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10.6 Lecture – Affects of WWI I. Peace and Dislocation in Europe, 1919-1929 A. The Great War lasted four years. 1. It took almost twice as long for Europe to recover. B. Impact of the War 1. It is estimated that between 8 million and 10 million people died, almost all of them young men. 2. Perhaps twice that many returned home wounded, gassed, or shell-shocked, many of them injured for life. 3. Dead a. 2 million Germans, 1.7 million Russians, and 1.7 million French. b. Austria-Hungary lost 1.5 million, Britain 1 million, Italy 460,000 and the US 115,000 4. Million of refugees a. Many refugees found shelter in France, which welcomed 1.5 million people to bolster its declining population. b. The perfect destination, however, was the US, the most prosperous country in the world. 1. 800,00 immigrants succeeded in reaching the US before immigration laws passed in 1921 and 1924 closed the door to eastern and southern Europeans. 5. One unexpected by product of the war was the great influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, which started among soldiers heading for the Western Front. a. Powerful strain that infected almost everyone on earth and killed one person in every forty. b. Half a million Americans perished in the epidemic – five times as many as died in the war. c. Worldwide, some 20 million people died. 6. Serious damage to the environment a. Scar across France and Belgium known as the Western Front. b. Ravaged forests and demolished towns. c. Earth was gouged by trenches, pitted with craters, and littered with ammunition, broken weapons, chunks of concrete, and the bones of countless soldiers. d. It took a decade to clear away the debris, rebuild the towns, and create dozens of military cemeteries with neat rows of crosses stretching for miles. 1. To this day, farmers plow up fragments of old weapons and ammunitions. C. The Peace Treaties 1. The Allies meet and debate a. Decisions made by the Big Four – The Paris Peace Conference 1. United States President – Woodrow Wilson 2. British Prime Minister – David Lloyd George 3. French Premier – Georges Clemenceau 4. Italian Leader – Vittorio Orlando b. Russia suffered from a civil war and was not included in the conference. c. Germany and its allies were not included. d. They ignored the Italians, who had been with the Allies since 1915. e. Paid even less attention to the delegates of smaller European nations and no attention to non-European nationalities. f. They rejected the Japanese proposal that all races be treated equally. 2. Wilson’s Fourteen Points a. Outlined a plan for achieving a just and lasting peace. 1. End to secret treaties 2. Freedom of the seas 3. Free trade 4. Reduce national armies and navies 5. Adjustment of colonial claims with fairness 6-13. Specific suggestions for changing borders and creating new nations. i) Self-determination – allowing people to decide for themselves under what government they wished to live. 14. General association of nations that would protect great and small states alike. i) The organization could peacefully negotiate solutions to world conflicts. b. League of Nations 1. A world organization that would safeguard the peace and foster international communication. 2. His idealism clashed with the more hardheaded and self-serving nationalism of the Europeans. i) Lloyd George insisted that Germany pay heavy indemnity. ii) Clemenceau wanted Germany to give Alsace and Lorraine (a part of France before the war) and the Industrial Saar Region to France. 3. The European powers formed a League of Nations, but the United States Congress, reflecting nationalist feelings of the American people, refused to join. i) France recovered Alsace and Lorraine. ii) Britain acquired new territories in Africa and the Middle East but was greatly weakened by human losses and the disruption of its trade. iii) Germany lost substantial territory and had severe restrictions placed on its military operations. - Harshest was Article 231 - “war guilt clause”: Placed sole responsibility for the war on Germany’s soldiers. - Germany had to pay reparations to the Allies - Germany’s territories in Africa and the Pacific were declared mandates, or territories to be administered by the League of Nations. c. On June 28th, 1919, the German delegates reluctantly signed the Treaty of Versailles. 1. Signed five years to the day after Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in Sarajevo. 2. Germany was forbidden to have an air force and was permitted only a token army and navy. 3. It gave up large parts of its eastern territory to a newly reconstituted Poland. 4. The Allies made Germany promise to pay reparations to compensate the victors for their losses. 5. The Treaty of Versailles left Germany humiliated but largely intact and potentially the most powerful nation in Europe. 3. The treaty was one of the great failures in history. a. These agreements created feelings of bitterness and betrayal among the victors and the defeated. b. The creation of new nations 1. Treaties led to huge land losses for the Central Powers. 2. Several new countries were created out of the AustroHungarian Empire. i) Austria, Hungry, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. 3. Ottoman Turks were forced to give up almost all of their former empire. i) Only retained the territory of Turkey. 4. Russia lost territory and new countries developed. i) Romania and Poland gained more land. ii) Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became independent nations. 5. New boundaries coincided with the major linguistic groups of Eastern Europe. 4. A Peace Build on Quicksand a. The treaty did little to build a lasting peace. b. US rejected the treaty 1. Many Americans objected to the settlement and especially to President Wilson’s League of Nations. 2. American believed that the US’ best hope for peace was to stay out of European affairs. 5. Other countries felt cheated and betrayed by the peace settlements as well. a. People in the mandated territories were angry at the way the Allies disregarded their desire for independence. b. The European powers spoke of self-determination but did not practice it. 1. Colonialism continued in Asia and Africa. 6. In a little more than two decades, the treaties’ legacy of bitterness would help plunge the world into another catastrophic war. a. The German’s festering resentment help create Nazism. II. Russian Civil War and the New Economic Policy A. The end of the Great War did not bring peace to all of Europe. B. Fighting continued in Russia for another three years. C. The Bolshevik Revolution had provoked Allied intervention. 