AP European History Notes

Chapter 27: The Great Break: War and Revolution

  1. The First World War
    1. The Bismarckian System of Alliances
      1. After the Franco-Prussian war and the founding of the German Empire in 1871, France was forced to pay a large war indemnity and give up Alsace-Lorraine and from 1862 to 1871, Bismarck had made Prussia-Germany the most powerful nation
      2. Bismarck’s first concern was to keep an embittered France diplomatically isolated and without military allies; his second concern was the threat to peace posed by the east, by Austria-Hungary and from Russia (systems of alliances)
      3. Bismarck’s solution was a system of alliances to restrain Russia and Austria-Hungary
        1. The first step was the creation in 1873 of the conservative Three Emperors’ League, which linked the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia in an alliance against radical movements
        2. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, he saw that Austria obtained the right to “occupy and administer” the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina to counterbalance Russia and Balkan states were carved from the Ottoman Empire
        3. Bismarck’s balancing efforts at the congress infuriated Russian nationalists and led Bismarck to conclude a defensive military alliance with Austria against Russia in 1879; Italy joined Germany and Austria in 1882 (forming the Triple Alliance)
      4. In 1881, Bismarck cajoled Austria-Hungary and Russia into a secret alliance with Germany (Alliance of Three Emperors lasted until 1887) and established the principle of cooperation among all three powers in any further division of the Ottoman Empire
      5. In 1887 Russia declined to renew the Alliance of the Three Emperors because of the new tensions in the Balkans and Bismarck substituted the Russian-German Reinsurance Treaty which promised neutrality if the other was attacked
    2. The Rival Blocs
      1. In 1890, the emperor William II dismissed Bismarck and then refused to renew the Russian0German Reinsurance Treaty and this departure in foreign affairs prompted long-isolated republican France to court absolutist Russia, offering loans, and arms
      2. In 1894, France and Russia became military allies after earlier agreements in 1891
        1. This alliance was to remain in effect as long as the Triple Alliance existed
        3. As a result, continental Europe was dangerously divided into two rival blocs
      3. Great Britain’s foreign policy became increasingly crucial as the British held no permanent alliances, Britain after 189a was the uncommitted Great Power
        1. Britain, with a cast and expanding empire, Britain was often in serious conflict with the countries such as France and Russia around the world
        2. Britain found German Emperor William II’s pursuit of greater world power after 1987 disquieting, but people believed that their leaders would form an alliance
        3. Relations turned to a bitter Anglo-German rivalry soon after the 19th century
      4. Several reasons for this development was commercial rivalry in world markets increasing sharply in the 1890s and Germany’s decision in 1900 to expand greatly its battle fleet posed a challenge to Britain’s long-standing naval supremacy
        1. This coincided with the Boer War between the British and the tiny Dutch republics of South Africa (political leaders saw Britain was overextended)
        2. Many nations denounced this latest manifestation of British imperialism
        3. British leaders set about supporting their positions with alliances and agreements
      5. Britain improved its relations with the United States and in 1902 concluded a formal alliance with Japan, responded favorably to the advances of France’s skillful foreign minister, Theophile Delcasse, who wanted better relations with Britain and was willing to accept British rule in Egypt in return for helping the French in Morocco
      6. The resulting Anglo-French Entente of 1904 settled all outstanding colonial disputes
      7. Frustrated by Britain’s turn toward France in 1904 and wanting a diplomatic victory to gain popularity, Germany’s leaders decided to test the strength of the entente
        1. Germany first threatened and bullied France into dismissing Delcasse and rather then accept the territorial payoff of imperial competition in return for French primacy in Morocco, the Germans insisted on a international conference in 1905
        2. Germany’s crude bullying forced France and Britain closer together and Germany left the resulting Algecrias Conference of 1906 (about Morocco) empty-handed
        3. Britain France, Russia, and even the United States began to see Germany as a potential threat, a would-be intimidator that might seek to dominate all Europe
        4. German leaders began to see sinister plots to “encircle” Germany and block its development as a world power and in 1907 Russia agreed to settle its quarrels with Great Britain in central Asia with a special Anglo-Russian Agreement
      8. Germany’s decision to add an expensive fleet of big-gun battleships to its expanding navy heightened tensions after 1907 and German nationalists, led by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, saw a large navy as a mark of great world power and a source of unity
