Early 20 th Century 1900-1914

Early 20th Century1900-1914

FRANCE • French Revolution • Ended the monarchy • Napoleon used nationalism to strengthen France • He gained land and began an Empire • Napoleonic Code • giving rights people • He was able to do this as the eco. was prosperous, w/ … • railroad construction • high employment • available credit • gov’t assistance/planning • re-design of Paris • By the 1860s, discontent was on the rise, b/c of pol. scandals; Napoleon III responded w/ dem. reforms (resp. gov’t, free speech, unions…) that kept his popularity high

France fought in the Crimean War against Russia • Russia lost • France was able to re-establish itself as the center of European diplomacy • showed the influence of war correspondents & the need for better medicine • Florence Nightingale

ITALY • A “new” nations united in this period

their early uprisings failed, leading to the rise of Giuseppe Mazzini – he founded a Young Italy society and dreamed of a unified Italy based on nat’lism and liberalism • after a series of uprisings, Mazzini est. himself as pres. of a republic in Rome: when Austrian and Fr. troops tried to intervene to restore the pope, Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Red Shirts tried to defend the city (they had to surrender in 1849)

the more seasoned politician Camillo Cavour stepped forward, using realpolitik to secure It. unity – he cheated in elecs., made and unmade foreign alliances, and put It. unification on the agenda of the 1856 Paris Peace Conf. (he was partially successful) • at this pt., Garibaldi and his remaining 1000 Red Shirts (i mille) captured Sicily and s. Italy, meeting w/ Cavour in 1861 to secure the Kingdom of Italy under King Victor-Emmanuel II (con. monarchy) in 1866 Venice was added (It. supported Pr. in its war w/ Aus.) and in 1870 Rome was added when Nap. III removed Fr. troops to fight Pr….Rome then became the capital

Germany

The debate was between the “Greater Germans” (who wanted Austria inc.) & the “Lesser Germans” (who were pro-Prussia) • Count Otto von Bismarck est. himself as the leading Pr. politician – known for his use of realpolitik in achieving his pol. goals (“blood and iron”)

He proposed the re-org. of the German Confed. based on universal suffrage; he knew this would be rejected in Austria and that it would probably lead to war b/n Pr. and Aus.

The Pr. army, w/ its ind. weaponry and led by Gen. Helmuth von Moltke, won the Aust-Pr. War in 7 wks….Bis. negotiated a lenient peace and created a n. Ger. Confed. under Pr. leadership (Pr. Kaiser Wilhelm I acted as king) • Other s. Ger. states, such as Bavaria, signed a mil. alliance w/ Prussia and went on to develop closer eco. and pol. relations (Aus. was pushed out) • The main threat to emerging Ger. unity was France, where Nap. III had won a key plebiscite in 1870

this would lead to the Franco-Prussian War • it began as a diplomatic dispute over succession to the Sp. Throne (Pr. and Sp. still had family connections)…the Fr. feared being surrounded and newspapers in both Pr. and Fr. inflamed nat’list emotions • Pr. did remove their candidate to the Sp. throne, but the Fr. made add. demands (that Pr. wouldn’t try this again), which Bis. edited and released to the press…w/ Fr. “honour” sullied, Nap. III declared war in 1870

Pr. won w/in months…1/2 million troops were moved to the front by train and at Sedan they captured 100 000 Fr. troops and Nap. III…this, combined w/ the brutal siege of Paris, led to the collapse of the 2nd Empire • In the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt, Fr. ceded Alsace-Lorraine, paid reparations, and dealt w/ Pr. occupation for 3 yrs.

England LATE VICTORIAN BRITAIN, 1867-1914: DISRAELI AND GLADSTONE • dem. had been entrenched by this time, and the extension of the franchise was an accepted part of the process • in 1867, the 2nd Reform Bill was passed by the gov’t of the Conservative (Tory) Benjamin Disraeli • w/ this working class male householders were given suffrage • in 1884, a 3rd Reform Bill went through under the Liberal William Gladstone, extending the franchise to male rural householders

late 19th c. G.B. still saw the same ongoing conflict though: reform v. tradition • Disraeli tried to profit from this by creating a new conservatism that appealed to est. landowners and the working class • emphasized tradition, patriotism, and reform, working w/ Queen Victoria, who emerged as key symbol of his vision • Disraeli also emerged as a leading imperialist: he made Victoria the Empress of India and bought shares in the Suez Canal, and fought colonial wars in Asia and Africa • At home, his social reforms recognized unions, public housing, consumer protection, workplacesafety…

