Download AP European History - Henry County Schools

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AP European History
Unit 8 – Irish Question, Zionism, The Great War and The Age of Anxiety
The Irish Question
Reasons for the conflicting situation in Ireland are deep-rooted in religion and history:
Irish are descended from the Celtic people who originally inhabited the island and they are
traditionally Catholic.
The Protestant minority is descended from the English and represents the nation that
occupied Ireland and made it a colony.
The Irish have always felt exploited by Great Britain and have regarded it as responsible for
their economic plight.
In the 17th century many English protestants settled in the north-east (Ulster) and colonized it,
and this led to conflict with the natives.
Matters became worse when the English gave two thirds of Irish land to English Protestants.
In 1689, when James II landed an army in Ireland, the Irish welcomed him and besieged the
Protestants at Londonderry, but were defeated by William of Orange one year later.
William wanted to subdue the Catholics, and barred them from owning land or voting: it was in
that period that the Irish Protestants became known as Orangemen.
In the 18th century Ireland was forbidden to produce goods or raw materials that would
compete with similar British ones.
In the course of the century there were uprisings against England and campaigns for Irish
independence and France offered military help.
The Prime Minister Pitt feared that if he granted independence to Ireland the country might be
used as a base for attacks on Britain and managed to persuade the Irish Parliament to agree
to its own abolition.
In 1801 the Act of Union stated that Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland.
The Anglican Church became the official Irish Church and Catholics were not allowed to sit in
Parliament, even if 88% of the Irish were Catholic.
Only in 1829 the Parliament gave Catholics the right to vote.
Most rich landowners in Ireland were English, while the natives were poor and mainly lived on
potatoes, because the farming methods used didn’t provide better food.
The failure of the potato crop in 1845-46 led to famine; a million people died and two million
were compelled to emigrate to America.
The English were blamed for the disaster and Home Rule (self-government) was invoked.
A new party, called Sinn Fein (meaning ‘Ourselves Alone), was founded in 1905 and aimed at
creating an Irish Republic.
Tensions continued over the years: the majority of population in Ireland was Catholic and
wanted Home Rule but the Ulster Protestants violently opposed it, because they wanted to
keep the union with Britain.
A bill was passed giving a Dublin government full control and it was due to become law in
1914.
The Protestants rebelled against it, set up a private army, and Ireland was on the verge of a
civil war.
With the outbreak of World War I it was agreed that the hostilities between Catholics and
Protestants should be suspended, but on Easter Monday, April 1916, a group of extreme
nationalists, members of the Irish Republican party Sinn Fein attempted to seize power in
Dublin.
The uprising (called ‘Easter Rising’) was repressed by the British Army (over 450 people died
and 3,000 were wounded) and the rebels were executed (thus becoming martyrs for the
republican cause).
The Easter Rising is strongly remembered and celebrated in Ireland by the Catholic nationalist
community in the same way as the Protestants remember the victory of William of Orange
over the Catholic James II in 1690.
The suppression of Irish nationalism in 1916 was far from the end of the problem, but for the
moment the controversy was lost in the tragedy of World War I.
With the end of the war the Irish question rose again.
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Sinn Fein started a new series of protests against the British and refused to send members to
Parliament in Westminster.
After the 1918 general election the 69 Sinn Fein MPs declared themselves the elected
assembly of the Irish people.
A key figure was Eamon de Valera, Sinn Fein’s leader.
The nationalists started organizing their own army, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) which
mostly used guerrilla tactics.
On the opposite side were the Protestant Unionists (mainly from Northern Ireland) who wished
to remain part of the UK, fearing that Home Rule would in the end allow the Catholics to take
control of all Ireland.
In 1921 the British government made a treaty with the rebels, and Ireland was divided into two
parts:
Six counties in Northern Ireland (Ulster) with a mostly Protestant population, which were given
limited Home Rule and a separate parliament in Belfast but remained tied to Britain.
Irish Free State, which governed itself but stayed under British rule.
The treaty wasn’t accepted by the assembly in Dublin and a bitter civil war raged between
1922 and 1923, during which 4,000 were killed.
In the end the IRA surrendered their arms but not their intentions for a republic for all Ireland.
In 1937 a new constitution was passed and the Free State was renamed Eire, the Gaelic
name for Ireland; in 1949 Ireland broke the final link with Britain and became a republic.
Zionism
The origin of the term "Zionism" is the biblical word "Zion", often used as a synonym for
Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.
Zionism is an ideology which expresses the yearning of Jews the world over for their historical
homeland - Zion, the Land of Israel.
The aspiration of returning to their homeland was first held by Jews exiled to Babylon some
2,500 years ago - a hope which subsequently became a reality.
Thus political Zionism, which coalesced in the 19th century, invented neither the concept nor
the practice of return.
Rather, it appropriated an ancient idea and an ongoing active movement, and adapted them to
meet the needs and spirit of the times.
