20210326003253world_war_one 20210326003105discussion_71 x20210326003310fin_de_siecle_europe
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I.World War One- Beginnings and precedents
A. Balance of Power-
1. Ever since the Metternich plan had been enacted, nations had been
jockeying for a position in which they would be invulnerable from attack
from all the other nations—or have a position so much stronger that war was
possible
a) This struggle was abetted by the forging of modern nations with
fast communications and unified presses that could quickly turn the
politics of war into mass politics and mobilize the entire nation rather
than an elite and the army—leading to unheard of levels of economic
participation in warfare
2. Bismarck, as elder statesman of Germany, had realized that there
were exactly five major nations in Europe with first class military power.
Therefore, it was always in Germany’s interest to be a part of the larger half,
than part of the smaller.
a) Kaiser Wilhelm II however, did not see it this way, instead seeing
the massive military of Germany as being a world beater —thus he could
stand to be on the smaller side and still win.
3. German policies at the outset of the war and also directly previously
to it had alienated Britain, The USA and also Japan thus turning what would
have been another little European war into a world -wide conflict of many
nations
B. Age of crisis- from 1905-14 there were a series of political crisis that could
have been used as a pretext for war —however, these were all settled one way or
another short of war.
1. However, in 1914 the feeling in much of Europe was il faut finir, the
waiting for a war must end—and the feeling in Germany was that they would
never be more powerful vs. the brits than they were at the moment—thus
the time to strike was now and no time was to be wasted.
2. On 28th of July, therefore the Germans initiated their Von Schlieffen
Plan and began the war that would redraw the map of Europe.
II. War Elsewhere-
A. Ottoman Empire- Joined the war to gain territory from Russia, the Allies
sought to open a second front on them at GALLIPOLI- 1915- which was fought
largely with colonial forces. Literally used as a distraction to take pressure off the
Russians, the soldiers died by the thousands at battles in Turkey.
1. The battle lasted 9 months and killed 220,000 allies (59%) and
300,000 Turks (60%)
2. And served ONLY as a distraction for the Turks from the actual action,
if the allies had won, they would have given the territory back as soon as
possible. It was literally of no value.
B. ARMENIAN GENOCIDE—The Armenians were a nation within the multi-
ethnic Ottoman empire, however, they were largely Christian in an Islamic nation
that created the basis for an exclusion movement similar to that facing Jews in
Western Europe.
1. Beginning in 1915, the Ottoman Empire arrested the foremost
Armenians, and forced many others from their homes by declaring their
property forfeit to Turks.
2. The Armenians were scapegoated for the utter failure of the Turkish
forces in the early going of WWI, a law code was quickly passed that made
Armenians living in Turkey a second class citizens —thereafter their rights
were steadily eroded as the government accomplished a transfer of their
status from citizens to laborers.
a) Armenians serving in the military were demobilized and sent to
hard labor
3. The Armenians in population centers were marched out of their
homes (which were seized by willing Turkish citizens) and sent to camps
located deep in the desert—the government provided no supplies or facilities
either on the march or after the refugee’s arrival.
a) The camps were run by inmates of Turkish prisons as a
commutation of their sentences.
4. In all, 1-1.5 million Armenians died in the marches or camp s—and the
policy of Genocide extended to other Christian and Minority groups
5. Aftermath- in 1918 The Ottoman government held trials to punish
those who had participated in the genocide, and then closed the book on the
episode—the trials did not pursue the highest ranks that were implicated in
the genocide
a) The Current Turkish government disputes the term ‘genocide’
and admits only 300,000 deaths
b) International outcry was muted by the disastrous ramifications
of the first world war, although the allies used it, briefly, as a rallying
point and propaganda piece
III. Aftermath-
A. Death-
1. Allies:
a) KIA- 5,525,000
b) Wounded-12,831,500
c) Missing- 4,121,000
2. Central Powers:
a) KIA-4,386,000
b) Wounded- 8,388,000
c) Missing-3,629,000
The Russian Revolution and Aftermath of WWI
IV. The Russian Revolution- Russia, had, in 1914 embraced the war just as thoroughly
as the other European allies—and, in an important way, the war came to symbolize
everything to everyone: Liberals looked forward to a more democratic society coming into
being as a result of wartime demands on the empire—Conservatives looked forward to
expansion in the Balkans. Factory owners looked forward to big Government contracts,
workers looked forward to better wages.
A. Unfortunately, the war was an utter disaster almost from the beginning. The
Russian army was under supplied and out matched by the Germans. Dramatic
victories in the south did not convince the public that the losses in the north were
worth it, also a staggeringly high casualty rate (2 million in 1915 alone) left the
public disaffected with the war.
1. Industrialists and workers were both disappointed by the lack of
money to be made on the war, Russia simply did not have the banking and
cash reserves that it needed to effectively fight the economic war that was
more important, in many ways, than that on the battlefield.
a) The lack of industrial production exacerbated the lack of
supplies in the Russian army—in 1915 soldiers were sent to the front
having never fired a rifle in training, nor were they given one. Instead,
they were to find one among the dead.
B. Thinking that he could do a better job than his generals Tsar NICHOLAS II
went to the front in the fall of 1915—this turned out to be a decisive turning point.
1. Upon his departure the control of domestic policy fell to his wife, who
was, well, troubled. She was vehemently absolutist—detesting the very idea
of a parliament, she was also slightly paranoid. Her closest advisor was a
fallen monk and faith healer Grigori RASPUTIN who, everyone else could see,
was milking his connection to the crown for all it was worth.
a) To the Tsarina, however, he was the embodiment of the Russian
people, thus worth more than the ministers and advisors who made up
her husband’s cabinet.
