The Crisis of the imperial Order, 1900-1929

*Origins of the Crisis in Europe and the Middle East

*The “Great War” and the Russian Revolutions, 1914-18

Peace and Dislocation in Europe, 1919-1929

China and Japan: Contrasting Destinies

*The New Middle East

Society, Culture, and Technology in the Industrialized World

Learning Objectives:

After reading and studying this chapter your should be able to discuss:

1. Be able to trace the course of World War I and discuss some of its most important consequences in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East.

2. Be able to describe the outbreak and early years of the Russian Revolution, as well as the development of the Soviet Union under Lenin.

3. Be able to compare and contrast the histories of China and Japan before and after World War I.

4. Be able to discuss the impact of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scientific, cultural, and technological innovations on society and the environment.

Focus and Essential Questions:

What led to the outbreak of the First World War?

How did the war lead to revolution in Russia?

What role did the war play in eroding European dominance in the world?

Why did China and Japan follow such divergent paths in this period?

How did the Middle East change as a result of the war?

How did European and North American society and technology change in the aftermath of the war?

Origins of the Crisis in Europe and the Middle East

Nationalism and the System of Alliances

The system of nation-states that emerged in Europe led

not to cooperation but to competition

At the same time, Europe’s great powers had been divided into two loose

alliances. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed the *Triple Alliance

France, Great Britain, and Russia created the *Triple

Entente

A massive crisis emerged in the

Balkans between 1908 and 1913

Each state was guided by its own self-interest and

success

Militarism

The growth of mass armies after 1900 heightened the

existing tensions in Europe

*Conscription had been established as a regular

practice in most Western countries before 1914

European armies doubled in size between 1890 and 1914;

Militarism—aggressive preparation for war—was

growing

The rivalry between Austria-Hungary and Russia for domination

of these new states created serious tensions

in the region

*Serbia, supported by Russia, wished to create an independent Slavic

state in the Balkans

The Serbian Problem

The Outbreak of War: Summer 1914

Assassination in Sarajevo

*Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the

throne of Austria-hungary, was assassinated

by the Black Hand, a Serbian terrorist

organization that wanted a free *Bosnia

*Gavrilo Princip shot the archduke and his wife

Austria-Hungary Responds

The Austro-Hungarian government did not know whether or not the Serbian

government had been directly involved in the archduke’s

assassination

*Emperor William II of Germany gave unlimited

support to Austria-Hungary

Austrian leaders sent an ultimatum to Serbia—but was a series of extreme demands

leading to war

Russia Mobilizes

*Czar Nicholas II ordered partial mobilization of

the Russian army against Austria-Hungary

Unable to partially mobilize, the czar

ordered a full mobilization of the

Russian army, knowing that Germany would

consider this order an act of war

The Conflict BroadensGermany declared war on

Russia

*General Alfred von Schlieffen created the German military plan of action known as the

*Schlieffen Plan

Germany would hold Russia back while conducting a rapid invasion of France—therefore,

declaring war on France

In retaliation, Great Britain declared war on Germany

The “Great War” and the Russian Revolutions, 1914-18

1914 to 1915: Illusions and

Stalemate

Government *propaganda

worked in stirring up national hatreds

before the war

Almost everyone believed that the

war would be over in a few weeks

The Western Front

The Schlieffen Plan had called for the German army

to make a vast encircling movement through

Belgium into northern France

The war quickly turned into a stalemate, as neither

the Germans nor the French could dislodge each

other from the trenches they had dug for shelter

The Eastern Front

Eastern Front was marked by mobility

The Russian army moved into eastern Germany but was defeated at the *Battle

of Tannenberg and the *Battle of Masurian Lakes

The Austrians had been defeated by the Russians in Galicia and thrown out of

Serbia as well

The Italians betrayed their German and Austrian

allies in the Triple Alliance by attacking Austria in

May 1915. Italy thus joined France, Great Britain, and Russia, who had formed the Triple Entente now

called the *Allied Powers

German-Austrian army defeated the Russian army in Galicia and pushed the

Russians far back into their own territory

1916 to 1917: The Great Slaughter

By 1916, the Trenches became an elaborate

system of defense: 5 feet high and 30 yards wide, concrete machine-gun

nest with heavy artillery

Troops lived in holes in the ground

Tactics of Trench Warfare

Breakthrough—throwing masses of men against enemy

lines that had first been battered by artillery

Millions of young men died in failed attempts at

breakthrough

World War I had turned into a *war of attrition, a war

based on wearing the other side down by constant

attacks and heavy losses

War in the AirBy the end of 1915, airplanes

had appeared on the battlefront for the first time

Fights for control of the air occurred and increased over

time

Hand pistols to machine guns

Germans used their giant airships—the zeppelins—to bomb London and eastern

England—though hydrogen gas became raging infernos

Widening of the War

Both sides sought to gain new allies who might provide a

winning advantage—the Ottoman Empire had joined Germany;

Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers

In the Middle East, a British officer known as *Lawrence of Arabia urged Arab princes to revolt against their Ottoman

overlords

The British mobilized forces from India, Australia, and New

Zealand

Entry of the United States

At first, the United States tried to remain neutral

The British ship Lusitania was sunk by German forces

through unrestricted submarine warfare

*Admiral Holtzendorff wanted to continue the

attack method which drew the US into the war

The Home Front: The Impact of Total War

As World War I dragged on, it became a *total war,

involving a complete mobilization of resources

and people

Led to an increase in government powers and

the manipulation of public opinion to keep the war

effort going

Increased Government Powers

Wartime governments also

expanded their power over their

economies—*planned

economies directed by government

agencies

Manipulation of Public Opinion

Authoritarian regimes, such as those of Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, relied

on force to subdue their populations

The British Parliament passed the Defense of the

Realm Act (DORA)—arrested protestors as traitors

General propaganda

Total War and WomenWorld War I created new roles for women

Women were asked to take over jobs that had not been available to them before—truck drivers,

farm laborers, and factory workers

Both men and women seemed to expect that many of the new

jobs for women were only temporary

The return to the old order and the right to vote

Background to Revolution

Russia was unprepared both military and technologically for

the total war of World War I

Lacking guns, soldiers using broomsticks to train and sent to

the front without rifles

The Russian army suffered incredible losses—two million

soldiers were killed, and another four to six million

wounded or six million wounded or captured

Beginnings of Upheaval

Czar Nicholas II was an autocratic ruler whose wife,

Alexandra was German born

*Grigori Rasputin, an uneducated Siberian peasant

who claimed to be a holy man—his influence made him an important power behind the

throne

Assassinated in 1916, poisoned, shot, beat, and

drowned

The March Revolution

A series of strikes led by working-class women broke out in the capital

city of *Petrograd

The government had started bread rationing after the price of bread

had skyrocketed—Strikes shut down

factories demanding “Peace and Bread”

The czar tried to dissolve the Duma, or legislative body. A provisional government was established which urged the

czar to step down, eventually doing so

*Alexander Kerensky, now head of provisional

government, continued the war

*The Soviets challenged this government and its policies—the *Bolsheviks came to power

The Rise of Lenin

The *Bolsheviks began as a small faction of Marxist party called the Russian Social Democrats led by

*V. I. Lenin

He believed that only a violent revolution could

destroy the capitalist system

German military leaders, hoping to create

disorder in Russia, shipped Lenin to Russia

—ushering in a new stage of the Revolution

They promised an end to the war the

redistribution of all land, etc.

“Peace, Land, Bread”

The Bolsheviks Seize Power

Lenin and Leon Trotsky took over the government

The Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists

and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk—they gave up

eastern Poland, Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic

Real peace did not come, however, because the country

soon sank into civil war

Civil War in Russia

Many people were opposed to the new

Communist regime—Liberals and anti-Leninist socialists

The Allies sent thousands of troops to various parts of Russia in the hope of bringing

Russia back into the war

The Red Army was forced to fight on

many fronts against these opponents

Members of the local soviet murdered the czar and his family and burned their

bodies in a nearby mine shaft

Triumph of the Communists

A policy of *war communism was used to ensure regular supplies for the Red Army

A new Red secret police (Cheka) began a Red Terror aimed at the

destruction of all those who opposed the new regime

Communism transformed Russia into a centralized state

and was largely hostile toward the Allied powers

The New Middle East

Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire

The empire of the Ottoman Turks had been growing

steadily weaker

“the sick man of Europe”

France seized Algeria and Tunisia and Great Britain took control of Egypt; Greece also declared its independence in

the 19th century

reformers seized control of the empire’s

government and adopted a constitution

*Abdulhamid II, suspended the new

constitution and ruled by authoritarian means

He feared of assassination and had pets taste all his food

Impact of World War I

World War I was the final blow

The British sought to undermine Ottoman rule in

the Arabian Peninsula by supporting Arab nationalist

T. E. Lawrence—”Lawrence of Arabia”, governor of Makkah declared Arabia independent

from Ottoman rule

British troops seized Palestine

Massacre of the Armenians

During the war, the Ottoman Turks had

alienated the Allies with their policies toward

minority subjects

The Christian Armenian minority had been pressing the Ottoman government

for its independence

Violent reaction killing Armenian men and

expelling women and children

1.5 million Armenians had been killed and

500,000 deported

*genocide or *ethnic cleansing—the deliberate mass

murder of a particular racial,

political, or cultural group

Emergence of the Turkish Republic

Ottoman Empire collapsed

Great Britain and France divided up the Ottoman

territories in the Middle East

Turkey remained under Ottoman control; Greece

invaded Turkey

*Colonel Mustafa Kemal—led the creation of a new

Republic of Turkey created in 1923

The Modernization of Turkey

President Kemal, known as *Atatürk (“Father Turk”) created the

modern state of Turkey

Turkish language with Roman Alphabet,

European style names, Factories, Secular state

“Religion is like a heavy blanket that keeps the

people of Turkey asleep”

Men were forbidden to wear the fez, the

brimless cap worn by Turkish Muslims

Women were forbidden to wear the veil (also

given the right to vote in 1934)

The Turkish Republic was the product of

Atatürk’s efforts

The Beginnings of Modern Iran

A similar process of modernization was underway in Persia

The discovery of oil in the southern part of the

country in 1908

In 1921, Reza Khan led a military mutiny that seized

control of *Tehran, the capital city

*Reza Shah Pahlavi tried to follow the example of

Kemal Atatürk in Turkey; Persia became

the modern state of *Iran in 1935

He created a Western-style education system

Reza Shah Pahlavi drew closer to Nazi Germany

Arab Nationalism

Iraq, Palestine, and Jordan were assigned to Great

Britain; Syria and Lebanon to France

For the most part, Europeans created these Middle Eastern states; Europeans determined

the nations’ borders and divided the peoples.

*Ibn Saud united Arabs in the northern part of the Arabian

Peninsula—*Saudi Arabia

The Problem of Palestine

In Palestine, the nationalism of Jews and Arabs came into conflict because both groups

viewed the area as a potential national state

Zionist movement and the Jewish state

*Balfour Declaration—Britain expressed support for a

national home for the Jews in Palestine