The World War I Era

• At beginning of 20th century, most of world was colonized by Europe or had been colonized by Europe - everywhere was connected to instability in Europe

• European countries had had feuds, but industrialism and rise in nationalism caused military build-up and more powerful weapons, alliances and power-grabbing rivals increasing

• Triple Alliance (1880s): Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy - protect against France

• France-Russian alliance to keep Germany in check

• Schlieffen Plan: Germany’s attack on France through Belgium, a neutral country

• Triple Entente: Britain, France, Russia - later joined by Japan

• Ottoman Empire was in bad shape and kept losing territory - Greece, Slavic areas declaring independence, countries disagreeing on land arrangements and allies

  • Bosnia and Herzegovina still under control on Austria-Hungary, as decided by Berlin Conference of 1878

• Austria-Hungary Archduke Franz Ferdinand visited Bosnia and was assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip - war was already on the horizon and this was the final blow

  • Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia - Russia was allies with Serbia - France, Germany, Britain joined to honour their alliances (Italy later joined the Triple Entente in 1915)

• Central Powers Alliance: Ottoman Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary

• Over 40 countries joined the war effort because in part of widespread colonial connections

• US joined the Allies in 1917 after Germany sunk British boat Lusitania in 1915 which had over 100 American passengers on board and kept sinking American ships attempting to bring resources to Britain - final push was Germany trying to get Mexico to join the war in 1916 (Zimmermann telegram - a secret telegram between German diplomats saying Mexico could regain territory taken by US if they joined forces)

  • Previously had isolationism policy (neutrality, focusing on internal affairs instead)

• The Great War lasted until Germany and Central Powers gave up in November 1918

  • 8.5 million soldiers were killed

  • 20 million civilians died

• The Treaty of Versailles: signed in 1919 - official end to WWI

  • Germany was to pay war reparations, release territory, downsize military to prevent them from rising to power again - poverty and resentment in Germany led to Hitler’s rise

  • Austria-Hungary divided into other nations like Czechoslovakia

  • Departure from President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, more focused on future peace and workable balance of power - but was disapproved of by Britain and France who put strict punishments on Germany

• President Wilson called for formation of council of nations called League of Nations to preserve peace and establish humanitarian goals, but was not widely accepted (even by US)

• Russian Revolution

  • Socialists began to organize after Czar Nicholas II’s forced resignation in 1917, resentment was strong among working class

    • Had lost war against Japan over Manchuria in 1904

    • Fired at peaceful protestors in 1905 (Blood Sunday)

  • Alexander Kerensky established a provisional government - ineffective because it disagreed with the local councils, soviets, who represented workers, peasants, and soldiers

  • Socialist party is known as the Bolsheviks - led by Marxist leader Vladimir Lenin

  • April Theses: issues by Lenin - demanded peace, land for peasants, power to soviets

    • within 6 months took power of government - soon to be called Soviet Union

  • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918): armistice with Germany - ceded part of western Russia to Germany so they dropped out of WWI

  • Counterrevolutions began occurring in Russian empire - Bolsheviks created Red Army, military force under Leon Trotsky to defeat counterrevolutions

  • Soviet Union became a nation lacking of trust by Western neighbours with a powerful army

• When Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, a movement to reclaim Turkish culture spawned a genocide of Armenian minority and a shift to Turkish nationalism - which resulted in loss of most of remaining land in peace negotiations

  • Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk): led successful military against invading Greece and overthrew Ottoman Empire to become first president of Turkey

World War II Era

Stalin and the Soviet Union

• Lenin first instituted the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1920s - allowed farmers to sell portions of grain for profit - successful, but Lenin died and new Communist leader, Joseph Stalin discarded it

• Five-Year Plans: taking over private farms for state-owned enterprises (collectivization) - really was totalitarianism

• Stalin industrialized the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) - relied on terror (secret police, bogus trials, assassinations)

The Great Depression

• War was expensive and Europe owed a lot of money to America (especially France and Germany)

• Money was based on credit, loans that would never be repaid = US stock market crash in 1929 leading to international catastrophe

• US and Germany hit the hardest - 1/3 of workforce unemployed, loss of trust in government = fascism

