Transcript 10.6 Lecture – Affects of WWI

10.6 Lecture – Affects of
WWI
I. Peace and Dislocation in Europe, 1919-1929
A. The Great War lasted four years.
1. It took almost twice as long for Europe to recover.
B. Impact of the War
1. It is estimated that between 8 million and 10 million people
died, almost all of them young men.
2. Perhaps twice that many returned home wounded, gassed, or
shell-shocked, many of them injured for life.
3. Dead
a. 2 million Germans, 1.7 million Russians, and 1.7
million French.
b. Austria-Hungary lost 1.5 million, Britain 1 million, Italy
460,000 and the US 115,000
4. Million of refugees
a. Many refugees found shelter in France, which
welcomed 1.5 million people to bolster its declining
population.
b. The perfect destination, however, was the US, the
most prosperous country in the world.
1. 800,00 immigrants succeeded in reaching
the US before immigration laws passed in 1921
and 1924 closed the door to eastern and
southern Europeans.
5. One unexpected by product of the war was the great influenza
epidemic of 1918-1919, which started among soldiers heading for the
Western Front.
a. Powerful strain that infected almost everyone on earth and
killed one person in every forty.
b. Half a million Americans perished in the epidemic – five times
as many as died in the war.
c. Worldwide, some 20 million people died.
6. Serious damage to the environment
a. Scar across France and Belgium known as the Western Front.
b. Ravaged forests and demolished towns.
c. Earth was gouged by trenches, pitted with craters, and littered
with ammunition, broken weapons, chunks of concrete, and the
bones of countless soldiers.
d. It took a decade to clear away the debris, rebuild the towns,
and create dozens of military cemeteries with neat rows of
crosses stretching for miles.
1. To this day, farmers plow up fragments of old
weapons and ammunitions.
C. The Peace Treaties
1. The Allies meet and debate
a. Decisions made by the Big Four – The Paris Peace
Conference
1. United States President – Woodrow Wilson
2. British Prime Minister – David Lloyd George
3. French Premier – Georges Clemenceau
4. Italian Leader – Vittorio Orlando
b. Russia suffered from a civil war and was not included in the
conference.
c. Germany and its allies were not included.
d. They ignored the Italians, who had been with the Allies since
1915.
e. Paid even less attention to the delegates of smaller European
nations and no attention to non-European nationalities.
f. They rejected the Japanese proposal that all races be treated
equally.
2. Wilson’s Fourteen Points
a. Outlined a plan for achieving a just and lasting peace.
1. End to secret treaties
2. Freedom of the seas
3. Free trade
4. Reduce national armies and navies
5. Adjustment of colonial claims with fairness
6-13. Specific suggestions for changing borders and
creating new nations.
i) Self-determination – allowing people to decide
for themselves under what government they
wished to live.
14. General association of nations that would protect great
and small states alike.
i) The organization could peacefully negotiate
solutions to world conflicts.
b. League of Nations
1. A world organization that would safeguard the peace
and foster international communication.
2. His idealism clashed with the more hardheaded and
self-serving nationalism of the Europeans.
i) Lloyd George insisted that Germany pay heavy
indemnity.
ii) Clemenceau wanted Germany to give Alsace
and Lorraine (a part of France before the war)
and the Industrial Saar Region to France.
3. The European powers formed a League of Nations,
but the United States Congress, reflecting nationalist
feelings of the American people, refused to join.
i) France recovered Alsace and Lorraine.
ii) Britain acquired new territories in Africa and
the Middle East but was greatly weakened by
human losses and the disruption of its trade.
iii) Germany lost substantial territory and had
severe restrictions placed on its military
operations.
- Harshest was Article 231
- “war guilt clause”: Placed sole
responsibility for the war on
Germany’s soldiers.
- Germany had to pay reparations to
the Allies
- Germany’s territories in Africa and
the Pacific were declared mandates,
or territories to be administered by the
League of Nations.
c. On June 28th, 1919, the German delegates reluctantly signed
the Treaty of Versailles.
1. Signed five years to the day after Franz Ferdinand’s
assassination in Sarajevo.
2. Germany was forbidden to have an air force and was
permitted only a token army and navy.
3. It gave up large parts of its eastern territory to a newly
reconstituted Poland.
4. The Allies made Germany promise to pay reparations
to compensate the victors for their losses.
5. The Treaty of Versailles left Germany humiliated but
largely intact and potentially the most powerful nation in
Europe.
3. The treaty was one of the great failures in history.
a. These agreements created feelings of bitterness and betrayal
among the victors and the defeated.
b. The creation of new nations
1. Treaties led to huge land losses for the Central
Powers.
2. Several new countries were created out of the AustroHungarian Empire.
i) Austria, Hungry, Czechoslovakia, and
Yugoslavia.
3. Ottoman Turks were forced to give up almost all of
their former empire.
i) Only retained the territory of Turkey.
4. Russia lost territory and new countries developed.
i) Romania and Poland gained more land.
ii) Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
became independent nations.
5. New boundaries coincided with the major linguistic
groups of Eastern Europe.
4. A Peace Build on Quicksand
a. The treaty did little to build a lasting peace.
b. US rejected the treaty
1. Many Americans objected to the settlement and
especially to President Wilson’s League of Nations.
2. American believed that the US’ best hope for peace
was to stay out of European affairs.
5. Other countries felt cheated and betrayed by the peace settlements as
well.
a. People in the mandated territories were angry at the way the
Allies disregarded their desire for independence.
b. The European powers spoke of self-determination but did not
practice it.
1. Colonialism continued in Asia and Africa.
6. In a little more than two decades, the treaties’ legacy of bitterness would
help plunge the world into another catastrophic war.
a. The German’s festering resentment help create Nazism.
