Western and Eastern Europe War and Revolutions in the 19^th -20^th Century

Introduction

The 19^th and 20 century stamped the rigorous activities, among them being a revolution, which affected the stability of the political and social order to its foundations. The revolutions had great significance to the whole ancient Europe and its tenets did lay foundation for the current state of nations. It was regarded as one of the most vigorous in the era of 19th century. The revolution extended its wings to cover Germany confederation, France, Austrian Empire, into Southern and eastern Europe and parts of Italy. The revolution aimed at the establishment of a democratic republic with equality before the law and termination of privileges. In addition, the revolution in Germany aimed at the creation of national state and national unification (Broers, Hicks & Guimera? Ravina, 2012).

This movement and revolution resulted in severe consequences in the whole Europe, touching on the economic, social and political dimensions. First; the economy crisis emerged, as a result of a combination of features of pre-industrial subsistence crisis, poor cereal harvest resulted in starvation. In addition, there was significant in the price of commodities, which results in demonstration and strikes, especially in France and Germany. On another hand, there was significance decline in employment in urban and rural, due to the collapse of factories and industries. This further worsens the situation, especially to poor people, who were forced to borrow money, hence incurring huge debts. More so, there was population pressure on the resources especially that of agriculture, due to the decline of rural industry, since completive nature of early industrialization had created a huge gap between the high-class and low-class society.

The revolutions of 1830/1832

Bourbon Louise XVII ascended the French throne, due to Napoleons defeat; that was in 1830.He is tending to pursue a moderate course, with much effort to avoid the return of the old Regime. To his expectation, he was the then succeeded by his diehard aristocratic beloved brother, Charles X, who took the reign from 1824 to 1830 and the regime gave rise to severe consequences, among them, being, the formation of new government, which was full of hostility especially to the parts of the bourgeoisie. Events connected with the election of liberal opposition to demand the right, and hence manage to win a decisive victory are a characteristic of the period. This revolution resulted in breaking of ultras, to refuse old regime, and refuse of law that only allow rich people, who were known to have wealth to vote, hence entrenched and unresponsive oligarchy.

Parisians workers felt very much betrayed following the King Louis Philippe arrogance, to the extent of forgetting that he also owned his throne in upper parts of bourgeois, since they are the one that initiated and forth for reformed republic. This again results in the sequence of events such as, the movement and revolution that occurred, in the same year of 1830. This event created tension and shock across the whole Europe. The catholic Belgium was the one of the pioneers of the revolution, and hence, they demanded independence from Protestants in Holland, whom the congress of Vienna had assigned Belgium to Holland. In the event, the intellectual, the polish scholars and army officers decided to take up arms to fight the Russian overloads (A History of Western Civilization, 2011). This results in falling of Russian in 1831, despite some of the revolutionaries in Italy that were severely squashed.

The rise of reform from Britain; Britain was totally Free State in the early era of the nineteenth century in Europe though they never realized democracy. This was a result of dominance by some of the landed aristocrats, which made most of the people not to enjoy their voting rights, and hence made some members of parliament to demand reforms. The sections that were amended after the demands were the reaping of seventeen-century act of barring non-Anglican from universities and government as well, abolishment of slavery in 1833 within the British Empire. The reform was the intensified and now focuses on extending suffrage and enfranchising industrial towns. Bitterness the erupted, following the reformation of the bill in 1832 by the House of Commons, which extended suffrage to more than 200,000 more men (Broers, Hicks & Guimera? Ravina, 2012). The bill was then rejected when it was tabled in the House of Lords, resulting in rising of riots in many cities. Due to fear of revolutionary potential, the King William VI threats to replace the members with the new peers. The threat creates tension to members in the House of Lords that resulted in the quick passing of the same bill. On the other hand, the group of reformers called chartists calls for democratic measures, such as the introduction of universal manhood suffrage, secret ballot, as  a the freeing of any property belonging to a member of parliament. This then resulted in British becoming model of liberal progressive politics.

