Download UNIT 6 - The Age of Imperialism and the Great War

History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
UNIT 6
The Age of
Imperialism
and the Great
War
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
1
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Contents:
1. Imperialism and Colonialism in the 19th Century.
2. The Great War (World War I) 1914-1918.
3. Art and Culture in the 19th Century.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
2
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
th
Towards the end of the 19 century, Europe suffered a Revolution that put an end to the old Age.
New machines and inventions astonished the people and new artistic expressions drew
admiration, surprise and criticism in equal parts. That was the age when the European powers
got started in discovering and colonising the rest of the world from the poles to the heart of Africa.
th
The late 19 century explorers lived new adventures and exotic peoples and places that changed
the traditional vision of the world were discovered. However, the greed of the European nations
led into a long and cruel conflict: the First World War.
1. Imperialism and Colonialism in the 19th Century.
th
The last third of the 19 century was a period of great changes and innovations that unfortunately
led into the first of the wars that would take place “worldwide”. The human and material
necessities for the new industries and markets provoked the expansion of the Europeans and
their culture all over the world. This resulted in a confrontation among the main powers of the
continent that would eventually involve the whole world. Next we are going to study the causes of
these events.
The imperialism is a political theory defending the political or economical control of a Nation over
another one, mostly through military means.
This definition could be given to many empires throughout history: the Egyptian or the Roman
empires in the Ancient times; the Byzantine or the Carolingian in the middle ages; the Spanish or
th
the Portuguese in Modern History. Likewise in the 19 Century, the Imperialism had prevailed as
the main political form of state governance in many European countries: The British Empire, the
French Empire (until 1970), the German Empire (from 1870), the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the
Ottoman Empire… all of them integrated by many different peoples and nationalities.
Both Colonialism and Imperialism are terms referred to the same concept: the territorial
th
expansion undertaken by the western powers in the second half of the 19 Century. This is a
complex process by which some European countries could annex broad territories in the five
continents.
A: THE CAUSES OF IMPERIALISM.
Although the reasons for this expansion were complex, the main cause was of economic nature.
There were also some other political reasons such as the international prestige and the
motivation of the cultural and scientific development.
Economic and demographic causes.
The European population growth and the development of their industries increased the
production of goods. The new techniques and machinery let the industry produce more, faster,
cheaper and better. Nevertheless the amount of raw material required to feed those industries
raised each and everyday as much as the need for new markets. An economic crisis could take
place if the market wasn’t able to consume everything that was being produced. This Crisis finally
happened around 1863 and it pushed the Europeans towards new markets in unknown and
distant territories. It was in the colonies where they:
• Exploited the natural resources (Cotton, Wood, Gold, Iron…) and got a cheap labour
force.
• Obtained new exclusive markets for the homeland, since no other nation was allowed
to trade with the colony.
• Invested the European capitals to build the required infrastructures (roads, bridges,
railways…).
• Put up the growing European population and relieved the pressure provoked by the
demographic explosion.
Strategy and Prestige Policies.
Sometimes, a nation was forced to obtain colonies just because of political and prestige reasons.
This was the case of France which witnessed how the great empire of Napoleon III collapsed in
1870. Likewise, the new countries that had been born in 1870 (Germany and Italy) felt their
history forced them to gain vast empires that reflected their grandeur.
The bordering territories were often occupied just to prevent the competition of other nations
and some strategic positions were conquered to secure the maritime routes (Gibraltar, Malta
and Cyprus for the British and the Suez Canal for the French).
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
3
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Cultural and scientific causes.
The Europeans soon noticed of many mysterious and unknown territories that could be
th
th
discovered, so an exploring fever arose similar to that in the 15 and 16 Centuries.
Many peoples, considered as wild and uncivilized by the Europeans, were living in those new
territories. That population had to be evangelized, educated and enlightened. Thus, the
missionaries became not only the bearers of the truth of Christianity but also the values of the
western civilization.
Besides, some explorers and scientists like Darwin, Humboldt, Livingstone or Staley,
discovered new animal and vegetable species that reinforced the knowledge the Humankind had
about the world up until then. Nevertheless the exploration had negative consequences on the
overexploitation of some natural habitats.
B: THE COLONIAL EMPIRES:
The basic principles of the colonization applied in Africa and Asia were established in different
conferences where the powers set up the rules by which a country had the right to occupy a
territory. The most important one was the Berlin Conference in 1885.
Until this summit in1885, it was enough for a European power to occupy a seacoast if it wanted
the rights to colonize the inland. From then on, only the exploitation of the whole territory gave the
effective right to its occupation so the European rushed the process.
