History Final Review Sheet Places/Events •July 1, 1916 – Battle of the Somme oBritish launched offensive against Somme River oAlso known as the Somme Offensive, took place during the First World War between 1 July and 14 November 1916 in the Somme department of France, on both banks of the river of the same name. The battle consisted of an offensive by the British and French armies against the German Army, which, since invading France in August 1914, had occupied large areas of that country.
The Battle of the Somme was one of the largest battles of the First World War; by the time fighting had petered out in late autumn 1916 the forces involved had suffered more than 1 million casualties, making it one of the bloodiest military operations ever recorded. oThe plan for the Somme offensive evolved out of Allied strategic discussions at Chantilly, Oise in December 1915. Chaired by General Joseph Joffre, the commander-in-chief of the French Army, Allied representatives agreed on a concerted offensive against the Central Powers in 1916 by the French, British, Italian and Russian armies.
The Somme offensive was to be the Anglo-French contribution to this general offensive, and was intended to create a rupture in the German line, which could then be exploited with a decisive blow. With the German attack on Verdun on the River Meuse in February 1916, the Allies were forced to adapt their plans. The British Army took the lead on the Somme, though the French contribution remained significant. oThe opening day of the battle on 1 July 1916 saw the British Army suffer the worst one-day combat losses in its history, with nearly 60,000 casualties. Feb 1916 – Battle of Verdun oOne of the major battles during the First World War on the Western Front. The German High Command had failed to achieve its two objectives: 1) to capture the city of Verdun and 2) to inflict a much higher casualty count on its French adversary. By the end of the battle (December 1916) the French Second Army had rolled back the German forces around Verdun, but not quite to their initial positions of February 1916. oIt was the longest and one of the most devastating battles in the First World War and the history of warfare.
Verdun was primarily an artillery battle. In both France and Germany, Verdun has come to represent the horrors of war, like the Battle of the Somme in the British consciousness. The renowned British military historian Major General Julian Thompson has referred to Verdun as “France’s Stalingrad”. •July 28, 1914 – heir to Hapsburg throne – Franz Ferdinand assassinated oOn 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead in Sarajevo, by Gavrilo Princip.
The political objective of the assassination was to break off Austria-Hungary’s south-Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Greater Serbia or a Yugoslavia. The assassins’ motives were consistent with the movement that later became known as Young Bosnia. Serbian military officers stood behind the attack. oAssignment of responsibility for the bombing and murders of 28 June is highly controversial because the attack led to the outbreak of World War I one month later. •The July Crisis was a diplomatic crisis among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914 that led to the First World War.
Immediately after Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo, a series of diplomatic maneuverings led to an ultimatum from Austria-Hungary to Serbia, and ultimately to war. oThis ultimatum was part of a coercive program meant to weaken the Kingdom of Serbia as a threat to Austria-Hungary’s occupation of the northern Balkans which had a significant southern Slavic population, including a majority Serbian community in Bosnia. This was supposed to be achieved either through diplomacy or by a localized war if the ultimatum were rejected.
Austria-Hungary preferred war, and to ensure war the terms of the ultimatum were so harsh that they were certain to be rejected. oOne month after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, thus initiating the First World War. oBritish want peace – try to keep peace between Austria and Serbia oGermans convinced selves that war was inevitable – might a well get it over with early while Germany still had some power oFelt weaker vis-a-vis France and Russians bc railway system was under Fr contract •1906 – 1907: first genocide of 20th C – Northern German South Africa oTurks deny genocide •1917 Battle of Caporetto Took place from 24 October to 19 November 1917, near the town of Kobarid (now in Slovenia), on the Austro-Italian front of World War I. oAustro-Hungarian forces, reinforced by German units, were able to break into the Italian front line and rout the Italian army, which had practically no mobile reserves. The battle was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the use of stormtroopers and the infiltration tactics developed in part by Oskar von Hutier. The use of poison gas by the Germans played a key role in the collapse of the Italian Second Army. •Operation Michael – March 21, 1918 oGreat and last German offensive in the West A First World War German military operation that began the Spring Offensive on 21 March 1918. It was launched from the Hindenburg Line, in the vicinity of Saint-Quentin, France. Its goal was to break through the Allied lines and advance in a north-west direction and seize the Channel ports which supplied the British and drive them into the sea. Just two days into the operation, Ludendorff changed his plan, and pushed for an offensive due west along the whole of the British front north of the Somme. This was designed to separate the French and British Armies and crush the British forces by pushing them into the sea.
