Download Background on World War I: Unification of Germany

Background on World War I: Unification of Germany
A. Franco-Prussian War
1. Napoleon III defeated at Sedan
2. France humiliated; desires revenge especially for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine
B. Unification of Germany January 1871
1. King of Prussia crowned Emperor William I of Germany
2. Otto Von Bismarck becomes Chancellor of Germany
C. Bismarck's Foreign Policy 1871-1889
1. satiation-no colonies or navy
2. preserve the balance of power; preserve status quo
3. prevent alliances against Germany
4. isolate France diplomaticallyD. Kaiser Wilhelm II's Foreign Policy 1900-1914
1. imperialism-seek a "place in the sun" 2. build a big navy3. anti-England; won't consider an Anglo-German alliance
4. failure to sustain the Bismarkian alliance system
won't renew the German Treaty with Russia in 1890.
by 1894 Russian is allied with France
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I General Causes of World War I
A. Alliances by 1914 Europe was divided into 2 hostile camps
1. Central Powers (Triple Alliance) Germany, Austria, Italy
later Bulgaria and Turkey; Italy leaves and joins Allies
2. Triple Entente: (Allied Powers) Russia, France and England
(England only in entente) Russia and France are Allies
B. Nationalism
1. Germany and Italy their unification upset the balance of power
2. France: desire for revenge (revanche) against Germany; especially desire to regain AlsaceLorraine
3. Austrian-Russian rivalry over the Balkans "powder keg of Europe"
23 million people 30 different nationalities
a. in Austro-Hungarian Empire: Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
b. after 1905 defeat by Japan, Russia turns to the Balkans
c. 1908 Austria annexes Bosnia, Serbia annoyed
d. Russia poses as the protector of the Serbs: Pan-Slavism
e. Germany promises Austria a "Blank check" in case of war with Russia
f. ultimate Balkan crisis June 28, 1914
assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austrian throne
by a Serbian in Sarajevo, Bosnia13
C. Imperialism
Germany's desire for an Empire threatens?
D. Armaments race
a. are weapons a deterrent or a temptation? universal conscription
b. rising influence of the military on civilian governments
c. Germany: VonSchlieffen plan: a defensive strategy
In August 1914 within 48 hours each nation in Europe had 2 million men under arms
Germany 72 divisions
France had 72 divisions; England and Belgium 5 so Allied total 77
E. Propaganda
1. Belief that one's country is superior
2. Belief that war is inevitable
Suddenly no one knew how not to go to war All nations cheer the outbreak of World War I
Immediate Cause of World War One: assassination of heir to Austrian throne, in
Seravejo, Bosnia
Timetable
1. July 24 Austrian ultimatum to Serbia
2. July 26 Serbia rejects Austria's ultimatum after consulting?
3. July 28 Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
4.
Russia announces mobilization "mobilization means war"
5. July 30 Germany telegraphs England and France concerning war aims
because of "entente" England's intentions uncertain
"Willie-Nickie telegram"
6. August 1 Germany declares war on Russia and France
7. August 3 Germany invades Belgium: "a pistol pointed at the heart of England"
8. August 4 England declares war on Germany and Austria-Hungary
Incredible Casualty Rates in World War I
first battle of the Marne-outside of Paris stops the VonSchlieffen plan,
Then trench warfare 475 miles from Flanders through NW France south to Swiss border
In first few months of the war, 1.5 million casualties "best and brightest"
one casualty for every minute of the war
Christmas truce Dec. 1914
July 1916 Verdun France loses: 350,000; Germany: 330,000
July 1916 Allied counter-offensive at the Somme;
Britain loses 60,000 men in the first few hours
60% British officers lost, 40% enlisted
Ypres: Britain fought for 6 months- 450,000 casualties to gain 5 miles
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United States and World War I
Official US position: Neutrality. But was the US truly neutral?
Wilson “we must be neutral in thought as well as in action.”
