Chapter 30

1. Chapter 30 Discussion and review

2. What were the causes of the First World War? • The three most important causes of the Great War were nationalism, the system of military alliances, and German plans to dominate Europe. • Because of nationalist sentiments, Europeans saw war as an opportunity for independence and as revenge for previous defeats. • Europeans also had forgotten their fear of war, as most nineteenth-century wars were quick, inexpensive in both lives and material, and victorious. • The tangle of diplomatic and military ties created a web of connections between countries pledging mutual support in case of war. • Those alliances quickly became battle lines after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia. • France, Great Britain, and Russia were the primary combatants for the Entente Powers; Germany and Austria-Hungary were the Central Powers. • German plans for European domination called for quick victories against France and Russia and hinged on British and American neutrality. • Technology encouraged German aggression, as precise large-scale mobilization by railroad was essential to German strategy.

3. Describe the peace treaties ending the First World War and some of their long-term implications. • Treaty of Versailles was a unilateral document, dictated by France, Britain, and the United States. • The treaty had very little input from other European countries, and none at all from nations such as Japan. • The Central Powers took no part in the treaty except to sign it. • The treaty’s punitive measures included large but undefined monetary reparations; a “guilt clause,” in which Germany accepted all blame for the war; and the loss of German territory. • Woodrow Wilson’s plan for self-determinism called for new European nations to be formed along ethnic and linguistic lines. • Germany returned Alsace and Lorraine to France, and the Polish state was recreated from eastern Germany. • Austria-Hungary and Russia lost territory that became Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and almost one dozen other new nations. • Many of these new nations were unstable and fragile entities. • The breakup of the Ottoman Empire also left that region unstable, with Allied nations weaker than they had been even before the war.

4. Briefly describe the Revolution in Russia and the reorganization of the country into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. • During the Great War, Russia was still controlled by the tsar and a wealthy aristocracy. • The poorly led and equipped Russian army suffered crushing losses in fighting the Germans. • Starvation and shortages led to rebellions throughout Russia. Citizens formed councils (called soviets), and seized army barracks and factories. • Amid the turmoil, the tsar abdicated power to a new Provisional Government. • the competing groups that fought for control, including the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks (the two wings of the Social Democratic Party), and the Social Revolutionaries. • Lenin’s Bolsheviks ultimately took control and expanded their power during the October Revolution. • The Communists, as the Bolsheviks were called by then, defeated their enemies. • The new government first recognized the independence of many regions and then combined with them to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

5. Describe World War I and its aftermath in the Middle East. • During the Great War, the Ottoman Empire controlled most of the Middle East. • After a disastrous defeat at Gallipoli, Britain allied itself with Arab leaders in an attempt to defeat the Ottomans. • Britain offered Prince Hussein ibn Ali his own kingdom in exchange for Arab assistance. • A revolt led by Hussein’s son Faisal weakened the Ottoman Empire but did not affect the war in Europe. • While that intrigue was being carried out, the Zionist movement was seeking a Jewish homeland in Palestine. • Zionists received widespread sympathy and the support of the British government in the Balfour Declaration. • Turkey, led by Mustapha Kemal, established itself from the remains of the dismantled Ottoman Empire and instituted many progressive reforms, turning his country into a secular republic. • The Arab-speaking areas of the former Ottoman Empire were reorganized under the mandate system, as were Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq. • British dominance over Egypt continued, in spite of a declaration of Egyptian independence in 1922. • Encouraged by the Balfour Declaration, Jews moved in large numbers to Palestine, creating the root of a long-standing Middle Eastern dispute.

6. Describe social changes in Europe and the United States during the 1920s, particularly the changes that resulted from the First World War. • Although most of western Europe and the United States wanted simply to return to prewar stability and conservatism, the war had initiated changes that could not be reversed. • White-collar workers and the middle class grew substantially, but the working class declined. • European refugees migrated in large numbers until the United States, Canada, and Australia enacted immigration restrictions. • Women’s lives changed the most. Many women had joined the work force as wage earners during the war and were reluctant to abandon those jobs. • After the war, western European and U.S. women also won the right to vote. Technological innovations such as aircraft, automobiles, radio, home appliances, and electricity all changed people’s lives. • The cinema and jazz transformed popular culture. Advances in physics and the social sciences fundamentally altered Western cultures’ view of themselves, often in very unsettling ways. • The Great War’s scars transformed the physical environment, as did dams, irrigation projects, and continued industrialization and suburbanization.