Gladstone and the Liberals followed “Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform”, favouring free trade and fewer colonial wars/adventures • They also favoured a laissez faire approach and the eradication of outdated laws • In this respect, they reformed the army, civil service, and educational institutions, doing away w/ patronage • after ongoing Balkan conflict saw the slaughter of 1000s of Christians by the Ottomans (and Disraeli backed the Ottomans b/c of his concerns over Russia), Gladstone was back in office

Gladstone was not successful in his own foreign policy initiatives – conflict w/ the Boers and the Irish showed that peace was elusive; w/ his intro of the Irish Home Rule Bill he split his own party • w/ these devels. and those in other Euro. nations, a new type of rivalry had emerged, based on ind., imperialism and eco. competition • nat’lism in the Balkans was esp. complex b/c of the number of ethno-cultural groups in close proximity; they were stuck in the collapsing Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 only inflamed emotions

the “spark” would thus occur in this region, creating the total war that would transform the 20th c. • Germany and G.B. emerged as the key powers in this period often called “The Road to War” – both identified their dominance as a natural outcome of earlier history: the difference was that in Ger. the old aristocracy retained its influence w/o much trouble, while in G.B. the dispute b/n the landed interests and the people led to constitutional crises and reforms

Russia • soc. had appeal for the growing trade union mvmt. as well as those who gravitated to Marx • several attempts at real soc. organization had been made and had not succeeded • subsequent attempts took a diff. approach: gradualism replaced rev. for many socialists • this approach came to be known as revisionism, and it divided the soc. World • even so, Social Democratic parties did begin to appear and had success in Ger. and Fr. • in GB the Labour Party arose during this period to rep. the working class • from its inception, the Labour Party was divided b/n the trade unionists and intellectuals (assoc. w/ the Fabians)

the entrenchment of soc. ideals had created a sense of crisis in Europe – it was more pronounced in the repressive conditions of E. Europe • Russia in 1905 saw the beginning of profound change as revolution began to grip the country (during the time of Czar Nicholas II, 1894-1917) • Russia was in the midst of an identity crisis: czarist repression + industrialization (much of which was financed by foreign capital; it created the Russian working class and the demand for rev. change)

The principal Marxist Party, the Social Democratic Party, had been exiled to Switz. – they were caught in the revisionist debate along w/ other Euro. Socialists • Vladimir Lenin authored What Is to Be Done?, defending the Marxist concept of rev. and advancing the ideal of a vanguard • the majority agreed w/ him = Bolsheviks (while the minority were called the Mensheviks)

as events in Russia deteriorated (eco. slump, defeat in the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War), a real rev. unfolded • the spark was Bloody Sunday, when the czar’s troops opened fire on peaceful demonstrators - this led to crises across Russia, leading Nicholas II to create the Duma in an effort to reach a settlement • the Duma’s powers were limited and the radicals and conservatives were at odds over the pace and direction of reform: Nicholas continued as an autocrat

Egypt Became a protectorate of Great Britain from 1883 until 1956 British domination of Egypt became the model for the "new imperialism" Turkish general Muhammad Alihad established Egypt into a strong and virtually independent state by 1849 Egypt's inability to satisfy foreign investors led to control of its finances by France & Britain Safeguarding the Suez Canal(completed in 1869) played a key role in the British occupation of Egypt and its bloody conquest of the Sudan.

Japan Only major Asian power to resist being swallowed up by the imperialists. Commodore Matthew Perry(U.S.): forced Japan to open trade in 1853

Russo-Japanese War (1904) Russia and Japan both had designs on Manchuria and Korea Japanese concerned about Russian Trans-Siberian Railway across Manchuria Japan destroyed Russian fleet off coast of Korea and won major battles on land although Russians turned the tide on land Westerners horrified that Japan had defeated a major Western power.

Russo-Japanese War (1904) • Treaty of Portsmouth (mediated by U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt) ended war with Japan winning major concessions (preferred position in Manchuria, protectorate in Korea, half of Sakhalin Island – Japan also went on to annex Korea • Long-term impact of war: Russia turned to the Balkans, and Russia’s political situation deteriorated further, leading to the Russian Rev. • Japan’s victory stimulated Asian nationalism – various Asian peoples hoped to emulate Japanese power and win their independence

“Restrictive, Exclusive, and Selective” (1910) • Not everyone was pleased with the open door policy— English Canadians only wanted immigrants from Britain • The French worried about their status. They feared that the demands of other minority groups might drown out their demands for cultural equality. • Frank Oliver became Minister of the Interior in 1905. • In 1910, he changed the Immigration Act in order to slow down the migration of non-English speaking immigrants.

Early 20 th Century 1900-1914