      9. But British leaders such as Lloyd George saw it as a detestable military challenge and economic rivalry also contributed to distrust and hostility between the two nations
      10. Proud nationalists in both countries admired and feared the power and accomplishments of their nearly equal rival and the leading nations of Europe were divided into two hostile blocs, both ill-prepared to deal with upheaval in southeast
    3. The Outbreak of War
      1. War in the Balkans was inevitable as nationalism was destroying the Ottoman Empire and threatening to break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Greece began nationalism)
      2. In 1875 widespread nationalist rebellion in the Ottoman Empire had resulted in Turkish repression, Russian intervention, and Great Power tensions and Bismarck had helped resolved this crisis at the 1878 Congress of Berlin (division of Turkish land)
      3. After 1878 imperialism diverted attention away from the southeastern Europe but by 1903, Balkan nationalism was on the rise again while Serbia led the way, becoming openly hostile toward both Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire
        1. The Serbs, a Slavic people, looked to Slavic Russia for support of their national aspirations and to block Serbian expansion and to take advantage of Russia’s weakness after the revolution of 1905, Austria in 1908 annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with their large Serbian, Croatian, and Muslim populations
        2. In 1912, in the First Balkan war, Serbia turned southward and with Greece and Bulgaria took Macedonia and then quarreled with Bulgaria over the spoils of victory—a dispute that led in 1913 to the Second Balkan War
        3. Austria intervened in 1913 and forced Serbia to give up Albania and nationalism had finally destroyed the Ottoman Empire (elated the Balkan nationalists)
        4. Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian and Hungarian thrones, and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated by Bosnian revolutionaries on June 28, 1914
        5. This was during a visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and the assassins were closely connected to the ultranationalists Serbian society The Black Hand
      4. The leaders of Austria-Hungary concluded that Serbia had to be severely punished and on July 23, Austria-Hungary presented Serbia with an unconditional ultimatum
      5. The Serbian government had just two days to agree to cease all subversion in Austria and all anti-Austrian propaganda in Serbia and an investigation of all aspects of the assassination was to be undertaken in Serbia (amounted to control of Serbian state)
      6. When Serbia replied moderately but evasively, Austria began to mobilize and then declared war on Serbia on July 28 (chose war to stop the spread of nationalism)
      7. Germany’s unconditional support was important as Emperor William II and his chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg urged aggressive measures in early July
      8. Germany realized that war between Austria and Russia was the most probable result as Russia as itself as the protector and as eventual liberator of southern Slavs
      9. The diplomatic situation was already out of control (military plans dictated policy)
        1. Russia would require much longer to mobilize its armies than Germany and Austria-Hungary and on July 28 as Austrian armies bombarded Belgrade, tsar Nicholas II ordered a partial mobilization against Austria-Hungary
        2. Russian general staff had assumed a war with both Austria and Germany and on July 29, Russia ordered full mobilization and in effect declared general war
      10. The German staff’s plan for war—the Schlieffen plan, the work of Count Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German general staff, called for knocking out France with a lightning attack through neutral Belgium before turning to Russia
      11. On August 2, 1914, General Helmuth con Moltke, demanded that Belgium permit German armies to pass through its territory but Belgium whose neutrality had been guaranteed in 1839, refused and Germany attacked on August 3; Great Britain joined France and declared war on Germany the following day; World War I had begun
    4. Reflections on the Origins of the War
      1. Austria-Hungary deliberately started the Third Balkan war and a war for the right to survive was Austria-Hungary’s desperate response to aggressive revolutionary drive of Serbian nationalists to unify their people in a single state
      2. Germany not only pushed and goaded Austria-Hungary but was also responsible for turning a little war into the Great War by means of attack on Belgium and France
      3. German leaders lost control of the international system after Bismarck’s resignation and felt that Germany status as a world power was declining unlike the rest of Europe
      4. The Triple Entente—Great Britain, France, and Russia—were checking Germany’s aspirations to strange Austria-Hungary, Germany’s only real ally (failure of leaders)
      5. Other historians say domestic conflicts and social tensions lay at the root of Germany increasingly belligerent foreign policy from the late 1890s onward; the German classes were willing to gamble on diplomatic victory and even on war as the means of rallying its masses to its side and preserving its privileged position