The offensive ended at Villers-Bretonneux, a little to the east of the key Allied communications centre of Amiens, where the Entente managed to halt the German advance. The German advance stalled largely through very heavy casualties, an inability to maintain supplies to the advancing troops and the arrival of Entente reserves. Since much of the territory involved consisted of the shell-torn wilderness left by the 1916 Battle of the Somme it was known to some as the 1918 Battle of the Somme, and to the French as the Second Battle of Picardy oThe failure of the offensive marked the beginning of the end of the First World War.
The arrival in France of large reinforcements from the U. S. replaced material and men lost by the Entente, but the German Army was unable to recover from its losses before these reinforcements deployed. Operation Michael had failed to achieve its objectives, namely in separating the Allied Armies. oAll territory gained during this offensive was lost during the British-led Allied counteroffensive, known as the second battle of the Somme, which started on 21 August, during the Allied Hundred Days Offensive. •Battle of Megiddo = Armegetti – final battle between good and evil preceding the second coming of Christ •Treaty of San Remo The San Remo Conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council, held in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. It was attended by the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I who were represented by the prime ministers of Britain (David Lloyd George), France (Alexandre Millerand) and Italy (Francesco Nitti) and by Japan’s Ambassador K. Matsui. oIt determined the allocation of Class “A” League of Nations mandates for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East. The precise boundaries of all territories were left unspecified, to “be determined by the Principal Allied Powers” and were not finalized until four years later. The conference’s decisions were embodied in the stillborn Treaty of Sevres (Section VII, Art 94-97). As Turkey rejected this treaty, the conference’s decisions were only finally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922, and when Turkey accepted the terms of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. •One of 5 treaties effecting each loser •Constantinople is internationalized •Armenia = independence Kurzistan given prospect of independence > (League of Nations) •GR given land back – Thraki and Smyrna •Salanika/Smyrna/Trieste > all multicultural/multireligious cities that were (after war) left w/only one culture/one religion •The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland on 24 July 1923, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty of Lausanne was ratified by the Greek government on 11 February 1924, by the Turkish government on 31 March, and by the governments of Great Britain, Italy and Japan on 6 August.
It was registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series in September 1924. The Treaty of Lausanne superseded the Treaty of Sevres which was signed by representatives of the Ottoman Empire. oThe treaty was the consequence of the Turkish War of Independence between the Allies of World War I and the Ankara-based Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkish national movement) led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The treaty also led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire. Reversed what San Remo had done •The Weimar Republic oThe name given by historians to the liberal democratic parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government. It was named after Weimar, the city where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was Deutsches Reich (sometimes translated as German Empire, but Reich can also mean “realm”), but it was usually just referred to as Germany in English, and as Deutschland in German. o1919 Constitution for new German Republic universal suffrage for both men and women •cabinet system of government •Bill of Rights guaranteeing not only civil liberties but the right of the citizen to employment, edu and protection against the hazards of an industrial society. •Defeat of 1918 > German public could not grasp loss oLegend grew that G had been “stabbed in the back” by socialists & Jews in gvt •Dawes Plan oAn attempt in 1924, following World War I for the Triple Entente to collect war reparations debt from Germany.
When after five years the plan proved to be unsuccessful, the Young Plan was adopted in 1929 to replace it. oStressed need for immediate increase in production – ensured that econ would remain in hands of country’s leading industrialists whose tendency to overcapitalize their enterprises impaired ability to cut loses once Dep stuck •The Final Solution was Nazi Germany’s plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust.
