the crisis of the imperial order: world war i. alliances

THE CRISIS OF THE IMPERIAL ORDER: WORLD WAR I

Alliances

Assassination of Franz FerdinandThis photograph depicts the capture of the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Habsburg throne, on a visit to Sarajevo in Austrian-ruled Bosnia. A young Bosnian nationalist, Gavril Princip, was arrested minutes after he had assassinated the archduke and his wife, on June 28, 1914. This political murder helped unleash World War I. (Gernsheim Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Center, University of Texas, Austin)

Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

The Schleiffen Plan

"N'Oublions Jamais" This 1915 French poster with its passionate headline--Never Forget!--dramatizes Germany's brutal invasion of Belgium in 1914. Neutral Belgium is personified as a traumatized mother, assaulted and ravished by savage outlaws. The "rape of Belgium" featured prominently, and effectively, in anti-German propaganda. (Mary Evans Picture Library)

"N'Oublions Jamais"


• Frontline trenches. Group of French servicemen, "Poilus", in front of the entrance of a cote. Woods of Hirtzbach. (Haut-Rhin. France. June 16th, 1917). "Poilus" (hairy) is the nickname to French WWI soldiers, since they could not afford the luxury of regular shaving. It is a term of affection, especially now.

Tranchée de 1ère ligne. Groupe de militaires Français "Poilus", devant l'entrée d'un abri. Bois d'Hirtzbach. (Haut-Rhin. France. 16 juin 1917).

Russian munitions workerAll over Europe, governments recruited women to work in munitions factories. This Russian government poster uses an image of a working woman to rally support for the war. The text reads, "Everything for the war effort! Subscribe to the war loans at 5-1/2 percent." (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum)

Russian munitions worker


Indians at frontIndian soldiers from the so-called warrior castes had long been a critical factor in imperial Britain's global power. These Indian troops, preparing for the Battle of the Somme in 1916 during World War I, ironically appear to be out for a pleasant bicycling excursion. Dispatched to France in October 1914, most Indian soldiers were moved to western Asia in 1915 to fight against the Ottoman Empire. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum)

Indians at front


Harlem HellfightersReturning to New York in 1919 aboard the USS Stockholm, these black men of the famed U.S. 369th Division had fought in the bloody battle of the Meuse-Argonne during World War I. The French government awarded 150 of them the coveted Croix de Guerre. Yet, since the United States practiced strict racial segregation at that time, these soldiers couldn't be served in any restaurant south of Philadelphia. (Corbis)

Harlem Hellfighters


Mustafa KemalIn 1919 Mustafa Kemal, a hero of the Gallipoli campaign, had formed a nationalist government in central Anatolia with the backing of fellow army officers. After World War I, he was determined to modernize Turkey on the western model. Here he is shown wearing a European-style suit and teaching the Latin alphabet. (Stock Montage)

Mustafa Kemal


The Armenian Genocide

• Turkish leaders first executed Armenian leaders…

Armenian genocideIn 1915, when some Armenians welcomed Russian armies as liberators after years of persecution, the Ottoman government ordered a genocidal mass deportation of its Armenian citizens from their homeland to the empire's eastern provinces. This photo, taken in Kharpert in 1915 by a German businessman from his hotel window, shows Turkish guards marching Armenian men off to a prison, where they will be tortured to death. A million Armenians died from murder, starvation, and disease during World War I. (Courtesy of the Armenian Library & Museum of America, Watertown, MA)

Armenian genocide


Men shot, killed and buried in mass graves…

Women and

children slowly

starved to death on a forced march

• After their defeat in World War I, the new Ottoman government tried the leaders of the genocide and sentenced them to death in absentia. However within a few months the proceedings were suspended and the matter dropped. The Armenian survivors were not allowed to return to the Armenian plateau.