The stage where these disputes took place was the vast and unexplored African Continent. All
th
the appetites of the Europeans converged in Africa during the last third of the 19 century in a
process that was to be known as The Scramble for Africa.
The British Empire.
th
The British had built the base of their power on the control of the seas since the 16 century.
They gradually conquered positions in America (Canada), Asia (India) and Australia.
Their rule of the waves forced them to be in possession of many strategic bases, both to ensure
the security of the sea routes and that of the established colonies.
Towards the end of the century they looked for a continuous British African North-South Empire
from Cape Town to Cairo. This aim led to a collision of interests with France in Fashoda (Sudan,
1898) that also wanted a continuous territory following the East-West axis Dakar- Djibouti. Great
Britain finally achieved her goal despite France, Germany (German East Africa) and Portugal
(Angola-Mozambique axis).
The French Empire.
The expansion of France was due to prestige reasons after the defeat of 1870 against Germany
more than trade or economic reasons as it is the British case. Her spheres of influence
concentrated in Southeast Asia and northern Africa: Indochina (current Vietnam, Laos,
Cambodia, and parts of Burma and Thailand) Algeria, Morocco, the French West Africa and
the French Equatorial Africa.
Other Countries.
Most of the European countries kept their colonial possessions throughout the world: Portugal in
Angola and Mozambique; Spain in Rio de Oro and Equatorial Guinea; The Netherlands in the
Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and the Caribbean; Germany in Africa (Togo, Cameroon, SouthWest Africa and the German East Africa) but also in the Pacific (German New Guinea, and the
Bismarck Archipelago; and Italy in The Adriatic, Libya, Somalia and Eritrea.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
4
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Finally, two Extra-European states, The USA and Japan started to expand in the final third of the
century. The USA grew up towards the Pacific according with the theory of the “manifest
destiny” and the “Monroe Doctrine” (Glossary 1). Japan expanded in the Asian continent in
Korea, Manchuria and Formosa where it crushed with Russia and China.
THE BELGIAN CONGO
Leopold II of Belgium exploited the Congo for his own personal benefit from 1885 to 1908 and
the country became one of the most terrible death fields of the Modern Age. Mark Twain the
famous novelist and anti-slavist estimated between 5 and 6 million dead people. Leopold
commissioned another famous figure to the exploration and exploitation of the Congo; Henry
Morton Stanley, the star journalist who looked for, found and interviewed Dr. Livingston.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
5
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
C: THE DIFFERENT MODELS OF COLONIZATION:
The European Powers established different models of occupation of the territory. The most usual
variants of colony were these ones:
a) Colony of Exploitation:
This was the name of the colony used by the motherland (Glossary 2) in order to obtain raw
materials, markets, etc. The best examples were India for the British Empire and Indochina for
France. All the politics of the Colony were determined by the motherland.
b) Settlement Colony: It was also known as Dominion by the British. This was a scarcely
populated territory where the migrant population of the colony were settled: this is the case of
Australia or Algeria. These colonies enjoyed certain independence in their interior policy.
c) Protectorate: Sometimes the European powers engaged in the defence of a territory without
interfering in its interior policy. Morocco was an example of French Protectorate.
d) Concessions: This was the common model in China and Japan. It meant the concession of
trade advantages and settlements to other States in some areas of the country theoretically
without a formal decrease of sovereignty for the host nation.
D: THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE COLONIZATION:
The colonizing countries obtained huge benefits with the exploitation of their colonies and
favoured also the industrial development of Europe and the spread of the European Culture.
Nevertheless the situation was quite different for the native population of the occupied territories.
The division of the territories was made without taking into account the natural borders or the
distribution of the native population. The newly arrived cultures and religions shocked and in
many cases destroyed the local cultures. Usually those populations were enslaved or
exterminated.
The Europeans generally scorned the conquered populations by considering them technologically
retarded and culturally underdeveloped.
The economic relations between the Colony and the Motherland weren’t balanced either.
Although the Free trade (Glossary 3) was established in the Berlin Conference, soon the hard
contest among the European powers took to the set of protectionist measures (Glossary 4)
between colony and motherland. The Colonies should export raw materials and buy
manufactures exclusively to the motherland. This situation meant the ruin of the local crafty
industries and created a dependence that somehow endures so far.
It’s true that the Europeans took some innovations to their colonies that could be considered as
positive such as roads, railways, hospitals and schools that favoured the population growth and
eradicated some endemic illnesses. Nevertheless those infrastructures eased the exploitation of
the territory more than the life of the natives.
