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Nationalism Around the
World: 1919-1939
WORLD HISTORY: CHAPTER 25
The “sick man of Europe”
The Ottoman Empire has been failing for years and WWI will destroy it.
Outdated government and culture: still feudal and following the caliphate
T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) helps the Arabian nationalist movement
get independence from the Ottomans during the war.
1915: genocide of a million or more Armenian Christians
 They’ve been lobbying for their own nation
 The Ottomans blame them for military losses in the war—traitors and spies.
The allies divide up middle eastern territories that used to belong to the
Ottomans, leaving them with only the Anatolian Peninsula.
Modernizing Turkey
After WWI, Greece invades the Anatolian Peninsula and Colonel Mustafa Kemal, a war hero, led
the army against the Greeks.
Kemal calls for an elected government, a Republic of Turkey, and then beats back the Greeks.
Turkish nationalism, based on the Turkish ethnicity and not the Islamic religion, is running high.
Sultans flee and Kemal becomes the first President, now known as Ataturk (father of Turks).
Ataturk modernizes by making the country more secular and more western:
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Roman alphabet instead of Arabic
Factories and industrialization
Abolished the caliphate
Abolish the wearing of the veil and fez
Women’s rights
Other Middle Eastern Nations
Persia has been weakening since the 1800s. Oil there has attracted British and Russian
interest.
Reza Shah Palavi seizes control in 1921 and tries to reform like Ataturk, but keeps closer
ties to Islam.
 Persia becomes the nation of Iran in 1935.
 Reza Shah Palavi cozies up to Nazi Germany, trying to keep British and Soviet interests out of Iran.
Arabia thought Britain would keep helping them after the war to create an Arab state, but
instead, the League of Nations sets up “mandates” for European nations in the Middle
East.
Ibn Saud unites the Arabs and establishes the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.
Nation was poor until U.S. speculators found oil, then started helping to drill and refine it.
Problems in Palestine
Since the 1880s, Jews have been trying to create a Jewish state in
Palestine, the site of historical Israel: Zionism
◦ At the turn of the century, about 80% of the population of Israel was
Muslim/Arab; the other 20% are Jews or Christians.
Zionism grows as anti-Semitism in Europe gets more intense. More and
more Jews start moving to Palestine to settle there.
During WWI, Britain issues the Balfour Declaration: promise to help the
Jews get a Jewish state going.
Violence breaks out between Jewish settlers and Muslims in the area.
1939: Brits limit Jewish immigration, but it doesn’t stop the violence.
Nationalism in Africa
WWI veterans return to their homelands believing they’re “good
enough” to rule themselves.
Violent revolts are put down and European nations make reforms,
hoping to satisfy African people, but it’s not enough. By 1930,
African nations want independence, not reform.
African nationalist leaders are often educated abroad, in the
Europe or the United States.
 U.S. activist W.E.B. Du Bois tries to educate African Americans on their
African heritage (many of them have no knowledge of it).
 Marcus Garvey (Jamaican, then Harlem, New York) advocates PanAfricanism—the unity of all African peoples.
African independence movements will have to wait till after WWII
Indian Independence Movement
Mohandas Gandhi is called “Mahatma,” the “Great Soul” of India.
His movement is religious (Hindu), non-violent and characterized by civil
disobedience.
 Make your own cloth, get your own salt, boycott British goods and schools.
He retreated from politics for a bit, after a non-violent protest was fired on by
British soldiers.
Imprisoned for his protests, then returned to continue
Jawaharlal Nehru: upper class, intellectual leader of the Indian National Congress.
Secular, modern, nationalist movement
Muslims are worried about the Hindu dominance of the nationalist movement and
want their own country, maybe Pakistan (“land of the pure”) in the northwest.
Japan: Rise of Militarism
Zaibatsu: Huge, government started corporations that dominate the major industries of Japan
After the Meiji era, Japan is industrialized, but lacks natural resources for its booming
population and manufacturing: hunger riots, etc.