Revolutionary movements of 1848

Social tension greatly developed, especially to the civil servants such as lawyers, doctors and businessmen, who felt very much alienated from the present political regime. They were much frustrated, due to lack of job opportunities that forced learned friends from the bourgeoisie to demand chance seeking incorporation within the decision-making process in the region. The educated fellows rebuked the monopolization of power that was enjoyed by the nobility, demanded the restriction of the franchise to those who own properties and those belonging to wealthy classes (Condon, 1994). They also agitated for the end of arbitrary government, where there used to exist wider share of political power that was through government where freedom and rights of the individual would be guaranteed as well as the rule of law. On the other hand, there was a great radicalization of workers, middle class and petty bourgeoisie with democratic and socialist ideas gaining popularity.

Alongside the fear of lower class society, there emerged different social ideas, called liberalism, a postulate from Great Britain, one that, for the concept of inalienable rights. This idea held the right for press, demand for a separation between church and the states, freedom of trade, the establishment of militia and constitution to provide security, to rights and freedoms of citizens. This liberal structure would also provide most profitable and to reduce the barrier of obtaining revenue (Condon, 1994).

European global expansion 1870-1914

European history remains one the most intriguing area of study when it comes to politics, literary aspects, science, people and their occupations. The 19th and 20th centuries particularly are fascinating because of the social revolutions that had a great influence on the development of political environment, economy and even ideological perspectives of former colonies of European nations then and now. Some countries suffered due to exploitation by the colonial regimes in the European zone. Liberal thinking and even Christianity failed to bring some degree of unity to prevent wars and revolutions among countries in this zone (Parush, 1995).

Primarily war lead to a loss, it could be a loss of life or property. Of the 60 million European soldiers who participated in the war, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled and 15 million critically injured. In the Napoleonic-peninsular, during napoleon retreat from Moscow, more soldiers died of typhus. According to Felix Markham, only 450,000 soldiers crossed the Neman on 25 of June 1812.

Many wars are accompanied by an extreme reduction of population. In the event of the 30 year period of war in Europe, the Germans population was reduced by 30%. The Swedish army is claimed to have destroyed up to 2000 castles, 18,000 villages and over 1500 towns in Germany. In world war II, documentation reveal that about 20million soldiers died and double as mush civilians also lost their lives. During the 872-day siege Leningrad, approximately 1.2 million civilians lost a life. On economy in some instances, the nations that lost the war were required to pay war reparations to the winning nation. In the Franco-Prussian and World War II, the war left the parties involved more economically deprived than before. The Russian participation in the World War I left its economy almost collapsed. This greatly contributed to the Russian revolution of 1917.

Nations located in Eastern Europe were dominated to a greater by major powers before the First World War. In the group were the Baltic States, which included Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. Bordered on either side by Russia and Germany, this nation struggled with democracy under dictatorial rule. Other nations like Hungary went through a series of chaos and overthrows during this period before it became democratic. Chaos was particularly due to power wrestles and economic hardship.

During the seven day war, Britain won against Spain and France. It further gained territories of New France and French Canada. Both Britain and France suffered strained relations and long-term financial consequences. In the cold wars, which refers to the conflicts over maritime resources. This arose due to the fishing activities carried out by British fishermen in the international waters near Iceland waters. Classified as ten episode by historians all marking struggle by the Iceland to control their maritime territory. In 1893, the Danish government, by then controlling the islands of Faroe and the Iceland region put a fishing limit of 93 km along the shores. The British government, however, did not recognize this claim on the ground that other nations around the North Sea would come with a similar claim that will damage the British fishing industry (Parush, 1995).

Nature of conflicts in the eastern and western euro zone can mainly be attributed to social, political and economic upheavals. The reorganization of Europe after the great wars had its greatest impact in eastern than Western Europe. The primary cause of turmoil was the definition of geographic regions under newly formed governments. The way forward for all nations emerging from turmoil was the adoption of democracy since this was the best way for the nation to self-govern themselves. It led to setting up of boundaries defining the modern nations.