Maybe the worst consequence of this imperial colonialism was something that not even the
powers could foresee. The rampant contest among the European countries and their eagerness
to get new territories and prevent their competitors to get them led to a growing militarism that
eventually burst in the Great War of 1914.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
6
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
7
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
8
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
2. The Great War (World War I) 1914-1918.
The few hundreds of people who demonstrated in London in favour of Peace in early August
1914 could never imagine what would happen the next years. Even those who put pressure in
their countries to enter the War, imagined a short, fast conflict that would prove the military might
of their nation. Nevertheles, after four years of hard combats, that war became “The Great War”
for the most realistic ones and “The War to End all Wars” for the most incurably optimistic.
This Conflict was really different from the previous ones for many reasons:
• The nations at War didn’t limit themselves to fight with their armies but also involved all
their civilian population and resources in the annihilation of the enemy.
• The Colonial conquests of the previous years involved many nations in the combats
(Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, USA, Australia...) and took the war to distant,
exotic theatres of operations.
• It was the first large-scale Industrial War, so new more deadly weapons were provided
(Zeppelins, Planes, Tanks, Submarines, Toxic gases...) with a lethal aplication of the
industrial processes to warefare.
A: EMPIRES, NATIONS AND COLONIES.
The cause of this process must be traced back to the 1870’s and 1880’s when many European
powers competed to encrease their national territories and industrial production. Only the subtle
complex diplomatic network of the German Chancellor Bismarck, kept the tensions out of Europe
and mediated the different colonial conflicts.
Nevertheless, in 1890 Bismarck was deposed and Germany undertook an aggressive colonial
policy, known as Weltpolitik, that finally broke the balance of power. The Weltpolitik was
encouraged by the pressure of the German industrialist to expand their markets and mostly by
the will of Kaiser Wilhelm II to encrease the prestige of Germany.
In 1911, a German Gunboat achored in the harbour of Agadir in the French Protectorate of
Morocco. This provocation was the last stage of the so-called Moroccan Crisis (1905-06 and
1911) and the perfect example of the German agressive colonial policy that forced the AngloFrench Alliance. This new policy unleashed the mistrust and the process of competition that
would eventually lead to the birth of two antagonist blocks.
A new problem came to worsen the situation: the Balkan Wars (1908-09 and 1912-13) also
known as the Balkan Wasps’ Nest. The Balkan peninsula is a conflictive area from the end of
the 19th century until today. This was the stage of the clash of interests among the Russian
Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the decadent Ottoman Empire:
• Different ethnic groups (Slavs, Germans and Turkish),
• Different religions (Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims),
• Coliding interests (The Slavic Russians and Germanic Austrians wanted this territory to
take their products and trade routes to the eastern Mediterranean)
• Strategic Rivalries in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Suez Canal where the Turkish,
British and French were already.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
9
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
It was in this area that the Austro-German Alliance was forged and also where the final turn of the
Russians led them to join the French and British. And finally It is not casual that the outbreak of
the war took place precisely in the Blakans in July 1914.
B: THE CAUSES OF THE WAR.
Every country had looked for the best allies to defend its interests in the previous years.
Two blocks had been created with countries that supported and reinforced each other.
• The Triple Alliance (also known as the Central Powers) was signed by Germany,
Austria-Hungary and Italy.
• The Triple Entente (France, Great Britain and Russia) after some partial agreements:
1890- Reinsurance Treaty (Russia and Germany) agreed by Bismarck is not renewed
1892- Franco-Russian Alliance.
1904- “Entente Cordiale” between France and Great Britain.
1907- Anglo-Russian Entente.
Afterwards, some other countries would join both sides throughout the conflict.
Triple Entente
August
1914
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
France - Great Britain - Russia - Serbia - Belgium
Japan
Italy
Greece - Romania
The United States
Russia leaves the War (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk)
Triple Alliance
German Empire
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Ottoman Empire
Bulgaria
Territorial Causes:
• France and Germany clashed because of the dispute on Alsace-Lorraine, a territory
annexed by the Germans after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 that was claimed by
France.
• Poland remained divided among Austria, Russia and Germany.
• The Balkan Wasps’ Nest featured tenssions among the old regional Powers (the
Ottoman Empire, Russia and Austria-Hungary).
• Italy wanted to take advantage and annex the unredeemed territories of Italia Irredenta
(Irredentism see Glossary 5) Trentino, Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia.