2. This was exactly the wrong time to take a turn to the right, as much of
the political spectrum found itself disaffected from the government —
everyone from conservatives to socialists calling for a totally new
government that made the Russian parliament, the DUMA, the central power
and gave the Tsar a more ceremonial role.
3. This bloc took over the government after several days of rioting in St.
Petersburg in February 28 (March 12) of 1917. The Tsar abdicated on the
15th.
C. The PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT- Established the traditional liberal agenda
of increased democracy, equality before the law, freedom of religion and expression,
rights of unions to organize and strike etc.
1. However, the PG did not:
a) Immediately withdraw from the war
b) Redistribute the land from the wealthy land owners to the poor
peasants.
c) Thus, the vast majority of Russia (peasants) were not assuaged
by the PG and were still discontent.
D. The PETROGRAD SOVIET- Established in the city of Petrograd as a council of
workers, the PS was extremely radical under the leadership of LEON TROTSKY. This
organization issued counter orders to the PG, some of them, such as army order no.
1, much more radical than the PG was willing to countenance.
1. Which actually mattered little anyhow as the peasants were simply
seizing land and using it for their own purposes, sometimes allowing their
former landlords to continue on in their homes, other times burning the lot
of it down.
2. The war began to fall apart as order number one took effect, and no
one volunteered to go into certain death.
3. And the failure of the PG to significantly better the lot in life of the
average citizen meant that they had decreasing support from the people,
until, relatively quickly they reached the point where they were as hated as
was the Tsar and his
government.
E. Return of LENIN- In exile since 1905 Lenin was returned to Russia with the
help of the German government in April of 1917. He and his political organization of
radical SOCIAL REVOLUTIONARIES, the BOLSHEVIKS immediately began to work
toward the downfall of the PG, refusing to work with it and ma king the Petrograd
Soviet over into a competitor government.
1. In September a general (lev Kornilov) led an attack against the
Soviet
in Petrograd, and was handily defeated. The threat to the ‘people’s
government’ was taken as a legitimization of the practices and policies of the
Soviet
a) And the PG was doing little to help itself, becoming increasingly
conservative in the face of the Radicalizing soviet.
2. PEACE AND BREAD- was the promise that Lenin used to begin the
revolution, promising the people exactly wha t they desired most. On 23
October (6 November ) 1917, the revolution swept away the PG and left the
Bolsheviks as the only source of authority, which they rapidly extended
throughout much of north western Russia.
a) They then faced an ongoing civil war against the White forces,
those that supported the Tsar and the conservative government
b) They also faced significant dissent from the greens, the
farmer/peasants from whom they were requisitioning huge amounts of
food to placate their urban constituency.
c) The Bolsheviks did allow the peasants to take the land they
already had… one good piece of PR
F. What was Soviet Power?
1. Mensheviks v. Bolsheviks- the political spectrum of revolutionaries
extended from the moderate bourgeoisie who wished for the traditional
liberal platform all the way to the radical Bols. More moderate were the
Mensheviks, however the triumphant propaganda of the Bolsheviks painted
their revolutionary credentials as wishy-washy, compare to the French
revolution and the ascendancy of the radicals.
a) In either event, both groups believed in SOCIAL revolution, that is
a revolution that would obliterate the previously existing social order in
favor of a new, engineered one
2. Lenin and the bols followed the Marxist plan for engineering this new
revolution, that is:
a) That the ideal society would be controlled by the workers and
other generators of wealth.
b) That the church was a parasite
c) The government’s purpose was to manage the economy so as to
provide the most possible wealth to the maximum number of
people
3. However Lenin also believed:
a) That a revolution could be made only by a highly disciplined
cadre of revolutionaries in steel link disciple to the party line. Once a
revolutionary bought the party line, anything else he or she believed had
to serve it.
(1) Compare this to the Machiavellian idea that it is good to
appear virtuous while being something else entirely
b) That revolution could be forced on the people, even if they were
not willing to support it. This ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ meant
that the Bolsheviks believed that they knew better how to order the
country than did the people living there
(1) Thus democracy was pointless, elections that did not
support the dictatorship would only show that the people were
unready for democracy…
c) That Russia could skip over the capitalist phase of history as well
as the Socialist phase and go straight to communism, because it was the
most backward capitalist society in the world, thus capitalism had
gained little ground
G. Soviet Government-
1. The Soviet Government set up during the civil war was a touch and go
thing, with many functions being done on the fly by ad hoc committees, but it
eventually settled down into:
a) A Supreme Soviet that, nominally, had power over all the
functions of the government. Delegates were elect ed from the regional
soviets.
b) A Central Committee that was the highest party organ (pun very
much intended) and thus set out the Bolshevik party line on major issues
confronting the RSFR.
(1) Since the only party in the RSFR was the Bolshevik, the
actual power was held by the unelected Central Committee.
The Supreme Soviet was also composed only of Bolsheviks, but
their real purpose was to be the façade government to the CC.
2. As the red forces gained ground in the civil war, they added more and
more on-the-ground control to their government, creating village soviets,
that answered to regional soviets and so on up to the highest level.
a) Generally speaking, the reds were deeply unpopular amongst the
rural population, thus the worst margins of society were often placed in
control of the village governments—relying on the poor and drunk,
essentially, who then proceeded to rule just as effectively as you would
expect.
