ap world unit 7

Mexico: 

• One summary sentence: There was a revolution in Mexico and new political ideas/differences spread. 

• In Mexico and South America, they wanted to progress like Europe and the US. They had a population increase, more urbanization, and European literature & philosophy spread. 

  • They also wanted to increase their white population and advertised a prosperous life to poor Europeans and many migrated. 

  • The wealthy benefited from this because property values went up and the middle class benefited because they had valuable skills for modernization. 

• Although Mexico had a republic government, there was a dictator - Porfirio Díaz that held all of the power and ran the country. There were no checks and balances to keep him in check and his prime goal was to maintain his power. 

  • The lower class was against him and held strikes to protest, Porfirio Díaz sent troops and many were killed. 

  • Wealthy farmers were also pushing peasant farmers off of communal land. 

    • Peasants began to try to overthrow  Porfirio Díaz by having many bloody conflicts. Pancho Villa and Emiliao Zapata both were leaders in the movement known as the Mexican Revolution and had small peasant armies. 

    • They had the Ayala plan that was more liberal and was led by peasant leaders. It wanted a redistribution of land and compensation to peasants. 

    • Constitutionalists wanted to form an uncorrupt check and balances system and have political reforms, many still wanted to benefit the wealthy. 

      • Women fought in the war as female soldiers and others aided their husbands off the battlefield - women wanted to gain more/equal rights such as suffrage.  

      • Some results of the revolution were male suffrage, new constitution, the catholic church losing power, minimum wage, 8 hour work day, and restrictions on foreign owned property. 

• Many Latin American countries did not industrialize. This was because a majority of the population was poor and there was no local market for industrial/manufactured goods and relied mostly on agriculture goods. 

• Dependent Development - Latin countries were dependent on money from Europeans, it was a new form of imperialism since they got power in exchange for their money. The people and companies that paid money pressured the government to do trade that was favorable towards the companies. 

Italian and German Unification: 

• One summary sentence: neither country was unified until the late 19th century, and they unified to avoid being imperialized by their fellow European nations and to be able to compete against them. 

• Nationalism grew EVERYWHERE within ALL countries; it is the strong feeling of pride in your country and provided people a national/shared identity. Past resistances and revolutions in Europe allowed people to have ties in shared experiences, culture, and blood origin, this gave them new political loyalty. 

  • Also, because people were leaving their small communities for urban cities, certain aspects of life became standardized like language and dialects. 

  • There was a large movement to spread nationalism; this was done through propaganda (that was pushed into schools) and mass media. 

  • They assimilated people to a dominant culture and excluded those that did not assimilate or have common ancestry. 

  • Jingoism - very extreme sense of nationalism to the point where they believed that it was okay to harm others to benefit your country. It was very war-positive. 

  • Fascism - a political philosophy or movement that had extreme nationalism with a dictator that suppressed all opposition. Has extreme militarism and belief in the supremacy of the nation over its individuals. 

• ITALY:

  • There were revolutions within Italy where different groups of people were asking for a democratic-republic government but were crushed by the Monarchs. 

  • Romanticism - an era that followed the french revolution that focused on inspiration and raw human emotion. Many people in Italy tried to impose change but all failed.  

  • Overall, warfare and alliances helped unify Italy.

    • Realpolitik -  politics based on practical objectives rather than on ideals and they used force to push unification on the people. 

    • Count Cavour created a strong and solidified state by finding allies in the north first then moving south. Lastly, he took over Venice and Rome (France had the pope in Rome and military power so Italy went against them and basically held the pope captive). 

• GERMANY:

  • Otto Von Bismarck used warfare like Italy to create a unified Germany. There were three main wars that helped with the solidification of the state: 

    • Note: Prussia was a German State that aided with the modern formation of Germany. 

    • Danish War - over certain territories crucial to Germany. 

    • Austro-Prussian War - Prussia defeated Austria and gained dominance over northern Germany. 

    • Franco-Prussian War - Prussia defeated France and this was the final step towards German unification, it also led to extreme nationalism in Germany. Germany had a really harsh peace treaty against France once this war ended which later impacted Germans at the end of WWI. 

• German and Italian unification upset the balance of power in Europe.The Age of Realism began, emphasizing the power and role of a state, causing secret alliances to be formed. 

