CHAPTER 28 WORLD WAR AND COMPETING VISIONS OF MODERNITY TO 1945

The Great War and its Aftermath

• • Twentieth century began with a desperate struggle to keep the Balkans at peace.

Rivalry between three empires: Ottoman, Russia, Austria-Hungary.

– Germany and Britain determined to keep the Ottoman Empire intact.

– Russia and Austria-Hungary wanted to take territory from Ottomans.

• • Bosnia-Herzegovina was under Austria Hungary control since 1878.

– Region combined Serbs, Croats, and Muslims.

– Russia encouraged Serb nationalism as part of larger Pan-Slavic movement in trying to get access to Bosporus.

June 28, 1914, Bosnian Serb nationalist assassinated Franz Ferdinand and wife.

– Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the throne of Austria.

• B. Germany began World War I planning for a quick defeat of France, according to the Schlieffen war plan.

– Had to invade France and isolate her allies first, before Russia mobilized.

– Plan failed because Russia mobilized more quickly than expected, Britain helped France hold, and the Austrians could not hold off Russia.

• Led to a war of stalemate: fixed trenches in the west and indecisive war in the east.

– Germany defeated Russians, but Russia invaded the Ottoman Caucasus.

– Ottomans massacred Armenians in retaliation.

• It was a worldwide war, eventually involving all major states in the world and numerous colonial holdings.

• War changed in 1917 when Russia dropped out and the United States joined the war.

• February Revolution forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate.

– Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, took over and withdrew from the war.

– Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed March 1918, ceded one third of Russian land and population to Germany.

• Germans sank Lusitania in 1915 (1,959 passengers) – 1,159 passengers die – Includes 128 Americans.

• Germans returned to unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917.

– U. S. brought resources to Allies, and – Wilson introduced a “Fourteen Point” plan – to make the world safe for democracy.” • Fourteen Points emphasized self-determination for all peoples, and freedom of the seas.

• US enters the war in 1917.

• War ends with an armistice: 11:00 AM, 11 November, 1918.

• The Versailles Peace Treaty, signed on June 28, 1918.

– – Punished Germany for the war.

German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires were dismantled.

– Nation-states were created in place of the empires; many were weak.

– Germany lost her colonies, and Alsace-Lorraine give back to France.

• League of Nations created to prevent future wars, but the United States refuses to join it because it promised combined military actions in case of aggression.

• 1920s, or the Roaring Twenties, was a time of (seeming) economic progress in the United States.

• The United States emerged from World War I as a creditor nation.

• Increased mechanization and industrialization made America more urban.

• New forms of entertainment included movies, jazz, and radio.

• White women’s lives changed dramatically in the 1920s with the 19th Amendment, which granted them the right to vote.

• More colleges and universities allowed women to attend, although they usually still pursued traditionally “female” studies: – teaching or home economics.

• Typewriters made it easier for women to become secretaries.

• Opportunities for black women did not expand as much, limited to their own racial community.

• The “Flapper” was the new kind of woman: – sexually active, liberated, and independent.

• Prohibition, 1920–1933, restricted the sale of commercially produced alcohol.

• Prohibition was unenforceable and led to rise of organized crime.

• Modernity brought America to the forefront of world culture, via mass culture.

• American writers living in Paris were known as the Lost Generation.

• A similar burst of creativity happened in Britain and France.

Charlie Chaplain Mary Pickford

Rudolph Valentino Clara Bow

Ernest Hemingway F. Scott Fitzgerald

• American prosperity in the 1920s was built upon business, with weak unions and little governmental control.

• Attempts by unions to organize strikes led to anti immigrant legislation.

– Laws that cut immigration by half, and the pseudo-science of “eugenics” tried to create a more “white” America.

• American stock market crashed in 1929, due to over speculation and high debt levels.

• Response in the United States, led by the new president Franklyn Roosevelt, was the New Deal: – Government spending to revive business and jobs.

• Britain was already weak from owing money to the United States for World War I.

• International trade, the basis of British wealth, declined in 1920s.

• Depended upon Germany’s reparations payments.

• British industry stagnated and unemployment remained high.

Victoria Victoria r. 1837-1901 George V r. 1910-1936 Edward VII Edward VII r. 1901-1910 Edward VIII (r. 1936) and Wallis Simpson

• France had tremendous losses of population and property from World War I.

– Owed large sums of money to Britain and United States for the war.

– Similarly to Britain, depended upon German reparations.

• As so much property was destroyed, France was able to modernize.

• Great Depression led to rapid changes of government coalitions.

• Both Fascist and Communist parties became popular in the 1930s.

World War I Deaths

• • • • • • Britain 995,939 France 1,697,800 Germany 2,476,897 Russia c. 3,500,000 Ottoman Empire 2,921,844 Serbia 725,000 2.19% 4.29% 3.82% c. 2% 13.72% 16.11% • US 117,465 .19%

(6,300,000 2%)

• Britain and France received “mandates” over former Ottoman lands in the Middle East.

– The mandates conflicted with Arab nationalism.

– Arabs had been promised political independence during the war.

– Jews had been promised a homeland in the same area: Palestine.

– Arabs were majority in Palestine, but many Jewish émigrés had moved there, seeking protection from pogroms in Russia.

• Theodore Herzl promoted Zionism, secular Jewish nationalism.

• Zionist Jews bought land from absentee Palestinian landlords, and displaced Arab tenants.

• British had to suppress two Arab uprisings in the 1920s.

The Balfour Declaration

“

His Majesty's government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people

, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Ottoman Empire becomes Turkey

• Atatürk led uprisings amongst Turkish groups – Jews expelled from Anatolia – Armenia occupied – The Ottoman sultanate ends.

• Atatürk created a secular Turkish state modeled on European principles.

• Atatürk’s reforms included – a multiple party parliament – adopting the Latin alphabet – Western clothing – women’s suffrage.

Mustafa Kemal “Atatürk” 1881-1939

India

• In 1919, Britain massacred a large group of Indians gathered at Amritsar.

• Indians responded with calls for self-rule and nonviolent protest.

– Gandhi led a 24-day Salt March to the sea, to protest British salt taxes.

– The Indian National Congress repressed by British arrests.

• In 1935, the Government of India Act gave authority to the National Congress, except for defense and foreign affairs.

• However, the Act also recognized the Muslim League.

Mohandas Gandhi 1869 – 1948

• Egypt and the Suez Canal control remained important pieces of the British Empire.

• In 1923 Britain agreed to make Egypt independent, but retained military rights and control of the canal.