      6. Stimulating debate over social tensions and domestic political factors suggests the triumph of nationalism was a crucial underlying precondition of the Great War
      7. The international bankers and socialists were frightened by the prospect of war
      8. In each country the great majority of the population enthusiastically embraced the outbreak of war in August 1914 (patriotic nationalism brought unity in the short run)
    5. The First Battle of the Marne
      1. When Germans invaded Belgium in 1914, everyone believed the war would be short and the Belgian army defended its homeland and feel back in good order to join a rapidly landed British army corps near the Franco-Belgian border (complicated plan)
      2. Under leadership of General Joseph Joffre, the French attacked a gap in the German line at the Battle of the Marne on September 6 and for three days, France threw everything into the attack and finally the Germans fell back and France was saved
    6. Stalemate and Slaughter
      1. The attempts of the French and British armies to turn the German retreat into a rout were unsuccessful and both sides began to dig trenches to protect themselves from machine gun fire; by November, trenches extended from Belgian to the Swiss frontier
      2. In the face of this unexpected stalemate, slaughter on the western front began in earnest and defended on both sides dug in behind rows of trenches and barbed wire
      3. The massive French and British offensives during 1915 never gained more than 3 miles of blood-soaked earth from the enemy (Battle of the Somme, German campaign against Verdun, French attack at Champagne, British attack at Passchendaele)
      4. War of the trenches shattered an entire generation of young men and while young soldier went to war believing in the world of their leaders and elders, the pre-1914 world of order, progress, and patriotism, millions of men died on the western front
      5. Gap formed between veterans and civilians making postwar reconstruction difficult
    7. The Widening War
      1. Badly damaged by the Germans under Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff at the Battles of Tanenberg and the Masurian Lakes in 1914, Russia never threatened Germany again and on the Austrian front, armies suffered enormous losses
        1. Serbian peasant armies held off the Austro-Hungarian armies twice but with help of German forces, they reversed Russian advances and forced the Russians to retreat into their territory in the eastern campaign of 1915 (2.5 million lost)
        2. Changing tides of victory and defeat brought neutral countries into the war
        3. Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance had declared its neutrality in 1914 on the grounds that Austria had launched a war of aggression and then in May 1915, Italy joined the Triple Entente in return for promises of Austrian territory; Bulgaria allied with Austria and Germany (Central Powers) to battle Serbia
      2. The entry of Italy and Bulgaria in 1915 was part of the general widening of the war
        1. The Balkans came to be occupied by the Central Powers and the British forces were badly defeated in 1915 trying to take the Dardanelles from Turkey, ally of Germany (more successful in inciting Arab nationalists against Turkish lords)
        2. Lawrence of Arabia aroused the Arab princes to revolt in early 1917 and in 1918 British armies from Egypt smashed the Ottoman Empire once and for all; British had drawn forces from Australia, New Zealand, and India
        3. War extended around the globe as Great Britain, France, and Japan seized Germany’s colonies (United States declared war on Germany in April 1917)
      3. American intervention grew out of war at sea, sympathy for the Triple Entente, and increasing desperation of total war; Britain and France had established a total naval blockade to strangle the Central Powers and although the blockade annoyed Americans, profits from selling war supplies to countries blunted indignation
      4. In early 1915 Germany launched a counter-blockade using the murderously effective submarine, a new weapon that violated traditional niceties of fair warning under international law (German submarines began sinking British ships in war zone)
      5. In 1917, Germany after being forced to relax submarine warfare to prevent the United States from entering, resumed unrestricted submarine warfare
      6. British shipping losses reached staggering proportions and by late 1917, naval strategists had come up with an effective response: the convoy system for safe transatlantic shipping; United States entered the war almost three years after its start
  2. The Home Front
    1. Mobilizing for Total War
      1. In every country the masses believed that their nation was in the right and defending itself from aggression; even socialists supported the war; in Germany the trade unions voted not to strike and socialist in Reichstag voted money for war (counter Russia)
      2. By mid-October generals and politicians had begun to realize that more than patriotism would be needed to win the war, whose end was not in sight
      3. Every country experience a relentless, desperate demand for men and weapons; countries faced countless shortages, for prewar Europe had depended on foreign trade and a great international division of labor (organization and economic life changed)