The Peace that ended the War
V. Recap- When last we left Europe, it was in a shambles: four empires ha d
disappeared: German, Russian, Austro -Hungarian and Ottoman. The ‘winners’ were just as
bloodied as were the losers, and sometimes even more so. Life in Europe, as it had been for
the past millennium or so, was pretty much over and a new and disturbing era had
dawned: one where warfare had gained such efficiency that it might be possible to majorly
redraw the map of Europe
A. Also, the old ideas that had guided rulers and citizens alike seemed to be
discredited: if honor, justice, progress, science and resp ect of the individual had led
to the first world war then what good were they?
1. Thus, citizens of Europe in the ashes would have to find new ideas and
ways of life. Fortunately, for them, there were some readymade in the
philosophy of Nietzsche, Freud and others who showed life as a struggle
between not-necessarily rational actors. Lombroso’s idea of regression
would also raise its head
VI. The Paris Peace Conference- In January of 1919, delegates from 32 countries
gathered in Paris to discuss the peace. This number included neither Germany or Russia.
The majority of power at the conference was wielded by the USA (Woddy Wilson) France
(Clemenceau) the UK (Lloyd George) and Italy (Orlando) collectively known as the ‘BIG
FOUR’
A. Wilson’s Perspective: Wilson called for ‘peace without victory’, that is a peace
that did not excessively punish the Germans nor reward the French and English, he
also advocated a world without secret alliances or restrictions on whom could sail
the seas.
1. Wilson argued, in the vein of preventing future conflicts like the one
they had just lived through, that national groups had the right to self
determination (a blow to AH) and also the establishment of collective
security arrangements through the LEAGUE OF NATIONS which would
mediate any conflicts that arose between member states and present a
unified front to non member states.
2. He also advocated arms control to prevent the militarism that had
lead, in no small part, to the war.
3. This was an easy position for Wilson to sell to his constituency, after
all, the US had suffered comparatively light causalities and had none of the
war fought on their turf.
a) The war cost European nations $180b in direct costs, and $150b
in indirect costs as well as many million lives. Taking such a soft line
would have been political suicide for any other big four leader.
B. Clemenceau’s perspective: felt that the velvet glove that Wilson was offering
Germany would just convince them that there were no repercussions for starting
the war (did they, after all, start the war?) Instead, he advocated the laying of
Germany to waste, thus removing any possibility of a recurrence of war coming
from them.
1. He wanted to fix blame for the war squarely on Germany —with all the
opprobrium that carried, including the fixing of REPARATIONS for the war
and forcing the central powers to pay them.
2. He wanted to adjust the boundaries of Germany to include buffer
zones, and also to divide Germany into several smaller states
3. He wanted to create open, mutual defense pacts that would exclude
Germany and other central powers that would make war in Europe fruitless
in the extreme
VII. The TREATY OF VERSAILLES: the product of a compromise between the two
perspectives addressed here, the treaty was signed into law on 28 June 1919. The strong
line approach weakened and humiliated Germany, but the soft touch prevented its
destruction. Thus we have a stage set for the Second World war.
A. Specifics:
1. Forced the Germans to accept responsibility for the war, and to pay
for it ($33 billion)
2. The German military was limited to 100,000 men, no:
a) Tanks
b) Planes
c) Artillery
d) General Staff
e) Submarines
f) Battleships
3. Germany lost its colonies and ceded European territory to England,
France and Poland
4. The Rhineland was created as a DMZ and occupied by France for 15
years, as was the Saar land.
5. Europe was to be completely reorganized around the principle of self –
determination—that is the creation of separate states out of the wreckage of
the Austrian and Russian Empires.
a) Thus was born/reborn:
(1) Poland
(2) Armenia
(3) Hungary
(4) Latvia
(5) Lithuania
(6) Czechoslovakia
(7) Austria
(8) Lithuania
(9) Estonia
(10) Yugoslavia
(11) Turkey
b) This right of self determination did not, however, extend beyond
Europe. African nations were to remain right where they were, in the
control of European powers. As were most nations in Asia (a young Ho
Chi Minh arrived at the PCC to discuss nationhood for Viet Nam, no
western leader was interested in seeing him)
c) The Middle East was to be rebuilt, also, along the lines of what
was done with the remains of AH and Germany, the only difference was
that the powers of Europe were given ‘mandates’ over the new nations
created, essentially granting them imperial control over them, whereas
the nations created in east and central Europe were given their own
governments
B. The LEAGUE OF NATIONS- was included in the treaty, but was never ratified
by the Americans, thus the only nation capable of enforcing the treaty of Versailles
or of forcing a mediated solution was NOT included in the League.
1. Without the American support, the UK backed down from its hard
stance at the peace conference; leaving France all alone to enforce the terms
of the Treaty of Versailles… a situation doomed to failure.
C. Summary of the Treaty-
1. New Nations: The nations created by the treaty were artificial in the
extreme and were often beset almost immediately by economic or ethnic
problems stemming from their being drawn at a great distance. Although the
conference was very successful at leaving few people in Europe under
foreign domination (~18% pre war – >2% post) it was not perfectly
successful, which left the people who remained under foreign domination
doubly upset.
a) Also, territory was allotted based on limited information and
nearly everyone felt they should have gotten more.
b) Furthermore, the nations that were created were not,
necessarily, economically independent of their previous owners…
leading to hard economic times in hard economic times…
c) As result of the two factors above, dictatorships took over in the
majority of the newly created countries. Making the ‘great war for
Democracy’ a slightly sicker joke.