While Zionism expresses the historical link binding the Jewish people to the Land of Israel,
modern Zionism might not have arisen as an active national movement in the 19th century
without contemporary anti-Semitism.
Time and again, the Jews of Europe were persecuted and massacred, sometimes on religious
grounds, sometimes for economic reasons, sometimes on social pretexts, and sometimes for
national and "racial" rationales.
Jews were slaughtered by the Crusaders when the latter made their way across Europe to the
Holy Land (11th-12th centuries).
Massacred during the Black Death for allegedly poisoning wells (14th century).
Burned at the stake in the Spanish Inquisition (15th century).
Murdered by Cossacks in the Ukraine (17th century).
Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed by the armies in the Russian civil war which
followed World War I.
The most infamous atrocity of all, the Nazi Holocaust in which some six million Jews were
systematically annihilated mainly on "racial" grounds, was perpetrated by Germans, in whose
country the Jews had made their most serious attempt to achieve acceptance and social
assimilation.
Out of this came Jewish leaders who turned to Zionism as a result of the virulent anti-Semitism
in the societies surrounding them.
Thus, Leon Pinsker, shocked by the pogroms (1881-1882) which followed the assassination of
Czar Alexander II, assumed leadership in the movement.
Theodor Herzl, who as a journalist in Paris experienced the venomous anti-Semitic campaign
of the Dreyfus case (1896), organized Zionism into a political movement.
Dreyfus Affair
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The Dreyfus affair was a notorious incident of public and official anti-Semitism in late 19th
Century France.
Alfred Dreyfus, a high ranking Jewish officer in the French army was falsely accused of
treason and railroaded into exile and disgrace.
In 1894, a serious leak was revealed in French Military Intelligence.
According to Lieutenant Colonel Sandherr (French counter-intelligence), a French spy had
found a discarded message, a "list" with secret French artillery information in the waste
basket of a German military attaché in the Paris embassy.
Suspicion was directed at Dreyfus, in part perhaps because of deliberate efforts to convict him
and in part because of anti-Semitism.
The list was supposedly in a handwriting that resembled that of Dreyfus, and Dreyfus had
made yearly trips to visit his relatives in German occupied Mulhaussen.
Dreyfus was arrested on October 15, 1894.
On January 5, 1895, Dreyfus was convicted in a secret court martial, publicly stripped of his
army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island in French Guiana.
The court martial violated procedures in many respects and was highly "irregular."
The affair became a platform for anti-Semitic agitation, with excited mobs screaming "Death to
the Jews."
It was later shown the Lieutenant Colonel Sandherr and his associates were active in forging
evidence against Dreyfus, encouraged by General Auguste Mercier, who was Minister of War.
In August 1896 the new chief of French military intelligence, Lt Colonel Picquart, himself
apparently an anti-Semite, nonetheless reported that he had found evidence that the real
traitor was Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy.
Picquart was transferred in November 1896 to the Sahara desert in the south of Tunisia, in
order to silence him.
Reports of an army cover-up and Dreyfus's possible innocence were leaked to the press.
Several people began a fierce agitation for his exoneration, in addition to Picquard.
They included:
Dreyfus's brother Mathieu.
Jewish journalist and anarchist Bernard Lazare, who first used the phrase J'accuse in L’Éclair.
By 1898, the cause had attracted the attention of celebrities such as Anatole France, Emile
Zola, and Georges Clemenceau.
Zola wrote a famous open letter to French President Félix Faure.
Clemenceau published this letter in the first issue of l'Aurore, and affixed to it the famous
headline, "J'Accuse!"
Zola's letter was intentionally inflammatory.
He wanted to be tried for libel.
Tried and unfortunately convicted.
Appealed, but fled to England on the advice of lawyers.
But the machinery had been set in motion.
On September 19, 1899, Dreyfus was pardoned by President Émile Loubet and allowed to
return from solitary confinement in Devil's Island.
He went to live with one of his sisters at Carpentras, and then moved to Cologny.
However, the army was slow to admit its mistake.
On July 12 1906, Dreyfus was finally officially exonerated by a military commission.
The following day, he was readmitted into the army with the rank of Major.
He was then made a Knight of the Legion of Honor, and subsequently assigned to command
an artillery unit at Vincennes and later moved to Saint-Denis.
However, his time in Devil's Island had taken its toll, and Dreyfus was granted early retirement
in October 1907.
During World War I, Dreyfus came out of retirement and volunteered to serve as a lieutenantcolonel.
Though past retirement age, he served in the front-line in 1917.
Dreyfus died in Paris aged 75, on July 12, 1935, on the 29th anniversary of his official
exoneration.
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His wife Lucie, who had been a great support especially during the years of solitary
confinement in Devil's Island, survived World War II and the Holocaust.
She died aged 76, on December 14, 1945
The Dreyfus affair was not fully retired in France for many years, and perhaps the embers are
still alive even today.