Troubles make people suspect Western influence has weakened Japan. Solution: Japan should
solve her own problems, not negotiate with foreign nations for trade.
The old ruling families can’t control extreme militaristic groups in Japan.
◦ Militarism: belief that a country should build a strong military and be willing to use it.
In 1931, the Japanese military seizes Manchuria without government approval. The government
is now dominated by the military
 Remove Western influence from education/media
 Open the draft (1938)
 Strict, wartime economic controls
China in Turmoil
Sun Yat-sen’s Nationalist party joins up with a new Communist
party against the warlords and imperial powers in China.
◦ Train an army and start trying to unite China; conquer everything south
of the Yangtze (or Chang Jiang)
◦ Western powers are worried—Nationalists/Communists threaten their
financial interests and seem violent.
1925: Sun Yat-sen dies and his successor is General Chiang Kaishek
 Kai-shek pretends to like the Communists, then kills thousands of them
in Shanghai in 1927: Shanghai Massacre
 Chiang Kai-shek sets up his Chinese Republic with the capital in Nanjing
(or Nanking)
A New China
Communists flee to the mountains, where Mao Zedong leads them in guerilla warfare
against Chiang Kai-shek’s forces.
 1934: Mao Zedong’s forces, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are surrounded, then break through
nationalist lines and for 6000 miles with no supplies: the Long March.
 Zedong believes the peasants will be the main force of the communist revolution, not the urban
workers.
Chiang Kai-shek’s dictatorship says China needs a “training period” before they get
representative government. He starts reforms:
 Modernize industry, but keep Confucian values
 Build roads
 Better educational systems
Chinese middle classes are on board, but peasants are largely illiterate and disconnected
from the “New Life Movement”.
Latin American Economy
By 1920, Americans have replaced Britain as the primary economic
force in Central and South America.
Americans tend to build and run their own companies, rather than
investing money in existing companies.
 Many countries rely on the export of one or two main products.
 Economic dependency on the U.S. rankles with nationalists in Latin America
 American investors sometimes support local governments that are friendly to
them—even if they’re not good leaders.
Good Neighbor policy: 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt promises to stop
sending troops into Latin American countries.
Troubles in Latin America
The Great Depression kills U.S. demand for luxury products, like
sugar & meat
 Latin Americans no longer have money to buy imported goods.
 They try to produce their own stuff instead of buying from overseas.
 Industries are often started or run by the government—the only ones with
money to do it.
Poverty creates unrest. Militaristic dictatorships offer control and
stability. Most of Latin America has not had real representative
government anyway.
Examples of Authoritarianism in Latin
America
Argentina: Oligarchy of landowners runs the country until 1916, when Hipolito Irigoyen is
elected president by the Radical Party (mostly middle class).
◦ Afraid of industrial workers and their strikes for more rights, the Radical Party cozies up to the
landowners again.
◦ In 1930, the army overthrows Irigoyen and sets up the landowners’ oligarchy again—got to stop the
workers from gaining power.
◦ During WWII, a group of military officers will take control and elect Juan Peron president of Argentina.
Brazil: rich coffee-growing plantation owners run the country until the Great Depression kills
demand for it.
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1930: a military coup makes Getulio Vargas, a wealthy rancher, president.
Modernizes industry: steel, oil
Vargas makes an 8-hour day and minimum wage, but sets himself up as a dictator.
Political parties outlawed, secret police etc.
Mexico
Relatively stable after the Mexican Revolution—not really democratic, but not
authoritarian either.
Democratic form of government, but the Institutional Revolutionary Party is the
only real party in the nation. They nominate a presidential candidate who is then
elected by the people.
Lazaro Cardenas: President from 1934-1940, tries to fulfill promises of the
Revolution.
 Redistributes millions of acres of land to peasants.
 Seizes American-run oil fields and equipment; creates national oil company, PEMEX to run
them.
Mexican art and culture takes a strongly nationalist turn: glorify Aztec legends,
remember the revolutions against European powers, take pride in native Mexicanness.