CHANGING SOCIETIES 249 See also: The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ The Gettysburg Address 244–47 ■ The opening of Ellis Island 250–51 ■ The Trail of Tears 264 John Gast’s painting American Progress (1872) depicts the concept of manifest destiny. In it, the figure of Columbia, representing the USA, lays telegraph wires and leads settlers west. was completed, slashing journey times: by 1876, it was possible to travel from New York to California in three and a half days. population of San Francisco, the of Panama. Six months was the Settlers and victims main point of entry, was hardly 200 expected minimum for these Immigration was the fuel that in 1846. By 1852, it was more than enormous undertakings. powered these transformations, the 30,000, and by 1870, it was 150,000. new lands demanding a vast influx However, an extraordinary of new settlers. In 1803, the US A handful, mostly early arrivals, resolution to link these vast new population stood at 4 million. By made fortunes, while some made territories was being forged, 1861, it was 31 million; and by the modest profits, and most made harnessing new technology in turn of the century, 76 million. nothing at all. The California gold pursuit of nation-building on an epic There were inevitable costs to rush seemed a national obsession. scale. In 1861, the first telegraph line such rapid growth, and American In reality, it was no more than was established between the east Indians paid the highest price. an extreme instance of the and the west coasts. In 1869, the Driven off their tribal lands with determination to colonize North first transcontinental railroad line relentless brutality, their numbers America by the United States that dropped from perhaps as many as was underway long before the gold 4.5 million to 500,000. Herded into had been found. By 1803, Vermont, reservations, their traditional way Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio had of life destroyed, they were helpless become states. In addition to the in the face of this seemingly annexation of Texas in 1845, a irresistible expansion. ■ further 13 states had been added by 1848. In the same year, New The Battle of the Little Bighorn Mexico and California were also seized from Mexico. Gold was behind the most were sent to Montana to round famous confrontation between them up. Among them was a New technologies the new settlers of the west and troop of 600 under Lieutenant To reach California, the 49ers the native populations: the Battle Colonel George Custer. Some endured journeys of astonishing of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 200 of these men, led by Custer hardship, traveling by wagon 1876. The US government himself, discovered the Indian across the immensities of the Great authorized the settlement of the encampment in the Little Plains or by ship around Cape Horn, Black Hills of South Dakota after Bighorn Valley. In just one hour, and sometimes across the Isthmus gold was discovered there. By the combined American Indian doing so, however, it broke a warriors, led by Sitting Bull, treaty with the Sioux of the killed Custer’s entire force. Great Plains. When, in return, Their deaths renewed the substantial numbers of Sioux government’s determination to and Cheyenne refused to move force the Sioux and Cheyenne to reservations, federal cavalry into reservations at any cost.
250 MGTAHMOEEDLET’RGSIIRNCCEGARAPUITSOCTIBLE, THE OPENING OF ELLIS ISLAND (1892) IN CONTEXT Industrialization, urban growth, and lower infant mortality boost European populations. FOCUS Mass migration and Political and religious freedoms and economic population growth opportunities in young countries such as the US BEFORE attract millions of immigrants. 1840s The Irish potato famine leads to mass emigration. Steamships make ocean voyages to distant lands safer, faster, and cheaper. 1848 The failure of liberal revolutions sparks large-scale An immigration station on Ellis Island opens German emigration. to process arrivals to the United States. c.1870 Major emigration of By the mid-19th century, the of improved agricultural methods. It Jews from Russia begins as world was experiencing an was also a result of industrialization they flee persecution. unprecedented boom in and urban growth, as well as the population, particularly in Europe. affluence and improved living 1882 Restrictions are placed This increase would continue into standards that both produced. on the entry of Chinese into the 20th century and beyond. It Political stability played a role, too. the United States. was partly due to improvements After the defeat of Napoleon in in health, backed by more ready 1815, Europe enjoyed almost 100 1880s Mass emigration from access to food as a consequence years of largely unbroken peace. Italy begins. AFTER 1900 The population of Europe reaches 408 million; the United States, 76 million. 1907 The largest number of immigrants in a single year enters the United States: more than 1 million. 1954 Ellis Island closes.
CHANGING SOCIETIES 251 See also: The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ Bolívar establishes Gran Colombia 216–19 ■ The 1848 revolutions 228–29 ■ Russia emancipates the serfs 243 ■ The California Gold Rush 248–49 ■ The Irish famine 264 Nature also had a hand in the I had always hoped that 5 million from Austria-Hungary, and increase in migration. The Irish this land might become a safe 4.5 million from Germany. Between potato famine of the 1840s, and agreeable asylum to the 1820 and 1920, the US attracted resulting from a failed crop, may virtuous and persecuted part 33.6 million immigrants, where have been the last major European they often found themselves in famine, but it brought suffering on of mankind, to whatever poor living conditions in rapidly a startling scale: up to 1 million nation they might belong. expanding cities such as Chicago people died. It provoked among George Washington and New York, aiding the growth survivors a vast wave of emigration of American industry with their of over 1 million, almost all to the cheap labor. Over the same period, US. The population of Ireland in 3.6 million Europeans settled in 1841 was 6.5 million; by 1871, it had South America, and 2 million in dipped to 4 million. Australia and New Zealand. Urban underclass revolts of 1848. From 1870, huge Unwelcome guests Industrialization produced a similar numbers of Russian and Polish This process of relocation was paradox. Whatever the civic pride Jews—1.5 million in 1901–10 not exclusively European. Indians and bombast of the immense new alone—similarly emigrated, settled in South Africa, Chinese urban centers of the Industrial fleeing anti-Semitic pogroms. migrants spread across the East Revolution, especially in Britain, a Indies, and Japanese migrants new urban underclass was being The numbers involved in this settled in California; many found created, desperately impoverished huge transfer of populations were themselves unwelcome. and living in extreme squalor. remarkable. From the mid-19th century to 1924, 18 million people There were also victims of For the citizens of continental emigrated from Britain, 9.5 million enforced emigration. Unknown Europe, the lure of new lands in from Italy, mostly from its deprived numbers of black African slaves which to be free and prosper would south, 8 million from Russia, were still being shipped around prove irresistible. Substantial the world. numbers of Germans, Czechs, and Hungarians left central Europe after By 1910, more than one in seven the suppression of the nationalist of the US population had been born outside of the United States. ■ In its first 30 years, Ellis Island Ellis Island Jersey shore in New York saw 80 percent of United States’ Harbor, Ellis Island had at its immigrants passing through— Opened on January 1, 1892, Ellis heart a vast, echoing hall. Here, almost 12 million people. Island, along with the Statue of shuffling forward, the newly Liberty, became a symbol of the arrived immigrants, speaking vast stream of immigrants that a dazzling array of languages, poured into the United States. would be processed. They were This immigration center processed examined medically before perhaps 12 million people, and being subjected to a series of it is claimed that as much as simple questions to establish 40 percent of the immigrant their eligibility. The great population of the United States majority would then become has at least one relative who accepted as citizens of the was fed through this immense United States, with scarcely bureaucratic machine. Built on 2 percent turned away. Ellis nothing more than a nondescript Island finally closed its doors sandy island, close to the New on November 12, 1954.
252 ESTNHTRREIEMCNHIGLTTITHHAEERNCYOUNTRY, THE MEIJI RESTORATION (1868) IN CONTEXT Aggressive Western demands for trading rights in Japan highlight the weakness of its ruling elite. FOCUS Modernizing Japan Leading feudal barons reassert the authority of the boy emperor BEFORE 1853 A US naval force Meiji and oust the shogunate. arrives in Japan and demands trading links. The barons see the adoption Military might is seen as of Western political and an essential way of fulfilling 1854–55 The US, Britain, the Netherlands, and Russia force social methods as the best Japanese ambitions. trading treaties on Japan. way to strengthen Japan. 1866 The rulers of the Choshu Modernization and Westernization encapsulate the Meiji and Satsuma regions form a period, and Japan emerges as an imperial power. secret alliance against the ruling Tokugawa shogunate. T he overthrow in 1868 of the Netherlands to establish trading the Tokugawa shogunate, links. In place of the shoguns, the 1867 The Tokugawa rulers of Japan for 250 pliant 14-year-old Meiji emperor shogunate ends. years, was led by feudal barons from would “exercise supreme authority.” the southern provinces of Choshu The goal of the barons was not to AFTER and Satsuma and was the direct take over and maintain Japan as it 1868–69 Defenders of the consequence of its weakness in the had existed under the shogunate— shogunate are defeated. face of aggressive demands by the rigidly hierarchical and deliberately United States, Britain, Russia, and isolated from the wider world. 1871 Feudalism is abolished, and Japan launches a far- reaching program of reform. 1894–95 The Sino-Japanese War underlines expansionist Japanese aims in the region. 1904–05 The Russo-Japanese War ends in Japanese victory.
CHANGING SOCIETIES 253 See also: The Battle of Sekigahara 184–85 ■ Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25 ■ The construction of the Suez Canal 230–35 ■ The Second Opium War 254–55 ■ Nazi invasion of Poland 286–93 ■ The Long March 304–05 This image of Yokohama in 1874 depicts the modernity of Meiji-era Japan in the form of steam-powered trains and ships, which also served to open up the country to trade. The spur to modernization had largely been the fear that Japan, like China, would become another Western colonial pawn. In fact, the opposite occurred. Rather, it was that they felt abolished feudalism and established Military expansion Japan’s clear destiny could only the yen as its currency. By 1872, the By the 1890s, Japan was a colonial be established by the adoption first railway was under construction; power. In 1894, Korea had asked not just of Western technological within 15 years, there was 1,000 both Japan and China to help curb means but of Western political miles (1,600km) of track. In 1873, an insurrection there. When both and financial systems, too. Japan introduced conscription, countries later sought to take over along with Western weapons and Korea, the Japanese swept the Japan transformed uniforms. The same year saw an Chinese aside, and then demanded There followed a transformation of overhaul of the education system, and received possession of Taiwan, a kind no society had seen before or and in 1877 Japan’s first university as well as rights in Manchuria. has seen since. Modeling itself on was established in Tokyo. Japan Here they came into conflict with the West, in 30 years Japan became also introduced a new legal code in Russia. The Japanese victory in one of the most dynamic industrial 1882, and a new constitution seven 1905 over a disorganized Russian powers in the world and the leading years later. As industry boomed, fleet at the Battle of Tsushima military power in East Asia. so exports grew. Cities similarly Strait was the first time an expanded, as did the population, industrial European power had Almost no aspect of Japanese swelling from 39.5 million in 1888 been defeated by an Asian power. society was left untouched by this to 55 million by 1918. Japan had the world’s attention. ■ whirlwind of change. In 1871, Japan Emperor Meiji Important not as a statesman in February 1867, following the or as the ruler of Japan in the sudden death of his father, sense of exercising actual power, Emperor Komei. Emperor Meiji (1852–1912)— whose personal name, never For those ambitious daimyo, used, was Mutsuhito—was or feudal barons, who were instead the symbol of the reborn determined to drive Japan into Japan. Until the restoration the modern world, elevating of Meiji in January 1868, the the emperor to a higher profile emperors of Japan were little bestowed legitimacy on what more than a symbol. Under the was otherwise an act of shogunate, they were obliged usurpation. It is telling that one to remain invisibly at the royal of their first acts was to force the palace in Kyoto more or less emperor to move to Edo, which permanently. Strictly speaking, was renamed Tokyo in 1868, the the “restoration” never happened: former residence of the shogun. Meiji had already become emperor Meiji himself remained an impenetrable cypher to the end.
254 TIAINONWDMAIETYTLTHHDAEACTNPKHODEAWNUEDNRIKVIELRLSE THE SECOND OPIUM WAR (1856–1860) IN CONTEXT Despite China’s great wealth, Western powers are allowed very restricted access to Chinese ports. FOCUS Decline of imperial China Western merchants use opium to pay for goods, damaging China’s economy. BEFORE 1793 Lord Macartney’s trade The First Opium War is sparked by mission to China is rebuffed. Chinese attempts to stop the opium trade. c.1800 Opium is increasingly The Second Opium War leads to further used to pay for Chinese crippling territorial and trading concessions. goods, sparking a balance of payments crisis. Unable to resist the West, China sees its status diminished internally and externally. 1839–42 The First Opium War ends with Hong Kong O n October 6, 1860, after burned down the emperor’s ceded to Britain and five years of sporadic conflict sumptuous Summer Palace. The Treaty Ports opened. known as the Second Chinese agreed to talks, and the Opium War, an Anglo-French force resulting Peking Convention not 1850–64 The Taiping seized the imperial capital of Peking only increased the number of Treaty Rebellion brings China close (today Beijing), in China, to force Ports open to Western trade, but to complete disintegration the Chinese to submit to trading British and French zones of influence and kills millions. concessions. The point was were extended in south China and underlined when the Europeans along the fertile Yangtze River. AFTER 1899 The anti-Western Boxer Rebellion is put down by an eight-nation foreign force. It signals the effective end of Chinese imperial authority.
