Change of century and WWI

1
Change of century and WWI
2
Describe the Revolution in Russia and the
reorganization of the country into the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics.

• During the Great War (World War I), Russia was
  still controlled by the tsar and a wealthy
  aristocracy.
• The poorly led and equipped Russian army suffered
  crushing losses in fighting the Germans.
• Starvation and shortages led to rebellions
  throughout Russia.
• Citizens formed councils (called soviets), and
  seized army barracks and factories.
• Amid the turmoil, the tsar abdicated power to a
  new Provisional Government.
• The competing groups that fought for control,
  included the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks (the two
  wings of the Social Democratic Party), and the
  Social Revolutionaries.
• Lenins Bolsheviks ultimately took control and
  expanded their power during the October
  Revolution.
• The Communists, as the Bolsheviks were called
  then, defeated their enemies due to the new Red
  Army and leadership of Leon Trotsky.
• The new government first recognized the
  independence of many regions and then combined
  with them to form the Union of Soviet Socialist
  Republics.

3
How do China and Japan have different destinies
in the twentieth century? Do they react
differently to pressures from the West?

• China and Japan shared a common heritage in many
  ways, but in the modern period they were on a
  collision course.
• Chinese and Japanese rising populations create
  social economic changes facing each country.
• In China in 1908, the Empress Dowager Cixi died
  and the Qing Dynasty collapsed
• Sun Yat-sen took over the government, but his
  government was powerless due to the control of
  local military strongmen called warlords.
• Sun Yat-sen resigned and a powerful warlord, Yuan
  Shikai, took over.
• By World War I, Japans economy was growing
  rapidly.
• Japan also used the war as an opportunity to
  seize territory in China.
• In 1915 Japan presented China with the Twenty-One
  Demands that would have made China a Japanese
  protectorate.
• The Chinese violently protested these Twenty-One
  Demands and thirty years of fighting began
  between the two countries as a result.
• The end of the First World War peace conference
  resulted in Japan keeping former German territory
  in China.
• This was triggered by a student-led protest
  movement called the May Fourth Movement.

4
What promises do the British make to different
groups during World War I? What are the results
of these promises? Is the conflict that results
in the Middle East based on religious
differences?

• There were diplomatic promises made by the
  British during World War I to the Arabs and the
  Zionists.
• After the Ottoman Empire victory at Gallipoli,
  the British decided to defeat the Ottoman Empire
  from within by offering the prince of Mecca,
  Hussein ibn Ali, a kingdom of his own in the
  Middle East if he led a revolt against the
  Ottomans. Husseins son, Faisal, led an Arab army
  against the Ottoman Empire in the Arab Revolt of
  1916 contributing to the defeat of the Ottoman
  Empire.
• The Arabs and Ottomans were both Muslim, and
  therefore the Christian British convincing these
  Muslim parties to fight each other clearly shows
  that the motives were political and not
  religious.
• Meanwhile other promises were made to another
  group, European Zionists.
• The European Jewish population developed a
  nationalist movement called Zionism.
• This movement, led by Theodore Herzl, had the
  goals of combating anti-Semitism and returning to
  the ancestral homeland in Palestine or the Jewish
  homeland.
• In 1917, Foreign Secretary Sir Alfred Balfour
  issued the Balfour Declaration where he states
  that the British government supported the
  creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
• The current conflicts in Palestine are a result
  of these British promises and were not born out
  of religious difference but political choices and
  promises made by the British at the conclusion of
  the First World War.