(1) Royal: Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria
(2) Military: Hungary, Poland
(3) Theocratic: Austria
2. League of Nations: Established an international and secure
framework to settle disputes without recourse to war, however, lacking the
US as a signatory there was little ‘oomph’ in the organization to enforce its
decisions. Put the enforcement of the treaty protocol solely on the French…
who were beat up pretty badly by the war.
a) About the only thing the League did effectively was establish a
mandatory system that leant legitimacy to the newly established
imperial holdings in the Middle east and
Asia
3. Isolation of Russia: The soviet powers saw the revolution begun in
their country as a world revolution, and seing that they were excluded from
the Paris Peace Conference, as well as the League, and including the invasion
of Russia after the war, they saw the powers of Europe as a threat.
a) A view that was shared by the European powers after the
Russian communist party created the COMINTERN in March of 1919, or
a group whose purpose was to foment communist revolutions all around
the world.
b) This leads to Russia being isolated from the Western World for
much of the interwar period
c) The Comintern has only very limited success in the west, but
spread communism handily in the east, setting up communist
governments in many central Asian countries and also, notably,
influencing China, Korea and Vietnam towards an eventual communist
government.
(1) Of course, had the western leaders been at all
sympathetic to the pleas of the Asian nationalists during the
PCC, they might well have avoided the spread of Communism
achieved in the interwar period.
VIII. The world, after the world war:
A. Pandemic: As soldiers met on the battlefield they exchanged more than
bullets. The war was also the largest, densest assemblage of people the world had
ever seen. Including people from all over the globe. And their germs.
1. 1919 saw the spread of the H4N2 influenza virus along with an as yet
unidentified secondary infection that led to an asto nishingly high morbidity
rate of 50% ( that is, half of mankind came down with this disease) and a
relatively high mortality rate of 5-10% (that percentage died of the disease)
2. Taken together, this led to anywhere from 20 to 100 million deaths
worldwide.
a) The wide spread is due to the number of cases that occurred with
no direct observation from record keeping Europeans—the lower
number is documented cases, the higher number represents the number
killed if the same percentage died worldwide.
3. This disease, unlike most manifestations of the flu, killed a remarkably
high number of young adults… leading to additional social dislocation in
addition to that already caused by the deaths of young men in WWI
4. Why is the disease forgotten?
a) It killed the people most likely to remember it.
b) It was of short duration, lasting in any particular area for no
more than 9 months, and in most only one month.
c) It struck people already desensitized by the horrors of war.
B. Culture- The war had largely discredited the Victorian belief in progress and
the neat, orderly, arrangement of life, thus the more primitive forces in art and
culture broke out and took precedence over the stately realism of the prewar period
1. Philosophy- The war marked an ascendancy for the forces of
irrationality and struggle. The people who most accurately act as signs of the
time would of course be
a) Freud: All human action and thought are the results of base,
uncontrollable desires that we shelter from the world by masking with
various other activities
b) Nietzsche: Seemed to be spot on about the herd, it would do
anything at all that its prophets asked it to… also, not far off on that
whole ‘world as struggle’ thing, nor that ‘god is dead’ bit, after all the
churches supported the war.
c) Einstein- Argued that classical physics, that dealt with large
objects was really only statistically true. The actual mechanics of the
world were based on the Quantum Physics—which, at its basis, is
indeterminate
(1) Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: One can measure an
event, but not without influencing that event. True of
electrons, which can be place in space, but not without altering
their speed or have their speed measured but not placed in
space. Never both.
(2) Schrödinger’s cat
2. Literature- The war was a major theme of literature, books like All
quiet on the western front, Storm of Steel, Johnny got his gun were all widely
read by the public and used to form opinions about what modern war was
like.
3. Art- the was also a dominant theme in art, especially in the work of
Otto Dix, Picasso’s cubism movement was, in some ways, a response to the
war, as was the work of Marcel Duchamp, who with the DADAISTS made war
on the western tradition for being so ridiculous and hypocritical.
a) Salvador Dali- probably the most prominent post war artist , his
surrealism attempted to make literal the feelings of disassociation that
resulted from the war.
4. Music- The mixture of European musical traditions with those of
America resulted in a new form of music, Jazz, this was unbelievably cool at
the time: music for and by the people (not symphonies) that had no written
score and was not crappy folk songs people had been singing for the past
three millennia. Took off like a rocket.
5. Mass Culture- The rise of credit and the progress of technology led to
a spread of mass culture—radios, movies and vaudeville all facilitated the
spread of ideas until virtually everyone in a country could have the same
culture.
a) Both a good and bad thing, the new forms of culture meant that
the poor of any country would have much more in common with their
countrymen than at any other point in history so far.
b) But dangerous in that it allowed an unprecedented
accumulation of power in the hands of whomever controlled the media.
A power used by all 20th century dictators to speak directly to the people
outside of the normal boundaries of citizen -government relationships.
6. New Gender Rolls- During the war, many women worked outside of
the home for the first time. This led to radical changes in how people viewed
sex—and included a wholesale change of courtship practices and dress
primarily for women.
a) The ‘flapper’
IX. The Interwar years:
A. The Kellogg-Briand pact: signed in 1928 by both the US and France, this pact
outlawed war as a means to solving international problems. One of the stranger
interwar events.