The Forgotten Genocide

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Hitler_Armenian_Quote.JPG

Delegates to Peace Conference, 1919The Arab Prince Faisal (1885-1993) (foreground)--who would later become king of Iraq--attended the Paris Peace Conference, where he lobbied for the creation of an independent Arab kingdom from part of the former Ottoman Turkish holdings in the Middle East. Among his supporters was the British office Colonel T.E. Lawrence (middle row, second from the right), on his way to becoming the legendary "Lawrence of Arabia." (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum)

Delegates to Peace Conference, 1919


Versailles Treaty signedThis group portrait by the painter William Orpen (born in Dublin, 1878) features the three principal Allied leaders, David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Woodrow Wilson (all seated in the center), who have finally reached an agreement at Versailles, June 28, 1919. Like Paul Nash, Orpen had been recruited by the War Propaganda Bureau to paint on the Western Front. He was later commissioned to paint this portrait of politicians at the Versailles Peace Conference. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum)

Versailles Treaty signed


Failed Peace• Paris Peace Conference dominated by the “Big Three”

– Georges Clemenceau (France)– Woodrow Wilson (USA)– Lloyd George (Britain)

• Decisions dominated by the following factors:– Punishing Germany– Dealing with new states that had been created by the collapse of A-H Empire

and Germany– Rise of communist Russia– Post-war bitterness

• Fatal Flaws– Went too far in insulting/punishing Germany– Left out new Russian leaders, leading to bad feelings– Wartime promises to Arabs were forgotten; pleas from China went ignored

• Outcome– Viewed largely as a failure– League of Nations to created to keep peace, but given no authority or means by

which to do so

Palestinian Arabs protestIn the early twentieth century, Great Britain and France had agreed to divide up the Arab lands; at Versailles President Wilson had insisted that the right of self-determination should be applied to the conquered Ottoman territories. To present their view to the Americans, Arab nationalists passed a resolution on July 2, 1919 that called for political independence, and talked of possible French rule under a League of Nations mandate and the establishment of a Jewish national home. This wasn't the view of all Arabs. In this photo, Palestinian Arabs protest against large-scale Jewish migration into Palestine. (Roger-Viollet/Getty Images)

Palestinian Arabs protest


"Freedom" poster, 1905This peasant woman, who appears as the symbol of radical demands in the Russian countryside in the revolution of 1905, holds aloft a red socialist banner that reads "Freedom!" This vibrant drawing is on the first page of a new review featuring political cartoons from the rapidly growing Russian popular press. (New York Public Library, Slavonic Division)

"Freedom" poster, 1905


Russian demonstrations, 1917The mass demonstrations in Petrograd, June 1917, showed a surge of working-class support for the Bolsheviks. In this photo, a few banners of the Mensheviks and other moderate socialists are drowned in a sea of Bolshevik slogans. (Sovfoto)

Russian demonstrations, 1917


Lenin as orator, 1920The Bolsheviks were a small but tightly disciplined group of radicals obedient to the will of their leader, Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924). Here he is addressing Red Army soldiers in Sverdlov Square, Moscow, in 1920. At the time, the Bolsheviks were mopping up the last of the anti-Bolshevik forces and were fully engaged in a war with Poland. The fate of the Revolution depended on the fighting spirit of the Red Army soldiers and on their loyalty to Lenin. (David King Collection)

Lenin as orator, 1920


Suffragist posterThis 1910 poster protested the force feeding of suffragettes on hunger strike in Britain. It invited voters to reject the Liberal government, guilty of what suffragettes viewed as state torture. (Library of Congress)

Suffragist poster


The Cost of War

"The War As I Saw It"The War As I Saw It was the title of a series of grotesque drawings that appeared in 1920 in Simplicissimus, Germany's leading satirical magazine. Nothing shows better the terrible impact of World War I than this profoundly disturbing example of expressionist art. (Caroline Buckler)

"The War As I Saw It"Map: The First World War in EuropeMap: Territorial Changes in Europe After World War I


The Survivors

Henry Lumley, one of the first skin graft patients

Antibiotics had not yet been invented, meaning it was very hard to graft tissue from one part of the body to another because infection often developed. invented the “tubed pedicle”. This used a flap of skin from the chest or forehead and “swung” it into place over the face. The flap remained attached but was stitched into a tube. This kept the original blood supply intact and dramatically reduced the infection rate.

Plastic surgery makes huge leaps

the crisis of the imperial order: world war i. alliances

Documents

world war

war loans

war effort

imperial war museum

schleiffen plan slide

french government

indian soldiers

french poster