Unit 8: 20th Century Global Conflicts

WWI: MAIN Causes

Militarism

  • More weapons - industrial revolution

  • Flamethrowers, mortars, submarines, etc.

Alliances

Imperialism

Nationalism

Timeline

  • June 28 - Assassination of FF, ultimatum

  • July 28 - Serbia says no to the ultimatum, AH declares war on Serbia

  • July 31 - Russia officially mobilizes

  • Aug 1 - Germany declares war on France and Russia, gives “blank check” to AH, “Schlieffen Plan”

  • Aug 3 - GB declares war on Germany

The World at War

Differing Viewpoints

  • Family Feud: Russia, GB, Germany

  • The War to End All Wars

  • The War to “Make the World Safe for Democracy” - Woodrow Wilson

The Alliance System

  • Triple Entente/Allied Powers

    • GB

    • France

    • Russia

    • Italy

  • Triple Alliance/Central Powers

    • Germany

    • AH

    • Bulgaria

    • Ottoman Empire

The Major Players

  • Allied Powers

    • Nicholas II (Russia)

    • George V (Britain)

    • Victor Emmanuel II (Italy)

    • Poincare (France)

  • Central Powers

    • Kaiser Wilhelm II (Germany)

    • Enver Pasha (Ottoman Empire)

    • Franz Josef (Austria-Hungary)

Militarism and the Arms Race

  • Germany/Kaiser Wilhelm builds up military power the most

Imperial Rivalries

  • Called “The Great War” - ending Imperialistic rivalries

  • Colonies and proxies fighting for main countries

Aggressive Nationalism

  • Idea of extreme nationalistic superiority

  • Nationalism vs. Domestic Terrorism: The Black Hand

Total War

  • Involved governments, economies, and populations of participating nations to an extent never before seen in history

The Western Front

The Western Front

  • Belgium

  • Compact, concise warfare

  • War of attrition

  • Trench warfare

    • “No man’s land”

Major Battles

  • Marne

    • The start of trench warfare

  • Gallipoli

    • Access to the Black sea - British v. Ottomans

  • Verdun

    • German offensive

    • Both sides had 500,000 casualties

  • Somme

    • Britain loses 60k soldiers in a day

    • Deadliest battle of WWI

  • Hundred Days

  • Jutland

Russian Revolution

Problems

  • Autocratic Rulers

    • Alexander II - liberal tsar who freed the serfs but was assassinated

    • Alexander III - drove revolutionaries into exile and drove Russification

    • Nicholas II - only true autocrat left in Europe

  • Industrialization v. Agriculture

    • Lacked modernization but increased production

    • Peasants burdened

  • Population increased from 50 million to 103 million

  • Formation of political parties:

    • Social Revolutionary Party- opposed industrialization, supported by peasants.

    • Constitutional Democratic Party (Cadets)- liberal modeled after Western Europe.

    • Social Democratic Party- Marxist, but wanted industrialization.

    • Bolsheviks- “hard” Marxist, strong central party.

    • Menshevicks – more democratic

  • Russo- Japanese War

Revolution of 1905

  • Bloody Sunday

  • Winter’s Palace

  • 100 People shot

  • 10 months of revolts demanding reform

  • October Manifesto - promised a constitutional government, announced the election of the Duma

Reasons for Revolution

  • Monarchy’s ability to rule collapsed

  • WWI caused too great a demand on resources and efficiency

  • Rasputin - peasant faith healer

Revolution of 1917

  • March - White Revolution

    • Discontent starving women force tsar to abdicate

    • Establish a provisional government led by Alexander Kerensky

    • Problems: Demand for bread, continuation of war, rioting

  • November - Red Revolution

    • Bolshevik

    • April Theses - Peace, Land, Bread

    • Leon Trotsky took Red Guard into Petrograd and took control of the government without bloodshed