      4. In each country a government of national unity began to plan and control economic and social life in order to wage “total war” (free-market capitalism was abandoned)
        1. Government planning boards established priorities and decided what was to be produced and consumed; rationing, price, and wage controls, and even restrictions on workers’ freedom of movement were imposed by the government
        2. The planned economy of total war released the tremendous energies but total war was based on productive industrial economies not confined to a single nation
        3. The war was a war of whole peoples and entire populations
        4. The ability of governments to manage and control highly complicated economies strengthened the cause of socialism (became a realistic economic blueprint)
      5. Germany went the furthest in developing a planned economy to wage total war
        1. Walter Rathenau, the Jewish industrialist convinced the government to set up the War Raw Materials Board to ration and distribute raw materials
        2. The board launched successful attempts to produce substitutes, such as synthetic nitrates which was used to make explosives (highly important and useful)
        3. Food was rationed in accordance with physical need and men and women doing hard manual work were given extra rations while only few received milk rations
      6. Following the battles of Verdun and Somme in 1916, Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg was driven from office in 1917 by military leaders Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who became the real rulers of Germany; decreed the ultimate mobilization for total war
      7. In December 1916, military leaders rammed through the Reichstag the Auxiliary Service Law, which required all males between seventeen and sixty to work only at jobs considered critical to the war effort (many women were working in factories already and children were organized by their teachers into garbage brigades)
      8. In Germany, total war led to the establishment of history’s first “totalitarian” society and war production increase while some people starved to death
      9. In Great Britain, a shortage of shells led to the establishment of the Ministry of Munitions under David Lloyd George which organized private industry to produce for the war, controlled profits, allocated labor, fixed wages, and settled labor disputes
      10. More than 90 percent of all imports were bought and allocated directly by the state
    2. The Social Impact
      1. Millions of men at the front and the insatiable needs of the military created a tremendous demand for works and demand for labor brought about changes
        1. Having proved their loyalty in August 1914, labor unions became a partner of government and private industry in the planned war economy; unions cooperated with war governments on work rules, wages, and production schedules in return for real participation and important decisions (paralleled entry of socialist leaders)
        2. In every country, large numbers of women left home and domestic service to work in industry, transportation and offices and women became highly visible
        3. Government pressure and the principle of equal pay for equal work overcame objections as the war expanded the range of a woman and as a result of the women’s war effort, Britain, Germany, and Austria granted suffrage after the war
      2. War also promoted greater social equality, blurring class distinctions and lessening the gap between the rich and the poor (Great Britain was the prime example as bottom third of population lived better than they had ever had; labor shortage)
      3. Death had no respect for traditional social distinctions and it decimated the young aristocratic officers who led the charge and feel heavily on the mass of drafted peasants and unskilled workers who followed but death often spared the aristocrats of labor, the skilled works and the foremen (need to train the unskilled workers)
    3. Growing Political Tensions
      1. During the first two years of war, most soldiers and civilians supported governments; belief in just cause, patriotic nationalism, the planned economy, and a shared burdens united peoples behind their various national leaders (newspapers were censored)
      2. Governments used both crude and subtle propaganda to maintain popular support; patriotic posters, slanted news, and biased editorials inflamed hatreds and helped sustain efforts but people were beginning to crack under the strain of war in 1916
      3. In April 1916 Irish nationalists in Dublin tried to take advantage of this situation and rose up against British rule in their great Easter Rebellion; strikes over inadequate food began to flare up and soldiers’ morale began to decline
      4. A rising tide of war-weariness and defeatism also swept France’s civilian population before Georges Clemencause emerged as wartime leader in November 1917
      5. After the death of Francis Joseph, a symbol of unity disappeared and in April 1917, the minister feared another winter of war would bring revolution and disintegration
      6. The strain of total war and of the Auxiliary Service Law was evident in Germany; national political unity was collapsing and a growing minority of socialists in the Reichstag began to vote against war credits calling for a compromise
