The World Wars

The World Wars

Nationalism and imperialism of the great European powers push them to an arms race and the formation of two large opposing military alliances, the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente. If the desire for revenge of France, eager to recover Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by Germany in 1871, is powerful, it's another national issue that triggers the conflict. Following the assassination in Sarajevo (June 28, 1914), Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, but the war extends to most of Europe by the play of alliances. This conflict as opinions and media imagined short (but the military-industrial complex has made it very long) is a terrible slaughter that lasts more than four years since the First World War is a war of position, a trench warfare, which caused the death of nine million soldiers and deeply traumatized an entire generation. It is the intervention of the United States that allows the agreement to finally defeat Germany and its allies (the Central Powers) in 1918, Italy had changed sides in between.

In addition to the human and material damage it caused, the "Great War" has radicalized some political movements of both right and left, and shook Europe:

• the map of Europe has been heavily modified by the peace treaties that followed the conflict (Treaty of Versailles, 1919): Germany and Russia lost territories, the Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared, and many people achieve independence (roughly following the right of peoples to self-determination and the 14 points of President Woodrow Wilson), with the formation of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Baltic states , Finland;
• this conflict has been an opportunity for the Ottoman government of Young Turks to carry out the Armenian Genocide (1915-1916), certainly the first modern company planned with a view to destroy all human group identified as such;
• Another major consequence of the war, the Russian Revolution in Russia (February 1917) shows for the first time a communist regime to settle permanently in power (from October 1917)
• the seizure of power by the fascists in Italy (1922) is a reaction to the revolutionary wave that hit Europe after the war.

If democracy is progressing with the disappearance of authoritarian monarchies defeated in 1918, this is not always the case (a dictatorship based on a concentration camp system is set up in Russia) and it does not last. Between the wars, authoritarian regimes (conservative dictatorships), are set up in most of Central and Eastern Europe (except Romania and Czechoslovakia, which succumb respectively in February 1938 and March 1939). Xenophobia and antisemitism rise, eventually to be translated into discriminatory laws. The shock of the global economic crisis of the thirties, which brings misery and insecurity with massive unemployment, reinforces this trend. In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany, to establish the Third Reich, and also sets up a concentration camp system. After a long civil war (1936-1939), Franco established his dictatorship in Spain.

Nazism is the direct cause of World War II: Adolf Hitler wants to erase the "diktat" of Versailles and win a "living space". It is primarily an agitator marginal and poor, and served time in prison after a failed coup in 1923. But from 1929 it has support and funding, and he was elected chancellor in 1933: German democracy collapsed in a few months, a totalitarian state goes into place17. Hitler first produced a series of coups, that enlarge Germany without having to fight (annexation of Austria in 1938 and the western part of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939), the Memel Territory also in 1939, in the absence of reaction of Western democracies. Then on 1 September 1939, Germany and the USSR invaded Poland alliées18: September 3 France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.

The German army won a first series of dazzling victories, thanks to the "blitzkrieg" conquest of Poland (1939), Denmark and Norway (April 1940), the Netherlands, Luxembourg, of Belgium and France (May-June 1940), Yugoslavia and Greece (April 1941). But despite a major air offensive, Britain, only now in the running resistance. The first turning point of the war occurs lorsqu'Hitler decided to attack its own ally, the USSR, June 22, 1941 (Operation Barbarossa): England now has a powerful ally in the east, although Germany seized vast territories in 1941-1942. A second turning point is taken when the Japanese decided to attack the United States December 7, 1941: the resources of the British colonial empire and men of the Soviet Union, now adds the productivity of industries américaines19. But, until all that can be coordinated throughout Nazi-occupied Europe lived under the terror the Germans requisitioned crops and industrial production and are subject to the civilian population terrible reprisals, especially in the east where the convention Geneva is not applied. Millions of people were deported to concentration camps. The Nazis implement an extermination policy "races" that their doctrine considers "inferior and harmful" Slavic (4.2 million Poles, Serbs 1,280,000, 7,500,000 Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians) 20, Roma ( between 50,000 and 220,000) and 21 Jews (from 1942, the Nazis implement the only industrialized genocide in history: the "final solution" that will almost 6 million victims). But Nazi Germany was finally defeated, the way to the Allied victory is marked by the Soviet victories at Stalingrad (February 1943, the third great turning point of the war) and Kursk (July 1943), and Anglo-American landings North Africa (November 1942), Italy (1943) and France (1944). Germany surrendered May 8, 1945, but the war has killed millions of people (fifty million in total), including many civilians, because of the extent of areas of fighting, bombing and deportations.