    • Signed treaty of Brest - Litvosk

Civil War

  • Reds

    • Led by Trotsky

    • Checka - Political police

    • War Communism

  • Whites

    • Democrats

    • Led by army officers who were upset with end of war

    • Supported by Allied Powers

Communist Regime

  • Government

    • 1922 - USSR

    • Most live in 3 large Slavic Regions

    • Occupies 1/6 of the world, 100 languages, 50 nationalities

    • ½ of USSR population lives in Russia

Policies of USSR

  • Internal opposition oppressed

    • Cheka police force

    • Kronstadt Revolt - first revolution demanding rights

    • Art and education censored

    • Religious institutions closed

    • Control of industrial output

    • All decisions made by highly centralized group

New Economic Policy - State Capitalism

  • Temporary compromise with capitalism with Lenin

    • State controlled heavy industry, banking, and transportation

    • Allowed peasants to sell grain on an open market

    • Fostered a new commercial class in the cities, favored individual farmers

    • Repaired the worst damages of war and revolution, but no real progress was made

  • Lenin admits that socialism had moved too fast and he needed to restore trade and industry

Stalin: Three Major Actions

  • Five Year Plan

    • Aimed at rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture

    • Make them militarily and industrially self-sufficient

    • Groundwork for a true workers’ society and overcome the reputation for “backwardness”

    • Gosplan - admin agency that determined how much of every article the country should be, produce what wages should be, and at what price goods should be exchanged

    • Led to an enormous bureaucracy

  1. Industrialization

  2. Collectivization

  3. Purges

Collectivization of Agriculture

  • Considered to be the property of the state

  • Kulaks - prosperous peasants who resisted giving up their lands to the government. 100,000 were killed or sent to labor camps in Siberia

  • Used food exports to pay for industrialization

  • Result: failed to increase agricultural output but did force people to move to city to work in industry. 20 million people moved from country to city

Results of 5-year plan

  • In 10 years, iron and steel production went of 4x, coal 3x

  • Besides Germany and the US, USSR’s industrial output became 3rd in the world

  • Most modernized country in Asia

  • Modernized and equipped Red Army

Social Impact of Stalin

  • Hard work and low wages; no acknowledged unemployment

  • Government supervised everything

  • Lack of consumer goods

  • No leaving of country without permission

  • One political party, no labor unions, no freedom of press or religion

  • Purge Trials

    • Over 3 million people were tried and sentenced for “counter-revolutionary” activities and crimes against the state

    • Psychological torture broke the will of most accused so that they confessed in open court

Rise of Totalitarianism

1920s-1930s Problems

  • Economic Challenges to rebuild European economy

    • German debts to France and England

    • Great Depression

    • French invasion of the Rhur valley

    • German Mark inflation

    • Dawes Plan

  • Collective Security

    • League of Nations

    • Locarno Pact

    • Kellogg-Briand Pact

Totalitarianism

  • Government controls every aspect of life - no privacy or independent organizations

  • Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini

Radical Ideology

  • Control is official, comprehensive, and oppressive

  • Exploits popular fears and prejudice

  • Legitimates a revolutionary break from the past

    • Provides scapegoats for past wrongdoings

    • Explains present sacrifice

    • Promises a future of peace and security

Organization

  • Single political party promotes ideology

  • Party serves the leader

  • No dissent permitted

  • Indoctrination

Mass Mobilization and Indoctrination

  • Fanatic followers make any sacrifice

  • Mobilization against any internal or external enemies

  • Used aggressive warfare to keep people mobilized

Secret Police

  • Informers: modern citizens and their actions

    • Gestapo

    • OVRA

    • NKVD

Cult of Supreme Being

  • Paternalistic

  • Supreme

  • Autonomous

  • Charismatic

  • Wise

  • Heroic

Terror and Violence

  • To “smooth the way” to take over

  • Atmosphere of crisis and instability

  • Dramatizes the ability of old government to take over

  • To maintain control

  • Keeps population too terrorized to dissent

Benito Mussolini

  • Originally an anti-war socialist - escapes to Switzerland before WWI

  • Returns as a pro-war nationalist

  • Becomes a newspaper editor to spread propaganda and blame communists for Italian problems

  • Gained power through:

    • Destruction and violence

      • Squadristi destroying political enemies and private property

    • Arrested enemies

      • Destroyed parties and made Italy into a one-party dictatorship

    • Corporate Economy

      • State control over economic life

    • Lateran Treaty

      • Granted church sovereignty in Vatican region (creates Vatican City) and protected the role of the Catholic church in marriage and education laws