CHANGING SOCIETIES 255 See also: Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25 ■ The construction of the Suez Canal 230–35 ■ The Siege of Lucknow 242 ■ The Meiji Restoration 252–53 ■ The Taiping Rebellion 265 ■ The Long March 304–05 The port of Canton, in southern China, was initially the only trading port open to Western merchants. After the two opium wars, Europe was given exclusive access to many more. Less than 70 years before, Britain Qing dynasty, its administration mostly by bribing officials, were had sent an embassy to China to increasingly ineffective, had increasingly able to use opium, open trade talks, only to be rebuffed. essentially lost control of China. cheaply grown in India, to pay for Late 18th-century Qing China was goods. By the 1820s, 5,000 chests of the richest, most populous, and The West intrudes opium a year were entering China. most powerful country in the world, It was this growing turmoil that and it could afford its complacency. the West exploited, weakening The Chinese attempt to end By the mid-19th century, however, China further in the process. The the opium trade and its debilitating the nation was effectively bankrupt, first, modest trading concessions effects led to a crushing defeat in racked by famines and revolts, China had agreed to stipulated that the First Opium War of 1839–42, and increasingly exploited and all Chinese goods be paid for in with the European powers, Britain humiliated by the West. silver. However, from the early above all, extracting substantial 19th century, European traders, trading concessions. It was Uprisings and revolts Western insistence in 1856 that China’s problems were internal The Boxer Rebellion these concessions be extended as much as external. A swelling that led to the Second Opium War, population—100 million in 1650, In the turmoil of late 19th- concluded in 1860 by the Peking 300 million in 1800, 450 million century China, it was inevitable Convention. By 1900, a string in 1850—provoked recurring that efforts would be mounted of Western trading ports were famines. Between 1787 and 1813, to end the growing dominance scattered along the Chinese coast. there were three major uprisings. of the West. The imperial Britain, France, Japan, and Russia Its border provinces, conquered government in Beijing made a now all controlled what had been at huge expense in the 17th and last-ditch attempt at reform on Chinese tributary states on its 18th centuries, were in a near- Western lines, but the chaos borders. China, wracked by turmoil, permanent state of unrest. came to a head in 1899 with the was effectively disintegrating. ■ Boxer Rebellion, mounted by the In 1850, the Taiping Rebellion Militia United in Righteousness, were invulnerable to Western erupted across central China, a semi-secret society composed weapons, was the overthrow resulting in the death of as many mostly of young men. Its goal, of all Western interests. as 20 million people. When it was to be achieved in part thanks to The rebellion was variously finally put down, in 1864, it was their deluded belief that they supported and opposed by only after Western intervention. The the imperial court, uncertain whether it represented a means of salvation or would merely provoke Western reprisals. The latter proved to be the case. An eight-nation military alliance, including Japan, was sent into China against the Boxers, and by September 1901 the rebellion had been crushed, amid scenes of indiscriminate violence.
256 ISOTOHHFUAETNGHISHEITMAEMTIOFORFEBELEFATJMOEAWOLUEOSRU.S THE OPENING OF THE EIFFEL TOWER (1889) IN CONTEXT T he opening of the Eiffel and over it now soared Gustave Tower on March 31, 1889 Eiffel’s tower, at 984ft (300m) not FOCUS was a startling assertion just the tallest structure in the Urban culture of Parisian bombast in the years world, but a triumphant monument between the humiliations of the to technological progress. BEFORE Franco-Prussian War in 1870–71 1858 The Great Stink in and the outbreak of World War I in The ideal city London prompts the building 1914. This was the Belle Epoque, Modern Paris was the creation of of an extensive sewer system a time when Paris could—and Napoleon III. Beginning in 1853, still used in the 21st century. did—confidently proclaim itself the French emperor had whole the City of Light, supremely districts knocked down, replacing 1863 The first underground cosmopolitan, the art capital of the medieval buildings and tangles of train comes into operation world, and the epicenter of civilized tiny streets with imposingly vast in London. living. Paris was the city reborn, boulevards. It was urban planning on a scale never seen before. Train 1868 The first elevated urban The Eiffel Tower was erected in stations were built, water supplies railway opens in New York. time for the Universal Exposition of improved, sewers constructed, 1889. At the time, it was the world’s parks laid out, and stunning vistas 1876 Los Angeles installs tallest structure. It has since come to created. The goal was a model the world’s first electric street represent Paris to the entire world. city, one that would reflect not lights. London soon follows. just the glory of France but also its mastery of the modern age. AFTER 1895 A variety theater in It was a process mirrored in Berlin, the Wintergarten, cities across the industrial West. becomes the world’s first In 1850, there were three European cinema. cities with populations larger than 500,000: Paris, London, and 1902 The first motor bus Constantinople. Fifty years later, service starts in London. there were nine with populations larger than 1 million, and by 1900, London was the largest city in the world, with 6.5 million inhabitants. The same dizzying growth occurred in the US,
See also: Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25 ■ The construction of the CHANGING SOCIETIES 257 Suez Canal 230–35 ■ The opening of Ellis Island 250–51 ■ France returns to a republican government 265 Underground railways Industrialization and Squalor and Between 1800 and 1900, the emigration draw millions disease afflict the population density in New of people to cities across new urban poor, York rose from 39,183 per subsisting in slums. square mile to 90,366, and the Western world. the congestion was worsening as public transportation took Infrastructure— Social reformers argue up valuable land. A solution sanitation, transport, that living conditions favored in the United States and street lighting— for all must be improved. was an elevated railway— a train line raised above becomes a priority. the streets on steel girders. The first was opened in New The opening of the Better living conditions York in 1868. Eiffel Tower is seen and higher wages in cities In the UK, the same space as an affirmation lead to the birth of constraints led to the birth of civic pride. mass consumerism. of the underground railway. The first, using conventional too—between 1850 and 1900, the and compulsory education, with steam engines, was London’s population of Chicago, for example, basic literacy and numeracy now Metropolitan Railway, which tripled, from 560,000 to 1.7 million. increasingly commonplace. It was opened in 1863 and linked an age of music halls and popular Paddington and King’s Cross Difficulties and inventions theater, and subsequently of the stations with the City of The initial consequence of this cinema; of the phonograph; of London. Soon extended and population explosion was quite mass-circulation newspapers; and combined with the District staggering urban squalor. Diseases of a growing interest in sports. Line, by 1871 it encircled such as cholera and typhoid were almost the whole of central commonplace. It became clear that Just as central to this age of London. The city’s first electric the infrastructure demanded by growing affluence and increased underground service—faster, any modern city had to include not leisure—at least for some—were quieter, and much less dirty— just adequate public transport and the first department stores. These was opened in 1890. Paris well-lit streets, for example, but were a conspicuous part of a retail followed suit with the opening major improvements in public revolution that was coupled, from of the Métro, named after the health—above all, sanitation. the 1870s, with an advertising London line, in 1900, and the explosion, with color posters mass- first US underground service The shift in the quality of life produced for the first time. And opened in Boston in 1897. in these great metropolises was from the 1890s in the United States, extraordinary. It was paralleled cityscapes were further changed by In 1890, London unveiled the by the rapid development of a new type of building: skyscrapers. world’s first electric underground mass consumerism, the direct Just as the Eiffel Tower before railway. It made transport within consequence of improved living them, they rapidly became symbols the city quick and reliable. standards, shorter working hours, of the transformation in urban life. ■
258 IOWFTOIHUCELORDUPLALDNANNIEEXTS THE BERLIN CONFERENCE (1884) IN CONTEXT The interior of Africa is revealed by European exploration. Its commercial possibilities are alluring. FOCUS The “scramble for Africa” Unremitting competition Europe takes full advantage between Europe’s colonial of its financial and BEFORE military superiority 1830 France begins powers sparks a sudden occupation of Algeria. “scramble for Africa.” to impose itself on Africa. 1853–56 David Livingstone At the Berlin Conference, new colonial crosses Central Africa. possessions are created, supposedly in the interests of Christianity and “civilization.” 1862 John Speke discovers the source of the Nile. By 1913, only Liberia and Ethiopia remain fully independent. 1879 H. M. Stanley is hired by T he Berlin Conference the conference was held over the Leopold II to survey the Congo. did not precipitate the winter of 1884–85 and attended by sudden European takeover representatives from 14 countries. It 1882 Britain takes over of Africa after 1880 but, rather, was intended in part to legitimize a nominally Ottoman-ruled Egypt. confirmed Europe’s self-asserted more or less enforced subjection of right to impose itself on a continent Africa and, by setting agreed rules AFTER deemed backward, ignorant, of colonization, to avoid conflict 1886–94 German territories and savage. Called by Otto von between Europe’s colonial powers, in East Africa are established. Bismarck, Germany’s chancellor, France and Britain most obviously. 1890 The Anglo-French Convention grants France control of the Sahara. 1891–93 Cecil Rhodes brings Southern and Northern Rhodesia under British rule. 1899–1902 Boer War sees Britain wrest control of Orange Free State and Transvaal.
CHANGING SOCIETIES 259 See also: The construction of the Suez Canal 230–35 ■ The Siege of Lucknow 242 ■ The Second Opium War 254–55 ■ The rise and fall of the Zulu kingdom 264 ■ A Mahdist Islamic state is created in Sudan 265 ■ The [Second] Boer War 265 ■ Indian independence and partition 298–301 ■ Nkrumah wins Ghanaian independence 306–07 It was also seen as a way to end the The subsequent heightening Cecil Rhodes, portrayed in this slave trade, not least by the actions of tensions resulted in the near- Victorian cartoon as a giant straddling of Christian missionaries. At the complete reduction of Africa to the entire African continent, was a same time, it paved the way for European rule. African colonies great believer in colonization for the Germany and Belgium, two nations were essentially artificial creations, benefit of the British Empire. with no history of colonial rule, to lines drawn on maps to suit the become major imperial powers. For colonizing powers. They took 1884 and today part of Namibia, Germany, this was little more than no notice of local histories and were equally brutal. The true price a logical next step in its challenge cultures, and any local resistance of the riches produced by Africa to Britain and France. If they could to colonization was invariably for its European masters—ivory, boast vast colonial possessions, crushed by military means. rubber, gold, and diamonds—was Germany felt it should, too. extraordinary suffering. ■ Belgian and German rule The European takeover In 1885, Leopold II, the King of Before colonization, Africa possessed the Belgians, proclaimed the a variety of states and territories, establishment of the Congo Free some quite precisely defined, some State, an area 76 times larger amorphously tribal—there was than Belgium. Presented as an extreme contrast between a model colony, dedicated to the sophistication of Egypt, for humanitarian ends and free trade, example, and the Congo in tropical in reality it was anything but. Africa. At the same time, much of the north was Muslim. The first Treated by Leopold II as his European holdings in Africa were personal possession, the Congo coastal trading forts, sustained witnessed brutalities on a near- by gold and the slave trade. The genocidal scale. The exact numbers interior remained impenetrable, but can never be known, but it is as it was revealed from the early believed that between 2 million 1800s, European control of Africa and 10 million Congolese died. gained momentum. Conditions in German southwest Africa, suddenly taken over after Cecil Rhodes There was no more ardent Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia exponent of British imperial (now Zimbabwe), which were rule in Africa than Cecil Rhodes both named after him. As the (1853–1902), financier, statesman, prime minister of Britain’s Cape and relentless imperialist. He Colony from 1890, his relentless envisaged a continuous body of scheming to topple the Boer British colonies that would run republics led to his eventual north and south across Africa, political demise in 1895. He linking the two strategically remains perhaps the most vital extremities of Africa: Cape striking example of the Town and Cairo. Having made unashamed imperialist, not his fortune mining and selling just permanently ready to diamonds in South Africa, he extend British colonial control, dedicated the rest of his life to but convinced that it was his this audacious vision. He was able duty to do so in the interests to carve out new British territories of what seemed to him a self- in Northern Rhodesia (now part of evident European fitness to rule.
260 DLMOTEEEFYAMATPRCORENHCUOIRTTNPHHAGLECESAYPAONRRTFDIEHNSTEGCCHOIDIPEEIILNCNEGTCSAETTOOEFS THE YOUNG TURK REVOLUTION (1908) IN CONTEXT Ottoman Turkey finds The Ottoman sultanate itself increasingly unable attempts Westernizing FOCUS reforms, but these efforts Modernizing Turkey to keep control of its empire and match are half-hearted. BEFORE Western powers. 1798 French invasion of Egypt, which leads to the Ottoman The Young Turk The rule of Abdul Hamid loss of the country in 1805. Revolution II proves repressive and instigates 1830 Greece’s independence corrupt, ever more at signals the loss of the first modernizing the mercy of Western Ottoman Balkan territories. reforms. It is France begins its conquest unable to offer any financial interests. of Algeria. lasting solution Defeat in World War I to Turkey’s AFTER declining power. shatters the Ottoman 1912–13 Ottoman Turkey Empire but leads to suffers humiliating defeats the formation of a in the Balkan Wars. secular republic. 1914 Ottoman Turkey enters T he Young Turk Revolution had suspended in 1878 in favor World War I on Germany’s side. of July 1908 was instigated of personal rule after only two by nationalistic army years. In 1909, he was forced to 1920 Mustafa Kemal leads officers dismayed by the territorial abdicate in favor of his brother, a revolt against the punitive losses of the Ottoman Empire. It Mehmed V, who was merely Treaty of Sèvres imposed on forced the sultan—the Ottoman a figurehead. the Ottoman government after ruler, the ineffective but repressive defeat in World War I. Abdul Hamid II—to reintroduce The revolution did very little the constitutional monarchy that he to halt the Ottoman decline, 1923 The Treaty of Lausanne tending mostly only to highlight confirms the borders of modern Turkey; Kemal launches a modernization program.
