Vera Brittain, British nurse (p. 831)
Ning Lao, Chinese peasant (p. 875)
“Russian Views of War and Revolution” (pp. 836-837)
“Resolution of the General Syrian Congress at Damascus” (in connection with pp. 860-861)
“Interpreting the May Fourth Movement” (pp. 872-873)
Serbia, Russia and Austria-Hungary
The Austro-Hungarian military leadership was determined to quash Serbia's independence, which it viewed as an unacceptable threat to the future of the empire given its sizeable South Slavic population. On 28 July 1914, exactly one month after Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
The Bosnian Crisis (the states of Bosnia-Herzegovina which were held by Austria and wanted by Serbia)
Serbia, together with ethnic Bosnian Serbs, attacked Bosniaks with former Yugoslavian military equipment and surrounded Sarajevo, the capital city. Many Bosniaks were driven into concentration camps, where women and girls were systematically gang-raped and other civilians were tortured, starved and murdered.
Pan-Slavic Movement in eastern Europe
Pan-Slavism, 19th-century movement that recognized a common ethnic background among the various Slav peoples of eastern and east central Europe and sought to unite those peoples for the achievement of common cultural and political goals.
Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy)
Triple Alliance, secret agreement between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed in May 1882 and renewed periodically until World War I. Germany and Austria-Hungary had been closely allied since 1879. Italy sought their support against France shortly after losing North African ambitions to the French.
Triple Entente (Russia, France, Great Britain)
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance (partnership) between Russia, France, and Britain, during World War I. These countries were also known as the Allies, and were fighting against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
The German Schlieffen Plan (invading France by going through northern France and Belgium)
In 1905 and 1906, Schlieffen devised an army deployment plan for a decisive (war-winning) offensive against the French Third Republic. German forces were to invade France through the Netherlands and Belgium rather than across the common border.
Sarajevo, Bosnia
The city where Bosnian terrorists assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Archduchess of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914 possibly with the support of Serbia
Trench Warfare
Used extensively in World War I, especially on the Western Front
U-Boats
(German submarines used with great and fatal consequences)
Sinking of the British liner Lusitania (1915) by a German U-Boat and the effects on the American government
The sinking of Lusitania didn't directly cause the United States to enter the war. It did, however, fuel virulent anti-German sentiment in Britain and the United States and hinder diplomatic relations between Germany and the United States.
The Romanov dynasty of imperial Russia (ended in 1917 with the last Tsar Nicholas II)
During the Russian Revolution of 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries toppled the monarchy, ending the Romanov dynasty. Czar Nicholas II and his entire family—including his young children—were later executed by Bolshevik troops.
The Duma (=Parliament) and the Provisional (=temporary) Government (March to October 1917) after the abdication of Nicholas II
The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of Russia established immediately following the abdication of Nicholas II.
Russian Marxists including the Bolsheviks led by Lenin
Led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin, leftist revolutionaries launch a nearly bloodless coup d’État against Russia’s ineffectual Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in the Russian capital of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and within two days had formed a new government with Lenin as its head. Bolshevik Russia, later renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was the world’s first Marxist state.
The Social Revolutionaries (peasant supported anarchists)
The socialist revolutionaries rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat and advocated a government controlled by both the working classes and the intellectuals. Their law of socialization of the land had won them a great amount of support with the peasantry and they also had support among the workers of the cities.
Constitutional Democrats (liberals)
Constitutional liberalism is a form of government that upholds the principles of classical liberalism and the rule of law. It differs from liberal democracy in that it is not about the method of selecting government.
The Western Front: Various German drives to take Paris
By September 5, the German armies had reached the area, hell-bent for Paris, only 30 miles away. They were following a script developed by the German high command before the war that called for a rapid encirclement of the city and the Allied armies.
“Lawrence of Arabia” (Col. T. E. Lawrence)
A British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
The significance of the struggle between Arabs and Turks in World War I (Ottoman Empire)
The main aim of the revolt was to establish an independent Arab state with Husayn as king.
Balfour Declaration regarding Jews’ right to a homeland in Palestine
A public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population.