      • Appeases church while removing their power in Italian politics

  • Gained power legally

Mussolini’s Plan

  • Wants to replicate the power of the Roman Empire

    • Capture all the Mediterranean Sea

  • Foreign, imperial conquest

    • Ethiopia - Italy uses poisonous gas and bombs and withdraws from the League of Nations

  • Signed Rome-Berlin axis, aka Pact of Steel

  • Invaded and Annexed Albania, which became an Italian protectorate

Adolf Hitler

  • Stabbing in the back: Germany’s loss in the war was caused by scapegoats

    • Communists, Jews, Democrats

  • Demanded the Weimar Republic be abolished

  • Nazi party founded in 1920 - the Brownshirts

  • 1923 - Beer Hall Putsch

  • Hitler goes to jail and writes Mein Kampf

  • From 1930 to 1933 the Nazis gain power and ultimately gain rule of Germany when the Reichstag is burned

The Third Reich

  • Hitler becomes the Fuhrer

  • Passes legislation outlawing freedom of press, public meeting, violence against political enemies

  • 3 goals

    • Lebensraum: “Living space” - right and duty of Germany and the master race to be the world’s greatest empire and rule for a thousand years

    • Rearmament: In 1935, Hitler ignores the Treaty of Versailles and invades Rhineland. This encouraged Germany to produce everything they consume. This ends unemployment and boosts military and industry

    • Recovery: 4 year plan dedicated to full-scale rearmament and economic self-sufficiency

Hitler’s Early Actions

  • Propaganda, Family life, and Hitler Youth organizations

  • Nuremberg Laws - Deprived Jews of citizenship rights and intermarriage with non-Jews

  • Kristallnacht - Jews sent to concentration camps, Nazis collected the insurance and levied a 1 billion mark fine that the Jews had to pay

  • Condemnation of everything foreign

  • Expelled outcasts - homosexuals, mentally ill

  • Political enemies sent to concentration camps

  • Law was defined as the will of the German people operating in the interests of the Nazi state

  • Church was coordinated with Nazi doctrine

  • National Labor Front - strikes were forbidden

Steps to WWII

  • 1933: Hitler appointed Chancellor and rearms Germany

  • 1935: Mussolini invades Ethiopia

  • 1936: Germany remilitarizes the Rhineland

  • 1936: Spanish Civil War

    • Republicans supported by USSR

    • Fascists (Francisco Franco) supported by Germany and Italy

    • New Technology and Strategy: Blitzkrieg

    • Bosque - autonomous region in Spain that supported the Republicans but were generally antiwar

      • Attacked by Fascists and Blitzkrieg strategy

  • 1936: Anschluss - Union of Germany and Austria

    • Reason: Hitler was Austrian, Austria and Germany are longtime allies

    • Hitler’s first gain of land

  • 1938: Munich Conference

    • Most countries were invited except USSR

    • Neville Chamberlain (GB), Hitler, Mussolini, French leader

    • Sudetenland - Czechoslovakia given to Hitler to appease him

    • Winston Churchill - Parliament member who believes Hitler should not be given the land

  • 1939: Non-Aggression pact   

    • Hitler and Stalin promise not to fight for 10 years

    • Split up Europe between the two (Poland)

    • Hitler breaks the pact

WWII

Invasion of Poland

  • Blitzkrieg Strategy

    • Lightning war - attacking with all technologies in sequence

    • Bombs, planes, tanks, people

    • Blitzkrieg practiced during Spanish Civil War at Basque

Phony War

  • 6-month period between when war was declared and Britain and France actually attacked

The Alliances

  • Axis: Germany, Italy, Japan

  • Allies: Britain, France

Evacuation of Dunkirk

  • British and French soldiers are pushed back to Dunkirk in France

  • The people of Britain are called to take their boats to rescue the soldiers

  • Over 300,000 troops were rescued

  • The Germans could’ve attacked but chose not to - Hitler was more focused on invading Paris

France Surrenders

  • Northern France becomes part of a German Reich

  • Hitler doesn’t want France to be destroyed - pays homage to Paris and Napoleon and wants to make Paris his capital

