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The Pattern of the World Wars: Origins and War Aims
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18833 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1991 |
7,769 Words |
| Author
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Alan J. Levine
Alan J. Levine is a historian specializing in twentieth-
century international relations and the author of From the
Normandy Beaches to the Baltic Sea. |
As we commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of America's entry into World War II, it may be useful to reflect on the similarities and differences between the two great struggles of the first half of the twentieth century. The causes of their origin seem to be live issues even to this day. Many people like to draw far-reaching conclusions about the courses of action that should be followed today from their understanding of the origin of the world wars. It is common to see books and articles arguing over whether or not the present-day world situation really resembles the 1930s or the pre-1914 era. Others argue, however, that there really wasn't much difference between the two wars, that both struggles were one-sided wars of aggression initiated by Germany and her allies. Donald Kagan expounding this view, wrote in Commentary: "The two cases, 'Munich' and 'Sarajevo' are indeed different in many respects, yet it is far from clear that the lesions derived from them must be at odds." However, without drawing vast conclusions about present-day policies from the two world wars, it may nevertheless be worth settling whether they were really as alike as many suppose.
The belief that the two world wars were alike, at least in their causes, is not new and has a respectable history going back before 1939. In the 1920s and 1930s people assumed that another world war, if there was one, would be a repeat edition of the first. In his autobiography, Sidney Hook, while analyzing leftist ideas about "the next war," noted that their opposition to American intervention in World War II, "... was based on a number of assumptions. The first was that the causes of World War II were essentially the same as those of World War I. The second was that both sides, to the extent that their policy had an effect on events, were responsible in substantial if not equal measure for the outbreak of hostilities. The third was the belief that both would be bogged down in murderous trench warfare and that no military warfare in Europe could possibly threaten the security of the United States."
Actually, such ideas were common to both the conservative isolationists and leftist opponents of American intervention in 1940 and 1941; both were mindlessly clinging to ideas that had been common just a few years before. Even those who supported the Allied war effort, then and later, frequently believed that the two wars were alike. Their evaluation of World War I merely inverted that of their opponents; they regarded it as a war of resistance necessary to stem German aggression. Winston Churchill once blamed the Germans not only for the world wars but also for the Franco-Prussian War. George Kennan, who did not agree with such ideas, was "... shocked to realize,
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