Compare and Contrast - World War 1 and World War 2

Even though World War 1 and World War 2 seem relatively close, they have some major differences between them. The difference ranged from the type of guns they used in the field, to the political parties involved. The similarities of the two are easy to depict like the location of the war and German hostility. Over all these two wars were a basic cause and effect of each other.

World War I- started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. He was heir to the Austrian-Hungry throne and was shot by Gavrilo Princip who was a member of a Serbian terrorist organization. This broke alliances between countries which turned into a full scale war. The sides included England, France, Russia, Italy, and the U.S.A for the Allied Powers. For the central powers it was Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. Italy was a central power before 1915, but changed due to them realizing that they would not receive Port Fiume if they stayed on the central powers side. Seeing that Italy wasn't really involved with the political affairs the Allies didn't have a problem with the change and even agreed to give them the port. The war ended in 1918 with the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty. This treaty disabled the central powers armies and made them give up a significant amount of land. There was also the armistice signing which officially ended all fighting.

With the Nazi party on the rise, they became angered for losing WWI and even angrier for losing the substantially less amount of land. This didn't go-over well with Hitler and with the invasion of Poland in 1939, WWII broke out. Britain had a pact with Poland that brought them into the war almost immediately after the invasion. Several other countries joined the war in the following years. The war consisted of two sides just like WWI. The Allied powers included U.S., Britain, France, USSR, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, and Yugoslavia. The Axis side included Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. After much fighting, the war ended with the surrender of the axis powers in 1945.

One main difference in these two wars is the outcome for a worldwide peace federation. In WWI the idea of the League of Nations was set forth by Woodrow Wilson, but the senate failed pass it and America was not a part of it. At the end of WWII something similar to the League of Nations was formed. It was called the United Nations Organization and its main goal was to stop wars between countries. Fortunately, America was inducted into this organization and is still a part of it today.

A major similarity between these two wars is trench warfare. It was basically introduced in WWI with the use of machine guns making it impossible for any troops to make advancement on the battle fields. The same went for WWII but with more advanced machine guns. Luckily the invention