If you had a chance to stop either the First World War or The Second which one would you choose and why?

Question

This is not homework.. it is a hypothetical question. I always wondered if WWI had not happened then WWII would not have happened either. Any one else agree or have comments or disagree and have comments?

Answer 1

Preventing World War I would have been a difficult task indeed.

If we are being hypothetical hows about we just have Adolph Hitler die in the trenches of Passchendaele.

Maybe the heroic Lance Corporal could have been taken out by an artilley shell or died from the poison gas that he was exposed to during this battle.

Maybe WWII could have been avoided!

Answer 2

In history there is one thing you can count on and that is that there is never just one reason behind a major event.
Just the same the treaty of Versili( I have no idea how to spell the name of the treaty, but you know the one named after the palace that Louis built to preoccupy his nobles where it was signed) left, a proud German people in a dire economic position as they payed Europe and the United States for the cost of the war their own economy was doomed, their pride injured and their anger (they were already a pretty angry people according to the Neo-Freudian Ann Miller who was in Germany during the rise of Hitler) magnified. Perhaps if not for WWI and the unwise treaty that followed Hitler would have stuck to art, in any case it is doubtful that he would have found an audience to preach his hateful rhetoric to and the Germans would all have been saved a great disaster along with rest of the world. No doubt if I could stop one it would have to be the first in the hopes that the second would not occur. I do suppose that Japan and her imperial visions would still have led to a terrible war in the Pacific.

Answer 3

I'd stop the 2nd World War, we could use an additional 154 million people in the world today.

Using the world's current growth rate of 1.14%, representing a doubling time of 61 years. We could expect the 72 million who died during WWII to become 154 million in 2006. This does not take into account the peak growth rate in the 1960s of 2%. I'm sure there's an algorithym to take into account the changing growth rates each year since 1945, but i did the simple calculation based on today's rate...a conservative approach.

Answer 4

Well, I would have liked to have prevented the First World War; but I don't know how I could have done it. The Germans were spoiling for a fight. For years before 1914 they were toasting Der Tag, the day they would go to war with England. It was their belief that in order to become a world power (and earn "the place in the sun" they believed they deserved) they would have to defeat England the same way they had to defeat France in 1870 to become a European power.

Bismark was wise when he urged Kaiser Willie I (grandfather of Willie II) to make accommodation with France and only take the parts of Northern Alsace and Eastern Lorraine that Louis XIV had taken from the German princes. But the Old Kaiser was vindictive and wanted to repay France for the centuries that Germany had been the playground of French kings and emperors. He demanded Metz, an occupation, and an indemnity from the French (making reconciliation impossible).

And he was wise again when he urged Little Willie (the Young Kaiser) not to build a fleet and alienate England. (But build it he did and the new German menace, on land and sea, would drive England and France together.)

Almost everyone agrees with the proposition that the First War "caused" the second. The late A.J.P. Taylor stated "The First War explains the second, in so far as one event causes another" (in his Origins of the Second World War). And John Keegan states (in his The Second World War) "Germany fought specifically in theSecond War to reverse the virdict of the first, and to destroy the settlement that followed it."

Answer 5

I could see that senario. No WWI would mean conditions leading to WWII wouldn't be the same.

But maybe in lieu of WWI a greater WWI would have occured where Hitler had already developed jet engines, nuclear weapons....

What then?






g-day!

Answer 6

I agree, without World War One, there's no World War Two, or if there is, it's piddly in comparison. Actually, I'd go back further and get Kaiser Wilhelm II to not fire Bismarck and keep his policies intact forever, that probably would have prevented World War One.

Answer 7

I would have stopped WWI .
WWII in my opinion would never have happenend without WWI and their are part of the same process.

Answer 8

the first because if it didnt happen there would be different political powers changing history maybe for the better possibly preventing WWII.

Answer 9

i choose non alignment movement