CHANGING SOCIETIES 261 See also: Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25 ■ The 1848 revolutions 228–29 ■ The construction of the Suez Canal 230–35 ■ The Expedition of the Thousand 238–41 tensions between those who The Ottoman Empire became known In October 1914, Turkey entered championed Turkish Islamic values as “the sick man of Europe” in the late World War I as an ally of the and those liberals who believed 19th century, due to its inability to hold Central Powers—Germany and only Western-style reforms could on to its lands. A defeat in World War I Austria-Hungary—convinced that save Turkey. led to even more territorial losses. German military aid would allow it to reassert its potency. This Territorial decline the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 saw the was a calamitous mistake, and In 1800, despite repeated defeats surrender of almost all of Turkey’s defeat in 1918 saw Turkey reduced at the hands of the Russians, remaining European territories. to its Anatolian heartlands, its Ottoman Turkey still ruled over remaining Middle East territories a vast multinational empire that A fateful alliance lost, largely carved up between stretched across the Balkans, the Following the Balkan crisis, the Britain and France. Middle East, and North Africa. Ottomans’ military government From 1805, it lost control of launched a drive to modernize The traumas of Turkey’s defeat Egypt, which became effectively the country along Western lines. in World War I were underlined in independent under one of the 1920 by the Treaty of Sèvres, largely sultan’s generals, Muhammad Ali. a Franco-British imposition. This confirmed the loss of Ottoman In 1830, the year that France territory and also awarded much began its conquest of Algeria of western Turkey to Greece, (completed in 1857), Greece won provoking an immediate nationalist its independence; and by 1878, backlash led by Mustafa Kemal, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, as well as the overthrow of the and Romania were similarly last sultan, Mehmed VI. independent in all but name. In 1881, Tunisia, too, was taken The Turkey that emerged under over by France. Kemal, subsequently styled Atatürk (“Father of the Turks”), was exactly Following the Young Turk the centralized Western-style and, Revolution, the relentless decline importantly, secular state that of Ottoman Turkey continued. In nationalist reformers such as the 1911, Libya was lost to Italy, while Young Turks had argued for. ■ Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal, better known the Greeks from mainland as Atatürk (1881–1938), the name western Turkey. With the he assumed in 1934, was the country’s borders confirmed founder and first president of the by the Treaty of Lausanne of republic of Turkey. Born in 1881, 1923, the West effectively he took part in the Young Turk agreeing to the establishment of Revolution as an army officer. a new Turkish republic, Atatürk Later, he served with distinction launched a radical program of in the Gallipoli campaign of social and political reforms 1915–16, which repulsed a joint intended to transform the nation Franco-British attempt to conquer into a modern, Westernized western Turkey. republic. However painful the process of dragging Turkey After the Turkish defeat in into the modern world, under World War I, Atatürk established Atatürk the country indeed a provisional government. As emerged as a coherent, secular leader of the Turkish Nationalists, political entity. he played a central role in driving
262 DWEOERDDSSNOT THE DEATH OF EMILY DAVISON (1913) IN CONTEXT More women are educated and hold professional posts, raising expectations for them to have the right to vote. FOCUS Women’s suffrage Societies are established to campaign for women’s suffrage, particularly in Britain and the United States. BEFORE 1869 In the US, the National Militant campaigners from Britain’s Women’s Social Woman Suffrage Association and Political Union are arrested and imprisoned. and American Women Suffrage Association are formed. Emily Davison’s death raises the profile of women’s suffrage across the world. 1893 New Zealand is the first country to grant women Women’s war work emphasizes their capabilities. British the vote. women win the vote in 1918; American women, in 1920. 1897 The National Union of O n June 4, 1913, Emily However, the intended disruption Women’s Suffrage Societies is Davison stepped onto was typical of the Women’s Social formed in Britain. It campaigns the course at the Derby, and Political Union (WSPU), which peacefully for the right to vote. England’s premier horse race, and Davison had joined in 1906. was knocked to the ground by a 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst horse owned by King George V. She Britain: the suffragettes forms the Women’s Social and died four days later. It is unclear if Women in the West had begun to Political Union in Britain. Vote this was a protest that went wrong feel that they, and by extension campaigns grow violent. or an active attempt at martyrdom. those elsewhere, should no longer AFTER 1917 The National Women’s Party begins a 30-month protest at the White House. 1918 All women 30 or over are granted the vote in Britain. 1920 The vote is granted to all American women 21 and over.
CHANGING SOCIETIES 263 See also: The signing of the Declaration of Independence 204–07 ■ The Battle of Passchendaele 270–75 ■ The March on Washington 311 ■ The 1968 protests 324 ■ The release of Nelson Mandela 325 Emily Davison, George V’s horse as the vote-seeking women were surprise, given that its founder, Anmer, and jockey Herbert Jones lie on by now mockingly known, became Alice Paul, had been a member of Epsom race track after Davison’s actions increasingly violent. Chaining the WSPU from 1907 to 1910 and to draw attention to the cause. The themselves to public buildings and had been sent to prison three suffragette was the only one to perish. the disruption of meetings escalated times. The NWP’s so-called Silent into the smashing of shop windows, Sentinels, protesting outside the be regarded as second-class acts of arson, and bombings. White House from January 1917, citizens. Extension of the right to were also arrested and force-fed. vote to increasing numbers of men The more active members of the in countries such as Britain and WSPU were repeatedly arrested and Success at last the United States had left them imprisoned: Pankhurst received At the outbreak of World War I, asking why women should not be seven prison sentences; Davison, the WSPU stopped campaigning, entitled to vote. In 1903, Emmeline nine. In 1909, the WSPU began to mobilizing itself instead in support Pankhurst founded the WSPU with stage hunger strikes in prison; in of the war effort. The contribution the aim of using militant tactics response they were force-fed—a made by women during the war to further this cause. Its slogan painful and degrading process. plainly demonstrated just how declared “Deeds not words,” and much wider their role could be than the tactics of the suffragettes, The US: the suffragists that traditionally expected of them The experience of what in the US as wives and mothers. In 1918, all were known as the suffragists British women aged 30 or over had clear parallels. The Women’s were granted the right to vote. Christian Temperance Union In 1928, suffrage in Britain was campaigned peacefully for women’s extended to women aged 21 or over. rights, arguing that women could not influence political decisions— Meanwhile, in the United States, in this case, Prohibition—without the NWP continued its protest into having the right to vote. 1919, when Congress approved the Nineteenth Amendment, which However, the National Women’s was ratified the following year, Party (NWP), established in 1916, granting women the same voting imitated the militant tactics of rights as men. ■ Britain’s WSPU. This was no Emmeline Pankhurst The best known of all the of the WSPU exhibited a suffragettes, Emmeline Pankhurst determination to take the fight (1858–1928) epitomized a new for women’s suffrage into the breed of politically active women heart of what she saw as the in the early 20th century. She was enemy camp. Her increasing born into—and later remained readiness to use more violent in by marriage—an eminently methods to secure suffragette respectable, somewhat left- goals alienated many who may leaning middle-class world in otherwise have been her natural the north of England, which only supporters—women as much as served to cement her desire to men. Nonetheless, her absolute further the cause of women’s refusal to back down, coupled rights. This decision would prove with the fervor she inspired explosive. She was single-minded, in her followers, introduced a exceptionally active, and wholly new mood of feminist militancy unflinching in her refusal to into a complacent masculine compromise. Her leadership political world.
264 FURTHER EVENTS THE PARTITIONS OF THE WAR OF 1812 firepower. The British divided up POLAND their kingdom, eventually adding (1812–15) Zululand to their empire. (1772–95) In 1812, the United States declared THE TRAIL OF TEARS From 1569 to the 18th century, war on Britain over a number of Poland and Lithuania were united issues, including trade restrictions, (1830) in a large federated commonwealth British commandeering of US that occupied an extensive area merchant seamen, and the support In 1830, the US Congress passed of northern Europe. In 1772, lent by Britain to American Indian the Indian Removal Act, which the powerful neighbors of the peoples who opposed US expansion granted Native Americans lands commonwealth—Austria, Prussia, into their lands to the west. The west of the Mississippi in return for and Russia—encroached on its conflict took place on several them surrendering their lands within territory in a series of annexations, fronts across North America and existing state boundaries in the diminishing it until they absorbed involved a failed US invasion of east. Although the removal was in it fully in 1795. Russia took over the Canada, the burning of the city theory voluntary, in fact it resulted eastern half of the country; Prussia, of Washington by the British in in the eviction of tens of thousands the north; and Austria, the southern 1814, and a major US victory at of people from their homelands and central parts. The elimination New Orleans in 1815. After more on a forced westward march that of the Polish state bolstered these than two years of fighting, the became known as the Trail of three great European powers, status quo was largely restored. Tears. The people forced to move leaving Polish patriots to struggle However, the war gave the US a were mainly Cherokee, Chickasaw, for independence, which they stronger sense of nationhood and Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. achieved in 1918. confirmed that Canada remained Among the Cherokee alone, some part of the British Empire. 4,000 died during the march. THE SIKH EMPIRE IS FOUNDED THE RISE AND FALL THE IRISH FAMINE OF THE ZULU KINGDOM (1799) (1845–49) (c.1816–87) Maharaja Ranjit Singh brought In the 1840s, the rapidly growing together a group of Sikh states Shaka, ruler of a small Zulu rural population of Ireland suffered in and surrounding the Punjab chiefdom, was a dynamic leader a series of disastrously poor crops region of northern India to create who formed a Zulu state after of their staple food, the potato. a powerful Sikh Empire in 1799. 1816 by conquering and uniting These bad harvests, due to potato For its creation and defense, it drew a large number of groups of the blight that spread rapidly in the on the Khalsa, the powerful united Nguni people of southeast Africa. damp weather, led to about army that had been created in the The Zulu kingdom had to contend 1 million people dying of starvation, 1730s by Sikh leader Nawab Kapur with two belligerent groups of while another million emigrated Singh. The empire lasted for 50 incomers: the Boers (descendants of either to Britain or North America. years before falling to the British. Dutch settlers at the Cape) and the After the famine ended, emigration, Although not long-lasting, it helped British. The British invaded Zulu especially to the US, continued as to strengthen Sikh unity and territory in 1879 and, after suffering landlords evicted tenants as part of confirmed the close identification of an initial defeat at Isandiwana, estate “rationalization.” The famine the Sikhs with the Punjab region. overwhelmed them with their was a terrible and pivotal event in
CHANGING SOCIETIES 265 Irish history: Ireland’s population efforts of health reformers such as British Governor-General. The has never risen back to its pre- Florence Nightingale, who worked Mahdists were finally defeated by famine level and bitterness about to improve the nursing service Lord Kitchener in 1898, after which the British government’s poor offered to the wounded and to Sudan was ruled jointly by Britain response to the famine remains. improve training for nurses in both and Egypt. military and civilian hospitals. THE TAIPING REBELLION THE [SECOND] BOER WAR FRANCE RETURNS TO A (1850–64) REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT (1899–1902) By the mid-19th century, Qing (1870) The war of 1899–1902 was the rule in China had become corrupt, second conflict between the Boers and there were many who wanted In 1870, Emperor Napoleon III of (South Africans of Dutch descent) change. Among various anti- France surrendered at the Battle and the British. After initial Boer government groups was one led by of Sedan, during the Franco- victories, the British defeated their a religious leader, Hong Xiuquan. Prussian War, and he was taken enemies by applying a “scorched Hong’s followers attacked Nanjing prisoner. The French parliament earth” policy in the areas of the and took the city in 1853. The declared a republic, expecting it country in which the Boers had rebellion grew and spread across to form an interim government fought successfully as guerrillas, virtually all of China until it became until a new monarch was chosen. and capturing women and children. a war with hundreds of thousands However, it proved impossible Some 20,000 died in concentration of fighters involved. With European to decide on a constitutional camps, and the Boers lost their military aid, the Qings eventually framework for a new monarchy, independence. The war reduced managed to crush the rebels, and or on who should take the throne. many surviving Boers to poverty, millions of soldiers and civilians After elections in 1871, the Third but it also spurred on their were killed. Despite its failure, the Republic became permanent, with nationalism and indirectly led Taiping Rebellion fatally weakened a president as head of state and a to Afrikaaner dominance of the Qing regime, which only Chamber of Deputies, elected South Africa’s government in survived for another half century, through universal male suffrage, the 20th century. increasingly prey to foreign powers. to make the laws. The Third Republic lasted until 1940 and THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION THE CRIMEAN WAR set the pattern for French government after World War II. (1910) (1853–56) A MAHDIST ISLAMIC STATE Beginning in 1910 and initially led When war broke out between IS CREATED IN SUDAN by Francisco Madero, the Mexican Russia and Turkey in 1853, France Revolution removed the dictator and Britain intervened in support (1885) Porfirio Diaz, who had ruled for of Turkey, sending a joint force to some 35 years. However, the invade the Crimea and besiege the In 1881, the Sudanese leader new republic could not prevent Russian port of Sebastapol. There Muhammad Ahmad declared armed factional struggles and civil were huge numbers of casualties, himself the Mahdi (a messianic war, which continued until the particularly on the Russian side, figure in some Muslim traditions) drawing up of a new constitution before Russia agreed to peace and launched a revolt against the in 1917 and the election of a new terms. Blunders such as the British government of Egypt, which ruled government in 1920. The following cavalry’s infamous, suicidal Charge Sudan although Britain effectively two decades saw key reforms such of the Light Brigade made the war controlled both countries. Ahmad as the redistribution of lands notorious for the needless waste of laid siege to Khartoum, which fell among peasants and Indian human life. The Crimean War also in early 1885, in spite of a defense communities and, in 1938, came to be associated with the by Charles George Gordon, the the nationalization of oil.
