shafter considered abandoning this position, which was exposed to enemy artillery fire, but mandatory orders from Washington led instead to the inauguration of a siege, soon supported by the arrival of U.S. reinforcements.

The partial success of 1 July produced consternation in Havana. The commander in Cuba, General Ramón Blanco, ordered Cervera to leave Santiago de Cuba, fearing that the Spanish squadron would fall into American hands, to face the concentrated fire of all the American vessels outside, a certain recipe for disaster. Blanco persisted, and on 3 July Cervera made his sortie. Admiral Sampson had just left the blockade, moving east to compose differences with General Shafter. This movement left Commodore Winfield Scott Schley as the senior officer present during the naval battle. Schley had earned Sampson's distrust because of his earlier failure to blockade Cervera promptly. This concern was justified when Schley allowed his flagship to make an eccentric turn away from the exiting Spanish ships before assuming its place in the pursuit. Cervera hoped to flee west to Cienfuegos, but four of his five vessels were sunk near the entrance to the channel. The other ship was overhauled over fifty miles westward where its commander drove it upon the shore to escape sinking.

This destruction of Cervera's squadron decided the war, although further fighting occurred elsewhere. Sagasta decided to capitulate at Santiago de Cuba and to inaugurate peace negotiations at an early date through the good offices of France. He also recalled a naval expedition under Admiral Manuel de la Cámara that had left Spain earlier, moving eastward through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal to relieve the garrison in the Philippines. The navy had organized a squadron to pursue Cámara, but his recall ended any requirement for it.

After the Spanish forces at Santiago de Cuba capitulated on 17 July, a welcome event because the Fifth Army Corps had fallen victim to malaria, dysentery, and other tropical diseases, the Commanding General of the Army, Nelson Miles, led an expedition to Puerto Rico that landed on the south coast of that island. He sent three columns northward with orders to converge on San Juan. These movements proceeded successfully, but were ended short of the objective when word of a peace settlement reached Miles. Meanwhile the fifth Army Corps was hastily shipped to Long Island to recuperate while volunteer regiments continued the occupation of Cuba commanded by General Leonard Wood.

The last military operations of the war were conducted at Manila. An expedition under Major General Wesley Merritt arrived during July and encamped north of the city. Preparations for an attack were made amidst increasing signs of opposition from Filipino insurrectos led by Emilio Aguinaldo. He had become the leader of a revolutionary outburst in 1896-1897 that had ended in a truce. He established himself in Hong Kong, and in May 1898 Commodore Dewey transported him to Manila where he set about re-energizing his movement. During the summer he succeeded in gaining control of extensive territory in Luzon, and his forces sought to seize Manila. Dewey provided some supplies, but did not recognize the government that Aguinaldo set up.

Dewey hoped to avoid further hostilities at Manila. To this end he engaged in shadowy negotiations with a new Spanish governor in Manila and the Roman Catholic Bishop of the city. An agreement was reached whereby there would be a brief engagement between the Spanish and American forces followed immediately by surrender of the city, after which the Americans were to prevent Aguinaldo's troops from entering Manila. General Merritt was suspicious of this deal, but on 13 August, after the American troops moved through a line of defenses north of Manila, the Spanish garrison surrendered to Dewey. The guerrillas were denied access, and the American troops occupied the city. Continuing American failure to recognize the Aguinaldo government fostered increasing distrust.

Meanwhile, negotiations between McKinley and the French ambassador in Washington, Jules Cambon, came to fruition. The string of Spanish defeats ensured that the U.S. could dictate a settlement. On 12 August, McKinley and Cambon signed a protocol that provided for Cuban independence and the cession of Puerto Rico and an island in the Marianas (Guam). It differed from the American offer of June only in that it deferred action on the Philippines to a peace conference in Paris. The cautious McKinley hoped to limit American involvement with the Philippines, but a strong current of public opinion in favor of the annexation of the entire archipelago forced the President's hand. He developed a rationale for expansion that stressed the duty of the nation and its destiny, arguing that he could discern no other acceptable course. The Spanish delegation at the peace conference was forced to accept McKinley's decision. The Treaty of Paris signed on 10 December 1898 ceded the Philippines to the U.S. in return for a sum of $25 million to pay for Spanish property in the islands.