World War I and II

Revolution is a change in political structure or power which takes place within a short period, it mainly involves change and modification of existing constitution to another that favors the population. The period was marred by different types of war and revolution such as the war of aggression of conquest, unconventional, nuclear, total, civil, biological, chemical and asymmetric warfare.

The history of war and revolution can’t be written without involving world war involving most powerful countries of Western and Eastern Europe that occurred during the 19th and 20th century which ended up involving almost every continent on planet earth. First, World War was from 1914-1918, while Second World War lasted for 6 years, from 1939-1945. The main causes of the wars were technological progress through communication which helped to proclaim power worldwide and industrialization with the aim of producing military equipment and development of the economy (“Power and influence in south-eastern Europe: 16-19th century”, 2014).

The wars and revolution of the 19th and 20th century in its consequence shook the world; it experiences put the technology of destruction to an end. It led to the beginning of global and every existing person felt the pinch of it. World War I lasted for a period of 4 years; from 1914-1918 it was the conflict between the Central Powers comprising of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey and the Allied Powers made up of France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and the U.S. They joined in 1917, the casualties was estimated to be 10 million military and 7 million civilian death, the wounded were 21 million, and missing or imprison persons recorded at 7.7 million.

The Second World War lasted for 6 years, from 1939-1945, the cause was the political and economic instability in Germany which was due to harsh conditions of the treaty of Versailles, which lead to a rise to power of all time famous Adolf Hitler, who formed an alliance with Italy and Japan who opposed the Soviet Union. The conflicts were between the Axis Powers made up of Germany, Italy, and Japan and the Allied Powers who were France, Britain, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China. This resulted in increasing in a number of casualties in which estimated deaths range from 50-80 million of these the civilians were 38 to 55 million were killed and extra  13 to 20 million dying from war-related disease and famine (“Power and influence in south-eastern Europe: 16-19th century”, 2014).

The effect of wars is still being felt to date in which it resulted in the creation of new nations, death of empires, redrawing of national boundaries and the number of casualties was higher than any other war. After the First World War and making a consideration of the treaty of the Versailles, Germany made territorial changes along the eastern and western borders. It involved the transfer of Alsace-Lorraine to France which was the center of a dispute between the two countries. Several independent states broke up from the Austro-Hungarian Empire; such states included Poland, Hungary, Austria and Yugoslavia (Ratmanov, 2015).

Unlike other countries, United States of America was not affected much by the wars, industries and factories found in the countryside were unharmed, these lead to increases in American industrial production thus increase in economy. Countries like France and Britain recovered quickly economically due to its inclination to America. Germany suffered a major blow which leads to economic depression because they were required to make monetary payments to allies, it resulted in increasing rate of unemployment, it was under this hard condition in Germany that Nazi was able to come to power (Ratmanov, 2015).

The war had a great impact on the social life of human being because many people died while others succumbed to injuries; this affected the human relation because the injured could not work like the healthy one thus considered as a waste to the society. It also affected the society, economic and minds of people thus making the life completely different and cruel to humankind. During the world war, Pakistan and India were controlled by Britain, as part of the allied nation, the American persuaded the Britain to grant India and Pakistan it’s independent. In addition, other reasons include the ecumenical exhaust of Britain forced them to hand over congress party, the change of humankind in which they developed bitterness toward war and preached equality and human rights lead to the granting of independence to the nations.

It led to the Israel-Arab conflicts from the of Zionism and Arab nationalism, the Palestine which comprises the Muslims and Christians alleged the peace of land that was taken by Israel; it is good to note that no religion differences played a role in this conflicts. The conflicts still continue to date as treaties that were signed from 1948 are sometimes broken by the two countries. War and revolution brought both positive and negative impact to the human kind, it showed how cruel the world can be at times, some of the effects of the war and revolution includes, creation of new nations, gaining of power by other countries than others, overthrow of the empires, and reported increase in death toll (Romsics, 2015). It also affected the global environment by polluting due to the increase industries and factories producing warfare equipment.

