WW2 in Serbia, and hostilities between Allied and Central Powers continued until the signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918. Casualties in land forces amounted to over 37 million, with close to 10 million deaths among the civilian population indirectly caused by the war. Despite worldwide hopes that the settlements arrived at after the war would restore world peace on a permanent basis, WWI actually provided the basis for even more devastating conflict. The defeated Central Powers declared their acceptance of President Wilson’s 14 points as the basis for the armistice and expected the Allies to utilize the principle of the 14 points as the foundation for the peace treaties.
On the way to the subsequent peace conferences, the Allies were determined to exact from the Central Powers the entire cost of the war, and to distribute among themselves territorial possessions of the defeated nations according to formulas secretly agreed upon between 1915 and 1917, before the US entered the war. President Wilson, during the peace talks, at first insisted that the Paris Peace Conference accept the full program of the 14 points but later secured the support of the all-important 14th point, the creation of an association of nations, and abandoned insistence on some other points.
The Reformation, a 16th-century movement in Western Christendom, aimed to purge the church of medieval abuses, restore doctrines and practices that reformers believed conformed to the Bible and the New Testament model of the church. Explorers were motivated by curiosity, the desire to find riches, and the need to find places for surplus populations. Some exploration occurred by accident, while other exploration was a result of military campaigns. Most exploration, however, was by design. Colonization, brought about by exploration, frequently resulted in further exploration.
During the depths of the Great Depression in 1933, one in every four American workers was out of a job. In some countries, unemployment reached 15% to 25% of the labor force. The great industrial slump continued throughout the 1930s, shaking the foundation of Western capitalism and the society based upon it.
During the Age of Discovery, Spain, a painter during the Renaissance, never fully achieved modernity found in northern Europe and Italy, although their art almost totally depended on these traditions. The Spanish always imported painters and sculptors for important decorative work. In the 16th century, Titian was the leading painter for the Spanish court, although he was not actually present. In architecture, a fully Renaissance structure was not built until the late century. In Madrid, the architect Philip II built El Escorial, combining a monastery, seminary, palace, and church. Indebted to Italian Renaissance style, the austere majesty and complete lack of ornamentation in the structure marked a new style of Spanish architecture.
German Reformation-Union independent German state north of the Main River was formed in 1867 under the Prussian initiative of the foreign minister, Otto von Bismarck. After Prussia’s victory over Austria in the Seven Weeks’ War in 1866, the confederation of North German states was established. This replaced the German Confederation, a union of 39 German states under Austrian leadership, which had been established by the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic War. Twenty-two German states adhered to the North German Confederation. According to the agreement, each state retained its own government but the military force was under the control of the confederation, with the commander-in-chief of the combined armies being the king of Prussia.
A legislative body was created with the president being the king of Prussia, but the duties of the office were performed by the chancellor, responsible only to the king. An alliance was entered between the North German Confederation and important states south of the Main River, namely the Kingdom of Bavaria, the Grand Duchy of Baden, and the Kingdom of Württemberg. Under this agreement, these states agreed to place their military forces under the command of the king of Prussia in case of war against the confederation. The North German Confederation was an important step toward the unification of Germany, which was finally achieved in 1871 at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. After the victory in the war, the states of the North German Confederation and the remaining states of the former German Confederation formed the German Empire. The constitution of the confederation was adopted with slight modifications to become the constitution of the empire.
World War II began in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. The war ended on September 2, 1945, with the formal surrender of Japan aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The victorious Allies included Great Britain, France, the United States, the USSR, and China. The losing side comprised Germany, Italy, and Japan, as well as smaller nations.
