Taylor Arrowood

War changes through history (The History of Warfares Prominent

Shifts)
War never changes dramatically differs from the reality of
human history. History has been with humans since the dawn of
time and has progressed forwards since then. Throughout the
years, the feelings of war have fled, and the pathological
connections that people used to hold hand in hand with war have
faded. Most people do not think talking about the past is
important at all; though, even if they hold disregard to history in
general, most seem to find the concept of wars fascinating. Many
students through high school have learned about the two major
world wars and know a lot about them in detail. However, despite
being known for universally changing the way war was fought,
WW1 and WW2 were not the first of their kind. Before the great
world wars, the prior battles that were fought aided in changed
the future that followed, as well as the direction it was headed.
Moreover, war has been changing since the dawn of time and
major changes have been happening from the middle ages to the
present day; Moreover, the nature and fighting style of war has

changed during the courses of world war one, world war two, the
cold war, and the ongoing wars today.
To begin, prior to telling the technological and social changes
it is important to note background information over the decades
preceding WW1. Europe was in constant small battles over
imperial possessions overseas and sea routes. The landlocked or
effectively landlocked European countries were beginning to
expand production for export and sought sea and land routes that
would provide them with outlets to international markets
(Halperin 146) which made tension between all of the European
countries. Tension was especially seen in the Balkan region where
Austro-Hungary and Russia fought over Serbia. Austrians
crowned prince Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Serbia and
Austria declared war on Serbia. Serbia would then be backed by
Russia who also had the gentlemen agreement of the Triple
Entente with France and Britain. Austria got a blank check of
support from Germany to declare war and get any support they
would need to win the war, they would be called the Central
powers.

To begin with the context and style of war was drastically

changed during World War One (WW1), WW1 saw extraordinary
technological development with the onslaught of the new type of
war but also social changes back at home. On the front lines the
soldiers at war had to go through different changes on how they
fought strategically but also on what they fought with. The
Blitzkrieg, the German battle plan, was supposed to be as quick
as lightning and have the war over with within six months. The
plan was stopped in France by the British so from then on the war
was mostly fought in trenches. The trenches were dugouts and
ditches in the dirt where the solders would fight, live, and
sometimes die for the rest of the war. Trenches were a new
concept of war different from the colonial period where the men
would line up in perpendicular rows and shoot each other at a
close range because the guns of the period did not have precision
accuracy. The trenches for this war contained better guns that
could shoot farther with a better chance of hitting them and
improved machine guns that could rapidly fire ammunition at the
other sides advancing troops. The trenches were also on a daily
basis were under constant bombardment from enemy artillery

shelling. Artillery shelling was the bigger and more deadly version
of cannons previously used since the middle ages. At home WW1
was considered to be the first total war that brought about social
change in all levels of society. Total war conveys that all of the
population from women to children had a part in the war one way
or the other. Most women would take over the farms if they were
peasants. By 1916, it had become official government policy to
substitute women workers for absent men whenever possible
(Marwick 4). Children would try to collect scraps of metal for the
war front. All of the people in their respective country was
rationed to make sure food would not run scarce for the people
back home but also for the brave soldiers fighting for their
country.
To continue, a little background on World War Two (WW2).
After WW1 came the period known as the roaring twenties, the
twenties were a time of almost unseen before wealth for the vast
majority of the populations. Many of the inhabitants of the time
would buy things off of credit but when the time came to pay
those bills few of them had the money to support their lofty
spending. The loss of revenue made many major businesses to

crash and banks who gave out the loans to go bankrupt. The
economic tragedy was called the Great Depression and affected
most of the world. The depression let many radical political
groups come into power in many parts of the world.
World War two is seen as a major changing point for wars
because of the advancements and social changes. A major
difference in the war was the use of airplanes to not fight one on
one but to bomb other cities. To start Germany began bombing
British supply routes, airfields, shipping, and, finally, canal routes
(Halperin 214).The problem was the enemy aircraft would not just
attack military targets but also civilian populations. This act was
supposed to diminish the morale on the other side. It was not the
bombing but also the advance in rockets that let the bombing
happen. At the time not only was the first jet introduced in the
World War II, but so was the first large ballistic rocket (Parker
236). As the war went on the rickets could go faster and farther
while causing more damage. This was debilitating to the other
sides economy whose cities would be reduced to rubble. The
massive amount of damage that was dealt by the aerial bombings
were never as potent as the atomic bomb created during WW2.