The "anti-Dreyfusards" formed the nucleus of the French right wing, and were part of the
collaborationist Vichy government.
The Great War
Europe 1871:
European countries controlled the world.
Germany - won the Franco-Prussian war, gained Alsace and Lorraine, wanted to isolate
France, economic stability, led by the Iron Chancellor Bismarck, little interest in colonialism,
unified.
France - lost Alsace and Lorraine, weak military, imperialistic in Asia and Africa.
Great Britain - “splendid isolation”, colonial conflicts with France and Russia.
Austria - wanted to limit Slavic nationalism on southern border and hostile nationalism within
the borders.
Russia - very imperialistic especially in the Balkans, disputes with Austria over Slavs.
Italy - interest in North Africa led to disputes with France.
The Balkans - a politically unstable region comprised of many ethnic groups.
United States - not involved in global affairs.
The Russo-Turkish War 1877-8:
Bulgaria revolted against Ottoman Empire (Turks) “sick man of Europe”
Turks slaughter thousands of Slavs.
Serbia and Montenegro declared war on Ottomans.
Russia declares herself protector of the Slavs.
Treaty of San Stefano was a treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed at the
end of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–78.
The treaty provided the creation of an independent Bulgaria, after almost 500 years of
Ottoman domination.
March 3, the day the treaty was signed, is celebrated as Liberation Day in Bulgaria.
1879 Germany and Austria signed the Dual Alliance - which remained in place for almost 40
years.
The Three Emperors’ League created by Bismarck to keep Austria and Russia at peace.
Germany - Kaiser William.
Austria - Emperor Francis Joseph.
Russia - Tsar Alexander.
1882 Triple Alliance - Germany, Austria, Italy.
a) both would help Italy if Italy attacked by France.
b) Italy would help Germany if France attacked.
c) the treaty did not apply to Britain.
1887 Germany-Russia sign Reinsurance Treaty.
a) extremely secretive.
b) in the event of war both would stay neutral except: if Austria is attacked by Russia or
France is attacked by Germany.
c) Germany promised to promote Russian goals in the Balkans.
Otto von Bismarck.
“Show me an objective worthy of war and I will go along with you”
First goal: must isolate France.
Keep Austria-Hungary and Russia at peace (especially over the Balkans).
Dismissed in 1890 by the Kaiser William II.
1890 Germany does not renew the Reinsurance Treaty.
a) caused France and Russia to be closer.
b) ended French isolation.
France offers Russia huge loans to encourage an alliance - Franco-Russian Alliance (1894).
Great Britain:
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By 1891 Britain was the only country without an alliance - “splendid isolation”
Britain would not side with Russia or France because of colonial disputes.
Germany pursuit of global power angered the British.
After Bismarck British and German relationships deteriorated.
German involvement in the Boer War had a major impact on British policy.
1902 Britain and Japan sign the first Euro-Asian treaty.
The Germans also were trying to create a world’s largest and strongest navy.
“Weltmacht” (world power) Germany wanted to be an equal of Britain and France.
The Arms Race:
William II was a proponent of the arms race.
1890 German army was 20,000.
1913 German army was 800,000.
Russia was worried at not being able to keep pace.
Germany Prepares for war:
The Industrial Revolution had changed the face of Europe.
Germany, like most European countries experienced an increase in population.
New technologies fueled industrial growth.
By 1908 the German army was getting the most money.
By 1914:
a) Germany had the second largest navy - behind Britain.
b) Had pushed Britain closer to France and Russia.
c) Had wasted considerable money because the fleet was bottled up for most of the war.
d) If those resources had gone to the army Germany would have won the war.
William was envious of the British.
A navy would:
a) protect trade routes.
b) express greatness.
c) protect colonies.
Naval strength: Britain; France; America; Italy; Germany.
1896 Alfred Tirpitz appointed Minister of Marine.
(Fisher was his British counterpart).
March 1898 - Naval Construction Act.
called for:
11 battleships.
5 heavy cruisers.
17 small cruisers by 1905.
Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz claimed a navy would make Germany great.
(Bismarck had said it would drive Britain to France).
“Risk Fleet” theory- so no power could pose a risk.
North Sea.
June 1900 a new naval bill:
a) called 38 battleships in 20 years.
b) regardless of cost.
c) Reichstag to have no control over spending.
1905 Britain started the H.M.S. Dreadnought.
1906 German starts her own Dreadnought, with demands for 6 before 1918, but their model
was susceptible to explosions.
Britain was forced into the Naval Panic of 1909.
But Germany couldn’t afford the largest navy and largest army.
The Causes:
Nationalism.
Imperialism.
Alliances.
Business.
Militarism.
Nationalism.
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1900 there were 25 sovereign states in Europe - none would admit to a higher authority.
Alliances created states less willing to compromise.
There was a huge build up in armament after the Franco-Prussian War.
