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XXIII. World War I (1914-18)
 Allies:
 Britain
 David Lloyd George
 France
 Georges Clemenceau
 Russia (1914-1917)
 Tsar Nicholas II
 Lenin: Bolshevik (Communist) leader
 Belgium, Serbia, Japan
 United States (1918)
 Pres. Woodrow Wilson
 Central Powers
 Germany
 Kaiser William II
 Dismissed Bismarck
 Austro-Hungarian Empire
 Emperor Francis Joseph
 Archduke Francis Ferdinand
 Italy
 Ottoman Empire (Turkey)
 The Road to War:
 Germany
 Now unified and powerful
 Huge army; arms race
 Lack of Bismarck’s vision
 William II: unstable
 Desire for large navy (upsets Britain)
 In center of Europe–
 surrounded by potential enemies
 Austro-Hungarian Empire
 Wants to contain Slavic nationalism in the Balkans.
 Friends with Germany- so a free hand to act in the Balkans..?
 France
 Fear of massive German army.
 Fear enough to overcome traditional animosity with Britain and Russia.
 Desire to regain territory lost in Franco-Prussian War.
 Russia
 Pan-Slavism
 Support for Serbia
 Need to mobilize early for any war,
 due to vast distances.
 If war had to come:
 They wanted a broad, general war;
 One that would weaken Germany;
 Not a small, limited war (they would lose).
 Weak Tsar and weak military
 Britain
 Angry with German behavior
 in Africa and elsewhere
 No longer an independent “balancer”
 now driven into alliance with Russia and France
 Fear of German naval expansion
 Other causes:
 Darwin:
 “Social Darwinism”- “Survival of the fittest”- Wrongly applied to countries and “races.”
 Belief that a war would be short and not too destructive.
 No understanding of the power of new weapons:
 gas warfare
 machine guns
 air power
 submarines
 Imperialism– competition over colonies
 Immediate Causes:
 Balkans:
 Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria
 is assassinated in Sarajevo
 Austria makes unreasonable demands of Serbia
 Serbia agrees
 Austria declares war on Serbia anyway
 Russia backs Serbia
 “Willy-Nicky” telegrams
 Between William II and Nicholas II
 are ineffective
 Mobilization
 Russia must mobilize troops immediately,
 due to vast distances.
 Tsar cannot stop it.
 Germany mobilizes troops,
 claiming “defensive reaction” to Russian threat
 German “Schlieffen Plan”:
 attack France first  pin them down
 then take out Russia,
 then finish off France thus avoiding “2-front war”
 Thus Germany goes to war with Russia and France,
 For no real reason.
 Alliances lead to attacks:
 Austria  Serbia
 Russia  Austria
 Germany  France (via Belgium– neutral!)
 France  Germany
 Britain  Germany
 Germany   Russia
 = General war in Europe.
 No real understanding by any of the leaders of what they were unleashing.
 Major Battles
 (huge and bloody stalemates)
 Tannenberg
 End Russian advance into Germany
 So: no quick Russian victory
 The Marne
 End German advance on Paris
 So: no quick German victory
 2.5 million troops involved
 Verdun
 Germans try to “bleed” French to death
 Bloodbath for both sides:
 1 million troops killed
 The Somme
 1 million troops killed
 trying to break stalemate of trench warfare
 “over the top”
 “no man’s land”
 TE Lawrence
 British army officer
 “Lawrence of Arabia”
 Helps Arabs against Ottoman Empire (Turks)
 Britain promises Palestine to Arabs
 Russian Revolution
 March 1917:
 Tsar is overthrown by revolutionaries and troops.
 Sense of corruption & incompetence of govt.
 Rasputin’s influence on Romanovs
 Losing the war to Germany.
 “Provisional Government” is set up.
 includes all factions;
 led by Kerensky

“October Revolution” (1917)
 Lenin returns from exile
 Lenin’s Bolsheviks (“Reds”)
 defeat the Mensheviks (“Whites”)
 seize control of the government
 Lenin withdraws Russia from the war
 The Romanovs are executed
 Creation of the Soviet Union (USSR)
 Creation of the Red Army
 US Enters the War in 1917
 Partly due to German sub attacks
 2 million US troops into Europe
 Push Germany back
 US not “in charge” of this war;
 viewed with little respect by European powers
 Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing
 Cease-fire: Nov. 11, 1918
 not unconditional surrender.
 Treaty of Versailles
 Pres. Wilson travels to Europe;
 insists on “Fourteen Points,” including:
 democracy
 human rights
 self-determination
 creation of the League of Nations
 Allies feel “14 Points” too generous to Germany
 impose harsher penalties
 Germany forced by Britain & France:
 to accept blame for the war,
 And to pay reparations of $32 billion
 US Congress rejects membership in League
 Bitter disappointment to Wilson
 XXIII. World War I (1914-18)
 New Countries:
 Ottoman Empire collapses
 Middle Eastern/Arab countries emerge
 “Mandates” of Britain and France
 Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrates
 Poland
 Czechoslovakia
 Yugoslavia (formed around Serbia)
 Baltic states: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia
 (later claimed by USSR)
 Austria and Hungary as small, separate countries
 XXIII. World War I (1914-18)
 Impact of World War I on the 20th Century:
 Shattered the myth of a new, liberal, rational society;
 “Are we really making progress?”