The alliance of the European powers

Europe in the 19th century was affected by two major events; the French revolution which broke out in 1789 and the World War I which began in 1914. The main cause of World War I in Europe is believed to be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 at Sarajevo. Before the World War I, Europe was divided into two alliances, the triple alliance and the triple entente. The triple alliance was made up of Germany, Australia, Hungary and Italy while the triple entente was made up of Britain, Russia and France.  The two alliances were defensive but avoided war with countries from either of the alliances (Matlock, 2010).

The main conflicts between the two power blocks were the fight of Russia and Australia over Balkans, the fight of Germany and France over Alsace, and finally the fight between Britain and Germany over the economic powers and the merchant navy. The World War I in Europe was also caused by nationalism, the build-up of military might and imperialism the need to gain new territories. Europeans had colonized Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine (Ottoman Empire). The current boundaries of Middle East states, the Arab nationalist movement and the Islamic movements were as a result of the World War I. The French colonized Lebanon and Syria; British controlled Palestine, Iraq and Mesopotamia. Arab resistance emerged to challenge European control (Romsics, 2015).

The World War I had many impacts on social, economic and political aspects of Europe.  Countries in Europe opted for the liberal forms of government. Socialistic ideas spread in Germany, Australia, Britain and France.  This was adopted as an option for better way life in Europe. The technology was greatly boosted by the World War I in the United States. Production of airplanes, automobiles, radios, rockets and chemicals was evident. Use of machinery spurred mass production hence economic growth.  Europe was great damaged, they lost property, and finances and were in huge debt incurred during the war. This made the countries in Europe indulge in the printing of money leading to inflation. Germany was the hard hit by inflation which lowered the value of the German mark. Many people lost jobs due to the introduction of machinery.

The harsh peace forced on Germany to accept responsibility for war and compensation of war costs affected the government of Germany as their states faced reduction while Italy and France were enlarged. The Germany government by Weimar was accepted by many people including the military personnel who were reduced and later formed the Freikorps group (Gilley, 2014). All these resentments created moods of revenge led to World War II.

The World War I ended after the signing of the Versailles treaty, but the impacts remained.  Many countries adopted liberal forms of government; Germany tried to bring herself out of the shell and turbulence of war. The people were psychologically traumatized due to property destruction and death of a large number of people. The anger on people was vented on peacemakers for the delay to stop the war.  The worldview on politics, economic rules changed in most countries.

The Russian revolution of 1917 and the creation of the communist start

During the final phase of World War 1, the Russian Revolution took place in the year 1917. The revolution removed Russia from war resulting in the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) that replaced the traditional monarchy of Russia with the world’s communist state. The Russian Revolution took place in stages through two separate coups one taking place in February and the other in October.  Vladimir Lenin led the new government that would solidify its power only after three years of civil war and was brought to an end in 1920 (Thee, 1992).

The Russian Revolution’s events took place abruptly, and its causes may be traced back nearly a century. Before the revolution, the monarchy of the Russian government had become continually weaker and enhanced awareness of its own vulnerability which was very reactionary. Russia was led by Nicholas II-the star towards the revolution. Nicholas II witnessed revolutionary terrorists slay his grandfather, and his own father responded to the assassination through the oppression of the Russian people that was very brutal. In 1894, Nicholas II became tsar and he applied the same brutal measures to mollify resistance movements that were becoming stronger and more widespread yearly. The newly imposed oppressions by Nicholas II, in turn, incited more unrest which forced him to make concessions after every incident. It is due to this that the first constitution of the Russian government was created as its first parliament. The concessions progressed gradually, and it became very tenuous at the time Nicholas griped on power.

