Mr. White

1
Russian and Austrian Tensions

• Mr. Whites World History

2
Russia

• The Romanov dynasty had ruled Russia for many
  hundreds of years into the 1800s
• Some czars had worked hard to modernize Russia,
  while others were distrustful of outside, western
  ideas latinstvo
• This struggle would finally start to come to a
  climax in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

3
Western Ideas

• The Russian officers who fought Napoleon in the
  Napoleonic Wars were exposed to the ideas and
  technology of western Europe
• They formed secret societies with the goals of
  making Russia more modern by adopting these ideas
• This eventually results in the Decembrist Revolt,
  an attempt to modernize Russia through a military
  revolt

4
Decembrist Revolt

• The Decembrist Revolt took place when Alexander I
  died, and his son Nicholas I took the throne
• The revolt was defeated, but had two results
• Leaders of the revolt were seen as martyrs to a
  cause, and inspiration to others
• The czars also constantly ruled with the threat
  of an uprising

5
Defeat and Resolve

• Russias defeat by France and the Ottoman Empire
  in the Crimean War showed to many Russians how
  technologically backwards Russia was
• Czar Alexander II believed that Russia needed to
  industrialize to become a major power and compete
  with other nations

6
The Serfs

• Russia still relied on peasant labor for its
  agriculture
• Serfs were peasants who were tied to the land
  that they worked basically a more restrictive
  form of feudalism
• For Russia to industrialize, it needed available
  labor
• To get this labor, Alexander II freed the serfs
  in 1861

7
The Plight of the Serfs

• The serfs obtained legal freedom, and were given
  land, but had to pay back the landholders for the
  land they were given
• This kept many of them tied to the land still
• Some peasants gave up farming and moved to the
  cities to become unskilled urban workers

8
Some Modernization

• Alexander did other things to modernize and
  liberalize Russia
• Limited the use of Russian secret police
• Eased restrictions on the press
• Modernized the judicial system
• Shortened mandatory military service, from 25
  years to 6
• Still, these reforms would not satisfy the people
  encouraged them

9
Radical Movements

• Radical reformers, many who were upper or middle
  class intellectuals, continued to criticize the
  czar and the government
• Many advocated the ending of the currently
  political, economic, and or social structure, for
  a complete re-making of society in some other
  form
• Some groups turned to violence, assassinations,
  etc., to get their point across
• Alexander II tries to crush these radicals was
  assassinated in 1881

10
Alexander III

• Alexander III takes back many of his fathers
  reforms if you cant appease them, crush them
• Restored censorship of the press
• Extended powers of the secret police
• Alexander also encouraged the Russification of
  the country
• Used nationalism to impose a Russian identity on
  people
• Repressed many non-Russian ethnic, language, and
  religious groups

11
Nicholas II

• When Nicholas II took over in 1894, many problems
  continued, and he wasnt strong willed enough to
  stop them
• Peasants still unhappy
• Middle-class reformers pushed for a
  constitutional monarchy
• Most importantly, the Russian working class had
  increased in size dramatically, and were working
  and living in poor conditions

12
Revolutionary Groups

• Several revolutionary groups had developed in
  Russia most followed the teachings of Karl Marx
• Mensheviks Russia should develop into an
  industrialized nation and then a socialist
  revolution could occur
• Bolsheviks Professional revolutionaries could
  use force to bring about a revolution

13
Russian Tension

• Russias poor showing in the Russo-Japanese war
  reinforced that Russia was not a modern nation
• Many people began to oppose the czarist
  government
• Bloody Sunday a peaceful demonstration of about
  200,000 workers resulted in Russian soldiers
  firing on the demonstrators

14
The Russian Situation

• Soviets, or workers councils began to form to
  voice workers grievances
• All revolutionary groups called for
  representative government and universal suffrage
• General strikes resulted in Nicholas allowing the
  formation of a duma to give the people
  representation he later dissolves it
• These events will combine with Russias
  experience in World War I to bring revolution

15
Austria-Hungary

• Klemens von Metternich, in Austria, had worked to
  keep liberal and nationalist forces from
  threatening Austria
• In 1848, the revolutions that swept through
  France and other places in Europe came to Austria
• After a revolution, the Austrian monarchy was
  able to re-establish itself and put down the
  liberal rebellion

16
The Dual Monarch

• To keep the empire from being destabilized by
  Hungarian Magyars, Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph
  split Austria-Hungary into a dual monarchy
• Both Austria and Hungary would operate basically
  independently, for internal matters
• The Emperor of Austria would politically rule
  both monarchies

17
Nationalism

• Nationalist tensions in the Balkans began to
  create divisive pressures in the Austro-Hungarian
  empire
• The decline of the Ottoman empire in this area
  allowed many nationalist groups to speak out for
  independence
• Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania revolts, which the
  Ottomans suppressed

18
Bulgaria

• Russia had controlled Bulgaria as an expansion of
  its empire
• At the Congress of Berlin, the European powers
  stripped Russia of Bulgaria and divided the
  parts of it into independent nations, or holdings
  of other nations
• These divisions created small nations and other
  divisive tensions within the larger empires, like
  the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary

19
Balkan League

• The Balkan League was a political alliance of
  many of the now-free Balkan states
• These nations helped many other Balkan
  independence movements separate from the Ottoman
  Empire
• But as these wars went on, the Balkan nations
  began to have conflicts with each other, as well

20
End Results

• Serbia, a Slavic nation, gained more power and
  would exert its influence on other independence
  movements
• Russia supported these Slavic movements to gain
  power in the region
• French, British, and German governments worked to
  maintain a balance of power in that region
• With these increased tensions, writers called the
  Balkans the powder keg of Europe