Reasons why the US favored England:
Reasons for anti-German feeling:
US trade with Allies and Germany
Allies
1914 100% = $824 million
1915 241% = $1.9 billion
1916 389% = $ 3 billion
Germany
100%= $169 million
.7%=$ 11 million
.68%=$ 1 million
Loans: by 1917 US had loaned $2.5 billion to England
$27 million to Germany
Neutrality laws: neutral nations can trade with belligerents except for contraband
Both England and Germany violated the Neutrality laws
England: mines in the North Sea
Germany: u-boats or submarines
May 1915 British liner Lusitania: 1198 casualties; 128 of whom were American
Gore-McLemore Resolution: to ban travel on belligerent ships; narrowly defeated
March 1916 French ship Sussex; 4 Americans wounded
Wilson sends Sussex ultimatum to Germany: abandon the use of the submarine or US will
break off diplomatic relations with Germany
German answer to Wilson?
March 1916 to February 1917: US- German relations improve.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------Election of 1916: Wilson: “He kept us out of war!”
Republican candidate: Charles Evans Hughes
Wilson: “I can’t keep the country out of war. Any little German lieutenant can put us into
war by some calculated outrage.”
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January 31, 1917 Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare.
Why? A calculated risk
February 1917 Wilson breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany: the last step before war
March 1, 1917 news of Zimmerman Telegram
Effect on US public: “it galvanized public opinion for war”;
“The last fateful push over the precipice.”
April 2, 1917 Wilson asks Congress to declare war: “Right is more precious than peace.”
“The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a war against all mankind.”
1917 Selective Service Act: the draft
2 million American men volunteer; 3 million drafted
4.8 million serve in armed forces; 2 million overseas
Slogans: “A war to end all wars!”
“A war to make the world safe for democracy.”
Wilson: “It must be a peace without victory.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------March 1917 First Russian Revolution
Alexander Kerensky’s Provisional Government; his fateful mistake?
November, 1917 Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution
----------------------------------------------------------------------Spring 1917 U-boats devastate Allied shipping
Us counters with convoy system
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------War on US Home front
War Industries Board
National War Labor Board
Food Administration: Herbert Hoover
Financing the war: $33 billion cost
Liberty bond drives; public pressure
Committee on Public Information: George Creel
Applied advertising techniques to war propaganda
“Official word” on the war; censorship
Espionage and Sedition Acts
Schenck vs. US: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes government can restrict speech if words
used constitute a “clear and present danger”
Sedition Act: outlawed any disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language intended to
cause contempt, scorn, or disrepute to Constitution, US flag or uniform of army or navy.
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March 1917 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Russia buys her way out of the war; gives up western third of Russia to Germany
Spring 1918 German Offensive; halted at second battle of the Marne
United States of America “Over There”
Halts the German offensive
1. Chateau Thierry
2. Belleau Wood
3. Meuse-Argonne offensive 1.2 million American “Doughboys” engage in this offensive
Oct. 1918 Germany asks Wilson for peace; why Germany surrendered:
1. Role of German Generals Lundendorff and Hindenberg
2. Wilson promised Germany that the peace would be based on the Fourteen Points
3. Germany was starving, due to the blockade of North Sea
Wilson refuses to deal with a dictator; Wilson insists that:
1. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates the throne; flees to Holland “unwept, unhonored and unhung”;
2. Germany form a “representative government,” the Weimar Republic
November 11, 1918 Germany surrenders at Compiegne
Surrender signed by members of the Weimar Republic;
Who should have signed the surrender?
Three German Governments: Reich
1. Empire 1871-1918 Kaiser Wilhelm I and II
2. Weimar Republic 1918-1933
3. Third Reich 1933-1945 Fascism: Hitler and the Nazis
Legend of the Dolchtoss “stab in the back”
This legend is exactly that: a lie that insists that the German army did not loose World War I;
it was the Socialists and Jews in the Weimar Republic who lost the war.
Reminder: Who asked for the surrender in November, 1918?
Note: A tragedy of German history is that there was no real political opponent of Hitler;
Perhaps he died on the Western Front in World War I.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Results of World War I
 70 million men mobilized
 9 million died
 20 million wounded; lungs destroyed by gas
 13 million tons of shipping sunk
 10,000 square miles of northern France ruined
 1200 churches and 250,000 other buildings destroyed
 Starvation in Germany and in central Europe
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To Versailles: It’s easier to wage war than to make peace
All the US seemed to get out of the War was debt, influenza, the ingratitude of the
Allies, inflation and prohibition
Wilson’s Fourteen Points Note which points survive in the Treaty of Versailles
1. Open covenants (treaties) openly arrived at.
2. Absolute freedom of the seas in peace and war.
3. Removal of all trade barriers among nations.
4. Reduction of armaments to the level needed only for domestic safety
5. Impartial adjustment of colonial claims.
6. Evacuation of all Russian territory; Russia to be welcomed into the society of free nations.
7. Evacuation and restoration of Belgium;
8. Evacuation and restoration of all French lands;
return of Alsace-Lorraine to France
9. Readjustment of Italy’s frontiers along lines of nationality
10. Self-determination for the people in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
11. Evacuation of Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro; free access to the sea for Serbia
12. Self-determination for the people of the Turkish Empire.
13. Establishment of an independent Poland with secure access to the sea for Poland
Polish Corridor carved through?