Each nation should have its own state.
France wanted Alsace-Lorraine returned.
Italy wanted Austrian land.
Patriotic literature motivated people “my country, right or wrong.”
International crisis.
Moroccan Crisis.
The French wanted to establish a protectorate over Morocco and gained the support of other
European countries.
The Germans defended the rights of the Moroccans.
January 1905 German Chancellor Bulow told Morocco of German support.
The Dreyfus affair had wrecked France.
France’s ally Russia was busy with Japan.
France was in no position to negotiate.
Jan 16 Algeciras Conference - Germany optimistic.
a) Britain was France’s only ally.
b) Italy, Austria-Hungary, US supported Germany.
c) Believed Spain would switch sides.
German inept diplomacy alienated everyone.
Germany was now isolated.
Prime Minister of Britain Lord Grey discussed with France and Belgium the possibility of war.
1905 - Russia defeated by Japan and loses credibility.
1905 Failed revolution in Russia.
Causes countrywide instability.
The Treaty of Berlin had given Austria the right to administer Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In 1908 Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina - Serbia could do nothing without Russian
help.
Russia and Austria made a deal for mutual prestige.
Russia acknowledges Austria’s right to Bosnia.
Austria agreed with Russian control of the Dardanelles.
Austria took control of Bosnia.
Russian control of the Dardanelles was rejected.
Serbia threatened to invade Bosnia to liberate the Serbs.
Austria-Hungary threatened to destroy Serbia.
Germany supported Austrian claims to Bosnia.
Russia supported Serbia.
Sarajevo.
Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne visit Bosnia on Serbian Independence Day.
He and his wife are assassinated in Bosnia by Gavrilo Princip.
Princip was a member of The Union of Death (Black Hand).
This was the spark that ignited the Balkan “powder keg.”
His death was the excuse for Austria to move against Serbia.
July 6, 1914:
Germany promised to help Austria in the event of war - the “blank check.”
Austria demanded Serbia met their demands.
i) condemn anti-Austrian propaganda.
ii) suppress all anti-Austrian publications.
iii) eliminate critical teachers and books.
iv) allow Austria control the investigation.
v) Serbian officers suspected were to be arrested.
July 22 Austrian ultimatum sent with German approval and demanded a reply in 48 hours.
Serbia agreed to all demands except those over sovereignty.
Serbia suggested arbitration.
Austria refused and:
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a) severed diplomatic relations.
b) ordered partial mobilization.
c) euphoria swept across Vienna.
Russia was determined to support Serbia.
Russia considered war inevitable.
July 26, issued secret orders for a “period preparatory to war.”
July 27 Russia notified Austria if they crossed the Serbian border the Russian army would
mobilize.
July 28 Austria issued a declaration of war to avoid more discussion.
July 29 Austrian artillery bombards Serbia.
July 29 Russia declares war against the Dual Monarchy.
France approved of Russian policy.
Russia asked Britain to mediate.
Britain suggested Austrian occupy part of Serbia.
Germany agreed to the Pledge Plan.
July 30 Germany gave the plan to Austria.
Germany planned a meeting for July 31.
July 31 Austria mobilized against Russia.
The Outbreak of War.
Austria hoped for a limited war.
Austria declared war on Serbia.
German “Blank Check” and urged aggression.
British followed isolationist ideals until the violation of Belgium.
Elan vitale (strength of the people).
Revanche (revenge for 1870).
Most Europeans believed it would be a short and decisive war.
Europe 1914.
Germany, committed to fighting Russia in 1914, urged Austria to invade Serbia.
Germany was sure they could defeat France….
and Britain would then stay neutral.
Germany declared war on Russia and then two days later France.
Schlieffen Plan - indicated the Germans anticipated a war on two fronts.
British Foreign Secretary Grey “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall never see
them lit again in our lifetime.”
German Invasion 1914.
August 4 1914 Germany invaded Belgium.
France was utterly defeated.
Russia mobilized faster than expected.
Helmut von Moltke moved men from the west to the east.
Germans reached the Marne River, 40 miles from Paris.
The Battle of the Marne.
Saved Paris at the start of the war.
War in the West.
Trench Warfare.
No Man’s Land.
Butchery.
Sacrifice.
Heroism.
Stalemate.
Mass slaughter of infantry.
Survivors of the trenches rejected all aspects of the experiences.
Battle of the Somme.
“The heaviest loss ever suffered in a single day... by any army in the war”
60,000 out of 110,000 killed or wounded.
At the end of the battle Britain and France had lost over 600,000.
Gas.
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Tanks.
Battle of Verdun
Symbol of French resistance.
Never captured by the Germans.
Changed the course of the war.
After Verdun and the Somme in 1916 Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff took control.
War in the East.
Russians invaded East Prussia defeated at Tannenberg.
Austria failing against Serbia and Russia.
Germany aided Austria and turned the fight.