This situation of unrest forced the governments to increase the available amount of weapons and
soldiers and made peace more fragile.
Economic Causes:
• Britain and Germany were the most powerful industrial powers in Europe, nevertheless
by 1870 the German Industry started to be more competitive than the British one.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
10
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
•
Besides, the Europeans wanted to invest their money in other territories in order to get
new economic profits. However, all of them wanted to invest in the same places so the
French, Belgian, British and German capitals concurred in Russia, Turkey, Morocco …
Psychological Causes:
If the countries invested more in new armies and weapons, they had more expenditure and had
to raise taxes (Germany increased its army from 600 000 to 800 000 men between 1913 and
1914; Austria did so from 100 000 to 160 000 before he first Balkan War; In France, a law fixed
a three-years conscription and raised to 750 000 the amount of soldiers; Russia was in
possession of 1.8 million soldiers by 1914…), therefore this period between 1870 and 1914 is
known as the Armed Peace.
To justify this expenditure, the states insisted so much in the dangers of a War through
propaganda, press, radio or posters. They also exaggerated the conflicts and insisted on the
evilness of the enemy. Propaganda in wartime could be regarded as another weapon. Each side
in the conflict tried to discredit the other by accusing it of any kind of atrocity through movies,
posters, fake news and photomontages.
Perhaps Britain could have remained neutral if Belgium hadn’t been invaded by the German
troops. When London declared war in August 1914 thousands of young recruits enlisted. Nothing
suggested the war would become a long painful conflict and everybody thought it would be over
by Christmas.
The initial enthusiasm of the British spread through propaganda and even in the former colonies
young men enlisted to support the motherland. However both sides went blocked in the western
front and the war derived into a static trench network.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
11
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
C: THE CRISIS OF JULY 1914:
th
The event that triggered the conflict on June 28 1914 was the assassination in Sarajevo of the
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne. It was Gavrilo Princip a
Bosnian terrorist, who committed the crime. Princip was member of “The Black Hand”, a Serbian
secret society which defended the Union of Bosnia with Serbia. Austria thought rightfully that
Serbia was behind the crime so the Austrian government held Serbia responsible.
They issued an ultimatum (Glossary 6) to the Serbian but as long as the demands were
unacceptable, the war became a question of time.
The accomplishment of the alliance policies provoked the chain reaction on each side even
though nobody expected so. A local conflict became a European and World War:
• Austria declared war on Serbia and Russia supported his Slav ally.
• Great Britain and France supported Russia and Germany lined up with Austria.
st
• On august 1 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany declared war on Russia
nd
• On August 2 he challenged Belgium to let free passage to his armies.
3rd
• On August he declared war on France.
th
• On August 4 the “Operation France” began with the invasion of Belgium, which
provoked the declaration of war by Britain.
D: THE STAGES OF THE CONFLICT.
The War of Movements. (1914)
Germany renewed the Schliefen Plan, the strategy of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. This
plan consisted on avoiding a two-front war by concentrating their troops in the west, quickly
defeating the French and then, if necessary, rushing those troops by rail to the east to face the
Russians before they had time to mobilize fully. However, the French and British managed to stop
the Germans in the Battle of the Marne and the Russians mobilized before it was expected so
the German offensive failed and resulted in years of Trench (or Positions) warfare.
The Trench (or Positions) warfare. (1914-1917)
This was the most inhuman stage of the conflict. The armies still made war in the old-fashioned
way of launching huge masses of soldiers against the enemy positions. A new weapon, the
machine gun, ruined this strategy by sweeping the frontline and killing hundreds of soldiers in
the infantry charges. Both sides had to fix their positions in Trenches separated by the so-called
No Man’s Land.
Two main frontlines were established very early in the War, the Western Front (Franco-German
Border and Belgium) and the Eastern Front (Russia) as well as some other minor Fronts (The
Dardanelles, the Austro-Italian Border and the Serbo-Austrian Border).
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
12
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
The soldiers spent several months in these static fronts under the shelling of the Artillery and the
recurrent incursions of the enemy. Thousands of men died in useless charges that brought no
change of the frontline. Some new modern weapons appeared (Poison Gas, Airplanes,
Tanks, Submarines…) but nothing seemed to alter the standoff.
The Germans took the initiative in the Battle of Verdun, and the Franco-British in the Battle of
the Somme. Both clashes were the bloodiest and longest lasting episodes of the War but none of
them meant a definitive change in the course of the conflict. Something similar happened in Italy
though the Russian Front was much more dynamic in favour of the Germans.