      7. In July 1917 a coalition of socialists and Catholics passed a resolution in the Reichstag to that effect and when the bread ration was reduced, more than 200,000 workers struck and demonstrated for a week in Berlin returning to work only under the threat of prison and military discipline (countries were beginning to crack)
  3. The Russian Revolution
    1. The Fall of Imperial Russia
      1. Tsar Nicholas II vowed never to make peace as long as the enemy stood on Russian soil and Russia’s lower house, the Duma, voted war credits; conservatives anticipated expansion in the Balkans, while liberals and most socialists believed alliance with Britain and France would bring democratic reform (for a moment, Russia was united)
      2. Despite declining morale among soldiers and civilians and heavy losses in 1915, Russia’s battered peasant army did not collapse but continued to fight until early 1917
      3. Russia moved toward full mobilization on the home front and the Duma took the lead, setting up special committees to coordinated defense, industry, transportation and agriculture; Russia mobilized less effectively for total war than any other country
      4. The great problem of Russia was leadership (under a constitution from 1905)
        1. The tsar had retained complete control over the bureaucracy and the army
        2. Legislation proposed by the Duma (wealthy and conservative classes) was subject to the tsar’s veto and Nicholas II wished to maintain the sacred inheritance of supreme royal power, with the Orthodox church, was, for him, the key to Russia
        3. Nicholas failed to form a close partnership with his citizens and rely on the bureaucratic apparatus, distrusting the moderate Duma, rejecting popular involvement, and resisting calls to share power (could have been more effective)
      5. The Duma, the educated middle classes, and the masses became increasingly critical of the tsar’s leadership and following Nicholas’s dismissal of the minister of war, demands for more democratic and responsive government exploded in Summer 1915
      6. In September 1915, various parties formed the Progressive Bloc, which called for a completely new government responsible to the Duma instead of the tsar; in answer, Nicholas temporarily adjourned the Duma and announced that he was traveling to the front in order to lead and rally Russia’s armies; his departure was a fatal turning point
        1. Control of the government was taken over by the hysterical empress, Tsarina Alexandra and the monk Rasputin (her most trusted adviser)
        2. Rasputin’s influence rested on mysterious healing powers and only Rasputin could stop the bleeding of Alexis, the heir, who suffered from hemophilia
        3. In an attempt to right the situation and end rumors that Rasputin was the empress’s lover, three members of the high aristocracy murdered Rasputin in December 1916 and the empress went into shock because of his prophecy: “If I die or you desert me, in six months you will lose your son and throne”
        4. On March 8 women calling for bread in Petrograd started riots; soldiers joined the revolutionary crowd and the Duma responded by declaring a provisional government on March 12, 1917 and Nicholas II abdicated three days later
    2. The Provisional Government
      1. The patriotic upper and middle classes rejoiced at the prospect of a more determined and effective war effort, while workers happily anticipated better wages and food; all classes and political parties called for liberty and democracy (were not disappointed)
      2. The provisional government established equality before the law; freedom of religion, speech, and assembly; the right to unions to organize and strike; and the rest of the classic liberal program (but socialists leaders rejected social revolution)
      3. The reorganized government formed in May 1917, which included agrarian socialist Alexander Kerensky, refused to confiscate large landholdings and to give them to peasants, fearing that such action would only disintegrate Russia’s peasant army
      4. The provisional government had to share power with a formidable rival—the Petrograd Society of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, a huge fluctuating mass meeting of two to three thousand workers, soldiers, and socialist intellectuals
      5. The Society undermined the work of the provisional government even issuing the Army Order No. 1 which issued to all Russian military forces formed by the provisional government (stripped officers of their authority and placed power in the hands of elected committees of common soldiers -- protect revolution)
      6. The Army Order No. 1 led to total collapse of army discipline and many peasant soldiers began returning to their villages to help their families get a share of land, which peasants were simply seizing as they settled old scores in upheaval
      7. Liberty was turning into anarchy in the summer of 1917 and it was an opportunity for the most radical and most talented of Russia’s socialists leaders, Vladimir Lenin
    3. Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution
      1. Lenin found revolutionary faith in Marxian socialism; three ideas were central to him
        1. Lenin stressed that capitalism could be destroyed only by violent revolution and denounced all revisionists theories of a peaceful evolution to socialism