 10 million dead
 “Total War”
 & war vs. non-combatants
 New states with new problems
 Communism and totalitarianism spread
 End of European hegemony
 Coming of World War II
 XXIV. Between the Wars
 Soviet Union
 Lenin dies in 1924
 Josef Stalin takes power
 Ruthless and deadly
 Purges government and army of “enemies”
 Soviet 5-Year Plans
 Forced economic and industrial progress
 Collectivization of farms
 Central planning
 Middle East
 British and French “mandates”
 Growth of Arab nationalism
 Jews migrating to Palestine region
 Britain had promised it to both Jews and Arabs during the war
 China
 Long civil war
 Communists
 led by Mao Zedong
 Nationalists
 led by Chiang Kai-Shek
 Japan attacks China in early 1930s–
 temporary truce between Communists and Nationalists
 USA
 1929 Stock Market Crash
 Great Depression
 Germany
 Economic crisis
 Weak democratic government
 (“Weimar Republic”)
 Rise of extremist parties
 (far left and far right)
 Forced disarmament
 Resentment of Britain and France
XXV. World War II
Part One: Causes of World War II
Rise of Totalitarianism
Far-Right governments
some economic freedom, but the State controls personal freedoms
Military dictatorships
Secret police
Glorification of the State
Absolute obedience to the leader
Germany
Nazi Party of Adolph Hitler
Hatred of Jews, Slavs, Communists
Desire for land in the East
Resentment of loss in WW I and of treatment afterward
Took advantage of political and economic chaos in Germany
Desired rearmament of Germany
Italy
Fascist Party of Benito Mussolini
Japan
Military, expansionist government
League of Nations:
Could not effectively restrain Japan
United States
Isolationism
Some public sympathy for Germany
Pres. Roosevelt (FDR):
keeps US out as long as possible
Part Two:
Beginning of the War
Japan invades China
Hitler:
Chancellor, 1933
rearmament
Britain and France warn him,
but do not act
Italy invades Ethiopia, 1935
1936:
Germany reoccupies Rhineland
(violation of Treaty)
Spanish Civil War
Germany provides military support to Spanish Fascists
Franco
1938:
“Anschluss”
Austria surrenders to Germany without a fight.
1938:
Sept.: Hitler demands Sudetenland.
Munich Conference
Britain and France give in to Hitler.
Appeasement.
“Peace in our time.”– British P.M. Chamberlain
1939:
March: Germans take all of Czechoslovakia
Britain and France draw the line at Poland.
August: German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
Secretly agree to divide Poland
Avoid fighting each other.
World is shocked!
Sept.: Germany invades Poland
Soviets do not interfere.
Britain: Chamberlain out. Churchill in as P.M.
Britain and France declare war on Germany.
US: neutral, but “Lend-Lease”
Part Three: War in Europe
April 1940: Blitzkrieg
Germany defeats much of Western Europe.
Use of speed-- tanks and aircraft
The Battle of Britain
German air attack on Britain
Fails
British use radar
Victory prevents invasion of Britain
The Blitz
German massive bombing of Britain by air
V-1 and V-2 rockets
Churchill rallies the British:
“We shall never surrender!”
Operation Barbarossa
German surprise invasion of the Soviet Union
June 22, 1941
1800 mile front.
Rapid advance in 3 army groups.
2 million Soviet prisoners by Nov.
Stalin:
Had ignored warnings
Had executed many of his best generals.
In shock.
Recovers—
rallies the people and the army
“Great Patriotic War”
Cold weather sets in.
Largest tank battles in history.
Siege at Stalingrad.
Stalin demands “second front” in west from Allies.
Dec. 7, 1941:
US enters the war
By 1943:
Soviets begin to push Germans back.
1943: Allies invade Italy
via North Africa
Italy surrenders.
Mussolini: killed by his own people.
June 6, 1944: D-Day
US Gen. Eisenhower
“Second front” against Nazis
Allied invasion of Europe.
Landings at Normandy, France, across the English Channel.
Largest amphibious invasion in history.
1944-’45:
Allies push toward Germany from the west.
Soviets push from the east.
Summer 1945:
US and Soviet forces link up in Germany.
Berlin is overrun by Soviets.
Hitler commits suicide in his bunker.
Germany: Unconditional surrender.
Occupied by US, Britain, France, Soviet Union.
Part Four: War in the Pacific
Japan, 1930s-1941:
Brutal war in China
US threatens to cut off supply of scrap iron, fuel, and rubber (1941)
Japan: victories in the Pacific and SE Asia
Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Indochina
Dec. 7, 1941:
Japan bombs US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
Destroys several battleships
US declares war.
Mid-1942:
US stops Japanese advance
Battle of the Coral Sea
Battle of Midway
Mid-1943:
US: long advance on Japan.
US Gen. Douglas MacArthur
“Island hopping”
Capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa
in huge, bloody battles
Japan now within range of US bombers.
1944-’45:
US firebombing of Tokyo and other cities.
Japanese refuse to surrender.
Kamikaze attacks on US fleet.
“Manhattan Project”
development of atomic bombs.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
1945:
Franklin Roosevelt dies.
Harry Truman is US president.
August:
Truman authorizes use of atomic bombs.
“Little Boy”
Is dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
No surrender.
“Fat Man”
Is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
Emperor Hirohito surrenders on behalf of Japan, August 1945.
Cost and Impact of World War II
Allies:
Soviet Union: 25 million dead (only 1/3 military casualties)
China: 15 million dead
Poland: 6 million
Yugoslavia: 2 million
United Kingdom (Britain & assoc.) 400,000
USA: 300,000
Axis:
Germany: 4 million +
Japan: 2 million +
Holocaust:
6 million Jews killed by the Nazis
Along with Gypsies, homosexuals, and mental patients
concentration camps /
death camps
The “Final Solution”
Bullets, gas, mass graves, cremation.
Total worldwide: About 60 million dead.
Millions displaced/refugees.
Disease and destruction worldwide.
Soviet Union dominates E. Europe.
Cold War with West begins soon after.
Migration of many Jews to Middle East (Palestine)
Decolonization