The Most important Naval Battle of the war was the Battle of Jutland where the British Royal
Navy confronted the German Hochseeflotte. The clash ended with no real winner so the British
maintained their dominance in the North Sea.
In 1915 a German U-boot torpedoed the British ocean Liner RMS Lusitania off the coast of
Ireland and sank her with many Americans onboard. The government of the USA protested since
the German submarines were not only sinking British warships but also neutral merchants (it was
the answer to the Naval Blockade that Germany suffered). In the long run this strategy turned
public opinion in many countries against Germany and contributed to the entry of the United
States into World War I in April 1917.
The Final Stage of the War 1917-1918
Early 1917, the War entered in a new Dynamic. In February Nicholas II Czar of Russia abdicated
and in October the Bolshevik Revolution gave power to the Communists led by Lenin and
Trotsky. Their first measure was to take Russia out of the War. Besides, a joint Austro-German
offensive broke the Italian Frontline in Caporetto, which seemed to tip the scales in favour of the
Central Powers.
The Germans negotiated peace with Russia in Brest-Litovsk, (1918) and hoped they would be
able to take the eastern troops to the western Front before the Americans could mobilize.
Nevertheless President Woodrow Wilson was already sending a million soldiers to Europe to
fight Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Despite the German efforts in the Kaiserslacht or Spring Offensive, the year 1918 showed a
slow but unbending decline of the Triple Alliance in every front: Bulgaria surrendered in
September, Turkey in October and finally after many negotiations an Armistice was signed
th
November 11 1918 at 11:00 (11/11 at 11 AM). The defeated and humiliated Kaiser Wilhelm II
abdicated and went into exile in The Netherlands. The newly proclaimed Republic of Weimar
had to sign the Peace of Paris and the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
13
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
E: THE AFTERMATHS OF THE CONFLICT.
When the Europeans woke up from the nightmare of 1914 they found out it all had just begun.
The aftermaths of the war endured until the Second World War if we take into account what
happened in the Interwar Period.
The immediate consequences were the material and human losses, but the medium-term social
and political aftermaths as the territorial changes in central Europe were even deeper.
Human and Material Losses.
•
•
•
Nearly 10 million dead.
Millions of wounded, mutilated and missing.
Though the destruction of facilities was not as brutal as in the Second World War, many
Factories, Crop fields and Infrastructures in the European belligerent powers were
seriously damaged. America took over the hegemony from Europe.
Political and Social Aftermaths
• The war needs favoured the massive female labour. Since most of the men were in the
front, war industry needed all available workforce and women became protagonists. The
war reinforced the economic and social role of the Women by showing they could
perform the same tasks the men did and therefore enjoy their same rights. Many of the
belligerent countries approved the female suffrage at the end of the conflict (Austria,
Germany, Britain, Russia in 1818, Belgium in 1919, the USA in 1920). This process
triggered a social transformation that endures so far.
• Inflation and unemployment, along with the Bolshevik influence, provoked a PreRevolutionary climate: strikes, demonstrations, electoral success of the SocialDemocratic parties…
• The League of Nations, a precedent of the United Nations, was created to solve
international problems and prevent spiralling Crisis.
• The defeated nations were held the only responsible for the war so they weren’t allowed
to take part in the Peace Treaties. This mistake provoked tensions that would eventually
lead to the Second World War.
Territorial Changes: The Paris Treaties and Brest-Litovsk
In January 1919, the representatives of the winning powers met at the Paris conference. The
representatives of the defeated countries were not summoned. The agreements specified in the
peace treaties were presented to them as a Fait Accompli which they should just submit to. The
Germans signed after being threatened with a total invasion of the country so in Germany it would
be referred to as the Versailles imposition. The Peace Treaties were:
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
14
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
th
The Treaty of Versailles, signed with Germany in the Hall of Mirrors (June 28 1919).
Territorial clauses:
• France recovered Alsace-Lorraine.
• Eupen and Malmedy passed under control of Belgium.
• The German Territories of the Polish Corridor were ceded to the newly independent
Poland who had thus access to the sea. The problem was that East Prussia, still a
German territory was cut off from the German mainland.
• Danzig and Memel, both German cities in the Baltic, were declared free cities.
• Denmark annexed northern Schleswig-Holstein.
• The province of Saarland was to be under the control of the League of Nations for 15
years, after which a plebiscite between France and Germany, was to decide to which
country it would belong. Its coal would be sent to France.
• As a guarantee of compliance by Germany of the war reparations, the Treaty established
that the Rhineland would be occupied by Allied troops for a period of fifteen years.