Fascism

• Main idea: destroy will of individual in favour of the people

• Wanted a unified society like communists, but did not eliminate private property or class distinctions

• Pushed for extreme nationalism - often on racial identity

• Fascism in Italy

  • First fascist state - founded by Benito Mussolini in 1919

  • Squad called Blackshirts fought socialist and communist organizations to win over factory and land owners

  • The Italian king named Mussolini Prime Minister

  • Faced very little opposition and took over Parliament in 1922

Rise of Hitler

• Revolt when German emperor was abdicated after WWI - a conservative democratic republic took over (Weimar Republic)

• Mussolini’s success in Italy was influencing Germany - Nationalist Socialist Party (Nazis) rose to power in 1920s

• People of Germany were rejecting Weimar Republic elected body the Reichstag due to economic crisis

• Adolf Hitler became head of Nazi Party - believed in extreme nationalism and superior race - believed the Aryan race was the most superior race

• By 1932, Nazis dominated German government and Hitler became leader of Reichstag in 1933

• Seized control of the government - his fascist rule is known as the Third Reich

Appeasement?

• Hitler began rebuilding military (against Treaty of Versailles) and withdrew Germany from League of Nations

• Spain was in turmoil after fall of Spanish monarchy - nationalist army under General Francisco Franco took control of large parts of Spain - established a dictatorship in Spain in 1939 with help from Germany and Italy

• Hitler continued restoring Germany: took back the Rhineland part of Germany, formed alliance with militant Japan, annexed Austria, given Sudetenland at Munich Conference of 1938 (Hitler, Mussolini, Neville Chamberlin of England) to cease his expansionist activities (appeasement) - did not work

• Hitler invaded rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939 and Italy invaded Albania in 1939

• Germans and Soviets signed a pact to stay out of each other’s countries (Nazi-Soviet Pact) and agreed to divide rest of Europe’s land between them

• Germany invaded Poland and Britain and France then declared war on Germany - start of WWII

Japan

• Became a world power when accepting an alliance with Britain in 1905

• Economy thrived after WWI until the Great Depression - Japanese militarists gained momentum

• Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and renamed in Manchukuo

• Withdrew from League of Nations and signed Anti-Comintern Pact (against communism) with Germany, beginning their alliance

• In 1937, began war on China which eventually merged into WWII

Review of WWII

• Hitler’s blitzkrieg technique destroyed everything in its path - by early 1940 Germany had control of Poland (half with USSR), Holland, Belgium, France

• Britain’s PM Winston Churchill did not give in to Germany’s pressures - even with German airstrikes from their more powerful airforce (Battle of Britain)

• Germany invaded Greece in 1941, breaking their deal with Soviet Union, so they invaded the Soviet Union too

• US didn’t want to get involved, but froze Japan’s assets in US to respond to their hostility - Japan entered Tripartite Pact with Rome and Berlin, making the war worldwide

  • in response to US sanctions, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941 and declared war with US

• US began working on Manhattan Project: development of the atomic bomb

• 1943: US and Britain take control of Italy

• 1944: US, Britain, and Canada land on French beaches (D-day) and eventually liberate France

• 1945: Allied forces close in on Germany and end Europe war when Hitler commits suicide

• To end war in Pacific, US drops atomic bomb on city of Hiroshima in Japan - when Japan refused to surrender, they dropped another bomb on Nagasaki, causing them to surrender

The Consequences

The Holocaust

• Millions of Jews under German control were rounded up and killed in concentration camps to create the Aryan race

The Peace Settlement

• US and Soviet Union became superpowers and Germany and Japan forced to demilitarize

Europe Torn to Shreds

• US instituted Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe (only accepted by Western Europe nations) and rebuilt their economies in less than a decade

Decline of Colonialism

• War inspired native populations to rise against their oppressors

Big Changes for Women

• Women took over the workforce while men were fighting - after the war, many women kept their jobs

Creation of International Organizations

• United Nations, established in 1945, to prevent break out of another great war - goal was to mediate and intervene in international disputes

• UN published Universal Declaration of Human Rights in response to Holocaust

• World Bank, International Monetary Fund, General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs also formed to manage a global economy

Cold War

• US or Soviet Union did not want each other to spread its influence beyond their borders, so they were strategizing how to contain each other - lasting for the next 50 years