14. Establishment of a League of Nations affording mutual guarantees of independence and
territorial integrity.
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Making and Breaking the Peace
Wilson’s 3 mistakes before going to Versailles?
The “Big Four” at Versailles
England: David Lloyd George
France: Georges Clemenceau “the Tiger”
Italy:
Vittorio Orlando
United States: Woodrow Wilson, idealist.
Who wasn’t at Versailles?
France: desires: security and revenge
1. Rhineland: demilitarized; after 15 years a plebiscite
2. Saar Basin richest industrial area of Germany; its profits to go to France for 15 years,
then a plebiscite
Italy desires Fiume: seaport
Japan: gets Germany’s colonies in the Pacific as “mandates” of the League of Nations
A colony by any other name is still a colony
Ottoman Empire: carved u p: England takes: Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Palestine
France
Syria and Lebanon
June 28, 1919 Treaty of Versailles signed by victorious Allies
“The seeds of World War II can be found on every page of the Treaty.”
As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost:
1. 10% of her population: 6 million people
2. 13% of her territory
a. Alsace-Lorraine and all German colonies
b. Polish Corridor and Danzig
c. Saar Basin: to France for 15 years then a plebiscite
d. Rhineland: demilitarized
e. army and navy: severely restricted
f. War Guilt Clause; Germany had to assume all guilt for outbreak of World War I
Wilson: “Only a peace between equals can last.”
Positive Accomplishments of the League?.
Why did the United States reject the Treaty of Versailles?
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Senator Henry Cabot Lodge: Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee adds 14 reservations to the Treaty
If for Lodge the most hateful aspect of the League was that it was Wilson’s League, for
Wilson the most odious characteristics of the reservations was that they were Lodge’s
reservations
June 1919, most Americans favored the League with Lodge’s reservations
June, 1919 Treaty goes to Lodge’s Committee; policy of delay
80% of the Senate favored the Treaty- with Lodge’s reservations
September, 1919 Wilson “goes to the people.”
Irreconcilables: extreme conservatives; isolationists
Vote on the Treaty
1. with reservations: Democrats and Irreconcilables defeat treaty
2. without reservations: Republicans and Irreconcilables defeat Treaty
3. March, 1920 final vote on the Treaty: with reservations
Treaty fell 7 votes short of 2/3rds necessary in Senate, although 21 Democrats broke with
Wilson and voted for the Treaty
Who or what killed the Treaty?
Wilson: “Only a peace between equals can last.”
Election of 1920
a “mandate” on the League?
Republicans: Warren G. Harding
Democrats: Cox and Vice Presidential candidate: Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Republicans win with 60% of the vote
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1919 Red Scare
Background: many strikes in 1919 Why?
4,000,000 workers on strike
Boston Police Strike: role of Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge: “There is no right
to strike against the public, anytime, anywhere.”
A Mitchell Palmer: Attorney General: “sees red too easily.”
New Years Day, 1920 “no-knock raids” in 33 US cities;
thousands of aliens arrested: no “probable cause”
May 1, 1920 Palmer’s predicts massive Communist up-risings; none occur
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Cultural Revolution vs. Drive for Conformity
Harding as President “Let us return to Nornalcy!’