• The German Colonies in Africa and the Pacific were divided between Belgium, Britain,
France and Japan.
Military Restrictions:
• German armed forces would number no more than 100,000 troops, and conscription
would be abolished.
• The Rhineland would remain as demilitarized zone.
War Reparations:
• The Treaty of Versailles assigned blame for the war to Germany. She was forced to
pay 269 billion gold marks (the equivalent of around 100,000 tonnes of pure gold)
Other clauses:
• Germany was forbidden from merging with Austria.
• Germany was banned from entering the League of Nations.
The Treaty of Saint-Germain, signed with Austria. 1919
• The Treaty meant the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
• The collapse of the Habsburg Empire led to the birth of some new States like
Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia and to some
cessions to Italy, Southern Tyrol, Trieste, Istria and part of Dalmatia.
The Treaty of Trianon, signed with Hungary. 1920
• Hungary suffered the same clauses imposed to Austria.
• Three million Hungarian, a third of the total population, remained outside the new
Hungarian State: Voivodina to Yugoslavia and Transylvania to Romania.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
15
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
The Treaty of Neuilly signed with Bulgaria. 1919
• Bulgaria had to accept territorial cessions to Greece (Thrace, the access to the
Aegean Sea), and Yugoslavia.
The Treaty of Sèvres signed with Turkey. 1920
• The Treaty meant the end of the Ottoman Empire.
• Division of the Turkish possessions in the middle East between France (Syria and
Lebanon) and Britain (Palestine, Transjordan, and Irak)
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed before the end of the War on March 3, 1918 between
the Soviet Russia and the Central Powers, marking Russia's exit from World War I.
• While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year, it did provide
some relief to Bolsheviks who were tied up in the Russian civil war.
• It affirmed the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as a
Cordon Sanitaire (Glossary 7) around the Red Russia (Also Belarus and
Ukraine did but they were regained by the Bolsheviks in the Civil War)
The SYKES-PICOT Agreement and the BALFOUR declaration: The future of the Middle East.
The Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 was a secret pact between the governments of the UK
and France, defining their respective spheres of influence and control in Western Asia after the
expected downfall of the Ottoman Empire.
The future of the Middle East became even more complex since the British made the same
promise to Arabs and Jews in return of their uprising against the Turkish Empire. Lawrence of
Arabia and the Balfour declaration talked vaguely about an independent State after the war to
both communities. Nevertheless, it was a contradictory promise they never kept.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
16
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
President Wilson's 14 Points
The 14 Points were the proposal for the abolishment of War, the Right of Self-Determination of
Peoples (Glossary 8) in the old European Empires and the set of a new World Order.
The Fourteen Points, speech delivered on Jan 8, 1918
(…
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in
peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed
3. The removal of all economic barriers and establishment of equality of trade.
4. Guarantees that national armaments will be reduced.
5. Adjustment of colonial claims, that in determining all such questions of sovereignty,
the interests of the people concerned must have equal weight with the claims of the
government whose title is to be determined.
…
9. The frontiers of Italy should be readjusted along recognizable lines of nationality.
10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary should have the freest opportunity to
independent development.
11. Serbia should have free and secure access to the sea, and the relations of the several
Balkan states to each other should be determined by friendly counsel, and their political
independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed.
12. The Turkish portion of the Ottoman Empire should have a secure sovereignty, but
the other nationalities which are under Turkish rule should have an undoubted security of
life and an opportunity of independent development, and the Dardanelles should be
permanently opened as passage to the ships and commerce of all nations.
13. An independent Polish state should be erected including the territories inhabited by
Polish populations, which should have free access to the sea.
14. The League of Nations should be formed.)
3. Art and Culture in the 19th Century.
Europe lived a period of technological, political and social transformations between 1870 and the
First World War. It meant the end of the 19th century universe and the arrival of modernity. Those
transformations also affected the domains of Art, Science and Culture .
A: FROM RATIONALISM TO POSITIVISM.
The development of Positivism (Glossary 9) took modernity to nearly all the sciences and
consolidated the advances of the Industrial Revolution, the Means of Transportation and
Communication: automobiles, electricity, telephone, photography or cinematographer had
important sociocultural consequences. The world became something closer and more familiar
thanks to photography, which portrayed reality faithfully.
Besides, some theories like those of Darwin on the Origin of the Species (1859) and Einstein’s
Theory of Relativity (1905-15) provided a scientific and universal explanation of the origin and
evolution of the World and Mankind.