Despite Austrian losses to Serbia, Austria and Germany defeated Russia and Serbia on the
eastern front.
Italy and Bulgaria entered the war (1915).
Italy did so in return for promises of Austrian territory.
With Arab help, Britain defeated the Ottoman Empire (1918); but Britain was defeated in the
Dardenelles (Gallipoli).
The European war extended around the globe as Great Britain, France, and Japan seized
Germany's colonies.
BUT, Germany was fighting on two fronts.
November 1917, revolution in Russia forced them to seek peace.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk:
Forced by the liberals in Russia.
Bolsheviks gain power.
Russia loses:
Poland, Ukraine, Finland, Baltic Provinces 34% of Russia’s population.
89% coal mines.
32% farmland.
54% industry.
The United States:
America was sympathetic to the Allies.
Anti-German feelings.
U-Boats.
President Wilson.
Lusitania.
Resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.
Reality of war profits.
Kaiserschlacht
German’s last offensive before the US joins the war.
Major gains to break the deadlock.
Battle of Belleau Woods.
Allies stopped the Germans.
Armistice Day.
November 11, 1918.
Air Warfare:
Manfred von Richthofen.
German fighter pilot known as the "Red Baron."
He was the most successful flying ace during World War I, being officially credited with 80
confirmed air combat victories.
René Paul Fonck:
French aviator who ended the First World War as the top Allied fighter ace.
He received confirmation for 75 victories (72 solo and three shared).
“flaming coffins.”
no brakes.
carrier pigeons.
The home front:
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Mobilizing for total war.
Most people saw the war in nationalistic terms and believed their nation was defending itself
against aggression.
German trade unions and the socialists in the Reichstag supported the war.
Total war meant that economic planning was necessary.
Rationing, price and wage controls, and restrictions on workers' freedom of movement were
imposed by government.
The economy of total war blurred the distinctions between soldiers and civilians--all were
involved in the war effort.
The ability of governments to manage economies strengthened the cause of socialism.
In Germany, food and raw materials were rationed and universal draft was initiated.
Walter Rathenau, the industrialist, directed the German economy--and important advances
were made in the invention of synthetic materials.
The generals, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, became the real rulers of Germany.
Total war led to the establishment of a totalitarian society.
Britain mobilized less rapidly, but by 1916, the British economy was largely a planned
economy.
The social impact:
Labor shortages brought about benefits for organized labor.
Unions and socialists became partners in government.
The role of women changed dramatically as many women entered the labor force.
Some European women gained the right to vote after the war.
Women displayed a growing spirit of independence.
War brought about greater social equality.
Men from all classes died but less so were those from the skilled working class.
Growing political tensions:
Wartime propaganda to maintain popular support of the war was widespread.
But by 1916, people were growing weary of war.
Morale declined.
In France, Clemenceau established a virtual dictatorship to deal with strikes and those who
wanted compromise to end the war.
In Germany, the social conflict of the prewar years emerged.
The German socialist leader Karl Liebknecht called for an end of the war and the defeat of the
German government.
In Austria, people were starving; a socialist assassinated the Austrian chief minister.
By the winter of 1916-1917, Germany's military position was desperate, but she gambled by
returning to unrestricted submarine warfare.
By July 1917, a coalition of socialists and Catholics in Germany called for an end to the war.
Versailles Treaty:
The Big Four.
President Wilson was obsessed with creating a League of Nations to avert future wars.
Italy – Vittorio Orlando.
Clemenceau of France and Lloyd George of England were more interested in permanently
weakening Germany and making it pay for the war.
The conflicting desires of the Allies led to a deadlock and finally a compromise.
France gave up its demand for a protective buffer state in return for a defensive alliance with
Britain and the United States.
Russia was not invited.
Controlled by Britain, France, Italy, US.
Clemenceau most concerned with future French future.
France regained Alsace-Lorraine.
France received the coal mines of the Saar for 15 years.
Allied troops would occupy Germany for 15 years.
Germany had to renounce the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Germany lost her colonies.
Germany had to pay for the damage done.
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U.S. refused to sign - Senate believed they would lose the power to declare war.
For security:
France signed a defensive alliance with Poland.
Wanted strict implementation of the Treaty if the U.S. would not sign.
League of Nations:
Austria-Hungary and Turkey were the big losers in the separate peace treaties; the principle of
self-determination still applied only to Europeans, and thus Western imperialism lived on.
American rejection of the Versailles treaty.
The Versailles settlement rested on the principle of national self-determination, the League of
Nations, and fear that the Bolshevik Revolution might spread.
Republican senators refused to ratify the treaty largely because of the issue of the League's
power.
Henry Cabot Lodge and others believed that requiring member states of the League of
Nations to take collective action against aggression violated Congress's right to declare war.
Wilson refused to compromise, and the Senate did not ratify the treaty.