        2. Under certain conditions a socialist revolution was possible even in a relatively backward country like Russia (peasants were poor and potential revolutionaries)
        3. Lenin believed that at a given moment revolution was determined more by human leadership than by vast historical laws and leading to his third idea: the necessity of a highly disciplined workers’ party (controlled by intellectuals)
      2. At meetings of the Russian Social Democratic Labor party in 1903, Lenin demanded a small, disciplined, elitist party, while his opponents wanted a more democratic party and the party split into Bolsheviks (supported Lenin, majority) and Mensheviks
      3. Lenin saw the war as a product of imperialistic rivalries and as a marvelous opportunity for class war and socialist upheaval (observed events from Switzerland)
      4. Since propaganda and internal subversion were accepted weapons for total war, the German government provided Lenin and colleagues with safe passage across Germany and back into Russia in April 1917 (hoped Lenin would undermine Russia)
      5. Arriving on April 3, Lenin attacked at once and rejected all cooperation with the “bourgeois” provisional government of the liberals and moderate socialists
      6. An attempt by the Bolsheviks to seize power in July collapsed and although he was charged with being a German agent, conspiracy between Kerensky and his commander in chief, General Lavr Kornilov resulted in Kornilov’s leading an attack against eh provisional government (counterrevolutionary threat)
      7. Kerensky had lost all credit with the army, the only force that might have saved him and the democratic government in Russia
    4. Trotsky and the Seizure of Power
      1. Throughout the summer of 1917, the Bolsheviks appealed effectively to the workers and soldiers of Petrograd, increasing their popular support and in October, the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the Petrograd Soviet and Lenin had found a strong right arm in Leon Trotsky, the second most important person in Russian Revolution
        1. Trotsky first convinced the Petrograd Soviet to form a special military-revolutionary committee in October and make him its leader (military power)
        2. Trotsky’s second master stroke was to insist that the Bolsheviks reduce opposition to their coup by taking power in the name of the more popular, democratic soviets
        3. On the night of November 6, militants from Trotsky’s committee joined Bolshevik soldiers to seize government buildings and went on to the congress of soviets where a Bolshevik majority declared that all power had passed to the soviets and named Lenin head of the new government
      2. The Bolsheviks came to power for three key reasons in late 1917
        1. Democracy had given way to anarchy: power was there to be taken for
        2. In Lenin and Trotsky the Bolsheviks had an utterly determined and truly superior leadership, which both the tsarist and provisional government lacked
        3. In 1917, the Bolsheviks succeeded in appealing to many soldiers and urban workers, people who were exhausted by war and eager for socialism
    5. Dictatorship and Civil War
      1. Since summer, a peasant revolution had been sweeping across Russia as the peasants invaded and divided among themselves the estates of the landlords and the church and thus Lenin’s first law supposedly gave land to the peasants (already happened)
      2. Lenin also granted urban workers direct control of factories by workers’ committees
      3. Lenin acknowledged that Russia had lost the war with Germany (peace at any price)
        1. Germany demanded in December 1917 that the Soviet government give up all its western territories (Poles, Finns, Lithuanians, and other non-Russians)
        2. In February 1918, Lenin had his way in a close vote in the Central Committee
        3. Russia lost a third of its population in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918
      4. In November 1917 the Bolsheviks proclaimed their regime only a “provisional workers’ and peasants’ government promising that a freely elected Constituent Assembly would draw up a new constitution (free elections produced setback)
      5. The Socialist Revolutionaries (peasants’ party) had a clear majority and the Constituent Assembly met for only one day, on January 18, 1918, was permanently disbanded by Bolshevik soldiers, and Lenin formed a one-party government
      6. The officers of the old army took the lead in organizing the White opposition to the Bolsheviks in southern Russia, Ukraine, Siberia, and west of Petrograd and the Whites came from many social groups united by their hatred of the Reds
        1. By summer of 1918 eighteen self-proclaimed regional governments were competing with Lenin’s Bolsheviks in Moscow and the Whites began to attack in October 1919 as they closed in on Lenin’s government from three sides
        2. By the spring of 1920, the White armies had been almost completely defeated and the Bolshevik Red Army had retaken Belorussia and Ukraine
        3. The Communists also reconquered the independent nationalists governments of the Caucasus the following year; the civil war was over and Lenin had won
      7. Lenin and the Bolsheviks had won the civil war for several reasons
        1. Strategically, they controlled the center, while the Whites were always on the fringes and disunited; it did not unite all the foes of the Bolsheviks under one