Generally speaking, both the exact Sciences as the social ones and the Humanities, established
the modern patterns of their respective disciplines departing from the empirical and rational
knowledge of reality.
B: THE MODERNIZATION OF THE CULTURE BY THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY.
The changes made by positivism and the social transformations impelled the painters and
writers to look around in an objective even scientific look and unveil the real essence of life.
Authors like Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky or Galdós depicted with critical thoroughness the
society around them.
Besides, some other questions modernized the Art by the end of the century: new materials like
Cast-iron and Glass contributed with new ways of building the cities as much as the Gas and
electricity that at that time were lighting them.
Finally the exotic novelties arrived from distant places: the Japanese wood-block prints
Ukiyo-e, and the African masks, that transformed Art just before the war.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
17
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Architecture: New Materials in a New City.
The main Academies and Institutions still trusted the revival of Historical Styles (Neogothic,
Neo-Mudéjar, Neoclassical...), nevertheless their buildings followed two mainstream architectural
styles: the New Materials and the Modernism.
The New Materials like Cast-Iron, Glass and Concrete, weren’t only applied to civil engineering
but also in conmemorative buildings like the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The Libraries became full of
light thanks to the glass vaults and the firsts skyscrapers appered in the USA.
A reaction against the lack of originality, contents and risks of the historical revival came by the
end of the century. It was the “Fin the Siècle” Architecture, also known as Art Nouveau or
Modernism, a style that vindicated a more active and creative role for the architects, the true
designers of the Buildings both in the inside and the outside.
One of the most singular modernist Architects was Antoni Gaudí. Both his residences for the
Catalan Bourgeoisie and his religious works combine originally the new materials with organic
Aesthetics.
All the modern infrastructures needed in the Industrial cities (Underground, sewage sytem,
lightning...) required a New Urban Ordination based on wider avenues and boulevards and a
grid plan. That’s the system of Haussman in París, Cerdá in Barcelone or Castro in Madrid.
Painting: from the Realism to the First Avant-Garde
The second half of the 19th century meant a true formal revolution that put an end to the
traditional system of representing reality. That revolution really restricted to the 1890’s and the
first decade of the 20th century.
By 1848, the Realist Painters had made the first step by renouncing the artist subjectivity and
painting what they saw and how they saw no matter if it was a landscape, a street view or a group
of workmen. That’s the case of the French painters Courbet (A burial at Ornans), Daumier (The
third-class Wagon) and Millet (The Gleaners). These artists started to estimate the outdoor
painting (Plain Air) to capure the real world though they completed their works in the Atelier.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
18
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Impressionism
The first modern art movement is the Impressionism, a mainly French style of the 1870’s. The
Impressionist painters try to capture the light and colour of every instant and place so they have
to paint outdoors in the streets, cafes, parties or landscapes. Their main characteristics are:
• Interest on the light and its changing nature.
• Pure aplication of colour
• Short, thick brushstrokes of paint that are used to quickly capture the essence of the
subject, rather than its details.
• New Frame Compositions based on the recent invention of Photography.
Manet, Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Pissarro, and Degas are the most representative impressionists.
All of them suffered the rejection of the establishment critics and the art academicism so they
founded the “Salon des refusés” (exhibition of rejects) to show their work.
The Post-Impressionism.
The immediacy of the impressionist painting finally degenerated into a superficial approach to
reality when Photography attained better results in the capture of the instant.
The Post-Impressionists departed from the Impressionism and looked for new ways in painting
that eventurally led into the Second Avant-Gardes (Cubism, Surrealism, Expressionism...)
Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gaugin or Toulouse-Lautrec are the best representatives of this attempt
of pictorial innovation. Cezanne is related with Cubism because of his geometric forms, while Van
Gogh and Gauguin are considered predecessors of expressionism in their free and expresive use
of Form and colour.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
19
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Questions:
1. Define Imperialism.
th
2. What countries were Empires towards the end of the 19 Century?
3. What were the causes of Imperialism?
4. What were the economic reasons for the establishment of a colony?
5. Point out the differences between the Settlement and the Exploitation Colony.
6. Explain what a concession is.
7. Why was the First World War such a different conflict from the previous ones?
8. What’s the real impact of the colonial policy and the industrial development on the
outbreak of the war?
9. What’s the role of the German Chancellor Bismarck in the international order of the
1870’s and 1880’s?
