The World Wars – NDA History Notes

The twentieth century produced two wars so large and so destructive that they changed the entire world. The First World War (1914–1918) killed around seventeen million people. The Second World War (1939–1945) killed between seventy and eighty-five million. Together, they reshaped maps, ended empires, created new countries, and forced humanity to rethink what civilisation meant.

These two wars were not separate events. The second grew out of the first. The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, left Germany humiliated, bankrupt, and angry. That anger gave rise to Adolf Hitler. Hitler started World War II. The wars are best understood as two phases of one long crisis in the European order that lasted from 1914 to 1945.

For NDA, the most important consequence of World War II is the one that students least expect. The war’s greatest legacy was not military. It was moral. The Holocaust, the systematic murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany, shocked the world so deeply that it produced the modern human rights movement. The Holocaust and Nazi atrocities were the immediate cause of the revival of the concept of human rights after World War II. [NDA 2010-I]

Master Timeline

28 Jun 1914  →  Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo
28 Jul 1914  →  Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
4 Aug 1914   →  Britain declares war on Germany — WWI begins fully
1915 CE      →  Germans use poison gas at Ypres
1916 CE      →  Battle of the Somme — over 1 million casualties
Apr 1917     →  USA enters WWI (Zimmermann Telegram + U-boat attacks)
Nov 1917     →  Russian Revolution — Russia exits the war
11 Nov 1918  →  Armistice — WWI ends (11th hour, 11th day, 11th month)
28 Jun 1919  →  Treaty of Versailles signed (5 years after Sarajevo assassination)
1920 CE      →  League of Nations established (USA never joins)
Oct 1922     →  Mussolini takes power in Italy
Jan 1933     →  Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
1929 CE      →  Great Depression begins
Sep 1938     →  Munich Agreement — appeasement (Chamberlain)
Aug 1939     →  Nazi-Soviet Pact
1 Sep 1939   →  Germany invades Poland — WWII begins
Jun 1940     →  France falls — Germany occupies most of Western Europe
Jul–Oct 1940 →  Battle of Britain — RAF defeats German air campaign
Jun 1941     →  Operation Barbarossa — Germany invades USSR
7 Dec 1941   →  Pearl Harbour — Japan attacks USA — USA enters WWII
1942–43 CE   →  Battle of Stalingrad — Eastern Front turning point
6 Jun 1944   →  D-Day — Allied landings at Normandy
8 May 1945   →  VE Day — Germany surrenders — War in Europe ends
6 Aug 1945   →  Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
9 Aug 1945   →  Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki
2 Sep 1945   →  VJ Day — Japan surrenders — WWII ends
1945 CE      →  United Nations established. Nuremberg Trials begin.
10 Dec 1948  →  Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted [NDA 2010-I]

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1. The World Before 1914 — MAIN Causes of World War I

By 1900, Europe was the most powerful continent on earth. European empires controlled most of Africa and Asia. But Europe itself was deeply divided. The major powers had been competing for colonies, markets, and military strength for decades. This competition had produced a dangerous combination of factors that made a large war almost inevitable.

Historians summarise the long-term causes of World War I with the acronym MAIN: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism.

Militarism — European powers were building larger armies and navies at a furious pace. Germany and Britain were locked in a naval arms race. Military planners had detailed war plans already prepared. The existence of large, ready armies and detailed war plans meant that a political crisis could escalate to full war very quickly.

Alliances — Europe was divided into two armed camps. The Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) faced the Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia). Any conflict between two nations could pull all the others in automatically, which is precisely what happened in 1914.

Imperialism — European powers competed intensely for colonies and trade in Africa and Asia. Tensions over Morocco (1905 and 1911) brought France and Germany close to war twice. Colonial rivalry deepened mutual suspicion and hostility.

Nationalism — In the Balkans, Slavic peoples wanted independence from Austria-Hungary. Serbia wanted to unite all South Slavs. Austria-Hungary wanted to crush Serbian ambitions. This conflict of national ambitions in a volatile region provided the immediate context for the war’s outbreak.

Alliance	Members	Character
Triple Alliance	Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy	Central Powers in WWI (Italy later switched sides)
Triple Entente	Britain, France, Russia	Allied Powers in WWI

NOT a war anyone fully planned. The alliance system and war plans pulled nations into a conflict that most leaders expected to last a few months. It lasted four years and killed seventeen million people.

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2. The Spark — Assassination at Sarajevo

On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. The assassin was Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist with links to the Black Hand secret society.

Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia. It issued an ultimatum with humiliating demands. Serbia accepted most of them but not all. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The alliance system then pulled in the other powers one by one.

Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia (28 July 1914). Russia mobilised to defend Serbia. Germany declared war on Russia (1 August) and France (3 August). Germany invaded Belgium to attack France quickly, following the Schlieffen Plan. Britain declared war on Germany (4 August) over the invasion of neutral Belgium. Within six weeks, all the major powers of Europe were at war.

