History 1C

Lecture 7: World War I

If you drive by car to Paris from the Channel ports of Calais and Dunkirk, you pass a long chain of large cemeteries. You see them on the grassy ridgelines and sometimes framed by trees. The day can be very bright and your mind may be on very pleasant things, but the sight of the cemeteries always seems to bring a chill, a distant voice of reproach and warning. It is as if there are ghosts watching you.

The main highway from the Channel ports to Paris follows roughly the same track as the old Western front of World War I. The cemeteries you see are military cemeteries. They hold the graves of hundreds of thousands of men. Many thousands more men were lost forever -- their bodies blown to bits and trampled out of sight in the mud. In some parts of France the farmers still find unexploded artillery shells when they do their spring plowing, and there are other parts of France where you must beware of depressions in the ground, for poison gas still seeps from the soil from time to time and collects in low-lying areas.

This is where it all began to end for Europe. This is where the knights and kings and pageants led them. This is where the French Revolution brought them, and the rise of industry, and universal male suffrage, and the collapse of Bismarck's international system, and the new imperialism, and social Darwinism, and above all nationalism.

The First World War set in motion the destructive energies that brought the long centuries of European world dominance to a close. The war of 1914-1918 did much of the work, and prepared the way for a Second World War that did the rest.

II. European Civil War--Great War: War a turning point

A. European dominance and balance of power changed

1. European dominance had always been assumed

a. Held together by alliance system

b. Rivalry between Germany and France dominates this system

c. Alliances were secret treaties

d. Wilson wants to get rid of this secrecy

e. Perceived to be defensive treaties

1. Germany afraid of encirclement

2. France wanted to prevent isolation

i. had lost war with Germany because of this

ii. Want land back

2. Triple Alliance--1882--Germany Austria Italy

3. Triple Entente--1907--Britain, France and Russia

a. Intended to prevent war--works for a while

b. After assassination systems create war

4. European dominance undermined because of involvement of US

a. emerged economically stronger

b. also undermined by involvement of colonial holdings in the war

B. Military leadership and technology changed

1. Mobilization of economies and troops

2. Russia has problem of distance

a. trouble getting troops and supplies around

b. Russia began mobilizing early

3. July 28, Austria declares war on Serbia

4. July 30, Russia begins mobilization to support Serbia

5. July 31, Austria-Hungary mobilizes

6. August 1, France declares war and Germany follows

7. Military controls mobilization

III. WWI

A. Center of conflict in Europe

B. Destroys much economic and military power of dominant countries

C. Ripple effect throughout world

D. Tensions before war

1. gender and class

2. patched up for war

3. pick up again after war

E. As colonial armies enter war Euroepan mystique of infallibility was shaken

1. colonials fight alongside Europeans and see common soldiers

F. Colonials fight and die for a war they didn't care about

1. Feel they deserve something in return

2. Powers owe them concessions after war

IV. US and Russia rise in importance during and after the war

A. US turns tide against Germany--can influence postwar settlement

B. Bolsheivks represent forces for change in world system

C. Lenin and Wilson argue that should be no more secret treaties after war

D. Both argue that goal of war was to promote a broader based world political system--didn't agree on means

E. Both argue for self-determination among people

V. Forces for order

A. French, Italian and British people don't like self-determination

1. Don't want to lose their colonies

2. Don't want mass participation--rule of the elite is traditional

B. Two groups collide at Versailles

1. Lenin not invited

2. Wilson very popular in 1918 with colonies

a. Wilson has little diplomatic experience

b. Has no sympathy for aims and asperations of colonial countires

c. wants slow change for colonies in Africa, Mideast, Asia and Mexico

d. sent mixed signals

3. Two biggest proponents for change were silent at Vers

VI. Peripheral countries were politically and economically weak

A. Couldn't push for their interests

B. Versailles didn't transform traditional order

C. Tried to contain change and restructure existing order

D. Some Euroepan countries received independence but not colonial countries

E. No concessions were made to colonies

F. Former colonies of Germany placed under control of League of Nations

G. Mandate System

1. protectorate over a given area given to one of the principle European powers

2. Have virtual colonial control

3. Supposed to be temporary--preparation for self-rule

4. League was active in containing change

H. Led to unrest in the periphery

1. Palestine

a. British mandate was met by resistence from Arab and Jewish groups

2. Egypt--revolt in 1919 to demand concessions from Brit

3. China--1920-1930--series of revolts against foreign domination and rule of local elites

4. Mexico--1917 constitution

a. limited foreign ownership of natural resources

b. demanded foreign owners have to follow Mexican law

c. emphasizes Indian cultural roots.

I. Attempts to break psychological and cultural ties with developed world