IX. Treaty of Versailles and the New International System Flashcards
Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge, Republican U.S. senator for more than 31 years (1893–1924); he led the successful congressional opposition to his country’s participation in the League of Nations following World War I.
Zimmerman telegram
In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. Revelation of the contents outraged American public opinion, and helped generate support for the United States declaration of war on Germany in April of that year.
Kerensky
Socialist revolutionary and Prime Minister of the Russian provisional government from July - October 1917. Ultimately unable to defend his government against the Bolshevik uprising.
Trotsky
communist theorist and agitator, a leader in Russia’s October Revolution in 1917, and later commissar of foreign affairs and of war in the Soviet Union (1917–24). In the struggle for power following Vladimir Ilich Lenin’s death, however, Joseph Stalin emerged as victor, while Trotsky was removed from all positions of power and later exiled (1929). He remained the leader of an anti-Stalinist opposition abroad until his assassination by a Stalinist agent.
Brest-Litovsk
Treaty of armistice between the Central Powers and the Soviet Union, 1918, wherein Russia lost Ukraine, Polish and Baltic territories, and Finland. Marked a reversal of 1815 because it made Central and Eastern European states possible.
Bela-Kun
Hungarian communist leader and the head of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Unable to master the complexities of actual government or the tactics of power struggles within the international communist movement.
Rosa Luxembourg
A German-Polish revolutionary who formed the Spartacus League, dedicated to ending the war and establishing a proletariat government in Germany. She founded the German Communist Party in 1918 but remained a believer in democracy. She was arrested and murdered in Berlin by members of the paramilitary group Freikorps, due to her involvement in the so-called Spartacus revolt
Clemenceau
PM of France 1917-20. Nicknamed “The Tiger”. Major contributor to the Allied victory in World War I and a framer of the postwar Treaty of Versailles.
Lloyd George
British PM from 1916 - 1922. Pursued a middle course between Wilson and Clemenceau, and thanks to him the Versailles Treaty was not much worse.
Fiume
A conflict between Italy and Yugoslavia over control of the port of Fiume. It was promised to Yugoslavia during the Treaty of London but claimed by Italy at the Paris Peace Conference. Remained a bone of contention until it was finally handed over to Yugoslavia after WW2.
May 4 movement
May Fourth Movement, intellectual revolution and sociopolitical reform movement that occurred in China in 1917–21. The movement was directed toward national independence, emancipation of the individual, and rebuilding society and culture.
Soviet-Polish war
1919-1921
Soviet Russia declared war on the Polish republic, and lost.
“largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more. […] Unavowedly and almost unconsciously, Soviet leaders abandoned the cause of international revolution.” It would be twenty years before the Bolsheviks would send their armies abroad to ‘make revolution’.According to American sociologist Alexander Gella “the Polish victory had gained twenty years of independence not only for Poland, but at least for an entire central part of Europe.”
Balfour declaration
1917 statement of British support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
Ataturk
aka Mustafa Kemal
Leader of Turkish national movement in the Turkish war of Independence and the founder and first president of the republic of Turkey 1923-38.
He modernised Turkey’s legal and education systems and embarked upon a series of economic, social, and cultural reforms. He transformed Turkey into a modern secular nation-state.