Cold War and European

Cold War and European 

The great political consequence of World War II is the division of Europe by the "iron curtain" across Eastern Europe by the Red Army occupied the Communists impose their dictatorship (called "popular democracy") . Symbol of this division, Germany itself is split in two (Birth of the FRG and the GDR in 1949). Western pluralist democracies allied with the United States (NATO, 1949), facing the Soviet threat (the Warsaw Pact, 1955). But paradoxically, if Europe lived in fear of a third world war, the threat of nuclear-tipped missiles, the "balance of terror" between the two blocks lasted for almost half a century of stability, before the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989-1991.

The Second World War ruined Europe, which suffered widespread destruction. But soon the Western Europe was rebuilt thanks to its industrial potential and the American economic aid (the Marshall Plan, 1947) and has during the "war boom" an economic growth of rising living standards and entry of the middle classes in the "consumer society". But three decades of prosperity and social democracy, during which the social achievements were many, nor does concernèrent southern Europe (except Italy), and above that of the East: the first is accessing the growth of living standards and democracy until 1970, the second until 1990.

Europe has lost much of its prestige among the colonized peoples (who participated alongside the British and French for two World Wars, but have not taken more rights within the colonial system). Between 1945 and 1965 mainly decolonization, strongly supported by the United States and the USSR, is mainly political: the economic, the former colonies, undermined by internal divisions, are very subservient to their former colonial powers, which continue to capture the bulk of resources including mining and pétrolières22.

In the West, the European Union began to build the economic union of six states: creation of the ECSC in 1951 and especially creation of the EEC by the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

Today's Europe

Today's Europe

After coming to power of General de Gaulle (1958), the Franco-German entente manifested in meetings between Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Charles de Gaulle (July 1962). On July 8, 1962, François Marty, archbishop of Reims, celebrated a Mass of reconciliation in the cathedral of Reims, who had been mutilated during the First World War.

But long before the Franco-German reconciliation, the other three countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg) had already prepared a draft Association, beginning in 1946. Benelux is the first association of countries on the Old Continent. It was then followed by the ECSC (1951), with the aim to create de facto solidarity, and through economic integration (EEC, 1957) following the failure of political integration (CED, 1954). The EEC expanded by successive accessions in 1973, 1981, 1986 and 1995.

The Wall (Berlin) fell in 1989, Europe is coming together. Germany was reunified October 3, 1990. Democracy extends to the east, reaching to the Ukraine where it is rooted in 2004.

Yugoslavia breaks up in the violence since 1991: war marked byethnic cleansing see compete for their independence and / or unitthe people who composed it, manipulated by politicians have become ex-communist nationalists (like Slobodan Milosevic),and sometimes competing interests of Western countries and Russia. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are the most heavily affected.

In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty created the European Union,establishes European citizenship and decided to introduce asingle currency in most states on the horizon of the new millennium, after a long convergence policy (snake European Monetary System (EMS)).

The EU enlargement in 1995 (Austria, Sweden, Finland), and again in 2004 and 2007 in a great wave of expansion that almost doubles the number of Member States. Turkey in 2004 also began negotiations for entry into the European Union, frozen in December 2006.

Meanwhile, the reform of the Union, which sought to simplify itsoperation and move towards a more democratic form of governance faces the distrust of citizens about the direction of European decisions, deemed too political (sovereignism the UK, the Czech Republic, Denmark, commitment to liberalism andmilitary neutrality in Ireland) is not enough (demand for social Europe in France): the draft European Constitution was rejectedin 2005 by referendum in France and the Netherlands and the Lisbon Treaty, although less ambitious, is blocked by a country,the Czech Republic.

In this new millennium, the local ruler resume the magnitude and lead to tensions in the most fragile states: Serbia, Montenegrostands in 2006 and Kosovo declared its independence in 2008 in Belgium Flemish political parties become radicalized and 2007 elections provoke a serious political crisis, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom regional parties (Basque Country, Catalonia,Padania, Scotland) had scores in the elections and majorconcessions on the part of power central.

Europe has created a digital library on its own histoire23. His heart European NAvigator (ENA) is produced by the Virtual Resource Centre for Knowledge about Europe