10. What were the European powers interested in the Balkans? Why?
11. What are the countries that joined the Triple Entente from 1914?
12. What were the causes of the war?
13. List the stages of the Great War.
14. Point out the weapons that had a decisive impact on the war.
15. What are the main aftermaths of the War?
16. What are the empires that stood still when the war ended?
17. What are the transformations that preceded the modernization of the culture towards the
th
end of the 19 century?
th
18. What are the new materials in the Architecture of the late 19 century?
19. What are the most remarkable innovations in Architecture coming from Chicago?
20. What are the main characteristics of Impressionism?
21. List the name of the main Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters.
22. Why is Cezzanne related with the later movement of Cubism?
Glossary
1a. Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States (often in the
ethnically specific form of the "Anglo-Saxon race") was destined to expand across the North
American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. It was used by Democrats in
the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico.
1b. The Monroe Doctrine is a United States policy named after President Monroe in 1823, which
stated that further efforts by European countries to colonize land or interfere with states in the
Americas would be viewed, by the United States of America, as acts of aggression requiring US
intervention.
2. Motherland, (Homeland or sp. “Metrópoli”), in colonialism is the colonizing nation with
regard to her colonies.
3. Free trade is a system of trade policy that allows traders to act and or transact without
interference from government. According to the law of comparative advantage the policy permits
trading partners mutual gains from trade of goods and services. Under a free trade policy, prices
are a reflection of true supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation.
4. Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states, through methods
such as tariffs (aranceles) on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other
government regulations designed to discourage imports, and prevent foreign take-over of
domestic markets and companies.
5. Irredentism (from Italian irredento, "unredeemed") is any position advocating annexation of
territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical
possession, actual or alleged.
6. Ultimatum (Latin: the last one) is a demand whose fulfilment is requested in a specified period
of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of non-compliance. An
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
20
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series of requests. As such, the time allotted is
usually short, and the request is understood not to be open to further negotiation.
7. Cordon Sanitaire. French Prime Minister Clemenceau, urged the newly independent Border
States that had broken away from Bolshevist Russia to form a defensive union and thus
quarantine the spread of communism to Western Europe, This alliance is a cordon sanitaire.
8. Right of Self-Determination of Peoples is a principle in international law: nations have the
right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external
compulsion or external interference.
9. Positivism refers to a philosophy of science which holds that the scientific method is the best
approach to uncovering the processes by which both physical and human events occur.
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
21
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Language Glossary UIT 6 – The age of Imperialism and the Great War.
Greed- avaricia
Eventually- finalmente
Likewise- asimismo, del mismo modo...
Grandeur- grandeza, esplendor
Bearers- portadores
To scramble- pelearse
Motherland, homeland- metrópoli
Settlement- asentamiento
Host- anfitrión
Guest- invitado
To enslave- esclavizar
(To) Scorn- desdén, (desdeńar)
Somehow- de algún modo...
To ease- facilitar
Eagerness- impaciencia, ansiedad
To burst- estallar
etwork- red
To depose- deponer
To encourage- animar, fomentar
Gunboat- Cañonera (gunboat diplomacy, diplomacia de cañonera)
To worsen- empeorar
To claim- reclamar, reivindicar
Wasps' nest- avispero
Unredeemed- irredento
To invest- invertir, (investment, inversión)
Conscription- servicio militar obligatorio
Fake- falso, falsificación
To enlist- alistarse
Trench- trinchera
To launch- lanzar
To sweep- barrer
To shell- bombardear (shelling, bombardeo)
Off the coast of- frente a las costas de...
To tip the scales in someone's favour- inclinar la balanza a favor de alguien.
Unbending- inexorable, inflexible
Medium-term, medio plazo
To hold smb. responsible for smth.- considerar a alguien responsable de algo.
To summon- convocar, citar
Fait accompli (fr.)- hecho consumado
To submit to- someterse a
Downfall- caída (de un régimen o una figura pública)
Alike- del mismo modo (adv.). Parecido (adj.)
Pattern- patrón
To impel- impulsar
To Unveil-desvelar
Thoroughness- rigurosidad
To depict- representar
Cast-iron. Hierro forjado
Wood-block. Xilografía
22
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
History, 4th ESO – Bilingual Section – IES Sánchez Lastra
Vault- bóveda
Skyscraper- rascacielos
Mainstream- corriente, moda (cultural) dominante
Sewage- Aguas residuales (wastewater)
Grid- cuadrícula
Burial- entierro
Gleaner- espigador
Atelier- estudio (de pintor)
Allocation- asignación
Prior- anterior
Fulfillment- cumplimiento
To Allot- asignar, adjudicar
Unit 6 – The Age of Imperialism and the Great War.
23