Global Conflict After 1900

Global Conflict after 1900

• The 20th century was marked by significant social and political changes that led to tension and division.
• Challenges to existing states and political establishments set the stage for shifting powers such as the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of communism in Russia and China.
• Nationalism and traditional rivalries, combined with economic instability, led to World War I which then created a broader, bloodier conflict in World War II.
• Rapid advances in technology altered understandings of the universe and natural world, brought people longer lives, greater opportunities, and better access to information.
• Advancements in military tech also made war more deadly.
• Mass atrocities and the intentional destruction of ethnic or religious groups, including the Holocaust.
• Totalitarian governments adopted repressive policies that resulted in millions of deaths.

Shifting Power

• The early 1900s saw continued rebellion, with revolutionaries unseating governments in Russia, China, and Mexico that challenged the existing political and social order.
• Established land-based and maritime empires collapsed due to internal and external pressures.
• By the end of the century, a new global order had emerged.

Revolution in Russia

• By the early 20th century, Russia was falling behind Europe, the US and Japan in wealth and power due to internal challenges
• Problems included the slow expansion of education, poor transportation networks, reluctance to recognize civil liberties, and the resistance to political reform.
• Russia lost the Crimean War (1853-1856) against the Ottoman Empire (supported by Great Britain and France) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
• In the fall of 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, seized power and established a communist government.
• The Bolsheviks believed that workers should own the means of production, leading to collective prosperity and a just society.
• The Soviet government abolished private trade, distributed peasants' crops, and took over factories and heavy industries.
• Key events leading to the Russian Revolution included Bloody Sunday, the Revolution of 1905, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I.
• The success of the Bolsheviks shook capitalist countries, as communism vs capitalism had become an important issue that shaped world affairs.

Upheaval in China

• China faced internal challenges in the 19th century, including ethnic tensions between the ruling Manchus (Qing Dynasty) and the Han Chinese.
• China experienced rapid population growth alongside constant famine due to insufficient farmland and productivity.
• Government revenues were low due to an outdated tax system, limiting resources for infrastructure.
• Faced growing threats for its position by industrialization in Europe.
• European traders were initially restricted to Canton, trading tea, rhubarb, porcelain, and silk for European silver.
• The Chinese saw Europeans as violent and less civilized, hindering trade expansion.
• Chinese Republic: in 1911, the Qing Dynasty was overthrown by Sun Yat-sen, a Christian who combined Confucian principles with modern ideas.
• Sun Yat-sen's legacy includes his "Three People's Principles": Democracy, Nationalism, and Livelihood but Sun never had enough military strength to rule all of China.
• After two months in office, he gave up his position to a military leader
• The Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), would later regain power and rule China for two decades before losing to the Chinese Communists.

Self-Determination in the Ottoman Collapse

• By turn of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire, "the sick man of Europe," had few exports and a waning agricultural economy, relying mainly on its position as a trade center.
• The Young Turks advocated for a constitution and Turkification to unify the multiethnic empire with Turkish culture which caused some to unfairly blame Armenians for economic problems.
• Turks resented European economic policies and foreign investments giving Europeans undue power, leading the Ottoman Empire to ally with Germany in WWI.
• After Germany's defeat, empire dismantled and replaced by the Republic of Turkey and several independent countries.
• Turkish National Movement, led by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), fought for self-determination and defeated British and other forces in 1921.
• Republic of Turkey established in 1923, with Kemal as first president, focused on Western-style reforms such as public education and abolishing polygyny.

Power Shifts in Mexico

• Mexico entered the 20th century under the dictator Porfirio Díaz who oversaw stability and economic progress but allowed foreign investors' control over resources
• The wealthiest 1% of the population controlled 97% of the land, leading Díaz to jail opposition candidate Francisco.
• The Mexican Revolution was ignited, and Madero's troops, under Francisco "Pancho" Villa, defeated Mexican troops and sent Díaz into exile.
• Conflicts resulted in around 2 million deaths out of a population of around 15 million yet a new constitution was adopted in 1917 and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was formed in 1929.

Causes of World War I

• Before World War I, European nations competed for resources in Africa and Asia, creating mutual alliances and arms races that gave military establishments great influence.
• The immediate cause was Serbian nationalists assassinating Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand to ignite WWI, which lasted from 1914 to 1918 and fundamentally weakened Western European powers.
• The assassination by Gavrilo Princip of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife on June 28, 1914, in the capital of Bosnia. Princip was a member of the Black Hand, a nationalist organization.
• Austria-Hungary sent Serbia an ultimatum to end its support, then declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914.
• Germany declared war on Russia on August 1 and on France two days later; Britain declared war on Germany the following day.
• The long-term causes can be remembered with the acronym MAIN: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism.
• Militarism was defined as aggressive military preparedness.
• Alliances created secret groups agreeing to protect and help each other when attacked that led to countries such as Russia and Germany jumping into the conflict.
• Triple Entente - Britain, France and Russia viewed Germany as a rival to their respective desires and were known as the Allies during the war.
• Triple Alliance - Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, known as the Central Powers.
• Imperialism occurred as alliance systems developed largely because Western European countries that dominated the globe began to seek more sources of power and wealth.
• Nationalism is the belief and support of one's national identity.