Divided France

  • Northern Part: German Reich

  • Southern Part: Vichy France Regime

    • Hitler gives Vichy and Southern France to Henri Petain - becomes a puppet government controlled by Hitler

The French Resistance

  • Charles DeGaulle - Liberator of France and Paris at the end of the war

    • Becomes president

    • Helps organize D-Day with the United States

  • Free French Movement

The Blitz

  • Neville Chamberlain (the appeaser) is replaced by Winston Churchill

  • Reemergence of Churchill after some mistakes previously

  • Churchill leads the Battle of Britain (The Blitz)

    • Technology

      • The Radar - avoiding “Luftwaffe”

      • Codebreaking - Enigma

      • Blackout Shades

      • Lessons for citizens

      • RAF - Royal Air Force

  • Hitler ultimately abandons his attacks on Britain after 3 months of nightly bombing, but not considered a defeat

  • The London Tube becomes a homeless shelter

Operation Barbarossa - Hitler’s Biggest Mistake

  • Hitler takes lower and Eastern areas of Europe: Greece, Yugoslavia, etc.

  • Hitler plans to invade the Soviet Union in Spring and Summer before the Winter, but the operation gets delayed

  • Stalin is caught off guard - Red Army is not as powerful

    • Red Army is weak because Stalin killed many generals and officials during the purges

  • Stalin wants Britain and France to prepare D-Day, so Hitler doesn’t attack USSR

    • When they refuse, Stalin thinks it is because they want USSR and Germany to oppose each other - sentiments leading to cold war

  • Battle of Stalingrad

    • A major turning point - Germany completely loses to the Soviets

WWII Technology

  • Blitzkrieg

    • Used on Poland, France by Germany

  • Planes/Bombing

    • Used as a part of Blitzkrieg, but also in the Blitz of Britain and to attack Berlin by USA

  • Tanks/Artillery

    • Heavy utilized at Stalingrad

  • D-Day

  • Atomic Bomb

  • Concentration Camps and gas chambers

Allies - The North Africa Campaign

  • The Allies liberate North Africa, Sicily, and finally Rome

D-Day

  • “Operation Overlord”

  • Eisenhower arranges the D-Day attacks on France

  • Largest amphibious invasion in history

  • Allies land at Normandy

  • Dangerous operation - no cover on the beach

  • Turning point in France - Americans win

  • The liberation of Paris - Charles DeGaulle and the allies

The “Big Three” Allies

  • Winston Churchill (Britain), Franklin Roosevelt (USA), Joseph Stalin (USSR)

  • Conferences

    • Atlantic

      • 1941

      • Roosevelt + Churchill

      • Made Atlantic charter and outlined Allies’ postwar goals

      • US Showed support for GB

      • Inspired independence movements worldwide

    • Casablanca

      • Spring 1943

      • FDR + Churchill

      • Unconditional surrender from Germany

      • Invasion of Italy

      • Showed unity between Allies

    • Tehran

      • Winter 1943

      • All 3 leaders met (first meeting with all 3)

      • Stalin agrees to fight against Japan after convincing by USA

      • D-Day is organized and dates are set

    • Yalta

      • Spring 1945

      • All 3 leaders

      • Division of Germany/Berlin into 4

      • UN created

      • Plans for ending the war and postwar

    • Potsdam

      • Summer 1945

      • Truman, Stalin, Attlee

      • “Denazification” of Germany

      • Japan Ultimatum

      • German split into different borders/occupation zones

      • Established post-war conditions and introduced Cold War tensions

  • Following the war, the USSR and USA are established as the major world superpowers

Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust

Nazi Ideology

  • Mein Kampf - discussed Antisemitism

Science of Race

  • 1934 - forced sterilization of 250,000 to 300,000 people

  • Doctors dedicated to racial hygeine

  • In order to protect German blood and honor, the marriage of Jews and Germans was forbidden

Ghettos

  • By 1942, all Jews living in German controlled territories were living in Ghettos

  • Major Ghettos - Warsaw, Lodz, Lublin, Radom

Mobile Killing Squads

Wannsee Conference

  • Genocide of Jews became a state policy

  • The “Final Solution”

Nuremburg Trials

  • Four Counts:

    • Crimes against peace

    • Crimes against humanity

    • War Crimes

    • Conspiracy