World War I And Russian Revolution And Interwar Years Flashcards
Underlying tensions/indirect causes of World War I
Militarism - arms race, Britain and Germany naval race
Alliances - Triple Alliance of 1832: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy. Triple Entente of 1907: France, Britain, Russia
Imperialism - encouraged alliances
Nationalism - tied to militarism
“Spark” to start WWI
Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassination. June 1914 Serbian nationalist shoots Austrian heir to the throne. This angers Austria-Hungary and gets Germany support to declare war on Serbia. Germany declared war on Russia—Serbia’s ally—and invaded France via Belgium, which then caused Britain to declare war on Germany.
Alliances
Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire
Allies: France, Britain, Russia, Italy (remained neutral until 1915), Japan, United States
Schlieffen Plan
Germany feared being encircled and having to fight on multiple fronts so they wanted to attack and quickly knock out the French to focus defensively on Russia. Believed Russia’s slow mobilization would give Germany 6 weeks to beat small French army. Germany goes through Belgium, a neutral country, to get to France. Invading Belgium brought Britain into the war because they promised to defend Belgium.
New Weapons and Tactics
Maxim machine guns, artillery cannons with bombshells, Tanks, Dirigible/Zeppelin, WWI RAF Fighter, Poison Gas, Submarines
Trench Warfare: line of trenches especially near French-German border
War of Attrition
Total War
Total War includes civilians as targets.
Civilian casualties: targeted by military, aerial warfare and bombs, most food goes to soldiers
Women: more significant role, volunteer, work in factories and military, encouraged to take jobs in factories that had been held by men who are fighting
Global War
Japan joins Allies and takes over German colonies in the pacific
21 Demands - British find out and help China
Ottoman Empire joins the Central Powers
British campaign to capture Gallipoli from Ottoman in order for the British Navy to have access to Russia via the Black Sea - unexpected failure for British and huge victory for Turks
Why does Russia get out of the war?
Czar Nicholas Abdicates (March Revolution)
Power Struggle ends with Lenin and Marxist Bolsheviks as new government (1917) - “Peace Land and Bread”
Vladimir Lenin signs Treaty of Brest-litvosk (1918) with German
Why does US get into war?
Making lots of money selling war materials to Allies - hard to stay neutral
Allies took loans with American banks so Allies winning would help assure US got repaid
1917 Zimmerman Telegram: Germany tries to get Mexico to declare war on US
Entry of US as powerhouse led Central Powers to begin to surrender
November 1918 Germany and Austria-Hungary accept armistice
14 points
US President Woodrow Wilson made to US Congress
1918 speech to end war — statement of principles for peace
1. Open diplomacy without secret treaties
2. Economic free trade during war and peace
3. Equal trade conditions
4. Decrease armaments across all nations
5. Adjust colonial claims
6. Evacuation of all central powers from Russia and allow it to determine its own independence
7. Belgium to be evacuated and restored
8. Return of Alsace Loraine region in all French territories
9. Readjusting Italian borders
10. Austria-Hungary to have self-determination
11. Redrawing borders of Balkan region to create Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro
12. Creation of Turkey
13. Creation of Poland
14. Creation of League of Nations
Paris Peace Talks
Treaty of Versailles signed by Germany and Allies 1919
League of Nations
Formed at the Paris Peace Conference to prevent another global conflict like World War I and maintain world peace.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Peace treaty between new Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers that ended Russia’s participation in WWI
March Revolution 1917
Textile workers led a city-wide strike: protests over bread and fuel shortages
Czar Nicholas sent soldiers to put down protests
Czar Nicholas pressured to abdicate the throne by members of the Duma and Provisional Government takes over
Provisional Government
Reduced military action
land reforms postponed
Became unpopular because it did not end the war and the people did not want land reforms to be postponed
Bolshevik Socialist/Communist Party
“Peace, Land, and Bread”
Marxist
Aligned with the “Soviets” – workers’ councils – and won over other Soviets around Russia.
Second Revolution of 1917
Bolsheviks storm Winter Palace
Overthrow Provisional Government
Russian Civil War 1918-1921
Red Army vs. White Russians (Czar Loyalists, nobility, anti-communists)
White Russians aided by USA, Great Britain, and France
Trotsky leads Red Army, beat White Russians
Secret police formed to find and execute suspected anti-communists.
10M died and 2M fled USSR
Lenin’s War Communism
Lenin nationalized all industry, privately held commercial property, required peasants to turn over crops to supply army and cities – all very unpopular.
NEP - New Economic Policy 1921
Allowed some elements of capitalism - peasants could sell surplus crops for profit.
Allowed private ownership of small farms, shops, factories (less than 20 workers).
First Five Year Plan
Main goal was industrial growth - built huge new factories, mines, and industrial complexes across USSR
Focus on heavy industry - steel and hydroelectric plants - not consumer products
Great Purge 1934
Stalin turned against members of communist Party. Eliminated anyone who threatened his power. Bolsheviks who led the 1917 Revolution now arrested for “crimes against the state”. Deaths between 8-13M. GULAGs created
How did Stalin’s communist state affect Soviet society?
Totalitarianism: Indoctrination, Propaganda, Censorship, Religious Persecution, Police Terrors
Equality for women, access to education, universal health care, no social classes (theoretically)
Lost Generation
The social generational cohort that was in early adulthood during World War I. “Lost” meaning “disoriented, wandering, directionless” spirit of many of the war’s survivors in the early postwar period.
How did photography change art?
If the camera can record realism, artists do not need to so they focused more on surrealism.
How did German art post-war reflect reality?
German artists not only embraced many of the new artistic styles, but also directly expressed the horror and disillusionment of war in the subjects of their paintings. New depiction of war.
How did dadaism challenge tradition?
Dada rejected traditional standards in art by challenging what was and was not art. Dada also mocked fervent nationalism and materialism, representing an artistic expression of anti-war and anti-bourgeois sentiments.
How did Surrealism and De Stijl reflect the uncertainty of the time?
Surrealism was about the search for a higher reality – a sur reality – that would relieve the artist of the need for reason, and instead allow for untethered imagination.
De Stijl artists aimed to achieve a visual harmony in art that could provide a blueprint for restoring order and balance to everyday life.
Reflect uncertainty because of the desire for a better reality
Literature
Literature no longer glorified war, and instead presented a realistic portrait of the horrors of war.
Architecture
A rejection of traditional styles and an effort to apply reason to design
Interwar designers embraced the Idea that “form should follow function.” They therefore jettisoned ornate design elements that were purely decorative in favor of streamlined, highly functional design.
Science
Blew apart idea of absolute laws of nature that ruled the universe. Albert Einstein, in his Theory of Relativity, showed that space and time are relative. Exact calculations are replaced with probability calculations.
Psychology
Uncertainty principle – could anything be certain? Sigmund Freud saw conflict between conscious and unconscious as a cause of mental illness. Big emphasis on meaning of dreams – the expression of the unconscious, to be reconciled with the conscious.
Philosophy
Enthusiasm for progress started by Enlightenment and Scientific Rev was challenged. Progress had failed humanity by creating terrible weapons of industrialized war. Questioning of Social Darwinism