        2. General Anton Denikin refused to call for a democratic republic and a federation of nationalities although he knew that doing so would help his cause
        3. The Communists had developed a better army; in March 1918, Trotsky as war commissar reestablished the draft and the most drastic discipline for the newly formed Red Army (soldiers disobeying an order were summarily shot)
        4. Establishing “war communism” the application of total war concept to a civil conflict, they seized grain from peasants, introduced rationing, nationalized all banks and industry, and required everyone to work (labor discipline)
      8. Revolutionary terror also contributed to the Communist victory
        1. The old tsarist secret police was re-established as the Cheka, which hunted down and executed thousands of real or supposed foes, such as the tsar and his family
        2. The terror caused by the secret police became a tool of the government (fear)
      9. Foreign military intervention in the civil war ended up helping the Communists
        1. After Lenin made peace with Germany, the Allies (Americans, British, and Japanese) sent troops to prevent war material they had sent to the provisional government from being captured by the Germans; Western governments, particularly France, began to support White armies after nationalization
        2. Allied intervention permitted the Communists to appeal to patriotic nationalism
      10. A radically new government, based on socialism and one-party dictatorship, came to power in a European state, maintained power, and encouraged worldwide revolution
  4. The Peace Settlement
    1. The End of War
      1. After the Russian Revolution in March 1917, there were major strikes in Germany
        1. In July a coalition of moderates passed a “peace resolution” in the Reichstag, calling for peace without territorial annexations; in response to this moderation born of war-weariness, the German military established a virtual dictatorship
        2. The military exploited the collapse of Russian armies after the Bolshevik Revolution and won concessions from Lenin in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
      2. General Ludendorff and company fell on France once more in the spring of 1918
        1. German armies pushed forward but his overextended forces never broke through
        2. The German army was stopped in July at the second Battle of the Marne, where fresh American soldiers saw action; the addition of 2 million men in arms to the war effort by August by America tipped the scales in favor of Allied victory
        3. By September, British, French, and American armies were advancing steadily on all fronts and General Ludendorff realized that Germany had lost the war
      3. General Ludendorff insisted that moderate politicians shoulder the shame of defeat and on October 4, the emperor formed a new, more liberal German government to sue for peace; negotiations over an armistice dragged and German people finally rose up
      4. On November 3 sailors in Kiel mutinied and throughout northern Germany soldiers and workers began to establish revolutionary councils on the Russian soviet model; also on that day, Austria-Hungary surrendered to the Allies and began to break apart
      5. Revolution broke out in Germany and with army discipline collapsing, the emperor abdicated and fled to Holland; socialist leaders in Berlin proclaimed a German republic on November 9 and agreed to tough Allied terms of surrender
      6. The armistice went into effect on November 11, 1918 and the war was over
    2. Revolution in Germany
      1. Military defeat brought political revolution to Germany and Austria-Hungary
        1. In Austria-Hungary the revolution was nationalistic and republican in nature even though they started the war to preserve an antinationalistic dynastic state
        2. In its place, independent Austrian, Hungarian, and Czechoslovak republics were proclaimed, while the expanded Serbian monarchy united under Yugoslavia
      2. German Revolution of November 1918 resembled the Russian Revolution of 1917
        1. In both cases, a genuine popular uprising toppled an authoritarian monarchy and established a liberal provisional republic (liberal and moderate socialists took control, while workers’ and soldiers’ councils formed a counter-government)
        2. In Germany, however, moderate socialists won while the Lenin-like radical didn’t
        3. In communist terms, Germany was a bourgeois political revolution
      3. There were several reasons for the outcome of German’s new government
        1. The great majority of Marxian socialists leaders in the Social Democratic part wanted to establish real political democracy and civil liberties, and they favored the gradual elimination of capitalism (less support for extreme radicals)
        2. The German peasantry, which already had most of the land, did not provide the elemental force that had driven all great modern revolutions
        3. The moderate German Social Democrats accepted defeat and ended the war the day they took power; act ended decline in morale among soldiers and held army
      4. When radicals headed by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg tried to seize control of the government in Berlin in January, the moderate socialists called on the army to crush the uprising and the followers were brutally murdered by army leaders