Consequences of the Great War

• Most of Europe's countries expect a century of peace guaranteed by alliances and prosperity in their colonial empires before 1914.
• Virtually every major event during the remainder of the 20th century was a direct or indirect WWI result.
• Monarchies in Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire were brought down.
• Maps of Europe and the Middle East were redrawn.
• Germany lost all its overseas colonies and the formerly Ottoman provinces came under control of Britain and France.
• The war led to decolonization, and new technologies made it the deadliest and destructive in human history
• European economies were disrupted and social consequences rose, including communism and fascism, colonial revolts, and genocide. A massive shift of power then went to the US.
• Germany was forced to take full blame for the war and was forced to agree to make reparations, payments to its opponents to make up for their losses.
• It instead gave rise to authoritarian regimes and an even greater world war.

Conducting World War I

• World War I's new war tech and tactics such as trench warfare, poison gas, machine guns, submarines, airplanes, and tanks brought horrific effects.
• Trench warfare featured long ditches dug in the ground for defense that left soldiers sleeping, eating, and fighting in trenches for months at a time. Trenches were often cold, muddy, and rat-infested. -Poison gas was one of the most insidious weapons of the new style of warfare and caused extreme, long lasting damage.
• Machine guns fired more than 500 rounds of ammunition per minute, submarines wreaked havoc on the shipping lanes of the Atlantic Ocean and eventually, planes would engage in "dog fights" with enemy aircraft at the time.
• Economic ties and belief in democratic nations among the Allied Powers were one underlying reason for the US entry into the war.
• Growing resentment against Germans was present, especially for U-Boat (submarine) attacks on ships carrying civilians
• The event that finally pushed the United States into WWI was the interception of the Zimmermann Telegram which meant that a nation's domestic population, in addition to its military, was committed to winning the war.
• Propaganda is another component of total war.

WWI As A Global War

• World War I was fought in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and was extended by imperialism with boundaries to North Africa and the Middle East.
• Colonial troops reinforced their home countries' forces in several battles.
• Most countries forebade women from serving in combat, but Russia allowed it and created an all-female battalion (military unit) as propaganda.

The Paris Peace Conference

• The leaders of the victorious countries at the Paris Peace Conference were known as the Big Four: Woodrow Wilson (United States), David Lloyd George (Great Britain), Georges Clemenceau (France), and Vittorio Orlando (Italy).
• The Big Four had different visions of how to settle the peace yet Wilson pushed for his principles, which he outlined in a document called the Fourteen Points; League of Nations, an organization in which all nations of the world would convene.
• The Treaty of Versailles treated Germany harshly as they had to to pay billions of dollars in reparations and give up all of its colonies and because of this, caused tremendous hardship to the nation.

Economy in the Interwar Period

• A global economic crisis resulted in the Great Depression of the 1930s and eventually led to World War II and governments increased intervention in the economy.
• The Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to pay billions of dollars in reparations and war-ravaged Germany printing more paper money in the 1920s caused inflation.
• American investors who had been putting money into German banks took it out when the American stock market crashed that spurred Germany and its bank failures with its skyrocketing inflation.
• The administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used Keynes's ideas to address the Great Depression in the United States using the New Deal program.
• In contrast to most countries, Japan dug itself out of the Depression relatively rapidly by devaluing its currency increased Japanese overseas expansionism also increased Japan's need for military goods and economy
• The Russian economy was near complete collapse that Lenin attempted to remedy in the New Economic Plan (NEP) by reintroducing private trade which enjoyed modest success, but it came to an end when Lenin died in 1924.
• Several years after Lenin's death, Joseph Stalin took control and collectivized agriculture of private owners.
• The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI that dominated Mexican politics for most of the 20th century created access to primary education and jobs through improvements to infrastructure, for its constituents.

Rise of Right-Wing Governments

• A new political system known as fascism arose that appealed to extreme nationalism glorifying the military and armed struggle; regimes suppressed other political parties, protests, and independent trade unions.
• They justified violence to achieve their goals and were anti-communist such as Benito Mussolini who coined the term fascism a theory based on the notion that the sectors of the economy are separate organs of the same body and also a need is to conquer what he considered an inferior nation.
• The Spanish Civil War after the economic decline in the early 1930s took on global significance of ideolgoies and eventually lead to Fascism and Civil War in Spain.