II. Russian Civil War and the New Economic Policy
A. The end of the Great War did not bring peace to all of Europe.
B. Fighting continued in Russia for another three years.
C. The Bolshevik Revolution had provoked Allied intervention.
1. December 1918, civil war
a. The Communists – as the Bolsheviks called themselves
after March 1918 – held central Russia, but all the
surrounding provinces rose up against them.
b. Counter-revolutionary armies led by former tsarist
officers obtained weapons and supplies from the Allies.
c. They burned farms and confiscated crops, causing a
famine that claimed 3 million victims, more than had died
in Russia in the seven year of fighting during the war.
d. The Communists’ victory was also due to the superior
discipline of their Red Army and the military genius of their
army commander, Leon Trotsky.
D. In December 1929, Ukrainian Communists declared the independence of a
Soviet Republic of Ukraine, which merged with Russia in 1922 to create the Union
of Soviet Socialists Republics (USSR, or Soviet Union.
1. In 1922 the new Soviet Republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan
joined the USSR.
E. Russian Economy
1. Factories and railroads had shut down for lack of fuel, raw materials,
and parts.
2. Farmland had been devastated and livestock killed, causing hunger in
the cities.
3. Lenin decided to release the economy from party and government
control.
a. In March 1921 he announced the New Economic Policy (NEP).
1. It allowed peasants to own land and sell their crops,
private merchants to trade, and private workshops to
produce goods and sell them on the free market.
2. Only the biggest businesses, such as banks,
railroads, and factories, remained under government
ownership.
4. The Communists had every intention of creating a modern industrial
economy without private property, under party guidance.
a. Investing in heavy industry and electrification and moving
farmers to the cities to work in the new industries.
b. Providing food for the urban workers without spending scarce
resources to purchase it from the peasants.
1. Making the peasants, the great majority of the Soviet
people, pay for the industrialization of Russia.
2. This turned them into bitter enemies of the
Communists.
F. Lenin died in January 1924
1. The leading contenders were Leon Trotsky, commander of the Red
Army, and Joseph Stalin, general secretary of the Communist Party.
a. Trotsky had support of many “old Bolsheviks” who had joined
the party before the Revolution.
b. Stalin, the only leading Communist who had never lived
abroad, insisted that socialism could survive “in one country.”
2. Stalin filled the party bureaucracy with individuals loyal to himself.
3. In 1926-1927 he had Trotsky expelled for deviation from the party line.
a. In January 1929 he forced Trotsky to flee the country.
b. Stalin then prepared to industrialize the Soviet Union at a rapid
speed.
III. The Influential Leaders for Peace after the War
A. United States – Woodrow Wilson
1. Presidency
a. Won the 46th ballot
2. Domestic Policy
a. Tariff decreased
b. Federal Reserve System instituted
c. Labor conditions on ships established
d. Eight hour day for RR employees
e. Loans to farm associations
f. Monopolies depleted
g. 17th Amendment – providing for the direct popular
elections of US Senators.
h. 18th Amendment – Instituted prohibitions
i. 19th Amendment – Women get the right to vote
3. Foreign Policy
a. Revolution in Mexico
b. Border trouble
c. Troops sent to Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Cuba
d. Rejected Dollar Diplomacy with islands around US =
commercial interests
B. France – George Clemenceau
1. Called the Tiger
2. Journalist and teacher trained to be a doctor
3. Socialist
4. Persuaded Germany’s disarmament
5. Never like the treaty due to it being to easy on Germany
6. Lost next election because of the treaty
C. England – David Lloyd George
1. Elected to Parliament as a liberal – soon became radical and antiimperialist
2. Reorganized the structure of government, war cabinet
3. Responsible for the unification of the military
4. Helped shape the final treaty
D. Italy – Emanuele Orlando
1. Statesman and jurist
2. Demanded for the fulfillment of the secret Treaty of London – allies had
promised Italy ample territorial compensation for its entry into the war.
3. Opposed Fascism
4. Later left Parliament for teaching writing
IV. A Temporary Peace – Examined in More Depth
A. Britain and France longed for a return to the stability of the prewar era.
1. Hierarchy of social classes, prosperous world trade, and
European dominance over the rest of the world.
B. In Europe, Germans felt cheated out of a victory that had seemed within
their grasp.
C. Italians were disappointed that their sacrifices had not been rewarded at
Versailles with large territorial gains.
D. Middle East and Asia
1. Arabs and Indians longed for independence; the Chinese
looked for social justice and a lessening of foreign intrusion.
E. The Japanese hoped to expand their influence in China.
F. In Russia, the Communists were eager to consolidate their power and
export their revolution to the rest of the world.
G. In 1923 Germany suspended reparations payments.
1. In retaliation for the French occupation of the Ruhr, the German
government began printing money recklessly; causing the most severe
inflation the world had ever seen.
a. Germany money was worth so little that it took a wheelbarrow
full of it to buy a loaf of bread.
2. As Germany teetered on the brink of civil war, radical nationalists
called for revenge and tried to overthrow the government.
3. The German government issued a new currency and promised to
resume reparations payments, and the French agreed to withdraw their
troops from the Ruhr territory.
H. Beginning in 1924 the world enjoyed a few years of calm and prosperity.
1. After the end of the German crisis of 1923, the western European
nations became less confrontational, and Germany joined the League of
Nations.
2. The issues of reparations vanished, as Germany borrowed money from
New York banks to make its payments to France and Britain, which used
the money to repay their wartime loans from the United States.
a. This triangular flow of money, based on credit, stimulated the
rapid recovery of the European economies.
b. France began rebuilding its war-torn northern zone; Germany
recovered from its hyperinflation; and a boom began in the United
States that was to last for five years.
I. The League of Nations proved skilled at resolving numerous technical issues
pertaining to health, labor relations, and postal and telegraph communications.