B. Political instability in France and Britain- Workers, who were being crushed
by a postwar RECESSION, were extremely volatile immediately after the war leading
to a series of violent strikes—which led the conservative bourgeoisie in both
countries to elect right wing governments.
1. These governments were successful in crushing the strikes, however
none of them could solve the economic problems that were much larger than
any individual government.
a) The French, for example, relied on German reparations and loans
rather than raising taxes to pay for the massive reconstruction of the
war zone. This proved to be an unstable base for an economy to rest on.
2. These failures led to the election left wing governments starting in
1924—however, any economic reforms that the liberals may have instituted
were thwarted by the dispossessed conservatives
C. Political Instability in Germany- Of course, by nature, if the situation was dire
in England and France, it was much worse in Germany. The post war government,
the WEIMAR REPUBLIC was in deep crisis nearly from the moment that it took
power. It faced revolutionary challenges from both the right and the left and
survived only by playing the two sides off of one another… that said, it only barely
survived.
1. For example, in the elections of 1920, only 43% of votes went to
parties that supported the EXISTANCE OF THE GOVERNMENT—the rest of
the polity did not want to change Government policy, but the very form of
government itself.
a) The right, subscribing to the ‘knife in the back’ legend, blamed
the republic of for the loss of WWI and especially for agreeing to the
terms of the treaty of Versailles—which they saw as being degrading
and humiliating.
2. In 1922, Wilhelm Cuno became chancellor, he refused to pay
reparations.
a) The French responded by invading the Rurh Valley and collecting
reparations in kind—the German workers refused to work, thwarting
the French efforts to collect money
b) However, the lack of economic output led to hyperinflation —
devaluing the Mark to the point where it was virtually worthless.
c) This inflation spread to other European nations, including
France. Which was forced to accept an American brokered deal in
1924—that propped the economies of Europe against the burgeoning
American wealth.
3. This was called the DAWES PLAN, and it worked great until 1929.
X. Rise of Fascism
A. Instability in Italy- the disasters that nearly dragged the German Republic
under completely destroyed the Italian republic—leading to the meteoric rise of
BENITO MUSSOLINI as dictator of Italy.
1. Mussolini became Prime Minister of Italy in 1922, almost immediately
on returning home from WWI, Mussolini created a para -military organization
known as the Italian Combat Squad and began proposing a new political
order called FASCISM, this policy was composed of:
a) Ultra Nationalism: The idea that Italy was a special place,
granted by history, a special place in the world—thus should be granted
rights and privileges that other less proud nations may not merit. In
this, it was the direct opposite of Socialism/Communism which argued
that all nations were essentially parasitical; social class was the real
measure of a person.
b) Anti-Class: Fascism was anti social class, in that it drew on
people who were of the right mindset regardless of economic
background, the wealthy were not a protected/powerful group in
Italy—rather the government was meant to be for the good of the
people
c) Anti-Free market: as a corollary to the above, fascism
nationalized many industries and made the economy and government
virtually one. This led to a more efficient economy and much more
power for the government.
d) Totalitarian: The leader of the Fascist movement (in this case,
Benito) should have total control over all aspects of the life of his
citizens. There should be no checks on the power of the leader.
2. Fascism was enormously popular among poor Italians, who saw the
simple and clear solutions offered by Mussolini as a breath of fresh air from
the dickering and arguing that was the hallmark of Italian, republican
government.
3. His party won a majority of power in the government as a result of
violence and voter intimidation in 1924, the elections led parliament to
boycott the government—this should have crippled the legislative process,
however, a key tenant of Fascism is the get ‘er do ne philosophy of the ends
justify the means—Mussolini simply continued to pass laws without the
input of the parliament
a) Giving his total control over the government of Italy. HE calls
himself the leader ‘il Duce’
4. After 1925, there was virtually no way to protest against the policies
of Mussolini, at least no legal way, thus Italy became a one party state with no
check on the power of government.
5. He embarked on an ambitious forign policy in an attempt to recreate
the Roman Empire in Eruope and Africa… leading to the invasion of Ethiopia
(again) which turned into a debacle for the Italian troops, as well as
involvement in the SPANISH CIVIL WAR which we will deal with a bit later
6. Common politics and policies led to an ever tightening relationship
with Germany under the rule of Hitler, thus forming the so called Rome –
Berlin Axis in 1933, that would last until the end of the second world war in
1944.
B. Instability in Germany—in 1923 a decorated war veteran attempted a coup
against the Cuno government—and was imprisoned for it. While sitting in his cell,
this fellow penned a book about his political outlook.
1. This book called for:
a) a redemptive war that would win back German honor after the
backstabbing government concede the very winnable WWI.
b) Germany to carve out ‘LEBENSRAUM’ in eastern Europe among
the inferior Slavic people who should be pushed from their homes into
Asia
c) Germany to purify itself from the forign influence of inferior
races that had somehow scrambled to the top of the economic and
governmental ladder—leading to economic chaos as well as the current
political standing of Germany
2. This was, of course, Adolf Hitler. He would organize a National
Socialist Party in 1921, and be elected its leader (or Furher) in the same year.
a) The party would loosely follow the lead of the fascists in Italy—
(heavy reliance on nationalism, anti class feeling, anti capitalism) but
would have an interesting wrinkle in that the NAZI party was also
obsessed with the scientific study of race, especially as regards the Jews
who were seen as the obvious leaders of the republican capitulation to
the treaty of Versailles.
