Lecture #3: World History, WWI, and Interwar Period

Question 1

Where did international relations start?

Answer 1

Today’s world political system date back to 15th Century
- end of Middle Ages into Renaissance
- modern states now dominant actors
- Treaty of Westphalia (1648)
- POST WWI start

Question 2

What is the Treaty of Westphalia (1648)?

Answer 2

• ends the 30 Years War (1618-48)
• religious civil war in Europe
• begins nation-state system
• pattern of integration vs disintegration since

Question 3

What are states? What are nations?

Answer 3

• nations: same ethnic, cultural background
• state: defined territory, population, and a government controlling the territory and conducting IR

Question 4

What is Pax Romana?

Answer 4

• lit. “Roman peace”
• 27 BC ~ 180 AD (Augustus to Aurelius)
• marked by “peace” and economic prosperity

Question 5

Why is the Roman Empire (27BC ~ 476 AD) important to IR?

Answer 5

• oligarchic republic with superior military, political, legal, and social institutions
• power by military and building roads and aqueducts
• land irrigation
• spread Latin

Question 6

What was the post-Rome world order and how was it divided?

Answer 6

• macro-level: Catholic Church with Pope at center (even kings are subordinate)
• macro: multiethnic empires emerge nations but weak political identity (British, Austro-Hungarian, German, Russian, Chinese, etc.)
• micro: small political units (other actors like dukedoms, baronies, fiefdoms
• micro: vassals to larger empires but with autonomy; emergence of city-states like Florence and Venice

Question 7

How are city-states the precursor to nation-states?

Answer 7

• cities declare independence from Church or Holy Roman Empire (choose own loyalty politically)
• conduct their own trade and commerce
• decline in feudalism

Question 8

What is feudalism?

Answer 8

a system formed around land owners (lords) who gave people land and power in exchange for military protection and taxes

Question 9

What is the significance of the Protestant Reformation?

Answer 9

• comes out of Renaissance (1350~1650) and cultural rebirth
• countering the authority of the Catholic Church
• Martin Luther rejected Catholic Church ad intermediary between people and God
• 1570 he protested anyone could have relationship with God > leads to nearly a quarter of Western Europe become Protestants

Question 10

Who was Martin Luther?

Answer 10

• led the Protestant Reformation (1517)
• lived 1583-1546
• believed that the Bible is the central source of religious authority
• salvation through faith, not deeds

Question 11

How did nation states emerge?

Answer 11

Growth of kingdoms + breakdown of central religious dominance > rise of modern nation states
- think Treaty of Westphalia 1648
- state sovereignty
- inhabitants identify politically and support it

Question 12

What is the 30 Years’ War?

Answer 12

• longest and most destructive conflict in Central Europe
• Holy Roman Empire Catholic vs Protestant nationalist city states

Question 13

What is the Peace of Augsburg (1555)?

Answer 13

• keystone of the Reformation
• allowed princes of states within the realm to adopt either Lutheranism/Calvinism or Catholicism

Question 14

How did nation states rise?

Answer 14

• idea of popular sovereignty and self determination
• nationalism

Question 15

What are the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815)

Answer 15

• French empire and its Allie’s vs Allies (UK, Austria, Prussia, Spain, etc
• Congress if Vienna (1815) for peace and balance of power in Europe
• model got League of Nations and UN

Question 16

What is the Triple Entente?

Answer 16

• France, Great Britain, Russia (Soviet union)
• suspicious of Germany’s rising power
• also called “Allies”

Question 17

What is the Triple Alliance?

Answer 17

• World War I
• Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Italy
• called “Central Powers” (bc they are in the center lol)

Question 18

How did WWI begin?

Answer 18

• Austro-Hungary archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated by Serbian nationalist
• assassin wanted to end Austro-Hungarian rule of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• chain reaction: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia (since they said no to concessions), Russia feels bound to support Serbia and sends soldiers, Germany sends soldiers on Austria-Hungary side, France backs Russia, Germany declares war on Russia and invade Belgium and France, Great Britain backs France
• arms race and competition for colonies

Question 19

Why did the US join WWI?

Answer 19

• was isolationist and neutral except supply goods and raw materials
• US declared war on Germany in 1917 (2 years almost 3 after war started in 1914)
• Wilson favored Great Britain and didn’t like Germany
• 1915, Germany sank British ocean liner the Lusitania killed 128
• submarine warfare

Question 20

What is the Zimmerman Telegram?

Answer 20

• British navy decoded a telegram sent by Germany offering Mexico its “lost land” from America in exchange for Mexico joining Germany’s side

Question 21

What were some domestic effects of WWI?

Answer 21

• congress passed selective service act (draft) 1917
• now command economy: regulate industry, transportation, labor relations, agriculture

Question 22

What is the Treaty of Versailles?

Answer 22

• ended WWI
• palace in Paris, France
• required Germany to disarm and they bore the brunt end of paying out all the reparations too

Question 23

What was the legacy of Wilson’s 14 Points?

Answer 23

• emphasized self-determination
• that word brought about endless minority problems (ex: 3 million Germans in new nation Czechoslovakia, Hitler used this to justify taking over a country

Question 24

Why did the US not join the League of Nations?

Answer 24

• isolationist policy
• no republicans went to Versailles
• ARTICLE 10 - power of league to make war without us congress vote
• senator henry Cabot Lodge (MA) wanted a written guarantee that US wouldn’t be sucked into wars on others’ behalf
• treaty not ratified and then senate disapproves

Question 25

What are some takeaways from the Interwar Period?

Answer 25

• isolation and appeasement (toward angry Germany/Hilter’s Nazi Germany) don’t work
• German economy collapsed so Hitler and National Socialist Party appeals to nationalism and hatred toward Jews

Question 26

What was FDR’s Foreign Policy?

Answer 26

• Neutrality Acts passed
• isolationist, unless it had a direct impact on your nation
• New Deal and The Great Depression

Question 27

What is the Munich Conference?

Answer 27

• 1938
• Neville Chamberlain (British Prime Minister) thinks diplomacy > war so everyone follows German appeasement instead of stopping it

Question 28

Who are the Axis powers?

Answer 28

• WWII
• Germany, Italy, Japan