11/12/25 -11/14/25 WWI, USSR, WWII

Wilhelm II (William II) (1888-1918)

  • German emperor

  • Policy: Germany's "place in the sun"

  • Key Actions:

    • Let Bismarck go (1890)

    • Let Reinsurance Treaty with Russia lapse

    • Germany isolates itself from former allies and contributes to rising tensions in Europe.

    • Supported Austria-Hungary in the Balkans

    • Antagonized France:

      • First Moroccan Crisis (1905): Championed Morocco's freedom

      • Second Moroccan Crisis (1911)

    • Antagonized England:

      • Von Tirpitz built a large navy

      • Encouraged Boers during the Boer War

World War I Statistics

  • Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, sparked a series of events that led to the outbreak of the war.

  • Mobilized: 65 million

  • Battle Deaths: 8 – 10 million

  • Civilian Deaths: 6.6 million

  • Wounded: 21 million

  • "Lost Generations" (Battle Deaths by Nation):

    • France: 1.3 million

    • England: 0.9 million

    • Russia: 1.7 million

    • Germany: 1.8 million

    • Austria: 0.9 million

Treaty of Versailles (1919)

  • Territorial Changes:

    • Alsace-Lorraine returned to France

    • Rhineland demilitarized and occupied by allies

    • Saar coalmines to France for 15 years, then plebiscite

  • German Disarmament:

    • Army restricted to 100,000 long-term soldiers

    • 4,000 officers

    • No general staff

    • No tanks, planes, subs, heavy ships

  • Article 231 (War Guilt Clause): Germany forced to accept full responsibility for the war

  • Reparations: Germany forced to pay an unspecified amount of reparations

Russian Revolutions (1917)

First Revolution (March 1917)

  • Provisional Government:

    • Conservative Parliamentary

      • Parliaments are unstable in times of crisis

    • Continued the war

      • Big mistake by the Russians

    • Failed to address social and economic problems

    • Weak control; armed the soviets in factories

Second Revolution (November 1917)

  • Dissension in Provisional Government

  • Government armed soviets’ Red Guards

  • Provisional Government depended on support of soviets

  • Lenin took over soviets

  • Slogans: “Peace, land, bread,” “All power to the soviets”

  • Military joined soviets

  • Bolshevik coup on November 6 against Winter Palace

  • Lenin in charge

Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov)

  • Advocated violent revolution

    • Revolution in an agrarian society

  • Revolution led by the elite

  • Founded the Bolsheviks

  • Led the November Revolution

  • Led Bolshevik coup

  • Guiding light of communist revolution

  • Led Russia during the Civil War / War Communism

  • Introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP)

  • Dynamic leader / loved by many people

  • Suspicious of Stalin

Joseph Stalin (1879-1953)

  • "Man of Steel"

  • Ruthless Party bureaucrat

  • Dictator from 1929

  • Key Policies/Actions:

    • Socialism in One Country

    • Industrialized Russia with Five-Year Plans

    • Collectivization of farms (1928-1933), resulting in 5 – 7 million deaths

    • Purges (1936-1938)

    • Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939)

  • Cold War (his later role in)

Stalin's Five-Year Plans

  • Forced industrialization of Russia

First Plan (1928-1932)

  • Eliminate private property

  • Concentrate on heavy industry and transportation

  • Quantity over quality

  • Only partial success

Second Plan (1933-1937)

  • Focused on heavy industry

  • Reasonable quotas

  • Increased iron and steel production

Third Plan (1938-1942)

  • Interrupted by war

  • By 1939, USSR was 3rd in world industrial production

Stalin’s Purges (1936-1938)

  • Driven by Stalin's paranoia

  • Liquidation of perceived enemies

  • Elimination of prominent Soviet officials and military leaders

  • Tool: NKVD (Soviet secret police)

  • Public show trials in Moscow

  • Chain incriminations

  • Decapitation of the military (weakened military on the eve of WWII)

  • Emboldened Hitler

  • Estimated 9-10 million killed / exiled / imprisoned

Interwar Period Literature (Themes of Pessimism)

  • Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932) – future inhuman world

  • Ernest Hemingway:

    • The Sun Also Rises (1926) – lost postwar generation

    • For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) – Spanish Civil War

  • Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) – anti-WWI novel

  • Oswald Spengler: The Decline of the West (1918) – Western civilization in final stage of collapse

  • Franz Kafka: The Trial (1924) – victimization in a totalitarian society

  • Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain (1924) – decline of bourgeois society

  • D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love (1920) – dismissal of human needs of coal miners

  • George Orwell: The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) – lives of English coal miners

  • John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath (1939) – Dust Bowl America

Eugenics

  • Definition: Greek for "good birth"

  • Origin: Idea from Plato's Republic

  • Sir Francis Galton (1820-1911):

    • British statistician, biologist, psychologist

    • Aim: Improve genetic qualities of population in health, intelligence, moral character

    • Method: Solve social problems by regarding them as biological

    • Influence: Influenced Darwin's Descent of Man (1871)

  • Two Forms:

    • Negative: Sterilization, euthanasia

    • Positive: Selective breeding, sperm banks

  • Popularity: Popular worldwide across the political spectrum; popular in the US

  • US Context (1910-1950):

    • US academia embraced it at high school and college levels

    • Reinforced racial segregation and immigration restrictions

    • Approximately 60,000 people involuntarily sterilized in the US

Weimar Republic (1918-1933)

  • Tradition of liberalism

  • Parliamentary government

  • Chronic Instability: 20 governments

  • Presidency: Seven-year terms; Field Marshal von Hindenburg was the last president and held contempt for the republic

  • Lack of legitimacy between the upper class and military

  • Saddled with the shame of the Versailles Treaty

  • Financial difficulties due to reparations and depression

  • Article 48: Permitted rule by decree

Fascism

  • Etymology: From Italian fascio, meaning union

  • Difficult to describe; a complex ideology

  • Opposed: Socialism, liberalism, communism, conservatism, egalitarianism, materialism, democracy

  • Core Characteristics:

    • Cult of an authoritarian leader

    • Intense nationalism

    • Importance of mythical past and symbols

    • Violence is positive

    • Masculine ideology (women's place in the home)

    • Exaltation of youth

  • Conditions Supporting Fascism: Lower class support, national defeat, transition to democracy, economic hardship

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)

  • Founded Italian Fascism

  • Motto: "Everything within the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state"

  • Political opportunist: used alliances to gain power

  • Organizations: Fascio di combattimento (Blackshirt paramilitary organization)

  • Prime Minister in 1922; fomented disorder to justify dictatorship to restore order

  • Title: Il Duce from 1926-1945

  • Never completely dominated Italy

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

  • Austrian / Loner / corporal in WWI

  • Leader of the Nazi party

  • Charismatic speaker

  • Political opportunist

  • Focused on the shame of Versailles / "stab in the back" myth

  • Anti-Semitism / Final Solution

  • Sought Lebensraum (living space) in the east

  • Began WWII in Europe

  • Believed himself to be invincible

  • Two Disastrous Mistakes:

    • Attacking Russia

    • Declaring war on the USA

Key Events Leading to WWII (1931-1939)

  • 1929: Wall street crash leads to Great Depression

  • 1931: Japan invades Manchuria

  • 1932: Nazis won 37% of votes

  • 1933: Hitler becomes Chancellor; Germany withdraws from the League of Nations; Germany withdraws from the Geneva Disarmament Conference

  • 1935: Luftwaffe announced; German conscription / rearmament; Anglo-German Naval Pact; Personal oath to Hitler (soldiers swore loyalty)

  • 1935: Mussolini invades Ethiopia

  • 1936: Rhineland reoccupied; Rome-Berlin Axis established; Anti-Comintern Pact (Germany & Japan)

  • 1937: Hossbach Conference; Japan invades China

  • 1938: Anschluss (annexation of Austria); Munich Conference

  • 1939: Occupation of Prague; Pact of Steel; Nazi-Soviet Pact; September 1 – Germany invades Poland (beginning of WWII)