Transcript 16worldwars_1

The First World War, 1914-1918
Modern Weapons: War and the
Industrial Revolution
• New weapons, like the machine-gun, were especially
suited to defensive trench fighting.
• Both sides developed new offensive weapons to try and
counter the defensive advantage, such as heavier
artillery and poison gas.
Planes and Tanks…
Results
• 20 million military and civilian casualties. 11 million
dead.
• Collapse of the Russian Empire, and the emergence of
the Soviet Union.
• The collapse of the Austrian Empire.
• The collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
• Defeat of Germany, ruin of France
• Destruction of the European economy
• Spanish Flu, 1919 (20 million more dead)
• British victory
• American victory, emergence as a world power
Treaty of Versailles, 1919
• Germany
European territory to France
Give up overseas empire (mostly to Britain and Japan)
Reparations!
• Austria Empire broken up
• Ottoman Empire broken up
– Newly organized as Turkey
– Middle Eastern territories divided up by Britain and France
– Arab (and Kurdish and Egyptian) national ambitions?
• Poland rebuilt from land given up by Germany and Austria
• Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations (an antecedent to the
United Nations)
Sykes-Picot Agreement
End of the Nineteenth Century
• Nationalism largely repudiated as the cause of the
“Great War” as it was called.
• Competition for Imperial possessions was essentially
over, also seen as a cause of the war.
• Classic Liberalism was essentially over as well, as the
European economy was in complete shambles after the
war.
• Many observers saw WWI as a total failure of the politics
and policies of the Nineteenth Century, a sentiment
which led to the creation of several reactionary political
philosophies.
The Russian Revolution
Russia in 1917: Why everyone hates the Czar
• War against Germany
was a disaster; Conscription.
• Very unhappy peasants
• Russian cities were suffering
all the problems of the
industrial revolution,
plus high prices, food shortages, etc.
• Bourgeoisie/industrialists: unhappy with high taxes, and
conservative economic policies… and the war!
February, 1917
Czar Abdicates, 1917
The Duma (Russian parliament) declared a Provisional government in March.
The Soviet labor union councils and the socialist challengers
Vladimir Lenin
• Longtime revolutionary politician, had been exiled
• Inspired by Marx, led the Bolshevik (majority) wing
of Russian socialist parties.
• Lenin disagreed with Marx about the need for a
spontaneous revolution, and believed that a worker’s
uprising could be jumpstarted by hard-working leaders
like himself.
• Lenin that imperialism was the ultimate form of capitalism, as
the Imperial powers were looking for markets around the world
to enrich their capitalists.
• He saw World War I as entirely caused by imperialism, and
therefore a natural outcome of the Liberal Capitalist world
system.
• Because imperialism was an aggressive military act, Lenin
thought
that a military
defense, under the
banner of socialism,
was the only
appropriate
response.
October, 1917
• Lenin returned in April 1917,
worked to organize Soviets under
Bolshevik leadership.
• The Provisional government was
wracked with turmoil.
• War going badly!
• Military coup in August
• Lenin and the Bolsheviks forcefully took control of St. Petersburg in
Late October, and created the Soviet Socialist Republic.
Soviet Russia
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
• From 1918-1920 the Communist government fought a
civil war against the “White Russians”, anti-communist
forces backed by French, British and American troops
and supplies. Even Japan intervened.
• By 1920, the Communist government had won, and
Lenin’s party was in full control of the Soviet Union
• Lenin’s plan was for industrial
development, gradual
reorganization of the agricultural
sector.
• Consciously international, pledged
to help socialists everywhere in the world.
Post-War economic woes
Political Choices in the 1920s
• High unemployment (20%+), no real world trade,
economic turmoil.
• Liberal capitalist governments seemed unable to
fix the economy.
• Socialism seemed like a viable option (USSR),
and many people supported socialist politics
• Many did not, especially people with strong
nationalist sentiments, or people who felt their
wealth and power were threatened by socialism.
The “Third Way”
• Many who felt old liberal capitalist system was
broken, but who did not want to support socialism
were eager for a third way.
• The alternative that developed was fascism, a
strong nationalist political ideal that put the
collective needs of the state ahead of individual or
international needs.
• Fascists were willing to take aggressive steps to
improve economy, rejecting liberal capitalism and
socialism equally.
.
Benito Mussolini
(1883-1945)
-elected 1921 to the Italian
parliament.
Il Duce
(The Leader)
-Prime Minister in
1922
-Dictator from 19251944
-Successful: Italian
economy recovering
by late 1920s
Adolf Hitler and Mussolini
National Socialists (not
socialists, but an
alternative to socialism)
Tried to organize a
coup in 1923
Got arrested, went to
jail
Mein Kampf, 1924
Hitler’s Fascism
“As a State the German Reich shall include all
Germans. Its task is not only to gather in and
foster the most valuable sections of our people
but to lead them slowly and surely to a dominant
position in the world.”
“The State is only the vessel and the race is what it
contains. The vessel can have a meaning only if
it preserves and safeguards the contents.
Otherwise it is worthless.”
Hitler über
Deutschland
-January, 1933, becomes
Chancellor
- Reichstag Fire, February
1933
- Enabling Act, March 1933
-Fürher und Reichskanzler,
1934
-Successful
• Successful:
German
economy
recovered
quickly in 1930s
FDR and the New Deal
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Roosevelt was elected in 1932
in the face of a deepening
Depression.
US unemployment was over
25% in 1932-33.
FDR’s response was massive
government intervention in the
economy…
Banks regulated, FDIC
introduced
CCC and other government
agencies used to provide jobs.
Massive government
investment in all sectors of the
economy… a 1930s “bailout”
Social protections created like
unemployment insurance and
social security
Re-Thinking the Economy
• Laissez-Faire/Liberal economic theory called for no
government involvement in economic regulation.
• Socialism called for complete government management
of important sectors of the economy.
• Fascism called for government and corporate
cooperation for the promotion of state/national interests.
• What is the New Deal? Embedded liberalism
Mussolini on War:
War alone brings up to
their highest tension all
human energy and puts a
stamp of nobility upon
peoples who have the
courage to meet it.
Japanese Pacific Empire
World War II
Military – 15,000,000
Civilian- 45,000,000