Unresolved Tensions After World War I

• Economic crises after WWI and disputes over land control festered, anti-imperial resistance was growing throughout Asia and Africa, and the example of pushing for self-determination occurred as well.
• The effects of the war saw varied, though nationalist movements had brewing for decades; WWI renewed the hopes of people in these regions for independence with imperial powers such as Britain and France were not invincible.
• WWI European powers granted self-determination only to white countries in Eastern Europe and, after Germany's defeat, lands that had been part of the Ottoman Empire came under mandate by the Allies.
• This infuriated the Arabs who lived in these lands and set the stage for the rise of Pan-Arabism, which called for the unification of all lands in North Africa and the Middle East.
• In South Asia, the Indian National Congress formed in the late 19th century to air grievances against the colonial government and a deadly massacre against protestors radicalized many Indians for independance from Great Britain.
• By the 1920's Gandhi had brought congress to the Indian masses and caught the attention of the world thru his Sutyagraha and Civil Disobedience.

Two State Solution

• While anticolonial sentiment was building, leaders in India were disagreeing what to their national identity to be defined as
• The Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Linnah proposed creating a separate state that would include the heavily Muslim Western and Eastern parts of south Asia
• These years were critical times for anti colonial movement but both Hindus and Muslims disagreed with each other.
• China, Korea and Japan were demonstrated the spread of the desire for self determination due to European Domination
• Korean protestors began which caused the power to reach power and spread of Korean Nationalism
• Chinese Intellectuals of workers staged anti Japanese protests
• It also helped in the rise of Marxism model in Soviet Union

Japan Aggression

• Japan invaded manchurian in northern china and League of nations condeeming it and seizing japan
• To make it seem independent they elected it to sit on throne
• Then Philippines, Dutch East Indies and British Malaya
• They liberated people from Western Imperialism

Resistance of French Rule In West Africa

• As in South Asia, people all over Africa were disappointed that their colonies did not achieve independence after WWI and educated African intellects helped with this

Causes of World War II

• The causes of World War II lay in the unresolved aftermath of World War I due to economic instability
• Benito Mussolini promised to renew the Italian economy and create an empire that lead to Fascism
• The ideology lead to Hitler who persecuted German civilzations by seizing land. Rise of Nazism
• After defeating Germany , Weimar Republic replaced by a monarch, the treaty of Versaille gave Germany billions to go to pay off
• The Wiemar republic appeared weak and to do with this hitler promoted ultra nationalism and scientific racism that made up as pure nation of Aryans only.
• The axes powers lead to hitler seeking allies to help acquire living space.
• His alliances made the country brink of war.
• Later, Laws designed to descrisminate his people by doing a campaign to rid of Germany .

Aggressive Militarism

• Was by the axis and limited with Germany to do with Treaty of Versailles to what Hitler wanted
• After this, Germany got too close causing a military conflict.
• The main war was all set in motion because Germany, Austria and Italy invaded in neighboring countries.
• Germany and the Soviets pledged not to attack so they invaded which stated World War II.

Jappans Expansion

• Japan already started invasion in Korea and China.
• Key Terms: Adolf Hitler, Anti-Comintern Pact,Axis Powers, Battle of Kursk, Dan zig, Lebenstraum, Mein Kampf, Nazi's and Munich Agreement.

Conducting World War II

• Governments had to have all recourse and be able to stand for the cause.
• Was the control of the government that harbored these ideals of imperialism
• But it was but one step into japan strategy .
• It was too create a New Order in East Asia but there were obstacles preventing japan that was because economic sanctions towards the US.

WWI Battles

• WWI Battles brought both countries war
• Germany embarked in the strategy of blitzkrieg with lightning speed to subdue Poland
• British wanted support for the war as the US stayed isolated for the moment
• They both signed Destroyers for Bases Agreement, in which the US promised delivery.
• And lend-Lease Act, US gave up all war materials

American Relations

• American relations of British became fearful of German relentless so they asked for support. By then Roosevelt believed the US should help British. As they long had their long history of isolationism.
• They both signed Destroyers -for-Bases Agreement.
• As the war began to stir they agreed the Axis surrender must be unconditional.
• By then war turned against the Nazi's as they began moving all over the world.
• As a result in this is what made both countries have the most deaths and made a dramatic turn for the worst. This became the start of mass atrocities worldwide.

Mass Atrocities

• Deaths of combatants included Ethnic Violence and extremist groups came into power
• WWI deaths continued past Armistice Day along with the war and many new ethnic groups caused conflict all over the world.
• Total of civilian death counts ranged from 6 million to 13 million where there was not many resources to combat.
• Casualties such as the holocaust where there were over 6 million Jew deaths.

The Japanese

• During the war in 1937 the Japanese killed 100000 chinese where they did lots to make it very effective and deadly .

Genocide and Human Rights

• There had a motto after the holocaust that was “ never again” but they would do it all the time and had no regrets. There is also some ethnic conflict that also took action. .

Causation in Global Conflict

• Significant changes had happened in the century and it led the US to take on the world with great amounts of power but it also had many conflicts
• Nationalism was a growing source of conflict and serbian was the main park The desire for independence also made in hard as colonial powers got weaker

The 20th century was marked by social and political changes that led to tension and division. Nationalism, rivalries, and instability led to World War I and World War II. Advances in technology altered understandings of the world but also made war more deadly.