At the end of the February revolution, Nicholas II grew weaker, and this led Vladimir to be prominence as the most powerful Russian Figure. Although, Vladimir Lenin, who led the October Revolution, was not in Russia during the February Revolution. He returned to Russia on April 1917, and he exerted the tremendous influence of which, few other Russian revolutionaries possessed his strength and decisiveness of vision for the future of Russia (Thomson, 2009). Lenin was subsequently affected by his older brother Alexander who was executed for being involved in a plot to slay the star. Vladimir joined the resistance movement that ended his brother’s life that made him pull out of the revolution movement.

Lenin’s revolution marked one of the most radical transformation points in Russia during 1,300-year history. His revolution influenced social culture, economics, industrial development, international relations, and these were the benchmark that measured his revolution. After Lenin’s revolution, there was considerable change in direction for Russia since the countries new rulers were drawn from various intellectual and working classes rather than from the aristocracy (Thomson, 2009).

In addition, the revolution helped Russia to fully enter the industrial age. Before 1917, Russia was an agrarian country practicing industrial development to a limited degree. By 1917, the European neighbors of Russia had embraced industrialization enhancing technological advancement such as widespread of electrification that Russia had yet to achieve. After the end of the revolution, new .industrial regions developed in Russia that influenced the country’s development. In this regard, greater .population was attracted to the cities for employment and illiteracy was almost entirely eradicated when education took a major upswing.

The Russian Revolution also brought international consequences. When Lenin’s government pulled Russia out of World War I, it changed the balance of forces for the remaining participants. Several nations including the United States during the civil war in Russia sent troops to Russia with the aim of keeping chaos from spreading beyond the boundaries of Russia (Service, 2007). The Soviet Union over the next decades assisted the Communist revolution around the world in an effort to widen its sphere of influence. More so, the country played a vital role in the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II.

The Cold war

The Cold War is the term given to describe the relationship which developed between the USA and the USSR after the World War Two. The aim of the Cold War was to dominate international affairs for decades and during this period, a major crisis occurred. However, the crisis included Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall, and the Hungary. During the Cold War, the most worrying issue was the growth in weapons for mass destruction. The major players had a great percentage in terms of input into the military expenditures (Service, 2007).

Over the period since the cold war commencement, its legacy effects and has an influence on the modern world affairs. The era led to a unipolar rather than bipolar affair of the world. The period saw the institutionalization towards committing to the huge, long-term and peacetime military-industrial complexes. It was associated with the great funding of the military departments in most of the nations. The confrontations were in the utility of heavy weapons and took a great strain on economies. They came as liabilities at the time as the US did spend up to $8 trillion. The Soviet Union, the Korean War and Vietnam War had many human casualties beyond count. Other nations that had been formed did inherit other expenses that occurred during the war time and hence slowed their economic development. The Southeast Asia region is documented to have lost a greater number of its citizens to superpowers and uniformed soldiers. The cold war saw the end to inter-conflicts, interstate wars, and battles for revolutions and ethnic-related issues (Service, 2007).

Conclusion

The acuteness of economic and social tensions created during the war session leaves a legacy in the world to date. State control in that had communist outfit led to other structures from the civil and ethnic uprising in the Yugoslavian territories. The ripples of war were still present but has subsided greatly and for that reason, the Eastern Europe countries did settle and began to focus on economic development. In addition, there was an increase in liberal democracies. Another imperative case to consider in the cold war period includes the influence of adoption of nuclear-related machines. The benefits of adoption include the sourcing of energy for industries that has revolutionized to date (Ratmanov, 2015). It has led to improvement in modern diagnostic medical equipment and health provision. It is evident today that there are international nonproliferation regimes that were a factor inherited from the cold war times. The cases still have provisions for disincentives and other safeguards for policies with regard to access to nuclear material and related facilities. The cold war did not end with treaties or agreement and as such left nations still holding varied degrees with the need to prepare for any other war.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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