5
What were the causes of the First World War?

• The three most important causes of the Great War
  were nationalism, the system of military
  alliances, and German plans to dominate Europe
  which coupled both militarism and imperialism.
  (NIMS)
• Nationalism was both a unifying and a divisive
  element in European society.
• Because of nationalist sentiments, Europeans saw
  war as an opportunity for independence and as
  revenge for previous defeats.
• Europeans also had forgotten their fear of war,
  as most nineteenth-century wars were quick,
  inexpensive in both lives and matériel, and
  victorious.
• The tangle of diplomatic and military ties
  created a web of connections between countries
  pledging mutual support in case of war.
• Those alliances quickly became battle lines after
  the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and
  the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia.
  France, Great Britain, and Russia were the
  primary combatants for the Entente Powers
  Germany and Austria-Hungary were the Central
  Powers. German plans for European domination
  called for quick victories against France and
  Russia and hinged on British and American
  neutrality.
• Technology encouraged German aggression, as
  precise large-scale mobilization by railroad was
  essential to German strategy.

6
Describe social changes in Europe and the United
States during the 1920s, particularly the changes
that resulted from the First World War.

• Although most of Western Europe and the United
  States wanted simply to return to prewar
  stability and conservatism, the war had initiated
  changes that could not be reversed.
• White-collar workers and the middle class grew
  substantially, but the working class declined.
  European refugees migrated in large numbers until
  the United States, Canada, and Australia enacted
  immigration restrictions.
• Womens lives changed the most. Many women had
  joined the work force as wage earners during the
  war and were reluctant to abandon those jobs.
• After the war, Western European and U.S. women
  also won the right to vote.
• Technological innovations such as aircraft,
  automobiles, radio, home appliances, and
  electricity all changed peoples lives.
• The cinema and jazz transformed popular culture.
• Advances in physics and the social sciences
  fundamentally altered Western cultures view of
  themselves, often in very unsettling ways.
• The Great Wars scars transformed the physical
  environment, as did dams, irrigation projects,
  and continued industrialization and
  suburbanization.

7
Describe the peace treaties ending the First
World War and some of their long-term
implications.

• The Treaty of Versailles was a unilateral
  document, dictated by France, Britain, and the
  United States.
• The treaty had very little input from other
  European countries, and none at all from nations
  such as Japan.
• The Central Powers took no part in the treaty
  except to sign it.
• The treatys punitive measures included large but
  undefined monetary reparations, a guilt clause
  in which Germany accepted all blame for the war,
  and the loss of German territory.
• Woodrow Wilsons plan for self-determinism called
  for new European nations to be formed along
  ethnic and linguistic lines.
• Germany returned Alsace and Lorraine to France,
  and the Polish state was recreated from eastern
  Germany.
• Austria-Hungary and Russia lost territory that
  became Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and
  almost a dozen other new nations.
• Many of these new nations were unstable and
  fragile entities.
• The breakup of the Ottoman Empire also left that
  region unstable, with Allied nations weaker than
  they had been even before the war.

8
Describe World War I and its aftermath in the
Middle East

• During the Great War (World War I), the Ottoman
  Empire controlled most of the Middle East.
• The Ottoman desire to use World War I as a means
  to gain Russian territory led to the Ottomans
  signing an alliance with Germany.
• After a disastrous defeat at Gallipoli, Britain
  allied itself with Arab leaders in an attempt to
  defeat the Ottomans. Britain offered Prince
  Hussein ibn Ali his own kingdom in exchange for
  Arab assistance. A revolt led by Husseins son
  Faisal weakened the Ottoman Empire but did not
  affect the war in Europe.
• While that intrigue was being carried out, the
  Zionist movement was seeking a Jewish homeland in
  Palestine.
• Zionists received widespread sympathy and the
  support of the British government in the Balfour
  Declaration. Turkey, led by Mustapha Kemal,
  established itself from the remains of the
  dismantled Ottoman Empire and instituted many
  progressive reforms, turning his country into a
  secular republic.
• The Arab-speaking areas of the former Ottoman
  Empire were reorganized under the mandate system,
  as were Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq.
• British dominance over Egypt continued, in spite
  of a declaration of Egyptian independence in
  1922. Encouraged by the Balfour Declaration,
• Jews moved in large numbers to Palestine,
  creating the root of a long-standing Middle
  Eastern dispute.