World War 1:  

• One summary sentence: It was the first modern war or total war (blurring of lines between civilian and military resources, with all aspects of society being directed towards the war effort)  with rapid bloodshed and consequences to come. 

• MAIN Causes for WW1: 

  • M - militarism, there were many new advanced weapons and countries were building up large armies. Many countries made pre-plans about strategies they would have for a war against their enemies.  They also built up larger navies and navel weapons which only grew tensions, rivalries and competition. 

  • A - alliances were created and mostly made in secret. 

    • Triple Alliance/Central Powers: Germany, Austria Hungary, Ottoman empire. 

    • Triple Entente/Allies:  France, Russia, United Kingdom (later the US and Italy) 

  • I - imperialism made a lot of competition between the countries and new economic rivalries formed and concern over their colonies grew. 

  • N - nationalism was growing very quickly. There were new nationalistic problems that led to people wanting revenge against each other (such as France VS Germany) and Serbians wanting to create their own state. 

• Assination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, he was the austro-hungarian heir to the throne and killed by a serbian nationalist in the summer of 1914. Because of the MAIN causes, WW1 was sparked by this murder.  (he was killed because he had just annexed a new territory in the Balkans and many people were against him so when he visited…boom!) 

• Germany became very involved in the war because they believed that they could easily win and build a strong reputation since they were newly unified. They created the Schlieffen Plan where they would quickly take out France and then Russia before the end of the year. 

• In general, everyone thought the war would end quickly but because of trench warfare and modern technology, very little progress was made over a long period of time.

  •  In trenches, the quality of life was very poor because there was little food, lots of disease, and growing mental health issues. 

  • People died in trenches at a very rapid pace and in very large numbers. 

  • With trench warfare, there is a space in between opposing trenches called no man’s land. It was covered with barbed wire and very few people survived going onto that land since you were likely to get shot. 

  • Eastern Front: between germany and russia 

  • Western Front: between germany and france 

    • Germany had to fight a two front war (in both WW1 and WW2 and which is why their death tolls were so large and there was so much destruction. 

• Some new technology they had during the war were tanks, machine cannons/guns, submarines, planes, and poisonous gas. (also medical advancements with vaccines, amputations, and prosthetic limbs)

  •  There was unrestricted submarine warfare, meaning that submarines could strike at any time unannounced to their enemies. 

    • One strong example of unrestricted submarine warfare was the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, it was sunk by a German sub and was one of the causes that pushed the US to join World War I in 1917

• At this time, the United States was very isolationist and they avoided joining at first. They joined because of unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmerman telegram which was something Germany tried to send Mexico to ally with them and get them to fight against the United States. The United States joined the Allied powers because they had a lot of economic ties.

  • The United States had one now famous branch in the military called the Harlem Hellfighters, but World War I was a segregated war meaning that soldiers from colonies and colored people were not allowed to fight with white men. The US gave the Harlem hellfighters to France and told France not to treat them as equals; they never received any honors for the services until later (they did get some from France). 

• Colonial soldiers: European countries took troops from their colonies or other Allied countries that were in Europe and used the soldiers. Many of them did not fight but were used to do manual labor such as dig trenches, carry and distribute weapons/materials from place to place, or clear land for battles. They joined the war effort in hopes to get better treatment in their own country or freedom/greater rights within their country from their European overlords.

• END OF WW1:

  • Paris Peace Conference - there were 32 countries present at this meeting. Russia was not represented because it pulled out of the war early. All of the central power countries were also excluded. They decided the outcome of the war, but the key players were part of the “Big Four” - Britain, Italy, France, and the United States. 

    • Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points mainly discussed peace and self-determination. He wanted to abolish secret treaties/allies and wanted to create the League of Nations to unite all the countries. Overall, this failed because the US never joined the LN nor complied with its points. 

      • The LN was a major failure because all they did was appease countries that did something wrong, which in the end did absolutely nothing to stop them from committing more wrongdoings. 

    • The Treaty of Versailles concluded the war in 1919. It had a large impact on Germany: Germany lost 15% of its land, had to pay billions of dollars in reparations, had military restrictions, and the war guilt clause blamed Germany for the entire war.

      • France took revenge on Germany after being bitter over the Franco-Prussian war. 

      • Known as the “peace built on quicksand” because it led to further conflicts and WW2.   

  • After the war, many countries focused on strengthening their state power and increasing propaganda to regenerate nationalism. 