Theodor Herzl and Zionism
Founder of the political form of Zionism, a movement to establish a Jewish homeland. His pamphlet The Jewish State (1896) proposed that the Jewish question was a political question to be settled by a world council of nations.
Allies
Britain, France, Russia (until Communist takeover in 1917), Serbia, Belgium, Italy, U.S. (“associated” power as of 1917)
Central Powers
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria
Neutrals
Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden and others
“To Make the World Safe for Democracy”
(Wilson in statement to Congress asking for declaration of war against Germany in April 1917
The Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson (1918)
His ideas for a post-war ideal world
The Twenty-One Demands of 1915 (Japanese demands on China)
The 'Twenty-One Demands' - comprising five groupings - required that China immediately cease its leasing of territory to foreign powers and to ascent to Japanese control over Manchuria and Shandong (Shantung) among other demands.
The Big Four (Paris in January through June 1919
Wilson (USA), Clemenceau (France), Lloyd George (UK), and Orlando (Italy); Varying Allied war expectations along with those of Japan, also a major ally
German-Soviet Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918)
Soviet loss to Germany prior to German loss in the West
Whites (anti-Communist) versus Reds (pro-Communist) in Russian Civil War from 1918-1921
The Red Army was a communist, Bolshevik group. The White Army was Anti-Communist and included many former Tsar Loyalists. Other forces fought against both groups or sometimes helped one of them against the other.
Moscow
Became Soviet Union Capital with Bolshevik takeover
Joseph Stalin vs. Leon Trotsky to succeed Lenin as Soviet leader
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Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism as they oppose Joseph Stalin's theory of socialism in one country in favour of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Trotskyists criticize the bureaucracy and anti-democratic current developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union for short)
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 30 December 1922 to 26 December 1991.
“War Communism” (Soviet economic policy until the NEP or New Economic Policy)
Simple authoritarian control by the ruling and military castes to maintain power and control in the Soviet regions, rather than any coherent political ideology.
Reparations for damages etc. to be paid by all defeated nations
“War Guilt”
Clause of the Allied treaties with Germany and all the other Defeated Powers
Weimar
German republican government (1918-1933)
Nurse Edith Cavell
British nurse executed by Germans for spying in Belgium, becoming useful British propaganda symbol
The Zimmerman Telegram of 1917
German negotiations with Mexican government regarding American entrance into World War I
Armenian Genocide
(1915-17) in the Turkish Ottoman Empire
The mandate system
The “temporary” holding of former imperial areas mostly by Britain and France, supervised by the League of Nations
Iraq, Palestine, Syria
Former Turkish territories which became Colonial Mandates for France and Britain through the League of Nations
Mustafa Kemal “Ataturk”
Founder/leader of modern Turkey
Mohandas Gandhi (d.1948) and Indian independence movement from Great Britain
Joined the fight in 1914 and led the country to independence, using his method of nonviolent protest known as satyagraha. He encouraged Indians to stop buying British goods, avoid paying taxes to the British government, and take part in peaceful protests and marches.
Japan’s 21 Demands on China (1915)
A set of demands made during the First World War by the Empire of Japan under Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu to the government of the Republic of China on 18 January 1915. The secret demands would greatly extend Japanese control of China.
China’s “May Fourth” Movement (1919)
Major event of Chinese patriots demanding freedom from imperial powers
Three Principles of the People
work of Sun Yat Sen who died 1925
Nationalism, democracy, livelihood
=work, career
Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist movement
The "Long March" of Mao and his Communists 1934 as part of the tales of heroism and courage of Chinese Maoists
Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP): kulaks, NEP men and their role
Soviet Collectivization of agriculture
Elimination of the kulak class and state control of farming to provide peasants for industrial work force
Stalin's “Five Year Plans” for Soviet economic development
Targeted at collectivizing agriculture and developing heavy industry
Soviet “Great Purges” of Stalin’s enemies, military and civilian including Communist Party leaders and all who were associated with Lenin and/or Trotsky
Soviet political events, especially during the 1920s, in which periodic reviews of members of the Communist Party were conducted by other members and the security organs to get rid of "undesirables". Such reviews would start with a short autobiography from the reviewed person and then an interrogation of him or her by the purge commission, as well as by the attending audience. Although many people were victims of the purge throughout this decade, the general Russian public was not aware of the purge until 1937
Leon Trotsky
Lenin's associate assassinated in Mexico (1940)
The Duce [leader or boss], Benito Mussolini (1922-1943)
Italian prime minister (1922–43) and the first of 20th-century Europe's fascist dictators
Fascism (ideology of Mussolini and others in his movement)
Rooted in Italian nationalism, national syndicalism, revolutionary nationalism, and the desire to restore and expand Italian territories, which Italian Fascists deemed necessary for a nation to assert its superiority and strength and to avoid succumbing to decay.
Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland)
Inter-war “free city” administered by the League of Nations and desired by both Poland and Germany
The Polish Corridor
Area cutting between Germany proper and the easternmost part of Prussia, which cause serious problems between Poland and Germany
Gustav Stresemann
Major German government leader during the 1920’s, as Germany was admitted to the League of Nations
The Locarno Agreements
Germany accepted its Western borders and agreeing to negotiate eastern border changes
(1929) Lateran Treaty (Italy under Mussolini and the Papacy)
Italian recognition of Vatican City as Papal territory and Papal acceptance of Rome as capital of Italy and its loss of other Italian territories
Kellogg-Briand Treaty (Pact of Paris, 1928)
Illegalized war as a matter of international law- originally agreed to by France and the United States
The Dawes (1924) and Young (revision of Dawes) Plans (1930) to deal with post -World War I German debt problems (reparations) connected to Allied war debts to the United States
Germany's annual reparation payments would be reduced, increasing over time as its economy improved; the full amount to be paid, however, was left undetermined. Economic policy making in Berlin would be reorganized under foreign supervision and a new currency, the Reichsmark, adopted.
The Italian Conquest of Ethiopia (1935) and the role of the conquest in the emerging Italian-German allian
Hitler (the Fuhrer) and his Mein Kampf (My Battle)
Paul von Hindenburg (died 1934)
Famous World War I general and the last Weimar President prior to Hitler’s taking over government
“Third Reich” (Hitler’s regime)
literally, the Third Government after (first) the Holy Roman Empire and (second) Bismarck's German Empire
Lebensraum (= Living Space)
Hitler’s plan for expansion into the east for growing German population while eliminating others: Jews, Slavs and others (Holocaust)
Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal
Federal government programs to help Americans against the Depression
Central and Eastern European States created from lands of the former Empires (German, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian) after World War I
Poland (united from former German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian Empires after World War I )
Czechoslovakia (created from lands of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire), existed between 1918 and 1939 and recreated in 1945 to 1993
Yugoslavia (=South Slavs)
Spanish Republic and Francisco Franco’s successful revolt against it (1936-1939)
Rose to power during the bloody Spanish Civil War when, with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, his Nationalist forces overthrew the democratically elected Second Republic.
Franco’s dictatorship of Spain (1939 to 1975)
When Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title Caudillo.
William II
Former German Emperor, exiled to the neutral Netherlands (Holland)
The League of Nations (Geneva)
Without United States (never). Germany (joined late 20’s and withdrew in 1933) and the Soviet Union (joined early 30’s and expelled in 1940). Italy and Japan also withdrew.
Treaty of Versailles of 1919
With Germany and the Allies and afterwards separate treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire-soon to be Turkey
The Reichstag (German Parliament) Fire (1933)
Blamed on Communists, allowing Hitler to assume emergency authority
Brown Shirts and Black Shirts
Nazi military security guards, the latter being more elite
The Night of Long Knives (June 1934)
Eliminating Hitler’s enemies, both Nazi and non-Nazi allies who had helped his rise to power, including many Brown Shirts and their leaders
Enabling Act
(1933 German law allowing Hitler’s government to do whatever deemed necessary for public security) after the Reichstag Fire
Crystal Night (1938)
Violent, open attacks on German Jewish population indicating the horrors of the Holocaust to come