      5. The act caused the radicals in the Social Democratic party to break way and form a pro-Lenin German Communist party (moderates could not have ruled Germany)
    3. The Treaty of Versailles
      1. The peace conference opened in Paris in January 1919 with seventy delegates representing twenty-seven victorious nations and expectations were high; general optimism and idealism had been strengthened by President Wilson’s 1918 peace proposal, the Fourteen Points, which stressed national self-determination and rights
      2. The real powers at the conference were United States, Great Britain, and France, for Germany was not allowed to participate and Russia was locked in civil war
        1. President Wilson became almost obsessed with creating the League of Nations; he believed that only an international organization could prevent future wars
        2. Lloyd George of Great Britain and Clemenceau of France were concerned with punishing Germany; Lloyd George had won electoral victory with this belief
        3. France’s Georges Clemenceau, the “Tiger” who had broken wartime defeatism and led his country to victory, like most Frenchmen, wanted revenge and security
        4. Clemenceau believed this required the creation of a buffer state between France and Germany, the permanent demilitarization of Germany, and vast German reparations (Wilson and George did not like this and Wilson left in April)
      3. Clemenceau’s obsession with security reflected his anxiety about France’s weakness and he gave up a Rhineland buffer state in return for a formal defensive alliance with the United States and Great Britain (promised to come to aid in German attack)
      4. The Treaty of Versailles between the Allies and Germany was the key to the settlement; Germany’s colonies were give to France, Britain, and Japan as League of Nations mandates and parts of Germany were ceded to the new Polish state; Germany had to limit its army to 100,000 men and agree to build no forts in the Rhineland
      5. The Allies declared that Germany with Austria was responsible for the war and had therefore to pay reparations equal to all civilian damages caused by the war
      6. When presented with the treaty, the German government protested vigorously but there was no alternative and on June 28, 1919, German representatives of the ruling moderate Social Democrats and the Catholic party signed the treaty at Versailles
      7. Separate peace treaties were concluded with other defeated powers—Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey (ratified existing situation in east-central Europe)
        1. Hungary was ceded to Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia
        2. Italy got some Austrian territory and the Turkish empire was broken up
        3. France received Lebanon and Syria, while Britain took Iraq and Palestine
        4. Germany’s holdings in China was mandated to Japan
        5. Officially League of Nations mandates were one of the more imperialistic elements of the peace settlement (age of Western imperialism lived on)
    4. American Rejection of the Versailles Treaty
      1. The principle of national self-determination was accepted and a new world organization complemented a traditional defensive alliance of satisfied powers
      2. Two great interrelated obstacles to peace were Germany and the United States
        1. Germany was plagued by communist uprisings, reactionary plots, and popular disillusionment with losing the war at the last minute; German socialists and their liberal and Catholic supporters need time to established a democratic republic
        2. The U.S. Senate and the American people rejected Wilson’s handiwork; Republican senators led by Henry Cabot Lodge refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles without changes in the articles creating the League of Nations
        3. The key issue was the League’s power to require member states to take collective action against aggression and Lodge believed this gave away Congress’s constitutional right to declare war; Wilson ordered Democratic senators to support
        4. In doing so, Wilson assured that the treaty would never be ratified by the United States in any form and that United States would never join the League of Nations
      3. The Senate refused to ratify Wilson’s defensive alliance with France and Great Britain and effectively, America had turned its back on Europe
      4. Using America’s action as an excuse, Great Britain too, refused to ratify its defensive alliance with France and France, bitterly betrayed by its allies, stood alone
      5. France would later take actions against Germany that would feed the fires of German resentment and seriously undermine democratic forces in the new republic
      6. The Western alliance had collapsed, and a grandiose plan for permanent peace had given way to a fragile truce (the United States must share the guilt for their actions)

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Aboukhadijeh, Feross. "Chapter 27: The Great Break: War and Revolution" StudyNotes.org. Study Notes, LLC., 04 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2024. <https://www.apstudynotes.org/european-history/outlines/chapter-27-the-great-break-war-and/>.

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