The Senate also refused to ratify the defensive alliance with Britain and France.
Britain also refused to ratify the defensive alliance.
France felt betrayed and isolated.
Summary:
World War One was revolutionary because it:
Encouraged Europe-wide nationalism.
Concept of total war.
Swept away monarchs and empires
Encouraged the idea of "national self-determination,"
Brought on radical revolution in Russia
Taught governments the lessons of government planning and government direction of
economic and social life.
Brought on a greater degree of social equality.
President Wilson’s Fourteen point plan was designed to create world peace.
League of Nations to prevent future wars.
Initially all agreed but later Europeans wanted to punish Germany.
Russian Revolution:
The revolution of 1905 changed little in Russia- the tsar still controlled the army and the
aristocracy controlled the government with the tsar having veto power.
For Russia World War I was devastating.
1915, Tsar Nicholas II took command of the army his (German) wife controlled the
government.
In 1915 there were two million Russians casualties.
Grigori Rasputin - a Siberian mystic who indulged in sexual orgies- became more influential.
The tsarina believed Rasputin was a holy man who could save her fifth child her son Alexis.
Rasputin did, probably through hypnotism.
Rasputin controlled who could see the queen.
1916 - Rasputin was assassinated by 3 members of the aristocracy but it was too late to save
the monarchy.
“If I die or you desert me, in six months you will lose your son and your throne.”
Food shortages worsened and morale declined.
The government raised the price of bread and people waited up to 12 hours for bread.
March 8 the women of Petrograd marched for food.
The tsar, from the front ordered the soldiers to open fire.
March 12, 1917 the Duma declared a Provisional Government.
March 15 the tsar abdicated.
The March Revolution had been caused by hunger.
The Provisional Government established:
a) equality before the law.
b) freedom of religion.
c) freedom of speech.
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d) freedom of assembly.
e) the right to form unions and strike.
The leader Alexander Kerensky refused to distribute confiscated lands and he saw the war as
a national duty.
Soviets formed in Petrograd.
The Provisional Govt had to share power with the Petrograd Soviet (Soviet of Workers’ and
Soldiers Deputies) which represented radical interests.
Petrograd Soviet issued Army Order No. 1 -replace all army officers.
Vladimir Lenin:
Lenin was a lawyer who became an enemy of the tsar.
In 1887 his brother was executed for plotting to kill the tsar.
Lenin:
a) used the Communist manifesto for inspiration.
b) under certain conditions a socialist revolution was possible even in a backward country like
Russia.
c) needed a highly disciplined workers’ party.
Lenin’s ideas were challenged by Russian Marxists which then split into two groups.
Bolsheviks (majority) were led by Lenin.
Mensheviks (minority).
Lenin’s majority didn’t last but he still kept the name.
Lenin had been observing Russia from Switzerland and he saw the March Revolution as a
positive step.
The German’s gave Lenin, his wife, and about 20 followers safe passage to Russia.
In his “April Theses” Lenin said Russia could move directly towards socialism.
The Bolsheviks promised to:
End the war.
Redistribute land to the peasants.
Transfer ownership of factories to the workers.
Move government from the Provisional Government to the soviets.
April 3, arriving at Finland Station, Petrograd he proclaimed:
“Peace, Land, Bread”
“All land to the peasants”
“Stop the war now”
In July an attempted coup failed and Lenin was forced to flee.
He was charged with helping the Germans and accepting money from the Germans.
Kerensky became prime minister in July and his commander in chief was the war hero
General Kornilov (heart of a lion, the brains of a sheep).
Kornilov launched a feeble attack against the Provisional Government and was discredited
even by the army.
Bolshevik Revolution:
Bolsheviks appealed to the masses.
In October the Bolsheviks gained a fragile majority in the Petrograd Soviet.
Lenin found a strong right-arm in Leon Trotsky.
Trotsky brilliantly organized the take over of power by the Bolsheviks.
Trotsky took power in the name of the more acceptable democratic soviets not the Petrograd
Soviet.
Trotsky gradually seized all power from the Provisional Government.
The November Revolution:
In October Lenin ordered his troops to plan a revolution.
Council of People’s Commissars.
Lenin – chairman.
Trotsky - foreign
Affairs.
Stalin - commissar of nationalities.
Sought to destroy Russian Orthodox Church.
Seized church property.
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Replaced Julian calendar with Gregorian.
Simplified the alphabet.
Secret police – Cheka.
Russia becoming a dictatorship.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk got Russia out of the war in 1918.
Civil War:
There was great opposition to Lenin from those:
loyal to the tsar.
anti-Leninists.
Mensheviks.
Bolsheviks (Reds) called themselves Communists.
The Whites had no common goal and remained unorganized.
War Communism - nationalization to ensure supplies.
By 1921 the new system was not working.
Farm and industrial production remained a fraction of prewar levels.
Kronstadt Naval Base mutinied against Leninist policies, but was violently suppressed.