  • Women that went to work in factories during World War I while men worked for the war effort were replaced by men that came home. 

  • There were many casualties, including those who were not in the war, and civilians were heavily impacted because all their land was destroyed. 

  • Post enlightenment values of progress and tolerance were now disregarded. 

  • The young generation that lived through the war grew depressed and was called the lost generation.They heavily expressed themselves through literature, poetry, art, dancing, smoking/drinking, and open sexuality. 

  • World maps had changed since the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires all lost land and new countries were formed because of national self-determination, meaning that people could declare themselves an independent country from the country they were previously part of which led to its downfall. The Crimean War over religious disputes also led to the empire’s fall because the Ottomans needed European loans and they gained a lot of debt, also they were “the sick man of Europe” before WW1 even started so WW1 made them even weaker and their joining of the central powers made them fall. 

  • During World War I, the Ottomans committed genocide against Armenians, and millions were killed or deported from their homeland and forced to do a death march. 

    • When the Ottoman empire fell, there was the Mandate system where certain european powers controlled the land instead of the Arabs that were promised independence → it was a new form of colonialism. 

  • Africans and Asians that returned home learned from the Europeans’ military and political strategies. They respected Europeans less and called for better treatment.

  • In the US, there was the Sedition and Espionage Acts which were against anything the US deemed as possibly harmful for the war/could interfere with the war effort. It went against the right to free speech and was very biased since it was hard to determine how bad things were. 

Russia/Soviet Union:  

• One summary sentence: In the middle of WW1, Russia faced a revolution, pulled out of the war early because of this, and soon became the first communist country.  

• Communist and socialist Russia began to grow in appeal and had a violent revolution in 1917. Because World War I was not going well for Russia, there was increased tensions within the country and outrages. This began the Russian revolution.

• Vladimir Lenin led the socialist party and the Bolsheviks goal was to leave the war, benefit peasants/laborers, and create self-determination for others. There was a three year civil war and the communist Russia became known as the Soviet Union or USSR.

• Joseph Stalin ruled communist Russia; he wanted to rapidly modernize/industrialize the country. He was a totalitarian ruler with lots of corruption and high ranking people in the country got special privileges. Totalitarian leaders controlled every aspect of life and society. 

• There were a lot of media regulations and censorship. 

• Collectivization of agriculture – mini farmers had to work on one farm together rather than have their own separate farms and they were supposed to support large scale, modern farming. Many wealthier peasants were excluded, killed, or deported because they were seen as outsiders.  

• There was rapid industrialization, state ownership of property, mobilization of human laborers, natural resources, very little unemployment, and more education opportunities which led to a higher literacy rate.

• Those that went against the communist party were seen as enemies and millions were sent to prison or killed because of this. 

Inter-War Period Leading Causes to WW2:  

• One sentence summary: economic hardships, new extremist governments, and charismatic dictators began to influence this period of time ultimately leading to WW2. 

• Because of WW1 the Great Depression or ‘age of anxiety’ began. There were many contributing factors that affected different countries. 

  • It started in the US after a rapid and abrupt stock market crash in 1929. The stock market was relatively new and expensive to get into so people took out loans to get involved. The market grew and once it reached a very high point, people began to pull their money which led to its giant crash. Since people used loan money, they lost money they didn’t initially own and the banks had to shut down. People lost entire life savings and every penny to their name. 

  • There were high unemployment rates and increased social tensions. 

  • The US put very high tariffs on foreign goods in an attempt to help American manufacturers and businesses, this failed because other countries did the same in return. 

  • Global trade and exports dropped which led the Great Depression to spread globally. 

    • Germany - they were already facing economic hardships after WW1 reparations and the GD absolutely crushed them and brought even more mass unemployment and hyperinflation.

  • Japan - They had little involvement in WW1 and focused on growing its economy and territory. Democratic ideals slowly spread into it and they started to have a 2 party system, universal male suffrage, freedom of expression, and more gender equality. During and after WW1 was when they started to decline. 

    • The price of rice - a staple crop - increased and social tensions grew. 

    • Their exports dropped greatly, this is because of new tariffs and because Japan relied on selling luxury goods like silk while the demand for luxury items crashed. 

•  Authoritarian powers came together while/after experiencing the GD. Italy, Germany, and Japan were all very nationalistic, territorially aggressive, and anti-communist. They allied together and became the Axis Powers. Lebensraum - territory necessary for national existence and economic self-sufficiency - they got this ideology from Italy and Germany.