1. December 1918, civil war a. The Communists – as the Bolsheviks called themselves after March 1918 – held central Russia, but all the surrounding provinces rose up against them. b. Counter-revolutionary armies led by former tsarist officers obtained weapons and supplies from the Allies. c. They burned farms and confiscated crops, causing a famine that claimed 3 million victims, more than had died in Russia in the seven year of fighting during the war. d. The Communists’ victory was also due to the superior discipline of their Red Army and the military genius of their army commander, Leon Trotsky. D. In December 1929, Ukrainian Communists declared the independence of a Soviet Republic of Ukraine, which merged with Russia in 1922 to create the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (USSR, or Soviet Union. 1. In 1922 the new Soviet Republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan joined the USSR. E. Russian Economy 1. Factories and railroads had shut down for lack of fuel, raw materials, and parts. 2. Farmland had been devastated and livestock killed, causing hunger in the cities. 3. Lenin decided to release the economy from party and government control. a. In March 1921 he announced the New Economic Policy (NEP). 1. It allowed peasants to own land and sell their crops, private merchants to trade, and private workshops to produce goods and sell them on the free market. 2. Only the biggest businesses, such as banks, railroads, and factories, remained under government ownership. 4. The Communists had every intention of creating a modern industrial economy without private property, under party guidance. a. Investing in heavy industry and electrification and moving farmers to the cities to work in the new industries. b. Providing food for the urban workers without spending scarce resources to purchase it from the peasants. 1. Making the peasants, the great majority of the Soviet people, pay for the industrialization of Russia. 2. This turned them into bitter enemies of the Communists. F. Lenin died in January 1924 1. The leading contenders were Leon Trotsky, commander of the Red Army, and Joseph Stalin, general secretary of the Communist Party. a. Trotsky had support of many “old Bolsheviks” who had joined the party before the Revolution. b. Stalin, the only leading Communist who had never lived abroad, insisted that socialism could survive “in one country.” 2. Stalin filled the party bureaucracy with individuals loyal to himself. 3. In 1926-1927 he had Trotsky expelled for deviation from the party line. a. In January 1929 he forced Trotsky to flee the country. b. Stalin then prepared to industrialize the Soviet Union at a rapid speed. III. The Influential Leaders for Peace after the War A. United States – Woodrow Wilson 1. Presidency a. Won the 46th ballot 2. Domestic Policy a. Tariff decreased b. Federal Reserve System instituted c. Labor conditions on ships established d. Eight hour day for RR employees e. Loans to farm associations f. Monopolies depleted g. 17th Amendment – providing for the direct popular elections of US Senators. h. 18th Amendment – Instituted prohibitions i. 19th Amendment – Women get the right to vote 3. Foreign Policy a. Revolution in Mexico b. Border trouble c. Troops sent to Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Cuba d. Rejected Dollar Diplomacy with islands around US = commercial interests B. France – George Clemenceau 1. Called the Tiger 2. Journalist and teacher trained to be a doctor 3. Socialist 4. Persuaded Germany’s disarmament 5. Never like the treaty due to it being to easy on Germany 6. Lost next election because of the treaty C. England – David Lloyd George 1. Elected to Parliament as a liberal – soon became radical and antiimperialist 2. Reorganized the structure of government, war cabinet 3. Responsible for the unification of the military 4. Helped shape the final treaty D. Italy – Emanuele Orlando 1. Statesman and jurist 2. Demanded for the fulfillment of the secret Treaty of London – allies had promised Italy ample territorial compensation for its entry into the war. 3. Opposed Fascism 4. Later left Parliament for teaching writing IV. A Temporary Peace – Examined in More Depth A. Britain and France longed for a return to the stability of the prewar era. 1. Hierarchy of social classes, prosperous world trade, and European dominance over the rest of the world. B. In Europe, Germans felt cheated out of a victory that had seemed within their grasp. C. Italians were disappointed that their sacrifices had not been rewarded at Versailles with large territorial gains. D. Middle East and Asia 1. Arabs and Indians longed for independence; the Chinese looked for social justice and a lessening of foreign intrusion. E. The Japanese hoped to expand their influence in China. F. In Russia, the Communists were eager to consolidate their power and export their revolution to the rest of the world. G. In 1923 Germany suspended reparations payments. 1. In retaliation for the French occupation of the Ruhr, the German government began printing money recklessly; causing the most severe inflation the world had ever seen. a. Germany money was worth so little that it took a wheelbarrow full of it to buy a loaf of bread. 2. As Germany teetered on the brink of civil war, radical nationalists called for revenge and tried to overthrow the government. 3. The German government issued a new currency and promised to resume reparations payments, and the French agreed to withdraw their troops from the Ruhr territory. H. Beginning in 1924 the world enjoyed a few years of calm and prosperity. 1. After the end of the German crisis of 1923, the western European nations became less confrontational, and Germany joined the League of Nations. 2. The issues of reparations vanished, as Germany borrowed money from New York banks to make its payments to France and Britain, which used the money to repay their wartime loans from the United States. a. This triangular flow of money, based on credit, stimulated the rapid recovery of the European economies. b. France began rebuilding its war-torn northern zone; Germany recovered from its hyperinflation; and a boom began in the United States that was to last for five years. I. The League of Nations proved skilled at resolving numerous technical issues pertaining to health, labor relations, and postal and telegraph communications.