Comparing War And Osiander's The Peace Of Westphalia

Through the book ‘Europe’s Last Summer’ David Fromkin tackles the issues of pre WWI Europe, and the surrounding political, economic, social, debacles that led paranoid countries to go to arms after nearly a full century of relative peace within the European continent. While Fromkin certainly points his fingers to all the nations of Europe his primary focus lies with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Though he continues to stress throughout much of the book that Kaiser Wilhelm II and Archduke Ferdinand were fervent keepers of the peace within their nations, the fault of the war ultimately could be laid at the feet of their two nations and their constant attempts at war-mongering. He claims the war could have been avoided for the moment, had all the nations of Europe wanted peace, but the two bad eggs of Europe drew them all into an unavoidable general war.

Case Study 2: A Review of Comments of the German Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference on the Conditions of Peace (October 1919)

The tragic novel A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, apprises a story of Gene, an individual who fights his inner battle between love and envy for his best friend, Finny. The film and the novel’s events are comparatively similar, but there are also many differences between the two sources. Many significant characters do not appear in the film that are present in the novel, and many symbolic plot events are relatively similar in the novel

Following many years of strife between Catholics and Protestant Reformers, war broke out in the Holy Roman Empire in 1618. This long lasting conflict, known as the Thirty Years’ War, would not cease until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The political, economic, and social causes had been intensifying since the Protestant Reformation and the Peace of Augsburg. With a nation divided vastly, in massive debt, and in continuous religious conflict, there was only one solution: war. The Thirty Years’ War was a turning point in modern European history because new strong nations emerged, but the war also brought devastation to European populations and economics.

A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles in 1959, takes place at a boarding school in New England named Devon where 16-year-old Gene and Phineas live their adolescence. Their teenage years are taking place during World War 2, so their youth is spent talking about and waiting to go into war. While they are Devon, it seems the boys can not be attacked by the outside world and they can remain to be children. But soon the fun comes to an end when Phineas falls out of the tree. The tree that Gene and Phineas jumped out of every night, that Gene could even recognize when he came back 15 years later. This time between his fall and the war draft is a time for each boy to face his internal and external enemies. Their enemies are finally defeated after

At the Devon School in New Hampshire, in 1942, during World War II, the main character, Gene, becomes closer with his adventurous roommate, Finny, whose elemental charisma distracted them from the reality outside of the school. Throughout the novel the realness of the war becomes present and the war’s continuation parallels the growth of Gene, from a young innocent boy, to a man. These changes happen to align with one another and that coordination represents the theme of a loss of innocence in the novel. Due to the contradictory interactions with the war and the pursuit of adulthood, Genes development as a person runs alongside the progression of the war. In the novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the relationship between the author’s use of war impacts the maturing of the main character Gene and further develops the theme of the loss of innocence.

In this essay, I will discuss about the importance of the Treaty of Versailles for Germany. Personally I believe that it was of crucial importance for Germany and I will show why this is the case and why I believe this. I will also expand the points which I have taken into consideration before coming to my conclusion.

Deep were contradictions between Germany and France. Their sources were, on the one hand, the desire of Germany to perpetuate Alsace and Lorraine, taken from France as a result of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), and on the other, - the determination of the French to return these areas (Audoin-Rouzeau & Becker, 2002).

In order to capture Tuchman’s argument on Germany’s behavior, it is essential to understand that realism asserts that all states seek power and that anarchy dictates the laws of the international system. Despite the internal divisions between classical and structural realism on how anarchy leads to war, this paradigm emphasizes the enduring propensity for conflict between self-interested states due to the lack of a central authority to regulate or control nation states. States are concerned with the distribution of power and seek to ensure their own survival and security in the international system. From a realist perspective, the outbreak of the war was a result of the increasingly multi-polar nature of arrangements and the entanglement of alliances, treaties and military plans all of which were diplomatic attempts to overpower nations and prevent hegemony. Therefore, Germany entered in an alliance with Austria which made it inevitable to avoid a two-front fight but also focused its diplomatic efforts to overcome the Anglo-Japanese Treaty which was viewed “as an unnatural alliance” (p.22, p.74). Realism also emphasizes that states are willing to do anything despite public and foreign opinion to gain power and size. It suggests that since its reunification in 1870, Germany viewed its national interest in terms of power and acted aggressively to secure its means of authority. It can also explain why the “probable effect on world opinion,

This war, which lasted for four years instead of its intended four months, marks a paradigm shift in the concept of warfare. Benefiting from the Industrial Revolution, this conflict was to shape the following century. Interestingly enough, this clash of super nations was expected to be “The War to End all Wars.” These nations believed that war was inevitable for the prosperity of Europe and the world. However, from a contemporary perspective, this is erroneous. The changing of warfare, the Treaty of Versailles and the reluctance of many nations, made it impossible for

The Congress of Vienna and the Treaty of Versailles are two of the “most significant international agreements in the history of modern Europe” (Packet). They not only ended drastic and intense wars, but they rearranged and changed the face of Europe. The Congress of Vienna aimed to restore the principles prior to the Napoleonic Era, including conservatism, legitimacy, and the balance of powers. The diplomats of this treaty agreed on a collective security, to protect one another from future revolutions. The Treaty of Versailles, on the other hand, had several different aims. One of the main goals was to restrict Germany from anymore fighting in the future. Another included the right of self-determination for newly established states. The diplomats, however, had trouble completely agreeing on the components of the treaty. The overall similarity of the Congress of Vienna and the Treaty of Versailles is the creation of alliances and “systems of international relations”, such as the Concert of Europe and the League of Nations, as a means of protection against future complications (Packet). The main difference between the two treaties is the treatment towards the crushed powers, France and Germany. Although the Congress of Vienna and the Treaty of Versailles are similar because of the creation of alliances and systems, overall, the two treaties are different because of the contrasting treatments of France and Germany after the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War.

Whenever a book is adapted into a movie, there are certain aspects that must be changed or omitted. For instance the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles was adapted into a motion picture in 2002, directed by Peter Yates. When comparing the film to the novel, there are many details that differ; such as the point of view and the characters. In the novel, the story is told by the main character, Gene, in first person. The story is told from a flashback standpoint by “adult Gene” as he is reflecting back on his time at Devon.

The moment that tension first blossomed between Catholics and Protestants in Germany can be traced back to 1517, when a disillusioned priest first nailed his 95 theses to a church door. The Thirty Years’ War that resulted was fought to resolve this religious tension, but only bitter compromise was found at the war’s end. In the centuries that followed, relations between the two religions vacillated from civil to hostile within, and between, each German state. When unification appeared to be a distinct possibility around 1870, the dominant German state, Prussia, searched for possible solutions to this three-hundred year old hostility in such a way that would strengthen the new empire rather than hinder it. The answer came in the form

The Successes and Failures of the Treaty of Versailles in Addressing the Causes of Conflict and Restoring Peace and Normality

The significance of the Peace of Westphalia has long been lauded as beginning of international relations as it is recognized today. Many have attributed the popularity of this belief to the article, Peace of Westphalia, 1648-1948 by Leo Gross which was published in 1948. It discusses the merits of the agreement in sparking the establishing the modern state system. A more recent piece, Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth by Andreas Osiander takes an entirely different approach by attempting to debunk what Peace of Westphalia stands for in the current world. Both articles have strongly argued for their respective views on the issue, however it is clear that when it comes to whether or not the two treaties that make up the Peace of Westphalia actually contribute as much as ???? However it is clear that Osiander is more convincing??? While both articles make strong arguments to convince the reader of their respective views, Osiander employs By