3. Hitler rose to prominence in the years following his release in late
1924. As did the NAZI party, however, the real turning point came when the
depression hit Germany in 1930—creating a large reserve of angry people
with nowhere left to turn.
4. By 1933, Hitler had a dominant voice in government which he
parlayed into an appointment to the chancellorship —the government,
realizing that they were dealing with a dange rous man appointed numerous
conservative cabinet officers to contain the young man’s impact.
a) However in February, the government building was torched,
Hitler used this act of terrorism to pass a series of laws granting himself
sweeping powers that essentially created a police state in Germany.
b) By the end of 1933, Hitler was undisputed leader of Germany and
had declared a third Reich—or empire.
5. Hitler’s government began to immediately abandon the limitations
imposed by the treaty of Versailles—rearming at a surprising pace, that did
much to alleviate the economic woes of Germany.
a) He counted on a treaty with England to make this move a fait
acompli to the French.
6. He also passed a series of laws that limited the rights of jews in
Germany, essentially making them outlaws, unprotected by German law.
Opening them up to mob violence—state organized pogroms (the
HOLOCAUST) began in 1939 with the confinement of Jews to Ghettos, and the
periodic purging of those Ghettos by military squads
Assignment:
Please respond to the readings and materials for this week in 300 words or so, if you are having a hard time getting started, feel free to respond to the following prompt:
Was the first world war the end of an era? If so, what era ended and what era began? If not, what commonalities do you see between the pre- and post- war world?
Rules:
***Be sure to support your opinion with reference to the reading from textbook, reading from week’s assignments, and the text or lecture notes, videos.
***Your discussion must have 300 words and must prove that you read the World War I- Chapter 25 from textbook. Your discussion points must come from textbook & lecture notes, videos. That is very important.
Materials for this discussion
Textbook: Nobel, Strauss, et al., Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries. Vol. 2, 7th ed.
· Must read World War I Lecture note with pdf
· Must Read Chapter 25.
Lecture videos from Professor (Must watch)
· Part 1:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xKauu-h_9WREJDtTXl8h7Ar0vvZKXkgK/view
· Part 2:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HhkMsHyfheg7ge827adepSmeozrmdRLL/view
World War I from Professor (Must watch)
Part 1:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P4Abuo_h3_tkNrbyoQEJb31kP1vI0CBn/view
Part 2:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HbIUlInrHzB9mcLzGmAczS5ripJ90pow/view
Video from YouTube
How World War I Started: Crash Course World History 209
Who Started World War I: Crash Course World History 210
The Pogues The Band Played Waltzing Matilda Lyrics
Christmas in the Trenches, by John McCutcheon
Fin de’ Siècle Europe and the beginning of the Great War
I. Recap: When we left Europe last:
A. They had pretty much conquered the entire globe through a process
known as IMPERIALISM that established strong, local control over a countries
political and economic systems and exploited that control for the benefit of
the imperializers.
1. This led to widespread suppression of native economy—which was
exploited by the imperializers to provide:
a) Raw materials: Cheap sources of raw materials obtained from
colonies allowed manufactured goods to sell cheaply even though the
workers at home demanded and received higher wages
b) Markets: Selling goods to colonies allowed full employment in
the home company and also created more agricultural workers that
further lowered the cost of doing business in the colony.
2. This also led to the creation of political apparatuses in the colonies
that placed colonial governments above multi-ethnic and multi-confessional
nations that had previously not existed
a) As a tool of colonization, religion and education played a huge
role in inculcating the natives with the appropriate sense of loyalty to
the uber nation and also assuring that the colonial culture became the
dominant culture.
b) The nations were abjectly unable to govern themselves, being
made up of randomly selected groups of people with widely varying
cultures, however, this weakness would not be exposed until the 1960s
B. Europeans were enjoying a period of unrivaled prosperity brought
about by:
1. Easy availability of investment opportunities, money and goods from
the colonial economic ‘ballast’ This led to the rise of a more thoroughly
bourgeoisie society in many nations of Europe where wealth and
respectability became major obsessions of generations of citizens
2. New sources of energy and rapidly expanding industrial technology
efficiency that allowed a wide panoply of new goods to be made and
distributed quickly and cheaply that noticeably raised the standard of living
for even the most poor among the imperial nations.
3. New science that propelled Human understanding into vastly new
fields of understanding and, again, improved the quality of life for most
people noticeably.
II. Ideas in Fin de Siècle Europe- the term itself refers to the end of the century, or
the decadence (1890s-1900’s) this period saw some general trends in Europe and America
that we discuss generally under this term. Remember back in the Middle Ages and I said
that the Renaissance extends almost up to the First World War, well this is the point when
the ‘modern’ era takes over from the renaissance mindset, with large-scale changes in how
people approached life.
A. Progress: The idea of progress obsessed the people of Europe, things were
getting better, noticeably every day. There was more food, better food, more
medicine and better medicine and more technology and better technology almost
daily. These rapid advances led people to believe that the world was reaching some
sort of apex within which Humanity was becoming perfected.
B. Darwin- The progressive spirit drew on Darwin’s theory of the origin of the
species—published in 1859 and gaining a wider and wider audience ever since. The
book made people re-think the ideas of human fate: as Darwin said, “those
individuals with any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best
chance of surviving and passing on these traits to their offspring” taken as a whole,
then, the human race was therefore improving slowly.