WTHOERMLDOD 1914–PRESENT
ERN
268 INTRODUCTION Uprisings in Russia lead Shares on the New York Hitler invades Poland, British India divides to the abdication of the Stock Exchange crash. and Britain and France into two independent Tsar. Lenin calls for a Billions of dollars are lost declare war on Germany; and the financial disaster the war lasts six years and nation-states: revolution and the plunges the world into Hindu-majority Bolsheviks seize the Great Depression. is the deadliest India and Muslim- power in November. in world history. majority Pakistan. 1917 1929 1939 1947 1919 1934–35 1942 1948 World War I ends (1918), and the Fleeing from Nationalists The Nazis meet at The Jewish state of Treaty of Versailles is signed in in southern China, Wannsee to plan the Israel is established June 1919: the Germans are in Palestine, which stripped of land, their army 80,000 communists annihilation of the had previously been led by Mao Zedong Jews. More than is reduced, and they have head for the north on the 6 million are killed under British rule to pay reparations. perilous Long March. in the holocaust. for three decades. H istorical perspectives on them by far the most destructive alternative “communist” societies, events close to the present conflicts in history. Both European based on the model of a single- day are inevitably shifting civilization and science—the twin party state and a state-controlled and uncertain. A historian writing pillars of the traditional 19th-century economy, proved to be a costly in the mid-20th century might have idea of “progress”—were tarnished experiment. In Russia, followed by characterized the modern era as a by association with this slaughter. China, communism succeeded in period of catastrophe, in which all Germany, often considered one of transforming relatively undeveloped the economic and political gains Europe’s most “civilized” countries, countries into major industrial and of liberal civilization had been descended into dictatorship and military powers, but millions died squandered. However, by the early genocidal massacre. Science was as victims of the state, and citizens 21st century it was tempting to see used to create weapons of mass were denied fundamental freedoms. continuity with the pre-1914 world, destruction, from poison gas to the as a globalized capitalist economy atom bomb. Even in the interlude A battle of ideology and great technological innovation of relative peace between the world World War II was followed by the were combined with rapidly rising wars, global capitalism failed to Cold War confrontation between population and productivity. function effectively, the economic the “free world,” led by the United misery of the Great Depression States, and the communist bloc. The two world wars driving a retreat from democratic Instead of disarmament, there was The convulsions of the period from government and free markets. a potentially disastrous nuclear 1914 to 1950 were on an epic scale. arms race. Meanwhile, the main Two world wars between them To revolutionaries inspired by European powers, economically caused the deaths of between a Marxist vision, these upheavals weakened and demoralized, found 70 and 100 million people, making seemed the death throes of the themselves in no position to sustain capitalist order. But the building of
THE MODERN WORLD 269 Egyptian leader Nasser declares For 13 days the world is The East German On September 11, the nationalization of the Suez under the threat of nuclear government lifts travel Islamic extremists Canal. Britain, France, and war between Cuba and the Israel invade Egypt, the US US, during the Cuban Missile restrictions and launch a major imposes a ceasefire, and the Crisis. The dispute is resolved thousands of people tear terrorist attack on allies withdraw. by diplomacy. down the Berlin Wall; the US. Almost 3,000 communism collapses. people are killed. 1956 1962 1989 2001 2011 1957 1965 1991 Kwame Nkrumah wins The US sends troops The first website (“World The world’s population Ghanaian independence to South Vietnam to Wide Web”) goes live, exceeds 7 billion; the global prevent the spread of built by British computer challenge is to improve from Britain through communism and is scientist Tim Berners- living standards peaceful means. By the embroiled in the war Lee to enable academics without destroying 1970s, most countries in to share information. the environment. Africa are independent. for nine years. their empires against colonized liberal democracy was “the only was recognized as a major challenge populations eager for freedom. The game in town.” Certainly, by the end for the future, a problem generated newly independent nations became of the 20th century liberalism was by humanity’s growth and success. an ideological and even, at times, surfing a wave: in 1950, only a few military battleground between the nations in Europe were democracies; Indeed, human progress in the capitalist and communist systems. 50 years later, all of them were. 20th century was remarkable, from rising literacy and life expectancy In the end, the issue was settled Progress and pessimism to the development of air and space by economics. Capitalism showed From the 1960s, hotly contested travel and computers. Yet there was its ability to generate economic campaigns for civil rights had no outbreak of general optimism. growth on a vast scale, creating a progressed liberal ideals in areas Environmental issues aside, it was booming consumer society in more such as racial equality and gender all too evident that the future held advanced countries. In contrast, politics. Growing prosperity was potential dangers: the unsettled by the 1980s communist countries also impressive. In Latin America politics of the Middle East, sucking confronted economic stagnation and much of Asia, living standards major powers into wars; brutal acts and rising popular discontent. With had risen dramatically by the early of terrorism; economic inequality great rapidity, communist regimes 21st century. Despite the world’s generating mass migration; financial collapsed in the Soviet bloc, while population increasing on a huge instability and market breakdown; communist China later became a scale—from under 2 billion in 1914 epidemics spread by global travel— powerhouse of capitalism. to over 7 billion one century later— all provided plenty of material for food supplies had not run out, as pessimists. History offered no solid In the wake of communism, the had once been predicted by many. ground for predictions, suggesting political scientist Francis Fukuyama Restricting environmental damage only that the unexpected was to coined the expression the “end of be expected. ■ history” and argued that Western
YOU OFTEN DEADWISH YOU WERE THE BATTLE OF PASSCHENDAELE (1914)
272 THE BATTLE OF PASSCHENDAELE IN CONTEXT P asschendaele, officially Soldiers at Passchendaele fought in known as the Third Battle appalling conditions. In the absence FOCUS of Ypres, was a large- of anything better, these machine- World War I scale attack against the German gunners are using bomb indentations front line around Ypres, Belgium, as makeshift shelter. BEFORE during World War I. The Allies’ 1870–71 Defeat for France in aim was to advance into Belgium hailed as a victory by the British the war against Prussia leads and free the German-held ports government but became a byword to the creation of a powerful on the Belgian coast, which for the utter futility of war. German Empire. the Germans had been using to attack British shipping. The Secret diplomacy 1887 Germany orders large biggest challenge was to break Two main disputes led to World shipbuilding initiatives. through the defensive positions War I: one between Germany and taken by the Germans on the France, and the other between 1912 The Balkan Wars erupt, West Flanders Ridge. Key to the Russia and Austria-Hungary. The hardening Austro-Hungarian breakthrough was seizing the long history of mutual antipathy attitudes to Serbia. village of Passchendaele. between Germany and France came to a head in 1870 with AFTER Preparations for the battle France’s humiliating defeat by 1916 Secret meetings between began on June 7, 1917 with a heavy Germany in the Franco-Prussian Britain and France produce two-week bombardment of German the Sykes–Picot Agreement, positions. The infantry offensive splitting the Ottoman Empire. began on July 31, 1917. Within days, the Allied forces were stuck in mud November 9, 1918 Kaiser as torrential rain turned the area Wilhelm abdicates, and his into a quagmire. By the time the imperial government collapses. Allies—made up of British, French, Canadian, and Australian troops— 1919 At the Paris Peace captured Passchendaele on Conference, stiff terms are November 6, the village was in imposed on Germany by ruins. The conflict cost 300,000 the victors in the Treaty Allied lives, with a gain of 5 miles of Versailles. (8km), while the Germans lost 260,000 of their troops. It was Life in the trenches At the outbreak of World War I, The trenches sometimes filled both sides anticipated fast-moving up with rats and lice, as well battles that would cover hundreds as water, which turned to ice. of miles. None expected a static Life in such conditions was fight with their forces deep in exhausting, and soldiers had defensive trenches. a repetitive diet of canned food and few comforts. Early trenches were small furrows, but they grew more Snipers shot at any heads elaborate, fortified with wooden that appeared over the parapet, frames and sandbags. German and raiding parties throwing trenches were more sophisticated grenades were a constant and had electricity and toilets. danger. The trenches were Soldiers spent daylight hours bombarded with shells, bullets, avoiding enemy fire and endured and poisonous gas. It was a periods of boredom and daily relentless war of attrition— chores, broken up with spells in smelly, dirty, and riddled reserve and short rest periods. with disease.
THE MODERN WORLD 273 See also: The Expedition of the Thousand 238–41 ■ Russia emancipates the serfs 243 ■ The October Revolution 276–79 ■ The Treaty of Versailles 280 ■ Nazi invasion of Poland 286–93 The lamps are going The atmosphere generated by this ally Germany, Austria-Hungary out all over Europe. We international jostling led to an presented Serbia with an ultimatum shall not see them lit increase in military spending on July 23, demanding that the again in our lifetime. by European governments and the Serbs stop all anti-Austria-Hungary expansion of armies and navies. activities. Serbia accepted most of Sir Edward Grey the demands, but Austria-Hungary War erupts declared war on Serbia on July 28. British Foreign Secretary (1914) A spark was all that was needed to Britain called for international ignite the flame of enmity between mediation, but the crisis quickly war, which led to the annexation these two alliances. It came on escalated into European war. When of most of the French provinces of June 28, 1914, when a Bosnian Serb Russia mobilized against Austria- Alsace and Lorraine. assassinated Archduke Franz Hungary, Germany declared war on Ferdinand, heir to the Habsburg Russia on August 1, and on France In Eastern Europe, the Austro- throne, in Sarajevo. The Austrians two days later. Britain joined the Hungarian and Russian empires suspected Serbia, their principal war on August 4, after the Germans had a long-standing dispute over enemy in the Balkans, of the attack. invaded neutral Belgium. The which of them had the strongest After securing support from its British Expeditionary Force (BEF), ❯❯ claim to power in the Balkans. Both depended on the area for access to European powers are bound A European arms race leads the Mediterranean, and each eyed together in a complex to larger armies and more the movements of the other with web of alliances. intense suspicion. destructive weapons. Each state needed allies, and War breaks out, eventually drawing in all the major powers and in 1882 Austria-Hungary, Germany, causing death on a scale previously unimaginable. and Italy signed a Triple Alliance The relative equality of the armies means that promising to give each other neither side can score a decisive victory. military support in case of war. Then, in the 1890s, Russia and The fighting on the Western Front becomes France signed an agreement to a bitter stalemate despite the enormous protect one another in the event of cost of battles like Passchendaele. a war against Germany. By the turn of the century, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s With both sides exhausted, US entry into the war on the side provocative nationalistic speeches of the Allies facilitates a breakthrough in the conflict. and naval expansion pushed Britain into closer ties with France. In 1904, Britain and France agreed an entente cordiale, or friendly alliance, which was broadened into a triple entente, embracing Russia, in 1907. The triple entente would become known as the Allied Powers.
