The Violent 20th Century

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The Violent 20th Century

• World Wars I and II

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Why should we study history?

• provides us the raw information we need to see if
  our ideas about the way the world works are
  correct.
• understanding past events helps us understand the
  world we live in.

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20th Century History the World Wars

• We focus on the 20th century because events in
  that century are most directly responsible for
  important features of the 21st century world.
• World Wars I and II
• The two most devastating wars in human history

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World War I

• Took place on the Continent of Europe
• More than 15 million people died
• Destroyed three European Empires
• Austria-Hungary
• Germany
• Russia

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World War I

• Gave rise to new major powers
• Japan
• U.S.
• Led to the 1917 Russian Revolution
• Birth of Communist societies
• Set stage for Cold War post 1945

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Origins

• Europes instability can be traced back to the
  creation of a unified Germany in the 1870s.
• The European powers clashed over imperial issues
  in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
  centuries, as Germany sought colonies and markets.

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Understanding WWI structural overview

• Rigidity of system of European alliances
• Before the war, Europe had a flexible alliance
  system.
• England was holder of the balance
• On eve of the war, the alliances became fixed
  against one another.
• England casts its lot with France

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Understanding WWI power

• Power competition in Europe
• By the 1890s, German heavy industry had surpasses
  that of England's.
• By 1900 German Gross National Product was twice
  that of England's.

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Understanding WWI security dilemma

• Britain's response to German power contributed to
  tensions
• In 1904, England moved away from its position as
  an essentially independent state to one that
  established a tight alliance with France.
• In 1907, the Anglo-French alliance broadened to
  include Russia and became known as the Triple
  Entente.

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Understanding WWI alliances

• Germany, seeing itself encircled, tightened its
  relations with Austro-Hungary.
• What had been a flexible multipolar system in
  Europe prior to 1900 had become an inflexible
  bipolar system by 1913, the year before the war
  broke out.

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Understanding WWI nationalism

• Both Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey were
  multinational empires.
• Both were threatened by the rise of nationalism,
  which was on the rise was growing, particularly
  in the Balkans and Central Europe.
• On June 28, 1914 the heir apparent to the throne
  of Austria-Hungary, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand
  was assasinated by a Serbian nationalist while he
  toured Sarajevo.

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Understanding WWI perceptions

• Cult of the Offensive
• Perception of easy victory

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Difficulty of War

• WWI bogged down into trench warfare

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Before and after the Battle of Ypres, France.
The top photo was taken in 1914, the bottom
photo in 1918.
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Before and after the Battle of Ypres, France.
The top photo was taken in 1913, the bottom
photo in 1915.
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Treaty of Versailles

• WWI ended with German defeat.
• Victorious powers, England, France, and the U.S.,
  met in Versailles, France to negotiate a peace
  treaty.
• England and France blamed Germany for the war and
  demanded reparations
• U.S. President Woodrow Wilson blamed the war on
  the balance of power and pressed for the creation
  of the League of Nations
• Wilsons vision of the war ultimately shaped the
  majority of the settlement

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Peace-making, 1919the Versailles settlement

• Germany was found guilty of having begun the
  war Germany lost land to Poland Alsace-Lorraine
  was returned to France Germany was to be
  disarmed, with France occupying the Rhineland as
  a security zone and reparations were to be
  repaid to the victorious powers.

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The Versailles Settlement nationalism

• A series of new states was created in the Balkans
  and Eastern and Central Europe, where the Ottoman
  and Austro-Hungarian empires had collapsed.
  Colonial territories of Germany and portions of
  the collapsed Ottoman empire were turned into
  League Mandates, administered by Britain and
  France

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The Versailles Settlement collective security

• Future wars were to be deterred by the League of
  Nations, which would take collective action
  against aggressor states.

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Twenty years crisis, 1919-1939

• Since the Industrial Revolution, a global
  capitalist economy had been developing, drawing
  all parts of the world into transnational flows
  of finance and trade.
• The First World War disrupted this development,
  with a profound negative impact on the
  international economic system.

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The political economy of the Twenty years crisis

• In 1929, the Wall Street stock-market crash
  induced a world depression
• Depressions in many countries around the world
  stimulated the rise of extremist political
  movements, an upsurge of introverted nationalism,
  and the pursuit of economic autarky
  (independence).

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Failure of the Versailles Settlement

• Japan, although it fought against Germany during
  World War I, emerged from that war similarly
  dissatisfied with the post-war settlement.
• Between 1931 and 1933, Japan consolidated its
  hold over Manchuria, establishing a puppet state,
  Manchuguo
• the League of Nations found itself incapable of
  responding to this blatant act of aggression.

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Origins of WWII Pacific theater

• By 1937, Japan was at war with China, which
  caused worsening relations with the US, also with
  a strong imperial interest in China.
• When the US limited Japans ability to import oil
  and other vital strategic commodities in 1939,
  relations between those two powers drastically
  deteriorated - culminating in the bombing of
  Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

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Origins of war European theater

• Confronted with numerous international crises
  (e.g. China) policy-makers in Britain and France
  adopted a policy of appeasing Adolph Hitlers
  territorial demands.
• September 1938, British Prime Minister Neville
  Chamberlain agreed to German demands to partition
  Czechoslovakia
• Six months later Hitler breaks promise and
  invades rest of Czechoslovakia
• Britain and France abandoned appeasement and
  declared war on Germany once it invaded Poland in
  September 1939.

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What happened to the U.S.?

• U.S. isolationism
• By the end of WWI, the U.S., which emerged as one
  of the most powerful countries in the world,
  withdraws from involvement in European politics.
• Crushing blow to League of Nations