Europe in the 20th Century Timeline

Baseline Europe

• What is the time period?

• What is it marked by?

• “Century of peace” / “Belle epoque” before WW1 (1914)

• Scientific revolution + Industrial revolution

  • IMPACT: Resentment from people who are left behind (poor + religious communities)

  • IMPACT: Growing extremism due to economic uncertainty

• Growing nationalism due to social darwinism and imperialism

  • IMPACT: Lead to WW1

30 Year War (3 parts)

• WW1

• Interwar

• WW2

WW1 (1914-1918)

• What were the alliances

  • Russia?

• What was the outcome?

• Ended the “century of peace”

• War between the “allies” and the “central powers”

  • Germany + the two powers = central powers

  • France + Britain + Russia = allies

    • Russia leaves the war = Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which establishes the USSR

• Allies won → successor states from the collapse of empires

  • Treaty of Versailles

Interwar Period (1919-1938)

• What happened to successor states?

• What were the causes for fascism?

• How did the rise in fascism lead to WW2?

Successor States

• Democracies were tried but failed (2)

  • 1) Less social buy-in because people wanted quick benefits but post war, countries were super poor

  • 2) Great Depression → fall of democracy

    • US economy crash (1930)

    • Uprisings start happening because people were poor / mad

    • Right-wing extremists → fascism

• Italian / Nazi Fascism Causes

  • Parliamentary democracy was super unstable

  • WW1 stress → wealth divide

  • Demobilizing difficulties

  • Post-war humiliation

  • Elected Mussolini/Hitler (right-wing leader) into power

• Fascism characteristics

  • 1. Totalitarian

    • Party subsumes the state

      • Fuhrer principle

  • 2. Sacralization

    • “Germany can help revive and unite Europe”

  • 3. Mass mobilization

    • Corporatism in Italy: Instead of poor vs rich, it’s Italy vs the world

    • Social culture to be involved with fascist state culture

WW2 (1938-1945)

• Progression of WW2

• Impact of holocaust and genocide

• Aftermath

• Progression of WW2

  • Germany + Russia have a strategic alliance to invade Poland using the blitzkrieg war strategy

  • Germany successfully invades France through Belgium and Netherlands

  • Germany is pushing Russia back, soldiers keep retreating

  • Germany tries to attack Britain through air raids but don’t succeed

  • Japan bombs America (Pearl Harbour) so Germany declares war on America

  • America invade France and Italy (succeeds)

  • Germany is now fighting a three front war, decides to make a decisive attack on Russia to relieve a front but fail miserably

    • Russia reaches Berlin first and Hitler commits suicide

• Holocaust and Genocide

  • Holocaust: Targeted killing of non-German populations through concentration camps and brute violence

  • 1) Polarization and stereotyping

    • Stark: Jewish Science vs German Science

    • Graf: Hereditary and Racial Biology for Students

  • 2) Dehumanization

    • Nathorff: German Jewish Doctor’s Diary

  • 3) Violence and Organized Killings

    • Buffum: Night of the Broken Glass

• Aftermath

  • 1) Zero Hour

    • So much destruction

    • German ethnic cleansing during USSR expansion

  • 2) Rebuild

    • Marshall Plan

    • Breton Woods Conference