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The Era of the Masses
World War I
Mass Culture
Mass Production and Consumption
1910-1939
Was war inevitable?
• Economic and imperial rivalries fueled
tensions and threats of wat
• Arms race sees massive stores of
weapons and mobilization of resources
• Pan Slavic ethnic nationalism and growth
of tensions in the Balkans; demise of the
Ottoman Empire
• The breakdown of the balance of power
system of diplomacy
The Balkan Powder Keg
• assassination of the
Archduke Franz
Ferdinand (heir to the
Austrian Hungarian
throne) and his wife, in
Sarajevo Bosnia on June
28, 1914
• shot by a 19 year old
Bosnian student; member
of a national liberation
group, The Black
Hand, with links to
Serbia
• the final crisis that tipped
the balance from peace
to war
Chronology of July 1914
• early July: Austrians perceive the assassination
as a threat from Serbia
• German Chancellor issues 'carte blanche' to
Austria; says Germany will support them no
matter what
• Late July: Austrians issue ultimatum to Serbia
• July 28: Austria and Russia mobilize for war
• Germans issue ultimatum to Russia to cease
mobilization
• August 1, 1914: Germany declares war on
Russia and France
• August 4, 1914: Britain enters the war against
Germany, in defense of Belgium
Stalemate in the West
• September 1914: French and British mount a
counter offensive at Marne
• British Expeditionary Force had been in full
retreat, but Lord Kitchener determined that the
British army had to stand with the French army
and fight; were able to check the advance of the
German army
• But, created a stalemate; German army
established a fortified line that the French and
British were unable to break---the Western
Front--line from Switzerland to the English
Channel--25,000 miles
Trench Warfare
a war of attrition
military
engagements
marked by 'going
over the top‘
'The Troglodyte
World'
Verdun, February 1916
• German assault on this town; not strategically important
but wanted to break the morale of the French-10 month
struggle, no significant territorial gains
The Home Front
• August 1914--Europeans welcomed the
prospect of a short adventurous war that
would clear the air, but within six monthsbecame clear that the reality was to be
very different
• Demand of 'total war' on civilian
populations: mobilization of all aspects of
society and the economy
• Industry and the Trade Unions mobilized
• Rationing and coping with shortages
•
German poster, 1917:
“Through work to Victory!
Through Victory to Peace!”
Women at War
• female workers and the munitions industry
• conscription for men, January 1916;
created demand for women replacement
workers
• 'dilution' of the work force with unskilled
men and women workers
• impact of war on gender relations:
permanent or temporary gains?
War Fatigue--1917
• by 1917--strains of war being
felt by all nations involved-morale on the front lines
suffering as a result of the
high casualties and small
gains
• 'shell shock' and desertion
• acts of mutiny by soldiers
dismissed as result of pacifist
propaganda-but soldiers
wanted the governments to
realize that the armies were
made up of men, not beasts
to be sent to slaughter
• morale on the home front
The Eastern Front
• Russian society initially united in the war
effort --common goal of defeating the
Germans and Austria Hungarian empires
• Conditions on The Eastern Front are
bloody and desperate
• By 1917 Russia is in crisis and the Czar is
forced to abdicate – the Bolsheviks take
power in October and in March 1918 sign
a separate peace with Germany,
abandoning the Triple Alliance
An End in Sight: November, 1918
• German army sends troops from the east
to the west to break the stalemate
• German army was within 50 miles of Paris
in April 1918
• With a fresh influx of American troops (the
U.S. declared war on Germany only in
April 1917) the Allies push back the
German advance
Wilson’s fourteen points
• Wilson called
• US President Woodrow Wilson’s vision of postwar world was one where the right of selfdetermination for all nations would be respected
• Envisioned a League of Nations where
international disputes are solved without resort
to war
• Replace the old system of ‘balance of power’
diplomacy with ‘collective security’ model
David Lloyd-George (Britain), Vittorio Orlando (Italy), Georges
Clemenceau (France), and Woodrow Wilson (USA)
Paris Peace Conference (1919)
• Many delegates to the Paris Peace
Conference were hopeful that Wilson’s 14
points would be put into practice – but they
were not
• The French wanted revenge from
Germany while Britain wanted to maintain
its empire – thus they were able to shape
the treaty that emerged
Arab Representation
• Led by Prince Feisal of Jordan, the Arab
delegation to the conference sought
independence for the Middle East (from
the Ottoman Empire)
• Their hopes were dashed when the British
and French saw this as an opportunity to
expand their own control over the area
• The British also supported the creation of
Jewish state in Palestine
• This sowed the seeds of Nationalist
movements in the Middle East
Prince Feisal at the Paris Peace Conference. Behind
him and to his left is T.E. Lawrence, better known as
Lawrence of Arabia
Egypt
• The Egyptian delegation to the Paris
Peace conference was denied entry –
leading to riots and insurrection against
British officials
• The British had occupied the area around
the Suez Canal before the war, and
officially made it a protectorate in 1914
• The insurrection was put down violently –
and the British maintained their presence
there until after WWII
The Russian Revolution
• In Feb. 1917 a general strike and general
upheaval forces Nicholas II to abdicate
• A moderate constitutional government is
founded – but Russia remains at war
• The Marxist Bolshevik party agitates for a
separate peace and promising land for the
people
• The Bolsheviks under Lenin seize power and
are able to muster an army to maintain that
power
• Lenin wanted to make Russia into an
industrial society where workers owned
the means of production
• A classless society based on the
political philosophy of Karl Marx
• To achieve this goal, Russia needed to
have a perpetual revolution where the
masses would be educated in a
revolutionary worldview
• Special powers had to be given to the
state in order to achieve the goals of
the revolution and transform a mainly
agrarian society into the vanguard of
world revolution
Lenin in power
• First had to make peace with Germany –
but all military efforts go to the civil war
(Reds vs. Whites)
• Redistributes land to the peasants and
state takes ownership of industry, resulting
in famines and unemployment that stir the
civil war
• The New Economic Policy allows some
concessions for small business and
landowners to compete
Cultural life of the Revolution
• The early revolution develops a very
vibrant intellectual culture and is open to
exchange of ideas and debate
• Socialist realism, an art style that draws on
European modernism and themes
promoting workers’ lives
• This artistic and intellectual openness
comes to an end after Lenin’s death in
1925 and the rise to power of Joseph
Stalin