Transcript The Crisis of the Imperial Order 1900-1929

The Crisis of the Imperial Order
1900-1929
The “Great War” and the Russian Revolution
1914-1918
• The nations of Europe entered the war in high spirits,
confident of victory
• German victory at first seemed assured, but as the
German advance faltered in September, both sides
spread out until they formed an unbroken line of
trenches (the Western front) from the North Sea to
Switzerland
• The generals on each side tried for four years to take
enemy positions by ordering their troops to charge
across the open fields, only to have them cut down by
machine-gun fire
• For four years, the war was inconclusive on both land
and at sea
The Home Front and the War Economy
• The material demands of trench warfare led
governments to impose stringent controls over
all aspects of their economies
• Rationing and the recruitment of Africans,
Indians, Chinese, and women into the European
labor force transformed civilian life
• German civilians paid an especially high price
for the war because the British naval blockade
cut off access to essential food imports
The Home Front and the War Economy
• British and French forces overran
Germany’s African colonies except for
Tanganyika)
• In all of their African colonies, Europeans
requisitioned food, imposed heavy taxes,
forced Africans to grow export crops and
sell them at low prices, and recruited
African men to serve as soldiers and as
porters
The Home Front and the War Economy
• The U.S. grew rich during the war by
selling goods to Britain and France
• When the U.S. entered the war in 1917,
businesses engaged in war production
made tremendous profits
The Ottoman Empire at War
• Turks signed a secret alliance with Germany in 1914
• Turkey engaged in unsuccessful campaigns against
Russia, deported the Armenians (causing deaths of
hundreds of thousands), and closed the Dardanelles
• When they failed to open the Dardanelles Straits by
force, the British tried to subvert the Ottoman Empire
from within by promising emir Hussein ibn Ali of Mecca a
kingdom of his own if he would lead a revolt against the
Turks, which he did in 1916
• Balfour Declaration of 1917: British “viewed with favor”
the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in
Palestine
• Britain sent troops into southern Mesopotamia to secure
the oil pipeline from Iran, taking Baghdad in early 1917
Impact: Social
• Families were altered by the departure of many
men
• With the death or absence of the primary wage
earner women were forced into the workforce in
unprecedented numbers, at least in many of the
Entente powers
• At the same time, industry needed to replace
the lost laborers sent to war. This aided the
struggle for voting rights for women
Impact: Social
• One of the distinguishing features of the
war was its totality
• All aspects of the societies fighting were
affected by the conflict,
• even countries not in the war zone
Impact: Political
• expansion of government, its powers and
responsibilities in Britain, France, the
United States, and the Dominions of the
British Empire
• new government ministries and powers
were created
• new taxes were levied, and laws enacted,
all designed to bolster the war effort, many
of which have lasted to this day
Demographic
Impact
•more dead and wounded
•more physical destruction
•millions of refugees many
of whom fled to France and
to the United States
•immigration laws that
closed the doors to eastern
and southern Europeans
•Influenza epidemic, killed
30 million people
•serious damage to the
environment and hastened
the build-up of mines,
factories, and railroads
Geographic Impact: Territorial Changes
• tremendous changes
to eastern Europe
• Empires were
shattered, and new
stations were
established
• A dangerous power
vacuum was created
between Germany
and Soviet Russia
Geographic Impact:
Partition of the Ottoman Empire, 1914- 1923
• The decline of the mighty Ottoman Empire began in
1699, when the Habsburgs conquered Hungary, and it
accelerated after 1805, when Egypt became virtually
independent.
• By 1914 the Ottoman Turks had been pushed out of the
Balkans, and their Arab provinces were on the edge of
revolt; that revolt erupted in the First World War and
contributed greatly to the Ottomans' defeat.
• When the allies then attempted to implement their plans,
including independence for the Armenian people,
Mustafa Kemal arose to forge in battle the modern
Turkish state.
Geographic Impact
• No other war had changed the map of Europe
so dramatically - four empires were shattered:
• German
• Austro-Hungarian
• Ottoman
• Russian
• Their four dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the
Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the Romanovs,
who had roots of power back to the days of the
Crusades, all fell during or after the war
Global Impact
• marked a turning point in world history
• reduced the global influence of Europe
• destroying some of its monarchies and empires
and diminishing the strength of others
• enabled new nations to emerge
• Shifted economic resources and cultural
influences away from Europe
• encouraged nations in other areas of the world,
notably the United States, to challenge Europe's
international leadership
Global Impact
• Bolsheviks seized power in 1917
• With military defeat in 1918, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian
Empires disintegrated
• Germany replaced the kaiser's government with the Weimar
Republic
• New nations such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia
emerged from former empires.
• Victory for the European Allies came at a high price
• They owed over $11 billion to the United States, which was
transformed from a net debtor to a net creditor
• New York replaced London as the world's financial center
• The Allies also faced increasing demands for self-rule from their
colonies
• They no longer controlled sufficient military and economic resources
to shape world affairs as before.
Global Impact
• By war's end, the United States and Japan were among
the victorious powers at the Paris Peace Conference of
1919, along with the United Kingdom, France, and Italy,
• U.S. president Woodrow Wilson played a leading role
• League of Nations was an essential part of the Treaty of
Versailles but was rejected by US Senate
• The United States and the Allies, refused to recognize
the Bolshevik government in Russia so it was excluded
from the peace negotiations
• Still, the specter of Bolshevism loomed over the
conference
Global Legacy
• enduring legacy of Wilsonianism
• emphasized the principle of national selfdetermination
• League of Nations was meant to curb nationalist
excesses and aggression
• collective security would enable nations to
participate in a new world order of peace and
prosperity
• influenced the statecraft of future generations
• continued to shape the international history of
the twentieth century
Global Legacy
• The League of Nations failed to maintain
peace when aggressive nations—notably
Communist Russia, Fascist Italy, Nazi
Germany, and Imperial Japan—later
challenged the Versailles peace
• These revisionist powers rejected
democracy and capitalism and challenged
the status quo