Transcript The World At War

The World At War
Causes of World War I
• Militarism:
– Imperialism and nationalism led to increased production of
goods and economic stability in these countries, which resulted
in an arms race. The aggressive attitude of this policy drove
them into producing more weaponry, such as strong navies and
armored vehicles.
• Alliance System:
– The alliances of Europe were formed for protection against each
other. However, the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and Great
Britain) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary,
and Italy) very quickly took aggressive postures towards one
another. This is due in large part to the lack of any global
organization designed to promote peace among the nations of
the world.
Causes of World War I
• Imperialism:
– European countries divided up Africa and
Asia to strengthen the political and
economic power of the mother
country. This resulted in competition
among European countries.
• Nationalism:
– Nationalism was both a uniting force and a
divisive one. It resulted in Germany and
Italy uniting into strong nations, and also
caused the disintegration of the Ottoman
Empire and Austria-Hungary.
Causes of World War I
• The Spark
– In 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his
wife were visiting Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Gavrilo Princip, of the Serbian
nationalist group called the Black Hand, assassinated
the Archduke and his wife. Austria-Hungary made
threats to Serbia, whom they blamed for the
assassination. Russia supported Serbia, and readied
their military for war. Germany declared war on
Russia, and on France, Russia's ally. Germany then
invaded Belgium as a prelude to invading France.
This resulted in Great Britain declaring war on
Germany, which was the start of World War I.
Aspects of World War I
• Most of World War I was a stalemate.
Entrenched positions on both sides were only
able to move a few miles in a battle that lasted
the better part of a year. The conditions of
trench warfare were brutal; trench-foot,
disease, lice, and inadequate supplies made
fighting difficult.
Aspects of World War I
New Technology
Invention
Description
Machine Gun
Allowed troops to fire multiple rounds of
ammunition before reloading.
Tank
Armored vehicle that was used for troop
protection and later had a large gun attached.
Airplane
First used for scouting enemy troop movement,
these were also involved in “dogfights.”
Submarine
This submersible boat allowed the Germans to
bomb unsuspecting ships.
Poison Gas
Often referred to as Mustard Gas, this heavy
neurotoxin was deadly in trench warfare.
The Aftermath and its Impact on
Subsequent Events
The Big Four
David Lloyd George
Georges Clemenceau
Leader of Great
Britain
Leader of France
Vittorio Orlando
Woodrow Wilson
Leader of Italy
Leader of United
States
The Aftermath and its Impact on
Subsequent Events
• Accomplishments
– Treaty of Versailles: Ended World War I. It was
extremely unfair to Germany, forcing them to accept
all of the blame for the war. It is a major cause of
World War II.
– 14 Points Speech: An address given to the United
States’ Congress by President Woodrow Wilson
concerning the end of World War I and the treatment
of all concerned with the war. The speech outlines the
League of Nations and the ideas of self determination
for different ethnic groups.
The Aftermath and its Impact on
Subsequent Events
• Accomplishments Cont…
– League of Nations : A multinational peace keeping
organization which began as an idea of United States
President Woodrow Wilson following the first World War.
The Treaty of Versailles created a League with over 40
different countries joining. The United States was not one of
them. The League of Nations was to be an international
body that would settle future problems through negotiations
instead of warfare. The member nations were to work
cooperatively through economic and military means to
enforce its decisions. However, since the United States did
not join, the League never achieved its intentions. While the
League did attempt to halt the aggressiveness of Hitler's
Germany, their inherent weakness prevented them from
stopping World War II.
Results
• The Treaty of Versailles was more about
revenge, than it was about forging a
lasting peace. Germany was forced to
accept total responsibility for the start of
the war. They also were forced to pay
huge reparations, and give over vast
amounts of territory. The start of World
War II is a direct result of the harsh
treatment of Germany after World War I.
RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS
Political Conflict in Russia
The struggle of the common people in Russia at the turn of
the 20th century resulted in a conflict that reshaped the history
of that century. Early in his reign, Czar Nicholas II was
resisting pressure to reform his country with
modernization. This created a volatile situation that would
eventually be his undoing. Terrible living and working
conditions and the embarrassing loss to Japan in the RussoJapanese War of 1904-1905 resulted in massive riots
throughout Russia. The czar responded by ordering troops to
fire into crowds. The events leading up to and including these
massacres are known as the 1905 Revolution.
Political Conflict in Russia
• Grigori Rasputin
– The infamous advisor to
Czar Nicholas II’s family.
Rasputin was a peasant,
healer who was brought to
the palace to heal young
Alexis (heir) of hemophilia.
Rasputin used his influence
to bring down the royal family
and anger the public.
1917 Russia
• March Revolution
– Causes
• Losses in World War I
• Duma relatively weak
• Terrible living & working
conditions
– Goals
• Overthrow the Czar
• Gain Rights
– Results
• Czar loses power
• Russia has a Provisional
Government
• November Revolution
– Causes
• Kerenskii, chose to stay in
World War I.
• Economy is devastated.
– Goals
• Remove Provisional
Government.
– Results
• Bolsheviks come to power.
• Russian Civil War
– Reds V. Whites
1917 Russia
• Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)
– Russian revolutionary leader and political
theorist. He was the first leader of the new
communist government of Soviet Russia.
Later, he was also the first leader of the
Soviet Union, which was composed of
most of the republics of the former Russian
Empire.
– Lenin promised "bread, peace, and land"
to the working class of Russia, but used
secret police and brutality to create a oneparty government where the Communist
Party, and not the people, had the ultimate
power.
Communist Russia
• Bolsheviks
– Early name of communists during the Russian Revolution of
1917, also known as the “Reds.”
• Trotsky
– Founder of the Red Army, he lead a failed struggle against the
policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s. Trotsky was
expelled from the Communist Party and deported from the Soviet
Union. He continued in exile to oppose Stalin and was eventually
assassinated in Mexico.
• Stalin
– The General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party from 1922
until 1953. Known for his brutality in dealing with opponents and
his failed policies of collectivism that caused widespread famine
across the Soviet Union.
Communist Russia
• The Great Purge
– Stalin setup a totalitarian state where his one party government
attempted to control every aspect of their people's lives. In the
late 1920s, he started a policy called Russification, which was
to transform the various ethnic groups in the Soviet Union into
good Russians. This policy promoted Russian language,
culture, and history above all others. He forbade the use other
cultural practices and languages, and often denied non
Russians many basic human rights. During the late 1930s,
Stalin set out to eliminate all opposition to his rule. He
imprisoned or executed millions of people, many of them
prominent figures from the ethnic republics. As a result, many
ethnic groups were denied their freedom, culture, and religion
until the collapse of the Soviet union in the early 1990s.