274 THE BATTLE OF PASSCHENDAELE Huge artillery guns such as the Howitzer cannon were transported by horses and tractors. High-explosive shells fired in massive quantities were key to the war’s high casualty rates. a small professional troop led by Sir trenches, punctuated by appallingly had anticipated a war of attrition. Douglas Haig, had arrived in France bloody battles, failed to break the New mechanized weapons added to by August 22. It was deployed near deadlock. More than 600,000 Allied the high casualty rates. Tanks were the Franco-Belgian border, in line troops were killed or wounded in the used for the first time, and machine with pre-war military plans agreed Battle of the Somme alone. guns such as the German MG 08 with the French government. Maxim could fire up to 600 bullets Total war a minute. Aircrafts, first employed Germany had to fight a war on At the start of the conflict, both for reconnaissance, were later used two fronts. On the Western Front, sides had been convinced it would for bombing. Both sides used poison in the first weeks of the conflict, be a short, decisive battle. No one gas. Horses were the backbone the Germans invaded Belgium of logistical operations, but as and France, but their advance the war progressed, railways and was halted by the French and motor trucks were used to transport British at the Battle of the Marne. goods to the front. By the end of autumn, the two sides had reached a stalemate. Civilians were brought into Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the front line by the bombing of the fighting remained fluid. London and Paris by airships and Germany dominated, scoring a bomber aircraft. By 1917, German great victory against the Russians submarines were sinking one in at Tannenberg, but its Austrian four merchant ships headed for allies suffered several defeats. Britain to try to starve the British On the Western Front, however, into submission. Britain’s naval a 400-mile (645km) trench line blockade of Germany also led to stretched from the Belgian coast in the north, down through eastern 6 World War I is also known as the Great War, due France to the Swiss border. The two sides faced each other across the to the unprecedented number of participants. An open space between their front enormous 65 million soldiers saw combat, almost a lines. This area—no-man’s-land— MILITARY CASUALTIES (MILLIONS) 5 third of whom were wounded and half as many again had barbed wire fronting the trenches to slow the opposition. were killed. In addition, 8 million civilians lost their Continuous fighting from the lives. These high figures are a direct consequence of 4 the array of devastating new weapons that were in use by all of the armies involved. 3 2 1 0 Machine- Rifle Poison Other combat Artillery gun fire fire gas deaths fire
THE MODERN WORLD 275 There was not a sign of life colonies in Africa were overrun by US troops helped defeat the of any sort… Not a bird, not British, French, and South African Central Powers and bring the even a rat or a blade of grass. troops. In May 1915, Italy joined the Germans to the peace table. Allies, fighting Austria-Hungary Private R. A. Colwell and Germany in the Alps. When the conflict ended, at 11am on November 11, 1918, the Passchendaele (1919) In early November 1914, the alliance led by France and Britain Ottoman Empire, an Islamic power, emerged victorious. More than acute food shortages. This was the abandoned its neutrality and 65 million troops had been involved first “total war,” meaning not just declared a military jihad (holy war) in the war, of which at least half soldiers but also civilian populations against France, Russia, and Britain. were killed or injured. The Russian, were involved. The US was drawn into the war by Austrian, and German empires had German submarine attacks on collapsed. After the war, the Treaty Britain was forced to introduce commercial ships at sea, such as of Versailles redrew the map of conscription for the first time in the one on British liner Lusitania in Europe, leaving nations, particularly its history. From January 1916, all 1915, with 128 Americans on board. Germany, embittered. A public single men aged 18 to 41 could be After a German plot to persuade assembly of countries, the League called up. Britain and France Mexico into an anti-US alliance of Nations, was founded to help also assembled armies from their was discovered, Congress declared maintain peace. However, the overseas colonies, such as India war in April 1917. League proved toothless in the face and Africa, and from the British of countries that chose to ignore dominions of Australia New When the Bolsheviks in it. When fascist Benito Mussolini Zealand and Canada. War brought Russia negotiated a peace treaty came to power in Italy in 1922, he many social changes, notably for with Germany at Brest-Litovsk denounced the Treaty. In Germany, women, who filled positions in on December 22, 1917, it seemed where the response to the Treaty factories and offices. Women were Germany had won a significant was one of deep resentment, also increasingly employed in the victory. They also made gains on the Nazi Party began to gain munitions industry as governments the Western Front in 1918, but momentum. Far from being “the switched to large-scale production. then, in July and August, the war to end all wars,” World War I Allies counterattacked, beginning had instead sown the seeds of an advance that would continue future conflict. ■ until November. Four million fresh Global conflict The key belligerent states brought their vast empires into war with them, and the conflict soon became a world war. German colonies in China and the Pacific were invaded by Japan, which entered the war on the side of the Allies. Germany’s One of the social changes brought on by World War I concerned the role of women. The female population joined the war effort by working in places like munitions factories.
276 IN CONTEXT PNHNUOISOOSWTTITFAFOEOSRWRRSYNEGUWODIMWVOIEELL FOCUS Russian Revolution THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION (1917) BEFORE 1898 The Russian Socialist Democratic Labour Party is formed. 1905 Russia suffers a crushing defeat in a war against Japan, which leads to an uprising. 1914 Russia enters World War I and quickly suffers heavy losses in defeats to Germany on the Eastern Front. AFTER 1918 Tsar Nicholas II and his family are executed. 1922 Lenin creates the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under the control of the Communist Party. 1929 Stalin becomes leader of the USSR and establishes a dictatorship. I n October 1917, Russia was in turmoil after suffering huge losses in World War I. There were food shortages, and workers in the cities faced low wages and appalling conditions. The February Revolution had ousted the Tsar, but the Provisional Government that replaced him faced imminent collapse. Vladimir Lenin, a member of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, took full advantage. He was committed to a workers’ (proletarian) revolution and set out a series of proposals to overthrow the government in what became known as his April Theses. His simple slogan “Peace, land, and bread!” became a revolutionary
See also: The founding of St. Petersburg 196–97 ■ Russia emancipates the THE MODERN WORLD 277 serfs 243 ■ Stalin assumes power 281 ■ The Siege of Sarajevo 326 ■ The Spanish Civil War 340 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin rallying cry. On October 24 the main telegraph office, post Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (November 6, Gregorian calendar office, and power stations. Only on April 10, 1870 (22 April, NS), (GC)), there were attempts by the the Winter Palace, the seat of the the founder of the Bolsheviks government to curb the activities government, remained. The small and first leader of Soviet Russia of the Bolsheviks to prevent a coup. unit of military cadets guarding it was a bold theorist and tireless Orders were issued for the arrest of willingly surrendered to the organizer. Lenin became an leading party members, and their revolutionary soldiers. The regime active Marxist revolutionary newspaper, Pravda (The Truth), was overthrown, and power had after his brother Alexander was closed down. Lenin, keeping a passed to Lenin and his Bolsheviks. was executed in 1887 for low profile in his apartment, urged conspiring to assassinate Tsar action. “We must not wait! We may Laying the groundwork Alexander III, an event that lose everything! The government The October Revolution was the caused Lenin to lose faith in is tottering. To delay action is culmination of the civil unrest that God and religion. In 1895 he the same as death,” he wrote. had rumbled on for months. On was arrested and exiled for February 23, 1917 (March 8, GC), in three years to Siberia. On October 25 (November 7, Petrograd, a riot had started, led by GC), the government tried without women frustrated at waiting hours Lenin’s chief aim was to success to find armed support. for bread. They marched through organize the opposition to The Petrograd Soviet of Workers the city, gathering support as they the Tsar into a single coherent and Soldiers party, of which the went. This grew into a general movement. Following the Bolsheviks were a faction, could rely strike, and the demonstrations took Russian Revolution of March on the support of troops in Petrograd on a more political nature. Red flags 1917, he returned to Russia (later St. Petersburg). The Bolshevik began to appear, and statues of ❯❯ believing his moment had paramilitary Red Guards occupied come. In October, Lenin led the Bolsheviks against The Russian Revolution of 1905 forces a the government then, range of reforms from the autocratic Tsar Nicholas II. suppressing all opposition, became dictator of the world’s Dissatisfaction Russia suffers Economic first communist state. persists among defeats in hardship leads World War I. to food riots. Lenin’s main challenge the people. was civil war (1918–20). The Communists won, but Russia In February 1917, the monarchy is overthrown and replaced was brought to its knees. by the Provisional Government. The Tsar abdicates in March. The strain of leadership also broke his health. After two Lenin and the Bolsheviks demand strokes, one of which deprived total power for the proletariat, him of speech, he died on January 21, 1924. launching the October Revolution.
278 THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION Tsar Nicholas II were toppled. to his ideas, and he accused his returned to Russia, and renewed Soldiers refused to obey orders to associates of not doing enough to calls for revolution. He handed fire on the crowd, but police shot overthrow the current regime. responsibility for military tactics and killed 50 people. to Leon Trotsky, a fellow Marxist. Prime Minister Lvov resigned Peasants and farmers were Rise of revolutionary parties after the disastrous July Offensive revolting in rural areas, workers in With violence erupting on city on the Western Front. His successor, the cities. Lenin decided the time streets, the Tsar abdicated in Alexander Kerensky, formed a was ripe for a Bolshevik seizure of March, having relinquished power new socialist government with power. The Bolsheviks took to the Provisional Government in the Petrograd Soviet, but he, too, government buildings and the February, with Prince Georgi Y. insisted on keeping Russia in the Winter Palace, where Kerensky’s Lvov as its head. The government war. After mass demonstrations cabinet had sought refuge. still represented only the middle in Petrograd encouraged by the classes and continued to back Bolsheviks, Kerensky banned them On the night of October 25 Russia’s involvement in World War and arrested many of their leaders. (November 7, GC), Lenin issued a I. Groups such as the Petrograd Lenin fled to Finland. brief address to the Russian people: Soviet of Workers and Soldiers, a “The Provisional Government has council made up of workers and Revolution is nigh been overthrown. Long live the peasants agitating for change, grew In August, Kerensky faced a new workers, soldiers, and peasant stronger and gained power within threat. General Lavr Kornilov, revolution!” After this initial the Provisional Government. Lenin, Russia’s army commander-in-chief, triumph, Lenin was compelled to in exile for revolutionary activities, ordered troops into Petrograd. hold democratic elections, but the was anxious to return to Petrograd, Kerensky believed that Kornilov Bolsheviks received only a quarter convinced that the collapse of was plotting to seize power. In of the vote. Lenin dissolved the world capitalism was imminent. desperation, he released the elected government and sent He received the help of the German Bolsheviks, who armed those armed guards to prevent it meeting government, which hoped that who wanted to prevent a counter- again. In February 1918, he signed he could further destabilize the revolution. This was a massive a peace treaty with Germany, but political situation in Russia for their boost for their cause. They were the terms were extremely harsh. war effort, and arrived secretly in a able to represent themselves to the Russia ceded the Baltic States to sealed train. Full of revolutionary people as defenders of Petrograd. Germany, while Ukraine, Finland, zeal, he was determined to shape a By September the Bolsheviks had and Estonia were transformed new Russian government according taken control of the Petrograd into independent states. Russia Soviet. Lenin seized the moment, was also forced to pay six billion German marks in reparations. This move freed the Bolsheviks from the German threat, but the terms of the treaty were deeply unpopular. Many regarded it as a betrayal of their country. Civil war The Bolsheviks had gained power, but now they had to keep it. Lenin established a highly centralized government system, banned all This painting of the storming of the Winter Palace portrays the dramatic moment in the October Revolution when the Bolsheviks seized the government building.