Lenin realized that war communism did not work, he would need to change economic
direction.
Seeing the need for change Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP).
NEP gave the state ownership of large companies but did allow some private ownership.
1924 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – USSR.
1924 Lenin died after a stroke.
Trotsky’s Doctrine of Permanent Revolution.
bourgeois--proletarian—world.
Stalin’s Doctrine of Socialism in One Country.
did not need world socialism.
Stalin gains control.
Trotsky flees to Mexico - murdered with an axe in 1940 by Stalinist supporters.
The Great Purge.
The Five Year Plan.
The Age of Anxiety
The effects of World War I on modern thought:
Western society began to question values and beliefs that had guided it since the
Enlightenment.
Many people rejected the long accepted beliefs in progress and the power of the rational mind
to understand a logical universe and an orderly society.
Paul Valéry wrote about the crisis of the cruelly injured mind; to him the war ("storm") had left
a "terrible uncertainty."
New ideas and discoveries in philosophy, physics, psychology, and literature encouraged this
general intellectual crisis.
Modern philosophy:
The traditional belief in progress and the rational human was attacked by Nietzsche, Bergson,
and Sorel before 1914.
Friedrich Nietzsche believed that Western civilization was in decline because of Christian
humility and an overstress on rational thinking at the expense of emotion and passion.
Believed that a few superior supermen had to become the leaders of the herd of inferior
people.
Henri Bergson added to this the idea that immediate experience and intuition are as important
as rational and scientific thinking.
Georges Sorel argued that socialism, led by an elite, would succeed through a great violent
strike of all working people.
The two main developments in philosophy were logical empiricism (logical positivism) in
English speaking countries, and existentialism on the Continent.
Logical empiricism, as defined by Ludwig Wittgenstein, claimed that philosophy was nothing
more than the logical clarification of thoughts--the study of language; it could not answer the
great issues of the ages such as the meaning of life.
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Existentialism, first developed in Germany by Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, and then by
Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in France, stressed that humans can overcome the
meaninglessness of life by individual action.
Existentialism was popular in France after the Second World War because it advocated
positive human action at a time of hopelessness.
The revival of Christianity:
Before 1914, Protestant theologians, such as Albert Schweitzer, stressed the human nature of
Jesus and turned away from the supernatural aspects of his divinity; they sought to harmonize
religious belief with scientific findings.
A revitalization of fundamental Christianity took place after World War I.
Soren Kierkegaard was rediscovered.
Criticized the worldliness of the church and stressed commitment to a remote and majestic
God.
Karl Barth stressed the imperfect and sinful nature of man and the need to accept God's truth
through trust, not reason.
Catholic existential theologians, such as Gabriel Marcel, found new hope in religion by
emphasizing the need for its hope and piety in a broken world.
The new physics:
Prior to the 1920s, science was one of the main supports of Western society's optimistic and
rational worldview.
The challenge to Newtonian physics by scientists such as Planck and Einstein undermined
belief in constant natural laws.
Max Plank's work with subatomic energy showed that atoms were not the basic building
blocks of nature.
Albert Einstein postulated that time and space are relative, the universe is infinite, and matter
and energy are interchangeable.
The 1920s were the "heroic age of physics."
Ernest Rutherford split the atom.
Subatomic particles were identified, notably the neutron.
The new physics described a universe that lacked absolute objective reality.
Werner Heisenberg claimed that instead of Newton's rational laws, there are only tendencies
and probabilities.
In short, science seemed to have little to do with human experience and human problems.
Freudian psychology:
Prior to Sigmund Freud, it was assumed that the conscious mind processed experiences in a
rational and logical way.
According to Freud, human behavior is basically irrational.
The key to understanding the mind is the irrational unconscious (the id), which is driven by
sexual, aggressive, and pleasure seeking desires.
Behavior is a compromise between the needs of the id and the rationalizing conscious (the
ego), which mediates what a person can do, and ingrained moral values (the superego), which
tell what a person should do.
Instinctual drives can easily overwhelm the control mechanisms; yet rational thinking and
traditional moral values can cripple people with guilt and neuroses.
Many interpreted Freudian thought as an encouragement of an uninhibited sex life.
Twentieth century literature:
The postwar moods of pessimism, relativism, and alienation influenced novelists.
Literature focused on the complexity and irrationality of the human mind.
Writers such as Joseph Proust embraced psychological relativity--the attempt to understand
oneself by looking at one's past.
Novelists such as Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and James Joyce adopted the stream of
consciousness technique, in which ideas and emotions from different time periods bubble up
randomly.
Some literature, such as that of Oswald Spengler, Franz Kafka, and George Orwell, was antiutopian--it predicted a future of doom.
Modern art and music:
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"Modernism" in art and music meant constant experimentation and a search for new forms of
expression.
Architecture and design:
The new idea of functionalism in architecture, exemplified by Le Corbusier, emphasized
efficiency and clean lines instead of ornamentation.