• At this time, facism also grew, and after WW1 countries became very conservative, nationalistic, ideals of purification, and anti- individualism, feminism, liberalism, and democratic.

  • Fascism appealed to the population because the upper/middle class feared communism and losing status, the lower class feared a loss of independence and more poverty, and overall resentments grew and distaste for the current state of the world. 

  • Facism first spread in Italy. Mussolini had his own private army or gang of thugs that wanted to spread facism/socialism. He expanded his land and reign and said that this gave fascists power to restore greatness. He silenced, deported, or killed anyone that went against him and banned all opposing political parties. 

    • He invaded Ethiopia in a desire to expand Italy’s imperial territory. It was also a revenge after they lost their first war against King Menelik. 

• Hitler and the Nazi Party:

  • The Weimar Republic was Germany's government after WW1, it was a parliamentary democracy with many different political parties that were very indecisive and never agreed on anything. It was a very ineffective form of government. 

    • Hitler tried to overthrow it, failed, went to jail, and wrote Mein Kampf.  

  • German fascists under Adolf Hitler had extreme nationalism, promoted violence/war-positives, wanted a single party dictatorship, had resentment for the Treaty of Versailles, and were full of anti-semitism.  Also, in their agenda, they wanted to put women back in domestic roles and remove them from the workforce, ban abortion, and ban sex-education. 

  • Hitler became chancellor in 1932 and quickly made his goals become a reality.

    • He banned all other political parties, arrested anyone that opposed him, had his brown shirt thugs patrol and arrest people/promote terror, promoted the Aryan race, and had total control of all media and the radio. 

    • He excluded jews from all of German society with the Nuremberg Laws that made Jews lose their German citizenship, banned them from certain professions, and banned inter-marriage. It separated the jewish race, making anyone with a drop of jewish blood seen as an enemy. 

    • Hitler and his brown shirts acted out Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) which was an attack on the jewish population and destroyed their businesses, houses, and places of worship.  

    • Hitler also began to expand Germany’s territory by taking over nearby countries, but it wasn’t until they took over Poland that France and Britain declared war on them. 

• Japan Authoritarianism: 

  • Because of social tensions after the GD, radical nationalism/the Revolutionary Right called for extreme nationalism and demanded for changes in their corrupt government to revert to traditional ways.

  • The military gained a large and new dominant role.

  • Earlier, they won the Russo-Japanese war and got Manchuria, now they left the league of nations, allied with Germany, and started to attack China. 

    • WW2 conflicts began to brew in Asia (it did not fully start until Hitler invaded Poland). 

    • They started to take over European and American colonies in east Asia to gain natural resources, territorial power, and decrease their dependence on westerners. 

    • Rape of Nanjing/Nanjing Massacure - Japan brutally came into China and killed, mutilated, and sexually assaulted many. 

    • Pearl Harbor - US put an embargo on all oil and Japan attacked/bombed their military base in Hawaii, this caused the US to enter WW2 and later drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  

World War 2 And The Holocaust:  

• One summary sentence: Tensions during the interwar period sparked a second and even more deadly world war. 

• There were theaters/regions where this war was fought: Europe, North Africa, and Pacific Asia. 

• Hitler began WW2 with his invasion of Poland in 1939.  Before this invasion, Hitler made packs with the USSR and they joined a secret alliance and planned to split Poland. 

  • The USSR was doubled crossed by Hitler and Germany began to invade them to cause many soviet casualties.

  • Germany tried to invade/take over the Soviet Union. In the summer of 1942 hitler ordered troops to go to Stalingrad, Hitler thought that if he captured Stalingrad the war would be over. Joseph Stalin refused to let it be taken. Many died in this battle. 

• The Allies - Britain and France - declared war on Hitler after ignoring his previous attacks on other countries. 

• Not only did they use the deadly weapons from WW1, but there was even newer technology and methods of usage that made WW2 the deadliest war. 

  • One method was fire-bombing where they would drop many bombs on cities to destroy the entire area. 

  • Hitler came up with a new method of war called “Blitzkrieg” or lightning war where the Nazis would sweep one area in a very short period of time and quickly overwhelm enemies. 

• Before WW2, the US created the Act of Neutrality which made it illegal for the US to distribute weapons or resources for war to European countries. At this time the US was isolationist and avoided getting involved in foreign affairs. 