1. Some people took this message to mean that the human race
represented a spectrum of development, arguing that the ‘primitive’ races
were so backward because of their lesser evolution.
a) This was convenient, of course, because these were the same
people whom the nations of Europe were exploiting for their own
economic and political needs—thus, social Darwinism became a self
fulfilling prophecy
b) This also led to a series of anti-miscegenation laws in many
countries that forbade unions that were disadvantageous to the survival
of the species—many countries defined ‘races’ of man and then ranked
them, forbidding marriage that would pollute the higher of the two
2. Furthermore, people felt that the force of natural selection should be
‘helped’ along by a science called EUGENICS. That is, attempting to improve
the Human race by selective breeding. The theory was made scientifically
respectable by Sir Francis Galton, an otherwise inoffensive statistician who
published a work on social statistics in 1869.
a) Led to movements in several countries that tried to improve
humanity:
(1) USA: Margret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in
the US in 1916 to provide cheap birth control to poor
(therefore, weak and bad) people so as to avoid having them
overrun the rich (and therefore good and strong) people with
their high birth rates. She built on the popularity of laws
forbidding anyone with a congenital defect like epilepsy or
mental retardation from marrying in several states
(Connecticut first, 1920) And also upon the laws that allowed
states to fore sterilize anyone who stayed in a mental
institution for a length of time (first Indiana 1907)
(2) Germany: Hitler was able to write from Prison that the
American eugenics program was to be envied… ‘nuff said.
(3) Australia—tried to exterminate the aborigines by taking
their children and having them raised by white families.
C. Frederich Nietzsche- German philosopher (1844-1900) whose writing
spoke directly to the modern world being born around him. Famous for saying that
“God is dead and that we have killed him (can you not smell the rotting of god’s
corpse)” This argument advanced the idea that religion, by the 19th century, had lost
its reality to most Europeans, and, as such, we were in danger of slipping into a
dangerous NIHLISM, where there was no value at all.
1. He announced the coming of the Uber mensch, or superman, who has
overcome all history and self to become a truly original and creative human
being, no longer playing in the ashes of the past. This uberman was a totally
new creature, extraordinary in world controlled by a stupid mob.
2. Was nationalistic and argued that the violent struggle between
nations represent the highest form of creativity that a nation can engage in,
in that it purges the nation of the weak and useless like a fire purges steel of
weakness.
3. Advocated the will to power, that is the idea that everyone has the will
and right to step beyond their position… if they can evict the person
occupying that higher position. This took over the position that morality had
occupied before the untimely death of god.
4. And, lastly, replaced heaven and hell with the eternal recurrence. The
idea that the afterlife was an eternal repeat of your life as you have so far
lived it. This is not a hopeful view designed to make you more likely to
volunteer your time to at the ASPCA.
D. Sigmund Freud- Austrian father of psychology (1856-1939) whose theories
explored the ways in which human nature worked—not as it was supposed to work.
Freud felt that all humans were destined to be unhappy, as we all have dark,
atavistic urges that we must suppress in order to live in society.
1. These urges guaranteed that man could be a happy brute or a neurotic
civilized man.
2. Posited a three part construction of Human nature- an ID, EGO and
SUPEREGO. This made a goodly portion of human being unknowable,
irrational and potentially destructive. No longer were we created in god’s
image, or rational, enlightened factors of our own fate, but instead driven by
twisted urges to behave in ways that defied explanation
3. His student Carl Jung (1875-1961) took things a step farther—arguing
that the unconscious was collective among all humans and populated by
ARCHETYPES that we sought to recreate in the living, day to day world.
Therefore, not only were individuals irrational, but the societies they created
were bound to be irrational and inexplicable since they sought to recreate
the archetypes
E. Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) – Italian criminologist who discovered and
popularized the idea of DEGENERATION, that is the possibility of backsliding from
all of the wonderful progress that Europeans had been making for the past century,
by comparing the bodies of criminals and also their faces in these creepy multi-
exposure photos that showed common traits among many criminals
1. (If you took a multi exposure pic of criminals executed in MS in 1930,
would it be black or white. SO all black people are criminal?)
a) Large jaws, forward projection of jaw, low sloping foreheads
b) High cheekbones, flattened or upturned nose
c) Handle-shaped ears
d) Large chins, very prominent in appearance
e) Hawk-like noses or fleshy lips
f) Hard shifty eyes, scanty beard or baldness
g) Insensitivity to pain, long arms
2. Taken with the Eugenics movement, this possibility of degeneration
made the struggle to improve human stock seem like a necessity.
F. Common Themes:
1. Anxiety over man’s position
2. Belief in the irrationality of man’s drives and desires
III. Culture in the Fin De Siècle-
A. Art: Romanticism begins to give way to REALISM—that is art that shows life
as it is, not as it is supposed to be. This lead to an art that was sometimes
unpleasant to look at, read or listen to.
1. Because of this, the idea that art needs have no reason for being other
than itself—Ars grata arsis—comes into popularity.
2. The target audience, not the critics, becomes the arbiter of good taste
and propriety—this reliance on uneducated taste leads to several lighting
fast trends in art
3. All art must be original and new, and should not lean on or recreate
earlier ideas or works.