The Chicago school of architects, led by Louis Sullivan, pioneered in the building of
skyscrapers.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed truly modern houses featuring low lines, open interiors, and
mass-produced building materials.
Germany was the leader in modern architecture.
The Bauhaus school under Walter Gropius became the major proponent of functional and
industrial forms.
It combined the study of fine art with the study of applied art.
The Bauhaus stressed good design for everyday life.
Ludwig Van der Rohe brought European functionalism to Chicago--and hence steel frame and
glass wall architecture.
Modern painting:
French impressionism yielded to nonrepresentational expressionism, which sought to portray
the worlds of emotion and imagination, as in the works of van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, and
Matisse.
Cubism, founded by Pablo Picasso, concentrated on zigzagging lines and overlapping planes.
Nonrepresentational art turned away from nature completely; it focused on mood, not objects.
Dadaism and surrealism became prominent in the 1920s and 1930s.
Dadaism delighted in outrageous conduct.
Surrealists, inspired by Freud, painted wild dreams and complex symbols.
Modern music:
The concept of expressionism also affected music, as in the work of Igor Stravinsky and Alban
Berg.
Some composers, led by Arnold Schönberg, abandoned traditional harmony and tonality.
Movies and radio:
The general public embraced movies and radio enthusiastically.
The movie factories and stars such as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks,
Rudolph Valentino, and Charlie Chaplin created a new medium and a new culture.
Movie going became a form of escapism and the main entertainment of the masses.
Radio, which became possible with Guglielmo Marconi's "wireless" communication and the
development of the vacuum tube, permitted transmission of speech and music, but major
broadcasting did not begin until 1920.
Then every country established national broadcasting networks; by the late 1930s, three of
four households in Britain and Germany had a radio.
Dictators and presidents used the radio for political propaganda.
Movies also became tools of indoctrination.
Eisenstein used film to dramatize the communist view of Russian history.
In Germany, Riefenstahl created a propaganda film for Hitler.
The search for peace and political stability:
The search for peace was difficult.
Germany hated the Treaty of Versailles.
France was fearful and isolated.
Britain was undependable.
The United States was not interested.
Besides, Eastern Europe was in ferment and the international economy was disrupted and
poor.
Yet, from 1925 to late 1929, it appeared that peace and stability were within reach.
But the collapse of the 1930s ended that quest.
Germany and the Western powers:
Germany was the key to lasting peace, and the Germans hated the Treaty of Versailles.
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France believed that an economically weak Germany was necessary for its security and
wanted massive reparations to repair devastated northern France.
Britain needed a prosperous Germany in order to maintain the British economy.
J. M. Keynes, an economist, argued that the Versailles treaty crippled the European economy
and needed revision.
His attack on the treaty contributed to guilt feelings about Germany in Britain.
As a result, France and Britain drifted apart.
When Germany refused to continue its heavy reparations payments, French and Belgian
armies occupied the Ruhr (1923).
The Germans stopped work in the factories, and France occupied the German Rhineland; this
left many Germans unemployed.
Inflation skyrocketed; prices soared and savings were wiped out.
Resentment and political unrest among the Germans grew; many blamed the Western
governments, and some blamed the Jews and communists.
Under Gustav Stresemann, Germany agreed to revised reparations payments, and France
agreed to re-examine Germany's ability to pay.
Stresemann represented a new compromising mood in both Germany and France.
Hope in foreign affairs (1924-1929):
The Dawes Plan (1924) provided a solution to the reparations problem: the United States lent
money to Germany so it could pay France and Britain so they could pay the United States.
In 1929, the Young Plan further reduced German reparations.
The 7 treaties of Locarno (1925) eased European disputes.
Established borders.
Germany and France accepted their common border.
Britain and Italy agreed to fight either France or Germany if either country invaded the other.
Germany joined the League of Nations in 1926.
The Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) condemned war, and the signing states agreed to settle
international disputes peacefully.
Hope in democratic government:
The Ruhr crisis saw the emergence of the radical right under Hitler; his beer hall plot failed,
but he set out his theories in Mein Kampf.
But after 1923, democracy took root in Germany as the economy boomed.
However, there were sharp political divisions in the country.
The right consisted of nationalists and monarchists.
The communists remained active on the left.
Most working class people supported the socialist Social Democrats.
In France, the democratically elected government rested in the hands of the middle-class
oriented moderates, while communists and socialists battled for the support of the workers.
Northern France was rebuilt, and Paris became the world's cultural center.
Britain's major problem was unemployment, and the government's efforts to ease it led the
country gradually toward state-sponsored welfare plans.
Britain's Labour party, committed to revisionist socialism, replaced the Liberals as the main
opposition party to the Conservatives.
Labour, under Ramsay MacDonald, won in 1924 and 1929, yet moved toward socialism
gradually.