THE MODERN WORLD 279 Vladimir Lenin addresses his troops in Moscow’s Red Square in 1919, during the civil war that followed the October Revolution. opposition, and started the Red A country in ruins of the communist movement. Terror, a campaign of intimidation, By 1921, the Whites had been From its inception, the USSR executions, and arrests against defeated, and Lenin could finally was based on a premise of one- anybody perceived to be a threat turn his attention to rebuilding party rule, prohibiting all other to the Bolsheviks. the Russian economy. political organizations. The Bolsheviks were a minority He faced a country on the verge Lenin was disheartened by in Russia, and their opponents of collapse. In the countryside, political infighting and worried marshalled their forces against around 6 million peasants had died about how the USSR would be run them, primarily the Whites, made of starvation, and there was rioting after his death. In late 1922 and up of former tsarists, army officers, in the cities. The Kronstadt naval early 1923, he dictated what became and democrats. The Bolsheviks were rebellion in March 1921 further known as his “testament,” in which known as the Reds. undermined the regime. Kronstadt he expressed regret at the direction was a naval town on an island off the Soviet government had taken. As various factions fought over the coast of Petrograd. In 1921, He was especially critical of Joseph the future of the country, a civil war 16,000 soldiers and workers signed Stalin, then general secretary characterized by extreme violence a petition calling for “Soviets of the Communist Party. Stalin’s erupted in Russia and ran from 1918 without Bolsheviks”: freely elected aggressive behavior had brought to 1921. The Whites received help Soviets and freedoms of speech him into conflict with Lenin. from Russia’s former allies—Britain, and press. The Reds reacted France, the US, and Japan—which ruthlessly, executing several Lenin died in 1924, but his feared the spread of communism. At hundred ringleaders and expelling legacy lives on. The Bolshevik first, they made significant gains. over 15,000 sailors from the fleet. Party’s establishment of the world’s However, they were badly first socialist state in the largest coordinated, and Trotsky proved to In May 1922, Lenin suffered nation affected every country in be a brilliant military tactician. a stroke. In December, the the world. The victorious socialist Soviet government declared the revolution inspired workers In 1920, Lenin ordered a war establishment of the Union of with an alternative to capitalism against Poland to liberate the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and old imperialist regimes. ■ workers of eastern and central a federal union consisting of Europe, but at the Battle of Warsaw, Soviet Russia and neighboring The execution of the after a magnificent counterattack, areas that were ruled by branches Tsar and his family was the Red Army was driven back. needed not only to… instil a sense of hopelessness in the enemy, but also to show that ahead lay total victory or total doom. Leon Trotsky
280 FTTOHHRIISS2II0SSYNAENOATARRPSEMAISCTEI.CE THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES (1919) IN CONTEXT A fter four years of global You have asked conflict, 16 million people for peace. We are ready FOCUS had died and centuries- Peace after World War I old empires and dynasties had to give you peace. collapsed. In January 1919, the Georges Clemenceau BEFORE victors of World War I met to 1914 The four empires of discuss the terms of peace. US Prime Minister of France Austria-Hungary, Germany, President Woodrow Wilson had Ottoman Turkey, and Tsarist devised a plan that he believed War-guilt clause Russia rule over vast lands. would bring a new order to Europe Crucially, in a “war-guilt clause,” the based on democracy. Wilson Germans had to admit to starting 1916 British and French pushed for a League of Nations the war and also pay £6.6 billion in diplomats meet secretly to to act as arbiter and peacemaker reparations. They signed the Treaty determine the fate of the in national disputes. of Versailles on June 28, 1919 but post-Ottoman Arab world. stalled in paying compensation, so Britain and France wanted in 1923 France occupied Germany’s 1919 The Paris Peace to ensure that Germany would industrial Ruhr Valley. However, in Conference sets out the never again be able to threaten the interwar years, neither of those terms and conditions for European peace. The German nations did anything to deter post-war peace. Army was to be reduced and the aggression by Nazi Germany. When Rhineland demilitarized. Germany Adolf Hitler took France in 1940, he AFTER was also asked to give up lands to ordered the master copy of the 1920 The Treaty of Sèvres France on its west and to Poland treaty to be burned. ■ carves up the Ottoman Empire on its east and north. In addition, to remake the Middle East. the Austro-Hungarian empires were to be split into new nations September 3, 1939 World such as Czechoslovakia and War II begins with the German Yugoslavia; and the Ottoman attack on Poland. Empire was also to be carved up, to the advantage of the British October 24, 1945 The and French. League of Nations, having disbanded, reforms after World See also: The Young Turk Revolution 260–61 ■ The Battle of Passchendaele War II as the United Nations. 270–75 ■ The Reichstag Fire 284–85 ■ Nazi invasion of Poland 286–93 ■ The founding of the United Nations 340
THE MODERN WORLD 281 PNDSREOOOALPTBURHLTOEIIOBSMNLSTET.HMONEOALMLAN— STALIN ASSUMES POWER (1929) IN CONTEXT A fter the October Revolution I believe in one in 1917, Russian leader thing only, the power FOCUS Vladimir Lenin created a Soviet Russia single-party state and appointed of the human will. Joseph Stalin as general secretary. Joseph Stalin BEFORE Stalin then used his position 1917 Lenin begins Russia’s to launch his bid for supreme The dictator looked for chances move toward communism. leadership, becoming dictator in to expand communism beyond 1929, five years after Lenin’s death. Soviet frontiers, and after World 1922 The Union Treaty joins War II, it spread to Poland, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Stalin pushed the country into a Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the Transcaucasus into the period of rapid industrialization. He others, becoming known as the Soviet Union. confiscated land belonging to rural Eastern Soviet Bloc. Communist farmers to turn it into large farms parties came to rule in North Korea 1928 The first Five-Year Plan is to be run collectively to make food in 1948, China in 1949, Cuba in adopted, with the state setting for the new workforce. In 1931–32, 1959, and Vietnam in 1975. ambitious goals for the whole he requisitioned grain from the of the economy. peasants, which led to a severe Stalin had risen to become one famine in Ukraine, killing millions. of the most powerful men in the AFTER world. Soon after his death in 1953, 1945 The Soviet Union defeats The People’s Commissariat for his nation was a superpower to Nazi Germany and controls Internal Affairs (secret police) was challenge the United States. ■ central Europe. tasked with hunting out Stalin’s political opponents. Thousands of 1989 East and central Europe Soviet citizens died in the 1930s’ reject communism, and the “blood purges,” known as the Great Berlin Wall comes down. Terror, and millions of non-Russians were deported to labor camps. 1991 The Congress of People’s Despite this, Stalin portrayed his Deputies votes for the country as a land of peace and dissolution of the Soviet Union. progress, and himself as a man working for the benefit of the people. See also: The October Revolution 276–79 ■ Nazi invasion of Poland 286–93 ■ The Berlin Airlift 296–97 ■ The fall of the Berlin Wall 322–23
282 IFSANUNTATTYTUHLEREASEECICOKSOFOFNTFOOHOCMELOIUICNSNFHIITDEEDNCE THE WALL STREET CRASH (1929) IN CONTEXT O ver six desperate days dabbling in the stock market, and in October 1929, shares thousands of ordinary Americans FOCUS on the New York Stock bought shares, increasing the The Great Depression Exchange crashed. The downturn demand for them and inflating their began on October 23rd, when value. Between 1920 and 1929, the BEFORE stocks from car manufacturer number of shareowners rose from 1918 The global economy General Motors were sold at a loss 4 million to 20 million. struggles to recover its and the market started to collapse. stability after the disruption Panic set in, and the next day the By late 1929, there were signs of World War I. market nose-dived. of trouble within the American economy: unemployment was 1922 The US economy starts On Tuesday October 29, which on the rise, steel production to grow rapidly as factories became known as Black Tuesday, was declining, construction was mass produce goods. stock prices plunged even lower. slowing, and car sales had dipped. In total, $25 billion, approximately Still confident they could make 1923 Prices in Germany spiral $319 billion in today’s market, was a fortune, some people continued out of control in hyperinflation lost. It was the biggest financial to invest on the stock market. that destroys people’s savings. catastrophe ever, and it plunged the world into the Great Depression. AFTER 1930 Mass unemployment hits Roaring Twenties Speculators crowd around the the US, Britain, Germany, and The US had recovered quickly after front entrance of the New York Stock other countries. World War I, and factories that had Exchange, deeply concerned about made supplies for the war effort their financial investments in the days 1939 The advent of World switched to producing consumer following the Wall Street Crash. War II sees an increase in goods such as cars and radios. The employment and government growth of new technologies and spending, speeding recovery. mass production saw economic output increase by 50 percent; the 1944 World leaders agree age of prosperity and consumerism to set up the International that resulted became known as Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Roaring Twenties. World Bank to finance economic development. Newspapers and magazines were filled with stories of people becoming rich overnight by
THE MODERN WORLD 283 See also: The California Gold Rush 248–49 ■ The Treaty of Versailles 280 ■ The Reichstag Fire 284–85 ■ The global financial crisis 330–33 Prosperity in The US the US leads to stock market overconfidence and reckless crashes in investment. 1929. A worldwide recession sets in. Mass Discontent in US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unemployment Europe leads Roosevelt to the fall of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the USA governments and introduces the (1882–1945) was the only results from the rise of New Deal to president ever elected to overproduction dictatorships. stimulate the serve four terms in office. He and inadequate achieved this success despite economy. suffering from polio in 1921, demand. which crippled both legs and almost led him to give up on However, when the stock prices since its post-war economy was his political career. began to drop in October 1929, supported by huge American loans panic set in. The ensuing crash which it was unable to pay back. Roosevelt won the election triggered a worldwide recession to be the governor of New known as the Great Depression. A New Deal York in 1929, and in 1932 was The crash helped bring Democrat nominated as Democratic The Great Depression Franklin D. Roosevelt into the candidate for the presidency. In the US, factories were White House in 1932. His policy, Pledging a New Deal for the closed and workers sacked. In the New Deal, introduced a American people, he won a the spring of 1933, the agricultural program of social welfare landslide victory. In his first sector was on the verge of disaster: for the poor and government 100 days, he introduced a 25 percent of farmers were without expenditure on huge public program of social and work, and many even lost their projects that created new jobs. economic reform to combat farms. Unemployment went from the Great Depression. These 1.5 million in 1929 to 12.8 million, The Great Depression marked immensely popular measures or 24.75 percent of the workforce, the end of the United States’ post- won him a second landslide by 1933, a pattern seen around war boom. In Europe many turned victory in 1936. the world. to right-wing parties, such as Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party In 1939, the US was Unemployment in Britain rose in Germany, with its promise to propelled into World War II, to 2.5 million, 25 percent of the restore the economy. In many and Roosevelt took his place workforce, with heavy industry, countries, recovery came only as one of the allied war such as shipbuilding, particularly with the increase in employment leaders. He was one of the badly hit. Germany suffered greatly, brought about by World War II. ■ principal movers in the plans for a United Nations but died in March 1945, just before the UN’s first meeting was convened in San Francisco.
284 TTTIHHREAETTDMROUEFTNLHAIBIRSEERTY THE REICHSTAG FIRE (1933) IN CONTEXT Slowing European German resentment economies make festers over the terms of the FOCUS everyday life harder. Rise of fascism Treaty of Versailles. BEFORE Extremist fascist and communist ideologies seem to offer 1918 World War I leaves easy solutions to national problems. Europe politically and economically unstable. The Reichstag Fire is blamed on the communists and is used as a pretext 1920 The National Socialist to curb civil liberties and jail dissenters. (or Nazi) Party is founded in Germany, with racism The disintegration of formal structures of government a central tenet. clears the way for Adolf Hitler to become dictator. 1922 Benito Mussolini is W hen fire broke out at the The timing was perfect: elections made Italian premier by Reichstag, the German were due to take place in March King Victor Emmanuel III. parliament building, 1933. While Hitler’s National just after 9pm on February 27, 1933, Socialist, or “Nazi,” Party was AFTER Chancellor Adolf Hitler claimed it the largest party in parliament, he 1935 Mussolini invades was a communist plot to bring down lacked a working majority because Abyssinia (Ethiopia) as part the government—a cynical ploy that the two next-largest parties (the of his ambitious foreign policy. gave Hitler an excuse to decimate Social Democrats and Communists) his communist rivals. were both on the left, and he feared 1936–39 The Spanish Civil War is fought. 1938 Adolf Hitler invades Austria. The Munich Pact grants Hitler control of the Sudetenland. 1939 Hitler orders the invasion of Poland, which triggers World War II.
THE MODERN WORLD 285 See also: The Expedition of the Thousand 238–41 ■ The Battle of Passchendaele 270–75 ■ The Treaty of Versailles 280 ■ The Wall Street Crash 282–83 ■ Nazi invasion of Poland 286–93 ■ The Wannsee Conference 294–95 Ours is a fight to the They used paramilitary groups to The Reichstag Fire is said to have finish until communism intimidate opponents, and spread burned so fiercely that flames could propaganda to gain popularity. In be seen for miles around. Hitler blamed has been absolutely Italy, Benito Mussolini was seen as the communists in an attempt to build uprooted in Germany. the only man able to restore order. support for his Nazi Party. Hermann Göring Once appointed prime minister in 1922, Mussolini gradually assumed Front government emboldened Leading Nazi Party member dictatorial powers, becoming Il the dictators and emphasized the Duce, the leader. By 1928, Italy was weakness of Western democracies. his party would not fare well in the a totalitarian state. elections. Hitler rushed to blame The Reichstag Fire was a key the fire on a lone Dutch communist, In Germany, Hitler worked moment in Nazi history. It led to the which prompted suspicions that ceaselessly to transform the Nazis absolute dictatorship of Adolf Hitler the Nazis were behind the arson, into a major political force. Relying and the growth of fascism, setting given that they had so much to gain on a mix of nationalist rhetoric, anti- Europe on the path to world war. ■ from discrediting the communists. communism, vicious anti-Semitism, and an unceasing call to reverse had the Blueshirts; France, Le The next day, the Reichstag Fire the peace terms made at Versailles Faisceau; and Denmark and Decree banned the Communist in 1919, Hitler rode a wave of Norway had many far-right Party. Hitler’s response fed on fears popularity. In 1933 he became parties. Engelbert Dollfuss’s of a communist takeover, and many Chancellor, then, shortly after, Fatherland Front was installed Germans believed that Hitler’s dictator, calling himself Führer. in Austria in 1934, while Greece decisive action had saved the was under the rule of General nation. By April, under pressure Fascists united Ioannis Metaxas between 1936 from the Nazis, the Enabling Act In 1936 Hitler and Mussolini began and 1941. Portugal and Bulgaria was passed by the Reichstag. This to send military support to aid also came under right-wing granted Hitler the right to make his General Franco in the Spanish dictatorships, as did Romania. own laws without involving the Civil War, which pitted right-wing Reichstag, and it solidified his nationalists against left-wing By the end of the 1930s, place as a fascist dictator with republicans. Franco’s victory authoritarian governments had complete control over Germany. against the left-wing Popular assumed power in virtually every corner of central and Dictators seize power Fascism across Europe Eastern Europe, and democracy Fascism emerged across Europe in was in decline. the 1920s and 30s. As governments European fascism blossomed in struggled with post-war economic a climate of economic disarray in hardship and the fear of communist the 1920s and 30s. Democracies revolutions, extreme right-wing lost legitimacy with their people, movements—fascism in Italy and and fascist parties, offering a Nazism in Germany—were set up form of extreme right-wing as defenders against communism. nationalism, boasted that they would provide strength where weakness had prevailed. In the 1930s, no European country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, was without a form of fascist party. Britain had Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF). Ireland
IN STARTING VICTORYITATHNDAITSWMNAAGOTINTTGERRASIGWBHAURTT NAZI INVASION OF POLAND (1939–1945)
288 NAZI INVASION OF POLAND IN CONTEXT I n August 1939, Nazi Germany The invasion ended in a resounding and the Soviet Union signed victory, and it added to Hitler’s FOCUS a non-aggression pact, also increasing belief that he was a World War II secretly agreeing to invade and military genius. Some areas in then divide Poland between them. western Poland were absorbed BEFORE Russian leader Joseph Stalin had into Germany, while territory east 1919 The Treaty of Versailles decided that in the event of war, of the River Bug was annexed by at the end of World War I Germany offered the best hope of the Soviet Union. humiliates Germany and sows Soviet security. One week later, the seeds for future conflict. on September 1, 1939, more than The Nazi regime in Poland a million German troops invaded The Nazis imposed a brutal regime 1922 The Union of Soviet Poland from the west. Soon after, on the German part of Poland. Socialist Republic (USSR) on September 17, Russian troops Hitler was bent on the elimination is founded. attacked Poland from the east. The of anyone who stood in the way of context for this unprovoked assault, German domination. 1933 The Enabling Act gives as declared by the German Führer, Adolf Hitler dictatorial power Adolf Hitler, was the pursuit of As part of Hitler’s plan for in Germany. Lebensraum, “living space” deemed ethnic cleansing, around 5 million necessary for the expansion of the Polish Jews were rounded up AFTER German people, whom Hitler saw as and herded into ghettos. The 1942–43 The Soviets defeat a superior “Aryan master race,” with invasion of Poland gave some the Germans at Stalingrad. the right to displace inferior races. forewarning of the violence that would soon be visited upon 1944 The June 6 D-Day The invasion lasted just over scores of countries and countless Landings, which were the a month. Trapped between two people around the globe. largest amphibious military huge, well-armed powers, the operation in history, begin the Polish air force and army fought The rise of the Nazi Party liberation of Western Europe. valiantly, but they lacked modern Although World War II was aircrafts and tanks. The German triggered by Hitler’s invasion of 1945 As Russian troops win Luftwaffe was quickly able to Poland, its origins can be traced the Battle of Berlin, Hitler gain command of the skies. In back to Germany’s defeat in commits suicide. The Germans the end, Poland’s aviators and World War I and the demand for surrender unconditionally. soldiers, fighting on two fronts, reparation payments. The defeated were overwhelmed. nations lost land and prestige, Britain and France want Hitler’s government German forces to ensure Germany is rebuilds Germany’s invade Poland. incapable of starting military and promotes another war. extreme nationalism. The Treaty of With economic Britain and France Versailles sets tight depression crippling declare war on Germany, Germany, Adolf Hitler leading to World War II, limits on German grows in popularity. the most destructive armaments and conflict in history. armed forces.