[Image Suggestion: A photograph of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie shortly before their assassination in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, the event whose consequences proved that individual actions could trigger systemic catastrophes when an entire international system is primed for war]

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3. The War — Key Features and New Weapons

World War I introduced new forms of warfare that made it far more deadly than any previous conflict.

Trench Warfare defined the Western Front. Both sides dug hundreds of kilometres of trenches facing each other across a strip of land called No Man’s Land. Advances were measured in metres. The Battle of the Somme (1916) produced over one million casualties in five months, one of the bloodiest single engagements in human history.

New Weapon	First Major Use	Effect
Poison gas	1915 (Germans at Ypres)	Mass casualties; psychological terror
Machine guns	Used from the start	Made frontal infantry attacks suicidal
Tanks	1916 (British at Somme)	Eventually broke trench stalemate
Aeroplanes	From 1914	Reconnaissance; later bombing and combat
Submarines (U-boats)	German campaign from 1915	Sank merchant and military shipping

The Eastern Front saw Russia fighting Germany and Austria-Hungary. Russia suffered enormous casualties. By 1917, the strain of the war contributed directly to the Russian Revolution (Chapter W5).

The Ottoman Empire entered on Germany’s side, opening new theatres in the Middle East and at Gallipoli.

The United States entered the war in April 1917 — three years after it began, after German U-boats sank American ships and the interception of the Zimmermann Telegram, a German proposal to Mexico to attack the USA if it entered the war. NOT from the start. The USA was neutral from 1914 to 1917.

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4. End of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles

By 1918, Germany was exhausted. The entry of American troops had tipped the military balance. On 11 November 1918 — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, an armistice ended the fighting.

The peace was made at the Paris Peace Conference (1919). The main settlement was the Treaty of Versailles (1919) between the Allies and Germany.

The Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh terms on Germany, remembered as TARLA:

Term	Detail
Territory lost	Alsace-Lorraine to France, West Prussia to Poland, overseas colonies
Army reduced	Germany’s army cut to 100,000 men. No air force or submarines.
Reparations	Massive financial penalties — initially set at 132 billion gold marks
League of Nations	Created as part of the peace settlement
Article 231	The War Guilt Clause — Germany accepted full blame for the war

The League of Nations was established as part of the peace settlement. It was proposed by US President Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points. The League was meant to resolve future conflicts peacefully. However, the United States never joined — the US Senate rejected membership, which fatally weakened the institution from the start.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919 — exactly five years after the Sarajevo assassination. NOT a fair or lasting peace. The Treaty of Versailles is widely considered one of the causes of World War II. By leaving Germany humiliated, economically devastated, and angry, it created the conditions for Hitler’s rise.

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5. The Interwar Years — Rise of Fascism

The years between the wars (1919–1939) were years of economic crisis, political instability, and the rise of extreme movements. Germany suffered most. War reparations crippled the German economy. The Great Depression of 1929 made things catastrophically worse. Unemployment reached 30%. People were desperate.

Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party offered desperate people simple answers. Germany had been “stabbed in the back” by Jews, communists, and traitors. Germany would be made great again. A pure German race would dominate Europe. Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Within a year he had made himself absolute dictator, the Führer (leader).

In Italy, Benito Mussolini had already established a fascist dictatorship in October 1922. He called his movement Fascism — a term that became the name for all similar authoritarian nationalist movements.

Leader	Country	Movement	Came to Power
Adolf Hitler	Germany	Nazism (National Socialism)	January 1933
Benito Mussolini	Italy	Fascism	October 1922
Francisco Franco	Spain	Falangism	1939 (after Civil War)

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6. Causes of World War II

World War II had multiple causes, all rooted in the failures of the post-WWI settlement.

Harsh terms of Versailles created German resentment and economic collapse. Rise of Hitler — Nazi Germany began rearming and expanding in violation of Versailles. Policy of Appeasement — Britain and France allowed Hitler to expand, hoping to avoid war. The Munich Agreement (September 1938) gave Hitler the Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia). British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to London claiming “peace for our time.” Within a year, Europe was at war.

Failure of the League of Nations — the League could not stop Japanese aggression in Manchuria (1931) or Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935). The Nazi-Soviet Pact (August 1939) — Germany and the USSR agreed not to attack each other, freeing Hitler to invade Poland without fear of a Soviet response.

The policy of appeasement was not cowardice — it was a rational but mistaken policy rooted in genuine fear of another war. The memory of WWI’s devastation was fresh. British and French leaders believed Hitler had limited ambitions. They were wrong about Hitler’s intentions, but wrong for understandable reasons.

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7. World War II — Key Events

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. World War II had begun.