  • Because of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 the US joined the war. Japan's main goal of this attack was to take out America's navy but this overall failed and caused US aggression towards Japan and American-Japanese citizens. Many Japanese people in mainland America were forced to move to incarceration camps where they lost their homes, jobs, and many possessions. War time hysteria caused this violation of civil rights and xenophobia grew. Many Japanese-American soldiers fought in WW2 to show their loyalty to the US. (Executive Order 9066 led to the discrimination against Japanese people).  

    • Due to the ABC-1 Act, the US agreed that if a second world war did break out they would put their focus towards European matters and Britain. Hitler’s defeat became the main goal of the War.  

• Neutral European countries: Spain was under fascist rule at the time and its leader Francisco Franco was friends with Hitler but Spain was facing a civil war so they stayed out of WW2. Switzerland was kind of neutral but aided the Nazis by storing stolen art and money in their anonymous banks. 

• Italy - the dictator Mussolini was publicly killed by the Italian people as they were fed up with his actions that brought on another war. 

• Nazi Germany took over France and it was split up into northern and southern france. The north was completely controlled by the nazis and the south remained under french rule but carried out Nazi orders, such as deporting many jewish people and forcing them into  concentration camps. 

• In north africa, germany took over france's colonies, and one of Hitler’s own generals attempted to assassinate him. 

  • During and after WW2, there were many anti-colonial movements where people demanded for independence. 

• D-Day - it was the US and British invasion of Normandy Beach in France. It was the turning point of the war. 

• Soviet and American forces reached Berlin and neared Hitlers command bunker → Hitler committed suicide and Germany surrendered.

• The Yalta conference in 1945  - the soviet union agreed to enter to war in the pacific theater after german surrender but the US didn’t want the soviets to touch Japan and this was a reason for the use of atomic bombs. It also divided germany. 

• War in Asia: although germany was out of the war, war was still happening in the pacific theater. 

  • One method of war was island hopping where countries like Japan and the US would slowly conquer islands.

  • Iwo Jima - there were naval and air attacks on the island and the US won. 

  • Potsdam Conference - The US said Japan had to agree to their treaty unconditionally and everything on it had to be followed. 

  • Okinawa - it happened during the spring of 1945 and the US lost many soldiers, they decided that if they attacked mainland Japan they would have too large of a death toll and decided to use their new atomic bombs that were created in the secret Manhattan Project. 

    • Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that was where the US dropped the bombs and killed many, the survivors faced mutilations and radiation poisoning. 

    • Some justifications for their usage was to prevent any more war casualties, the US was against the USSR (see above), they already spent billions on the bombs, and the plan was already in progress when Truman became president when FDR made the original plan. Also, it was clear Japan was not going to surrender, their soldiers were taught to fight to the death - this is shown by their suicide plane fighters. 

• HOLOCAUST: genocide is an attempt to destroy or eliminate an entire group of people. 

  • Because the Armenian genocide happened under the veil of secrecy, Hitler and the Nazi party thought they could get away with what they did. 

    • Hitler came up with the “Final Solution” where people seen as inferior from the Aryan race were killed or deported to camps. 

  • During the Holocaust, the main targets were jewish followers, but others were targeted such as people of color, those with disabilities, homosexuals, and those of Roma/Balkan descent. 

  • They first discriminated Jews from life, then forced them to move into Ghettos which were segregated from other people and in blocked off territories. Then there was the creation of Concentration camps where Jews were forced to do labor or killed in shooting lines or gas chambers. 

    • Auschwitz was the largest camp where the most people died.

  • When camps were liberated, Allied soldiers were shocked to see the state of the living and dead. 

Revolution In China: 

• One summary sentence: Communist China begins. 

• Stalin (USSR leader) was seen as a hero during this time to certain countries and he tried to spread communism. 

• After the Sino-Japanese war, the USSR was left with the northern half of Korea and spread communism there. 

• Chinese revolution of 1949 - China became communist soon after it collapsed due to imperialism. 

• Mao Zedong came to power and opposed the Chinese nationalist party. He forced the communist agenda on all the Chinese people and used many terror tactics. He used his own soldiers and the little red books to force communism on the people. 

  • His image was everywhere and was viewed as a father figure to children and almost god-like. When he passed, he wanted everyone to mourn as if they’d lost the greatest thing ever.