THE MODERN WORLD 289 See also: The Battle of Passchendaele 270–75 ■ The Treaty of Versailles 280 ■ The Wall Street Crash 282–283 ■ The Reichstag Fire 284–85 ■ The Wannsee Conference 294–95 ■ The Berlin Airlift 296–97 ■ World War II in the Pacific 340 ■ The founding of the United Nations 340 Adolf Hitler watches a victory parade in Warsaw following the invasion of Poland. He and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin agreed to the invasion and division of the country. causing deep resentment. Germany Hitler’s Lebensraum Fascism in Europe was forced to return Alsace and Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Lorraine to France, and all of its Under this creed, Hitler embarked Mussolini also had aspirations for overseas colonies were annexed on an ambitious foreign policy. foreign glory. In October 1935, he by the Allies. In 1935, openly going against the invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in terms of the Versailles Treaty, he retaliation for the defeat the Italians Germany’s Weimar Republic began a massive program of had suffered there in 1896. By May began its economic recovery in the re-armament. In 1936 he occupied 1936, Mussolini had conquered 1920s, but it could not survive the the demilitarized Rhineland, but the country, facing no opposition blow that was inflicted by the none of the major powers from the Western powers. US economic crash of 1929. This intervened. In March 1938, Hitler financial crisis aided the rise of annexed Austria to Germany, Further evidence of Western the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, before setting his sights on the democracies’ weakness in facing led by Hitler, who promised the German-speaking part of up to the Fascist challenge was German people he would make Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland. provided the same year, when the nation great again. British and French politicians both Mussolini and Hitler sent wanted to avoid a repeat of the “volunteers” to fight in the Spanish Hitler had fought in World horrors of World War I and felt Civil War, to aid nationalist War I, and the experience of trench that the Sudetenland was not General Franco in his campaign warfare, the shock of defeat, and worth fighting for. In the Munich against left-wing supporters of the terms of the Versailles Treaty Agreement of September 29, 1938, the Spanish Republic. Britain were to influence the rest of his the Sudetenland was handed to and France took no action, and life. He developed extremist views Hitler in exchange for his promise Franco’s victory in 1939 bolstered based on far-right nationalism; and to end his land-grabs. British prime the Fascist cause. ❯❯ by the time he became chancellor minister Neville Chamberlain of Germany’s coalition government declared that he had secured German troops crossed in 1933, and dictator of the country “peace for our time,” only for the the Polish frontier this the next year, he ruthlessly pursued Nazis to invade the remainder of morning at dawn and his policies of nationalism, anti- Czechoslovakia in March 1939. are since reported to be Semitism, and anti-communism. bombing open towns. In these circumstances there is only one course open to us. Neville Chamberlain
290 NAZI INVASION OF POLAND The West intervenes scale attack, and some politicians We shall defend our island Hitler’s invasion of Poland, which still believed that peace terms whatever the cost may be. began on September 1, 1939, finally could be negotiated. We shall fight on beaches, forced Britain and France into landing grounds, in fields, a war they had been trying This period became known as in streets, and on the hills. desperately to avoid. Deciding the “Phoney War.” Expecting to be We shall never surrender. that they needed to take a tougher bombed, Britain began to evacuate stance against Hitler after his its children from major cities. Air- Winston Churchill takeover of Czechoslovakia, the raid shelters were built, and gas two nations had guaranteed Poland masks handed out. The Phoney War they could be evacuated by sea support in the event of German ended in April 1940, when Germany from Dunkirk. Thousands of Allied aggression. Honoring this promise, attacked and conquered Denmark soldiers were transferred across they declared war on Germany on and Norway. A month later, they the Channel in all kinds of vessels September 3, which meant British turned on France, Belgium, and the in Operation Dynamo. Winston and French colonies were also Netherlands. The French army was Churchill, the First Lord of the drawn into conflict: Britain’s poorly led and badly equipped. Admiralty and later Britain’s dominions Australia and New France had relied on the Maginot wartime prime minister, told the Zealand declared war immediately, Line, a chain of fortresses along the British parliament, “The Battle of the Union of South Africa followed frontier with Germany, to halt any France is over. I expect the Battle on September 6, and Canada on attack. But the fortification did not of Britain is about to begin.” September 10. extend along the Franco-Belgian border, and the Germans simply However, Hitler’s attempts Germany quickly overran bypassed it at the north end. Within to invade Britain in Operation Poland with its tactic of blitzkrieg the space of six weeks, France had Sea Lion had to be abandoned (“lightning war”), which utilized fallen to the German onslaught. after the Luftwaffe failed to win tank divisions supported by the the battle of the skies. With the Luftwaffe, the German air force. The Battle of Britain Luftwaffe triumphant in both The British sent an Expeditionary Only a hesitation by Hitler, who Poland and France, the Germans Force (BEF) to France, but neither may have wanted to rest his troops had hoped that Britain could Britain nor France attempted and spare them from a possible be beaten by air power alone. an offensive against Germany. counterattack, prevented the However, German crews were They were not ready for a large- destruction of British forces before exhausted, intelligence was poor, and Britain’s use of radar enabled the Royal Air Force (RAF) to track incoming planes and take off in time to meet an attack. The Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 Operation Dynamo, in June 1940, focused on the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the port of Dunkirk, in France, after they had become surrounded by German troops.
THE MODERN WORLD 291 Finland* April 3, 1945 Canada UK Netherlands China Sept. 10, 1939 Sept. 3, 1939 Dec. 8, 1941 Dec. 8, 1941 USA France Turkey Australia Dec. 8, 1941 Sept. 3, 1939 Feb. 23, 1945 Sept. 3, 1939 Egypt Mexico Italy* Feb. 24, 1945 May 22, 1942 Oct. 13, 1943 Nicaragua Dec. 8, 1941 Declarations of war against Brazil Germany began right after the Aug. 22, 1942 invasion of Poland and carried on until the end of World War II. South Africa Some nations (such as those Sept. 6, 1939 asterisked) switched sides late in the conflict. was the first real check on Hitler’s people were urged to grow their Wilhelmina, also sought refuge progress, but Britain alone could not own food. Nazi-occupied Europe in London. When France fell to fight a power that now had control also experienced food shortages, Germany, Charles de Gaulle, of almost the entire continent. which weighed most heavily on who opposed the newly installed the conquered populations. Vichy government, became the The world at war voice of French opposition to the What started as a European war Collaboration or exile Nazi occupation. gradually became a world war. In In some locations, the Germans June 1940, Italy, emboldened by worked with existing governments In 1940 the biggest threat German successes, declared war and fully supported puppet facing Britain was from German on Britain and France, fulfilling administrations, such as the pro- U-boats. As an island, Britain was the terms of the Axis agreement Nazi Vidkun Quisling in Norway dependent on its merchant ships to made between Hitler and Mussolini and the Vichy regime in southern bring in vital supplies but also to on May 22, 1939. But Italy’s failures France. Led by Marshal Philippe export equipment to its fighting in Greece and North Africa Pétain, Vichy was officially neutral, forces abroad, and German U-boats forced Hitler to send German but it collaborated closely with were sinking dozens of Allied armies into these areas, as well Germany, fighting the French ships each month. Merchant ships as Yugoslavia. resistance, and implementing traveled in convoy to increase anti-Semitic legislation. the chances of supplies getting On September 7, 1940 Germany through on each journey, but began its first major air raid on Germany had total control in casualties were high. London. The Blitz, as the bombing of Poland and eventual control of the the English capital became known, Baltic states. Monarchs and Fighting the USSR thrust civilians into the war and put politicians of more than a dozen In June 1941, Britain gained a relentless pressure on industry, ports, occupied countries escaped to new ally when Germany invaded and British morale. With men joining Britain. Polish ministers set up the USSR in Operation Barbarossa. the army, women were required to headquarters in London, and Hitler had looked to the Soviet Union work in factories and on farms. Belgium’s government operations for new territory for the German Food rationing was introduced in were transferred there. The people. It would also remove any Britain in January 1940, and Dutch royal family, under Queen future threat from the east but ❯❯
292 NAZI INVASION OF POLAND Operation Barbarossa, launched in June 1941, saw the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany, in breach of the non-aggression pact the two countries had signed two years earlier. fundamentally followed through on hardships. German tanks plowed Roosevelt. Both were decisive in Hitler’s plan to destroy communism. through the Red Army defenses. bringing about the defeat of the At first it looked as if Germany and Prisoners of war were shot or left Axis powers. American industry its allies would be as successful to starve. Fleeing civilians were became a triumph of wartime against the Russians as it had butchered without a moment’s production, giving Americans in been against the French. By winter, hesitation. The harshness of the combat in Europe and Asia the Germany had advanced to within Russian winter slowed the Germans, tools they needed to fight the Axis. 1 mile (1.5km) of Moscow, and and Russian counterattacks drove Leningrad, the USSR’s second city, back their front line by several Japan won quick victories in was under siege. hundred miles. In the Battle the Pacific. It successfully captured of Moscow, from early October the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, Another powerful rationale for 1941 to January 1942, an estimated Indonesia, and Singapore, Britain’s war in the east was one based on 650,000 soldiers from the Soviet main naval base in East Asia. racist ideology and Hitler’s hatred of Army lost their lives. In the spring Slavs and Jews. As German troops of 1942, the Germans resumed their In North Africa, meanwhile, swept into Russia, they inflicted offensive in the USSR, driving the a renewed Axis offensive led by a terrible campaign of genocide Red Army back and coming close General Erwin Rommel brought against communists and Jews. to taking the Russian oilfields. the German and Italian armies Russian troops endured extreme within striking distance of Cairo and the Suez Canal. The first major Allied victory came in Egypt. In July 1942, Rommel was halted at El Alamein; in October, he was forced into retreat by the British 8th Army, led by Field Marshal Montgomery. That same winter, the Red Army defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad. The Soviets encircled the Germans, forcing a surrender in February 1943. History knows no greater The Pacific and Africa display of courage than In December 1941, Japan entered that shown by the people the war by attacking the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, in the Hawaiian of the Soviet Union. Islands, as part of its plan to drive Henry L. Stimson American forces out of the Pacific. Germany—which had a tripartite US Secretary of War agreement with Japan and Italy to provide mutual military assistance in the event any one of them was General Dwight D. Eisenhower led attacked by a nation not already the Allied forces during the Normandy involved in the war—immediately landings of June 1944. The invasion declared war on the United States. was a decisive step toward taking Britain now had two strong allies, Europe back from the Nazis. the USSR under Joseph Stalin, and the US, led by President Franklin D.
THE MODERN WORLD 293 The turn of the tide The Battle of Iwo Jima saw US Hiroshima and In a conference at Tehran in troops fight against Japan’s Imperial Nagasaki November 1943, the Allied leaders Army for possession of the tiny island agreed on a strategy to liberate in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in American planes dropped Europe. While the Russians drove 100,000 Japanese casualties. atomic bombs on the Japanese the Germans back in the east, and cities of Hiroshima and the British and Americans advanced atomic bombs on Hiroshima Nagasaki to force Japan to slowly through Italy, a huge Allied and Nagasaki. The effects of the surrender and end World invasion force arrived in Normandy bombs were cataclysmic, inflicting War II. On August 6, 1945, in June 1944. Eleven months later, unprecedented horror on the two “Little Boy” was dropped on it had reached the river Elbe in Japanese cities. Hiroshima. The inhabitants northern Germany, while Russian below had no idea what was troops were advancing block by Nations united about to happen. People, block through Berlin. Germany Hitler’s invasion of Poland marked animals, and buildings were was being hit repeatedly by British the start of World War II, the largest incinerated in the searing heat. Lancaster bomber aircraft from and most destructive war in history, Some 70,000 died immediately. Bomber Command and the US by the end of which an estimated Despite this terrible event, Eighth Air Force. Staring at defeat, 60 million people had been killed. Japan did not surrender. Hitler committed suicide on April Like their predecessors in 1918, the 30, and Germany surrendered Allies were determined that this Japan had cause to unconditionally a week later. should be the last war of its kind. reconsider its position when the Soviets entered the war The last act of the war came Representatives of 50 nations against them by crossing in August 1945, when the US, met in 1945 to set up the United into Manchuria on August 9. after fighting island by island Nations. There was hope that this When, that same afternoon, through the Pacific, put an end to would mark the start of a new era the US dropped “Fat Man” Japanese resistance by dropping of international understanding. ■ on Nagasaki, instantly killing 50,000, Japan was brought to its knees and agreed to the Allies’ terms of surrender. These unprecedented attacks avoided a bloody ground assault by the Allies on the Japanese mainland, but many thousands lost their lives as a result of the long-term effects of radiation sickness.