Event	Date	Significance
Germany invades Poland	1 September 1939	Start of WWII
Fall of France	June 1940	Germany occupies most of Western Europe
Battle of Britain	July–October 1940	RAF defeats German air campaign — Britain survives
Operation Barbarossa	June 1941	Germany invades USSR — opens Eastern Front
Japan attacks Pearl Harbour	7 December 1941	USA enters WWII
Battle of Stalingrad	1942–1943	Turning point on Eastern Front — Germany begins to lose
D-Day (Normandy landings)	6 June 1944	Allied invasion of Western Europe
Germany surrenders	8 May 1945	VE Day — Victory in Europe
Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki	6 and 9 August 1945	Japan surrenders — nuclear age begins
Japan surrenders	2 September 1945	VJ Day — WWII ends

Operation Barbarossa (June 1941) — Germany’s invasion of the USSR — was the largest military operation in history. It eventually failed. The Battle of Stalingrad (1942–43) was the turning point. The German Sixth Army was surrounded and destroyed. From that point, the USSR pushed Germany back westward.

The Eastern Front produced more deaths than any other theatre of the war. The USSR lost approximately 27 million people, soldiers and civilians combined. This staggering loss shaped Soviet foreign policy for decades after the war.

The atomic bombs were dropped on Japan — Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945). They ended the war in the Pacific. The war in Europe had already ended on 8 May 1945 (VE Day) when Germany surrendered. These are two separate endings. NOT the atomic bombs ended the war in Europe — Europe’s war was already over.

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8. The Holocaust and Human Rights

The Holocaust was the systematic, state-organised persecution and murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. It was the largest genocide in recorded history.

The Nazis regarded Jews as a racial enemy. From 1933, German Jews were stripped of their rights. From 1941, the Nazis implemented the Final Solution — a plan for the total extermination of European Jews. Jews were transported from across occupied Europe to extermination camps in occupied Poland. The largest was Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Alongside Jews, the Nazis murdered an estimated five to six million others: Roma, people with disabilities, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish civilians, homosexuals, and political opponents.

★ IMPORTANT The single most directly tested NDA fact in this chapter: The Holocaust and Nazi atrocities were the immediate cause of the revival of the concept of human rights after World War II. [NDA 2010-I] The chain is direct and documented: Holocaust (1941–45) → Nuremberg Trials (1945–46, establishing individual accountability for atrocities) → Universal Declaration of Human Rights (10 December 1948, adopted by the UN General Assembly). The UDHR was not a spontaneous moral achievement. It was a specific response to a specific horror. NOT human rights emerged spontaneously after WWII. The Holocaust was the precise, documented trigger.

The Nazi atrocities proved that a modern, educated, industrialised state could commit mass murder as official policy. The world’s response was to create international frameworks to protect human rights and prevent future genocides. NOT an accident of war — the Holocaust was a planned, organised, bureaucratic extermination programme directed by the Nazi state.

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9. Post-War Consequences

The end of World War II in 1945 produced a completely new world order.

The United Nations (UN) was established in 1945 to replace the failed League of Nations. It was founded by 51 nations. Its primary purpose was to maintain international peace and security and to promote cooperation between nations.

NOT the same organisation as the League of Nations. League of Nations = after WWI = 1920. United Nations = after WWII = 1945. Two different organisations created after two different wars.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948. It listed 30 fundamental rights belonging to every human being. Its creation was directly driven by the horror of the Holocaust. The immediate cause of the revival of human rights was the Nazi atrocities. [NDA 2010-I]

The Nuremberg Trials (1945–46) prosecuted Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. They established the historic principle that individuals, including government leaders, could be held legally accountable for mass atrocities. Before Nuremberg, there was no such legal precedent in modern international law.

Decolonisation accelerated dramatically after WWII. Britain and France were exhausted and could no longer hold their empires. India gained independence in 1947. Most of Asia and Africa followed in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Cold War began as the wartime alliance between the USA and USSR broke down. Two new superpowers replaced the old European order. This confrontation shaped world history for the next four decades (Chapter W7).

Post-War Development	Year	Significance
United Nations established	1945	Replaced League of Nations. 51 founding nations.
Nuremberg Trials	1945–46	Accountability for war crimes
Universal Declaration of Human Rights	10 December 1948	Global human rights framework [NDA 2010-I]
NATO formed	1949	Western military alliance against USSR
Cold War begins	1947 onwards	USA vs USSR confrontation

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10. Impact on India

World War II directly accelerated Indian independence. Britain spent enormous resources fighting the war. India’s contribution, in soldiers, money, and materials, was vast but given largely without consent. Indian nationalist leaders used the war to press for independence.

The Japanese advance into Southeast Asia destroyed the myth of British military invincibility. The Indian National Army (INA) under Subhas Chandra Bose fought alongside Japan against British forces. Although the INA was defeated militarily, the INA trials of 1945 created a nationalist storm in India. The British realised that the Indian Army could no longer be relied upon to hold India.

By 1945, Britain was too exhausted to hold India. Independence came in 1947 — directly connected to the economic and military exhaustion produced by World War II.

[Image Suggestion: A photograph of the United Nations General Assembly adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 1948 — Eleanor Roosevelt holding the declaration’s text — representing the world’s response to the Holocaust and the founding moment of modern international human rights law]

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