The atomic bomb was used to stop the western theater of war
between the Japanese and the Americans. The Americans did not
want to attack the homeland of Japan so instead the dropped two
atomic bombs to get them to surrender. This decision cost
hundreds of thousands of lives to be lost. This made the
Homefront of all sides of the war have to deal with the deaths of
the soldiers who were off fighting in the war but also having to be
careful of airplanes. Civilians were also killed in large amounts
during the war.
Finally, the cold war was a different type of war than the
ones previously stated because a lack of fighting took place like in
the two wars that proceeded it. The two main powers, the United
States of America and at the time the USSR officially never fought
one another. The whole war was based on the new ideology that
the two sides were not based on countries or people like the
previous two but of the type of government they had. The US was
strictly a democratic capitalist country while the Soviet Union was
a Communist country only. This brought tension on not two fight
each other but to be better than one another to try to show which
government could be more successful. Over the whole time

period the two never declared war on one another but would help
their respective allies in smaller wars until the bulk of the forces
continued to be the major powers. In all it was more of a war of
building up the army to try to scare the other into submission. The
two biggest powers on the other hand fought in the areas of
armament and technological advancements. The two most well
know of the races was the space race and the nuclear power race.
The space race was to see who could get a human to the moon
first through their technological advances. The armament race
was to build up nuclear bombs and rockets used to show the
power of the country. The division between the two countries at
least in America scared the other into thinking that spies and
other traitor could easily infiltrate into the other culture and relay
important secrets to the enemy. To this effect both took
enunciates to make sure that would not happen. The USSR set up
the iron curtain as it was called by Churchill and America went
through the red scare. This made the people back at home very
suspicious of other citizens especially foreigners. Later it was
stated if the public is intensely distrustful of an adversary, and a
leader attempts to de-escalate the rivalry, even dovish elites have

an incentive to criticize the pacific leader (Colaresi 17). All of the

tension made it even harder for the war to come to a close in
later years. Even if politicians wanted to let the war come to a
close it was hard because of the disagreement from the civilians.
The good that came out of the Cold War was the Nuremburg
Trials. The Western part of the world put top military leaders from
Germany and Japan on trial so they would have to atone to the
crimes they did in WW2. The Germans committed the mass
Genocide known as the Holocaust and the Japanese also tortured
and murdered civilians and POWs in their extensive biological
warfare programs (Crowe 134). It was finally the time those
crimes against humanity was judged as being evil and could not
be passed over anymore.
To wrap up, the cold war, WW1, and WW2 changed the whole
world. WW1 was a time for trenches but also a time to start the
new technological trends for future wars like tanks and chemicals.
WW2 was the turning point for all wars when it changed not just
fighting but civilians could get caught up in it. The Cold War was
not a war where more people fought but a war of building up of
tension. Moreover, despite wars being cruel and ending in

bloodshed and lives lost, it provided imperative advancements for

the human race that would help sustain life providing new ways
to avoid bloodshed and saving lives for years to come.
Works Cited
Colaresi, Michael P. Scare Tactics: The Politics of International
Rivalry. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2005. Print.
Crowe, David. War Crimes, Genocide, and Justice: A Global
History. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Print.
Freemantle, Michael. Gas! Gas! Quick, Boys!: How Chemistry
Changed the First World War. Stroud: Spellmount, 2012. Print.
Halperin, Sandra. War and Social Change in Modern Europe:
The Great Transformation Revisited. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
UP, 2004. Print.
Marwick, Arthur. Total War and Social Change. New York: St.
Martin's, 1988. Print.
Parker, Barry R. The Physics of War: From Arrows to Atoms.
Amherst, New York: Prometheus, 2014. Print.