294 OQTHUFEETSHFTIENIOJANELWSIOSLHUTION THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE (1942) IN CONTEXT Hitler becomes ruler of Hitler’s takeover of Austria Germany and introduces is followed by widespread FOCUS legislation discriminating The Holocaust attacks on Jews. against Jews. BEFORE 1933 The first concentration The Nazis look for efficient Germany conquers camp is built in Dachau, near ways to kill millions after Poland, and Polish Jews Munich. Its first inmates are the invasion of Russia. are forced to move into communists, socialists, and overcrowded ghettos. trade unionists. The Wannsee More than 6 million September 1935 As a result Conference Jews are killed in of the new Nuremberg Laws, the Holocaust. Jews lose their civil rights. organizes the Final Solution. 1938 During Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” the O n January 20, 1942, 15 tabulation of all the Jews in Europe Nazis terrorize Jews across members of the Nazi Party was presented, country by country, Germany and Austria. and German officials met as well as a target number for in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee extermination: 11 million. The June 1941 The German to discuss the implementation meeting lasted two hours and was invasion of the Soviet Union of the “Final Solution of the Jewish matter-of-fact and dispassionate. is accompanied by the mass Question”—the code name for the After approving the “Final Solution” killing of Jews. systematic annihilation of European and the slaughter of the Jews, the Jews. During the conference, a men called for brandy and cigars. AFTER May 1942 Gassings start at Auschwitz, in Poland. 1945–46 At the Nuremberg trials, 24 Nazi members are indicted and 12 sentenced to death.
THE MODERN WORLD 295 See also: The Treaty of Versailles 280 ■ The Wall Street Crash 282–83 ■ The Reichstag Fire 284–85 ■ Nazi invasion of Poland 286–93 ■ The establishment of Israel 302–03 ■ The Siege of Sarajevo 326 Auschwitz, in southern Poland, has When Germany invaded Russia in killed, and only seven prisoners are become a byword for the Holocaust. 1941, paramilitary death squads known to have survived. The death Those prisoners subjected to forced carried out mass killings of Jews in camp at Auschwitz, however, also labor were summarily executed when the conquered areas. To start with, had a labor camp attached, where they became too weak to work. victims were shot, up to 30,000 at a those who were not killed on arrival time, but the SS then began gassing were made to work. The Germans The Wannsee Conference was far Jews in the backs of vans. Poison needed slave labor to support their from the start of Nazi brutality gas was found to be a more efficient war effort, and this offered Jews against Jews. Adolf Hitler had way to commit mass murder. their best chance of survival. Along come to power in 1933, spreading with other prisoners—including his belief that Germans were the Until 1941, the Nazi leadership socialists, homosexuals, Roma, and Aryan master race, superior to all had envisaged solving the “Jewish prisoners of war—many Jews were others, and that their blood should problem” by deporting Jews to a sent to concentration camps. Their not be contaminated. He identified distant location. By the time of the heads were shaved, and they were Jews as a race of people, not just Wannsee Conference, however, they given a uniform to strip them of a religious group. German Jews were committed to systematically their identity. When the Allies were banned from marrying non- killing Europe’s Jewish population. liberated the camps in 1945, they Jewish Germans and subjected Six dedicated death camps were found a vision of hell. The survivors to increasing discrimination and built in Poland. Adolf Eichmann of were skeletal and traumatized. segregation. From the time of the the Nazi paramilitary corps, the SS, German takeover of Austria in arranged the transport of Jews to State-sanctioned genocide 1938, Nazi brutality against Jews the camps from right across Europe, The Wannsee Protocol, the minutes worsened. Jews wanting to flee including France, Greece, Hungary, of the conference, represents the German rule found other countries and Italy. The Jews from the Polish unimaginable. For the first time, a unwilling to accept them. ghettos were also taken there to be modern state had committed itself exterminated. Prisoners arrived at to the murder of an entire people. Gathering momentum these huge killing factories by train As many as 6 million Jews lost their After Germany’s invasion of Poland and were gassed in shower rooms, lives, and an estimated 5.5 million in 1939, the Nazi campaign against their corpses burned in large others—Slavs, homosexuals, the Jews reached a terrifying new crematoria. At the Belzec camp, communists—were also killed. ■ level. Herded into ghettoes, Polish about half a million Jews were Jews began to die in large numbers Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, of starvation and ill-treatment. The Nuremberg Trials head of the SS, and Joseph Goebbels, head of propaganda, After the end of World War II, had committed suicide, leaving the Allies sought to bring the 24 defendants facing four counts: Nazis to justice. An international crimes against peace, planning tribunal was held at Nuremberg, and waging wars of aggression, Germany, beginning in 1945. war crimes, and crimes against Newsreels captured from humanity. Most said they were the Nazis revealed the gas “only obeying orders.” Albert chambers, the massacre of Speer, head of war production, civilians, and the ill-treatment was jailed for 20 years, while of prisoners. The trials were 12 of the other defendants were televised, showing to the sentenced to death; the trials led world—and, in particular the to the setting up of a permanent German people—evidence of international criminal court in the horrors that had taken place The Hague, in the Netherlands. in the concentration camps.
296 WAANLALDSWSFLLEEYDEIPD THE BERLIN AIRLIFT (1948) IN CONTEXT A t the Yalta and Potsdam A clash between East and West conferences in 1945, the had the potential to lead to another FOCUS wartime Allies agreed to world war, but the Western nations Cold War split defeated Germany into four devised a plan to use airplanes zones, each separately administered to drop supplies into Berlin. Over BEFORE by France, Britain, the USSR, and the next 14 months, 278,288 relief 1918–20 US troops fight the US. The capital, Berlin, lay deep missions were flown to the city. against the Bolsheviks during within Soviet-controlled East At the height of the airlift, a plane the Russian Civil War. Germany. This, too, was split into landed every three minutes. four zones. On June 24, 1948, the 1922 Russian revolutionary Soviet Union imposed a blockade The Cold War Vladimir Lenin creates the on West Berlin, cutting off all links The era of cooperation between the Communist International by rail, road, and canal, to prevent victors of World War II was short- (Comintern) to promote vital supplies from reaching the lived; the Western countries clashed international revolution. population. In all, 2.5 million people with the Soviet Union (USSR), over faced a choice between starvation the type of governments being set 1947 The Truman Doctrine and accepting a communist regime. up in Europe. The USSR banned pledges support for countries non-communist parties in every attempting to hold back Dozens of people in West Berlin Eastern European country and communism. stand waiting for the much-needed created a block of satellite states supplies that are about to be dropped subservient to Soviet leadership. AFTER from a low-flying US Air Force plane The Western powers sought to 1961 The Soviets erect the during the 1948 Berlin Airlift. create democracies that excluded Berlin Wall between East and communists from power. Germany West Berlin. It becomes an remained divided into communist ugly symbol of the Cold War. East and democratic West, an emblem of polarized Europe. In 1985 Russian leader Mikhail 1946, former British prime minister Gorbachev campaigns for Winston Churchill summed up the economic and political reforms: situation when he stated that “an glasnost and perestroika. iron curtain has descended across the continent.”This deep division 1990 Germany is unified after between East and West became the fall of the Berlin Wall. known as the Cold War, since it
THE MODERN WORLD 297 See also: Russia emancipates the serfs 243 ■ The October Revolution 276–79 ■ Stalin assumes power 281 ■ Nazi invasion of Poland 286–93 After World War II, the communist East and democratic West disagree over the future of Germany. The Western Allies plan to turn their occupied zones into a separate German state. The Soviets cut road and rail links into West Berlin Joseph Stalin to force the capital into surrendering. The dictator of the USSR The West is determined to have a presence from 1927 until his death, in Berlin but cannot risk another world war. Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) was notorious for his ruthless The Berlin Airlift is a peaceful solution. repression of dissent. His rise to power began in 1903, when never escalated into direct military North Atlantic Treaty Organization he became a friend of Vladimir conflict. The struggle over the (NATO). The communist states of Lenin, the first leader of Soviet future of Berlin became the first Eastern Europe organized a rival Russia. During and after the major crisis of the Cold War. alliance in the Warsaw Pact in 1955. Russian Revolution (1917), he played a prominent part in A plan to starve Berlin The crisis over Berlin the Communist Party’s rise In June 1948, the three Western exacerbated the animosity to power, and in 1922 he Allies announced plans to merge between the US and the USSR. advanced to become general their zones and introduce a new After World War II, Korea had also secretary of the Russian currency. Stalin’s response was been split—into a Soviet-occupied Communist Party. swift: his blockade sought to northern zone and an American- starve Berlin into surrender occupied southern one. The north, He became supreme and wrest power away from the backed by the USSR, invaded leader in 1927 and aimed to West. The Western powers did the south in June 1950. The US transform the Soviet Union not want to give the Soviets provided troops for a United into a major industrial force. control of the Western sector Nations army, which went to the In 1928, he launched an and were determined to stay. support of the South Koreans. industrialization program The Korean War ended in 1953, and introduced collective The Berlin Airlift was a success, but it, the conflict over Berlin, and farming. Millions died of and Stalin lifted the blockade in the Soviet testing of their first starvation, in labor camps, May 1949. Spurred by the Berlin atomic bomb in 1949, created a or in a wave of purges directed crisis, Western European countries climate of fear in the West over at his supposed opponents. formed a defensive alliance—the communist expansion. ■ In the post-war years, Stalin led the Communist Party into a period of confrontation with his former World War II allies. Following his death, Stalin was condemned by his successors for his campaigns of terror and murder.
298 IN CONTEXT SWTAAAWTHNLHEEDTAEEHKMNFPEERISTDESTHNEITOENIDRGDLOWOHIIMFKATOEERWHLOOIDFLULR FOCUS End of empires INDIAN INDEPENDENCE AND PARTITION (1947) BEFORE 1885 The Indian National Congress (INC) is founded and campaigns for Indian rights. 1901 Australian colonies are united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. 1921 The Irish Free State (four-fifths of Ireland) gains independence from Britain. 1922 Egypt is given limited independence by Britain, but British troops remain to protect imperial interests. AFTER 1947 The Commonwealth of Nations is formed—all former British colonies can take part. 1960 The Declaration of Decolonization asserts the rights of all peoples to self-determination. F or more than a century, India had been the crown jewel of the British Empire, but on the last stroke of midnight on August 14, 1947, it became an independent nation. In India’s Constituent Assembly, Delhi, a special midnight gathering of parliament was convened. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, rose to his feet to declare India’s freedom. However, this independence also opened a social and geographic wound that has yet to heal. The new Indian state was split into two independent nation states: Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. Pakistan
Search
Read the Text Version
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- 138
- 139
- 140
- 141
- 142
- 143
- 144
- 145
- 146
- 147
- 148
- 149
- 150
- 151
- 152
- 153
- 154
- 155
- 156
- 157
- 158
- 159
- 160
- 161
- 162
- 163
- 164
- 165
- 166
- 167
- 168
- 169
- 170
- 171
- 172
- 173
- 174
- 175
- 176
- 177
- 178
- 179
- 180
- 181
- 182
- 183
- 184
- 185
- 186
- 187
- 188
- 189
- 190
- 191
- 192
- 193
- 194
- 195
- 196
- 197
- 198
- 199
- 200
- 201
- 202
- 203
- 204
- 205
- 206
- 207
- 208
- 209
- 210
- 211
- 212
- 213
- 214
- 215
- 216
- 217
- 218
- 219
- 220
- 221
- 222
- 223
- 224
- 225
- 226
- 227
- 228
- 229
- 230
- 231
- 232
- 233
- 234
- 235
- 236
- 237
- 238
- 239
- 240
- 241
- 242
- 243
- 244
- 245
- 246
- 247
- 248
- 249
- 250
- 251
- 252
- 253
- 254
- 255
- 256
- 257
- 258
- 259
- 260
- 261
- 262
- 263
- 264
- 265
- 266
- 267
- 268
- 269
- 270
- 271
- 272
- 273
- 274
- 275
- 276
- 277
- 278
- 279
- 280
- 281
- 282
- 283
- 284
- 285
- 286
- 287
- 288
- 289
- 290
- 291
- 292
- 293
- 294
- 295
- 296
- 297
- 298
- 299
- 300
- 301
- 302
- 303
- 304
- 305
- 306
- 307
- 308
- 309
- 310
- 311
- 312
- 313
- 314
- 315
- 316
- 317
- 318
- 319
- 320
- 321
- 322
- 323
- 324
- 325
- 326
- 327
- 328
- 329
- 330
- 331
- 332
- 333
- 334
- 335
- 336
- 337
- 338
- 339
- 340
- 341
- 342
- 343
- 344
- 345
- 346
- 347
- 348
- 349
- 350
- 351
- 352
- 353
- 354
