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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