4. Impressionism- Monet and van Gogh, also Munch and Matisse arose in
response to the ultra realism that was practiced by Courbet and Manet
5. Realism foundered in the arts on the rocky shoal of photography-
which created images more real than could be painted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forehead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheekbone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose
B. Literature: Realism gains popularity hear as well—leading to an exploration
of the lives of ‘everyday people’ this realism occasionally took the form of
symbolism, where symbols (cf archetypes) could stand in for controversial topics of
the day
1. Also, emphasized language and word play even to the point of their
language being unintelligible (Jas. Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake)
2. Pioneered the stream of consciousness—a psychological idea that
Freud and others argued for, was applied to literature by authors who
removed all mediation between the reader and the character and wrote only
the character’s thoughts and reactions into the book—no narration or
explanation as to what was going on at all.
3. Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and W. B. Yeats
C. Lively Arts-
1. Theatre- interbred with the novelists, was deeply skeptical and
pessimistic. Presented realist works that explored the lives of everyday
people in everyday situations, and was thus a huge change from the 19th
century style.
2. Opera- Ditto.
3. Dance- Ditto with the addition of folk themes and dances into the
previously existing formal dances
4. Music- challenged 19th century ideals of emotional and progressive
music, instead embraced new and novel instruments, scales and forms of
music that intended to provoke a visceral reaction rather than an intellectual
one.
D. Common factors-
1. The new art favored an elite clique over the populism inherent in
romanticism which was easily understandable
2. The new art challenged the traditions of art (duh) and replaced them
with things that were new for being new’s sake
3. Emotion is more valuable a reaction from a piece than is intellect
IV. Politics in the Fin de Siècle—we are drawing near to the toppling point of the
balance of power set up by Metternich nearly 60 years ago, stresses in Europe and their
colonies had reached a boiling point that would only be relieved by an explosive conflict
that would put all other wars the earth had seen to shame.
A. Resurgence of ANTI SEMITISM- the term is commonly used to denote
prejudice against Jews, however should by definition define prejudice against any of
the people in the Semitic language group. AS had been a facet of European life since
the diaspora in 73 CE. However, the economic uncertainty that accompanied the
boom and bust economic cycle of the late 19th century, the popularity of theories of
race and also of eugenics programs and finally an effective press led to a resurgence
of the practice.
1. Anti Semitism reared its head in many European countries-
a) France: with the Dreyfus affair, 1894, had a promising young
French Capitan accused of treason and sentenced to life in solitary
confinement—largely on the basis of his being Jewish. He was
reinstated in 1906 after the crimes were seen to be the fault of someone
else. However, the discussion served to isolate Jews from mainstream
French society
b) America and Germany—Jews were seen as eugenic risks, who
had to be limited in immigrating.
c) Russia—a series of POGROMS against Jews killed many
thousands with effective government complicity
2. Reaction: The Jews of the nations of Europe lacked an effective voice,
instead attempting to blend into their respective cultures—French, rather
than Jewish. However, THEODORE HERZL (1860 – 1904), raised a
sometimes lone voice to defend the interests of the Jews arguing that the
Jews would never fully incorporate into the European nations, and should
therefore have a separate homeland. This idea was called ZIONISM
a) Unfortunately, although predictably, he couched his argument in
the same racial/eugenic terms that the anti-Semites were marshalling
against the Jews—condemning the current inhabitants of Palestine as
barbarians.
B. Instability- the period saw great instability throughout Europe on a number
of fronts:
1. Violent clashes between workers and business and government-
partially spawned by the socialist movement and fed by the increasing
disparity in how the societal rewards of an increasingly effective capitalism
were divided, the workers often revolted against business—and in so doing
often came into conflict with the governments that were nearly synonymous
with them
2. Conflicts between church and state in France, Germany and Italy
3. Nationalist conflict in England and in the British isles and the AH
4. War then revolution in Russia (1905)
5. The massive upswing of the women’s suffrage movement—especially
in America and England.
a) In America this movement was tied to the antislavery movement
and later equal rights movement—much of the anger in American
women was occasioned by the fact that the 15th amendment gave black
men the right to vote, but not white women, the racist 19th century all
over again.
b) In England the movement was began peacefully, but ended up in
much more violent form led by women such as EMMELINE PARKHURST
who chained herself to the house of commons, smashed store windows
and burnt down the houses of MPs who were anti-suffrage
V. World War One- Beginnings and precedents
A. Balance of Power-
1. Ever since the Metternich plan had been enacted, nations had been
jockeying for a position in which they would be invulnerable from attack
from all the other nations—or have a position so much stronger that war was
possible
a) This struggle was abetted by the forging of modern nations with
fast communications and unified presses that could quickly turn the
politics of war into mass politics and mobilize the entire nation rather
than an elite and the army—leading to unheard of levels of economic
participation in warfare
2. Bismarck, as elder statesman of Germany, had realized that there
were exactly five major nations in Europe with first class military power.
Therefore, it was always in Germany’s interest to be a part of the larger half,
than part of the smaller.
a) Kaiser Wilhelm II however, did not see it this way, instead seeing
the massive military of Germany as being a world beater—thus he could
stand to be on the smaller side and still win.
3. German policies at the outset of the war and also directly previously
to it had alienated Britain, The USA and also Japan thus turning what would
have been another little European war into a world-wide conflict of many
nations
B. Age of crisis- from 1905-14 there were a series of political crisis that could
have been used as a pretext for war—however, these were all settled one way or
another short of war.
1. However, in 1914 the feeling in much of Europe was il faut finir, the
waiting for a war must end—and the feeling in Germany was that they would
never be more powerful vs. the brits than they were at the moment—thus
the time to strike was now and no time was to be wasted.
2. On 28th of July, therefore the Germans initiated their Von Schlieffen
Plan and began the war that would redraw the map of Europe.