The “Best Minds” in Harding’s Cabinet
1. Secretary of State:
Charles Evans Hughes
2. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover
3. Secretary of Treasury: Andrew Mellon
Harding’s “Ohio Gang”
Secretary of the Interior:
Attorney General
Veterans Bureau
Albert Fall
Harry Daugherty
Charlie Forbes
The Economy of the 1920’s
1899-1929 manufacturing output increased 264%
Automobile: impact pf the car on American life
Henry Ford and the assembly line
1913
production for 1 car: 14 hours
3 months later (using assembly line)
1.5 hours
1925
1 car comes off assembly line every 10 seconds
Electrical Products
Installment Buying
“Managerial Revolution” Emphasis on distribution and advertising
Stock Market Activity “buying on the margin”
No SEC or regulation of the stock market
Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon’s “trickle down” theory:
lower taxes on the wealthy
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Repression and Reaction in the 1920’s
Two waves of immigration:
1. To 1890: immigrants came from northern and western Europe
2. After1890: southern and eastern Europe
1. Restriction on Immigration
1921:
3% of those in US in 1910
1924:
2% of those in US in 1890
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. Ku Klux Klan
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3. Scopes Trial or “Monkey Business in Tennessee”
Defense: Clarence Darrow
Prosecution: William J. Bryan
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Farmer’s Problems: Caused by?
McNary Haughen Bill: government to buy surplus and sell it abroad
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Scandals of the Harding Administration
1. Veterans Bureau: Forbes embezzled at least $25,000
2. Teapot Dome Wyoming oil well; Sinclair: $300,000 “gift” to Secretary of Interior Fall
3. Elk’s Hill: Doheny $100,000 “gift” to Secretary of Interior Fall
Ponder this: Fall was convicted of taking a bribe from Doheny but Doheny was acquitted of
Giving that same bribe to Fall
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------August 2, 1923 Harding dies!
Calvin Coolidge: “a Puritan in Babylon;.” “Silent Cal”
“The most amazing thing about Coolidge Prosperity was Calvin Coolidge”
Coolidge: “The business of this country is business.”
“The man who builds a factory builds a temple; the man who works there,
worships there.”
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Causes of the Great Depression
Economic picture in the 1929:
1. 40-60% of Americans lived below the poverty line: $2,000 a year
2. Gross maldistribution of wealth:
 40% of national income went to the top 10% of population
 19% of national income went to top 1% of population
3. 1923-1929 wages increase only 11%; corporate profits increase 62%
4. overproduction by farm and factory
5. businesses invest capital in stock market, not in capital improvements
Depression
Oct. 29, 1929 16 million shares sold in stock market
In less than a month the securities listed on the NY stock k exchange lost $26 billion,
more than 40% of their face value
1929 stock market high: $381.
1932
$ 31. (12% of their value in 1929)
Unemployment
1932: 14 million jobless 25% of US workforce is out of work
Only 10% of clothing workers in New York city had jobs.
1929 Ford employed 128,000 workers
1932
37,000 workers
Psychological effect of joblessness: Caroline Birds writes about superfluous people in
The Invisible Scar.
In 1932 deflation wiped out all the economic progress the US had made in 2 generations;
We were producing no more tons and bushels of commodities per capita than in 1899
Industrial production at 50% of its 1929 level
Bank Deposits: $2.5 billion lost; no FDIC
1932: 250,000 mortgages foreclosed on homes
1932: one farm family in four had lost their land
If there had been no stock market crash, would there still have been a Great
Depression?
Could it happen today?
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Causes of the Great Depression
1. poor distribution of wealth
2. overcapitalization of corporations, not investing finds to build new plants, hire new
workers etc. textiles
3. little or no regulation of the banking system
4. bad foreign trade balances
5. poor or no economic forecasting
6. over-production and under-consumption in industry and farming.
Textiles, coal, railroads, were all in trouble before 1929
Some cities especially hard hit:
Cleveland: 50% unemployment
Toledo
80% unemployment
Chicago:
40% unemployment
Lowell, MA 2/3rds unemployed
Where do you turn for help?
The depression was the most traumatic experience for the American people since
The Civil War
Your grandparents and indirectly your parents were very affected by this Depression.
Yet the American response was very conservative: within the 2 party system. Unlike other
countries, Socialists and Communists received relatively few votes in the United Sates in the
1930’s.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hoover’s Response to the Depression
American people personally identify Hoover with the depression:
“Hoovervilles,”
Hawley Smoot Tariff: too high, discourages foreign trade
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
Hoover’s only proactive response to the depression
Government aid to business; ”too little, too late”
1932 Bonus March on Washington
20,000 veterans want part of bonus promised for 1945
Hoover over-reacts; role of Douglas MacArthur
Election of 1932: Hoover vs. Franklin D. Roosevelt
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