When the treaty was sent to the Senate for approval, anti-imperialist elements offered some opposition, but on 6 February 1899 the Senate accepted it by a vote of 57 to 27, only two more than the necessary two-thirds majority. Fatefully, two days before the vote, armed hostilities broke out at Manila between the American garrison and Aguinaldo's troops, the beginning of a struggle that lasted until July 1902. Although Cuba received its independence, the Platt Amendment (1902) severely limited its sovereignty and stimulated a dependent relationship that affected the evolution of Cuban society. This dependency leads some historians to maintain that the events of 1895-1898 were simply a transition (la transición) from Spanish imperialism to American imperialism. Eventually the U.S. rejected the expansion of 1898, which included the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, canceling the Platt Amendment, granting independence to the Philippine Islands, and admitting Hawaii into the Union. The war heralded the emergence of the United States as a great power, but mostly it reflected the burgeoning national development of the nineteenth century. World War I, not the American intervention in the Cuban-Spanish struggle of 1895-1898, determined the revolutionized national security policy of the years since 1914. These policies, in keeping with American values, were decidedly anti-imperialistic in both the formal and informal meanings of the term.

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Home — Essay Samples — War — American Civil War

Essays on American Civil War

This pivotal event in American history is a goldmine for essay topics, offering a wealth of material to explore and analyze, whether you're a history buff or just looking to boost your grades, writing an essay about the American Civil War is a great way to sharpen your research and writing skills.

Choosing a topic for your American Civil War essay

The possibilities are endless. You could explore the causes and effects of the war, analyze the different perspectives of key figures, or even delve into the impact of the war on American society. Whichever topic you choose, make sure it's something you're passionate about and eager to learn more about.

Argumentative essay topics

If you're considering writing an argumentative essay about the American Civil War, you'll need to take a clear stance on a specific aspect of the war and provide evidence to support your position. Some potential topics for an argumentative essay could include the role of slavery in causing the war, the impact of key battles, or the significance of key figures in the war.

Cause and effect essay topics

For a cause and effect essay, you'll need to examine the reasons behind the war and the consequences that followed. Potential topics could include the economic, social, and political factors that led to the war, as well as the long-term effects on American society and culture.

Opinion essay topics

If you're more interested in expressing your personal opinions and beliefs, an opinion essay on the American Civil War could be the perfect fit. You could explore the moral implications of the war, the legacy of key figures, or the relevance of the war to modern American society.

Informative essay topics

For an informative essay, you'll need to present a comprehensive overview of a specific aspect of the American Civil War. Potential topics could include key events and battles, the impact of the war on different regions, or the experiences of soldiers and civilians.

Examples to inspire your own writing

For a thesis statement, you could consider topics such as "The role of slavery in causing the American Civil War" or "The impact of key battles on the outcome of the war."

In your , you could set the stage for your essay by providing historical context, defining key terms, and outlining the main points you'll be discussing. For example, you could start with a powerful quote from a key figure or a gripping description of a pivotal battle.

When it comes to wrapping up your essay, your should reiterate your main points and leave the reader with a thought-provoking final statement. You could reflect on the broader significance of the war, call for further research, or challenge the reader to consider the implications of your findings.

With these examples in mind, you're well on your way to crafting a captivating and insightful essay about the American Civil War. So grab your pen and paper, and get ready to bring history to life through your writing!

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He Stands Out in a ‘Sea of Elites and Strivers’: Our Writers on What Tim Walz Brings to the Ticket

By New York Times Opinion

On Tuesday, Kamala Harris announced that Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, was her running mate. We asked eight of our columnists and contributors to assess the pick by rating Mr. Walz on two metrics: how much he’ll help Ms. Harris against Donald Trump and how much enthusiasm he’ll generate.

What excites you about the pick?

Josh Barro, author of the newsletter Very Serious Tim Walz is good on television, and his roots as a high school teacher and football coach from the rural Midwest will offer a good contrast to the Republican ticket. And he does no harm — what voter is open to Kamala Harris but finds Walz too off-putting to elect?

Charles M. Blow, Times columnist Walz made “weird” happen. His affable and relatable style on the campaign trail helped him distill the current conservative movement into a single word, “weird,” that has been a surprisingly effective attack line. He brings a plain-talking, labor-friendly, Midwestern appeal to the ticket. He is Joe Biden, 20 years ago.

Jane Coaston, contributing Opinion writer We have never had a defensive coordinator in the White House or on the campaign trail. Excited to hear how the 4-4 will work nationally.

Gail Collins, Times columnist Teacher and football coach!

Michelle Cottle, political writer for Opinion The guy looks natural rocking a camo baseball cap and grubby T-shirt — a big plus for a party that has trouble relating to regular folks. Plus, he clearly knows how to have fun in the attack-dog role without being the least bit nasty.

Liam Donovan, Republican strategist An affable character with an avuncular charm befitting a career teacher and coach. Walz’s background as a senior enlisted National Guardsman and his unique path to the governor’s mansion stand out in a sea of elites and strivers. Odd-couple pairing adds cultural and optical balance to the ticket.

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