Heinrich Himmler was the chief architect of the plan, and the German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler termed it “the final solution of the Jewish question” oMass killings of about one million Jews occurred before the plans of the Final Solution were fully implemented in 1942, but it was only with the decision to eradicate the entire Jewish population that the extermination camps were built and industrialized mass slaughter of Jews began in earnest. By the summer of 1942, Operation Reinhard began the systematic extermination of the Jews, although hundreds of thousands had already been killed by death squads and in mass pogroms. Heinrich Himmler’s speech at the Posen Conference of October 6, 1943, for the first time, clearly elucidated to all assembled leaders of the Reich that the “Final Solution” meant that “all Jews would be killed” oBy 1942 – “Final Solution” = 1942-1945 > Finals = exterminated by shooting or gasing •1936 – Berlin Olympics Jesse Owens oMarty Glinton – didn’t get to run as to not upset Hitler oSam Stoer •Jews •Sudetenland oThe German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia located within Czechoslovakia. oCzech – only democracy East of France oCz alliance with France and treaty with Soviet Union oNazi party in Sud land Sud ask for separation from Czech > war but Hitler not ready in May oSept 1, 1938 > Henleign given blank check by Czech prime minister (Hein says no) •Sept 12, 1938 > Neuremburg rally > violent speech– WAR othe annual rally of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in Germany, held from 1923 to 1938. Especially after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, they were large Nazi propaganda events. oheld annually at the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg from 1933 to 1938 and are thus usually referred to in English as the Nuremberg Rallies •Peace conference at Munich – Oct 1-10 The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without the presence of Czechoslovakia. Today, it is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement toward Nazi Germany. oThe phrase Munich Betrayal is also used because the military alliance Czechoslovakia had with France and United Kingdom was not honoured.
Today the document is typically referred to simply as the Munich Pact. oTear up Czech o”Peace in our Time” = paper Hitler signed for Chamberlin oHitler’s response: •Enemies at Munich are cowards •Hated Chamberlin for weakness •Arial bombardment of Warsaw – Sept 3, 1939: declaration of war oWar is declared o”phony war” •The Matador’s Cloak – May 1940 oFake attack towards channel coast but send German armies southwest (? ) – forest partly in Belgium and partly in France – Fr didn’t think tank army could get through forest but G could oMay 10 – Fr. Breaks in half General Gamelin takes German fake •Control of strategic reserve •Moves central reserve into Belgium > wrong direction •The Maginot Line oNamed after the French Minister of War Andre Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts, and other defenses, which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy, in light of its experience in World War I, and in the run-up to World War II. Generally the term describes only the defenses facing Germany, while the term Alpine Line is used for the Franco-Italian defenses. Germans break through in 3 places •Gidarian disobeys orders: breaks out – moves towards English Channel (opposite way) •Fr. Surrender •Chamberlin’s gov falls – May 10 – Churchill = prime minister •Dunkirk oBattle of Dunkirk = a battle in the Second World War between the Allies and Germany. A part of the Battle of France on the Western Front, the Battle of Dunkirk was the defence and evacuation of British and allied forces in Europe from 26 May–4 June 1940. o2 mistakes: May 24: H halted army for approx 2 days (second halt) – argument amongst generals – stopped (Runchdent) tanks to let infantry catch up so others removed Runch. H flips out – reinstates Runch •Herman Goring (Goran – airforce) tells H he could destroy Brit army from air – but can’t – other option was roll tanks onto shores – suicide (H thinks) •H decides to save armor – Brits fought hard and survived until USA came •H used fighter aircraft •Operation Sea Lion oGermany’s plan to invade the United Kingdom during the Second World War, beginning in 1940.
To have had any chance of success, however, the operation would have required air and naval supremacy over the English Channel. With the German defeat in the Battle of Britain, Sea Lion was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940 and never carried out. •Operation Blue oThe codename for the attack ordered by Adolf Hitler on the Soviet Union’s oil fields in the Caucasus region in 1942. Operation Blue was to fail when the Sixth Army was effectively destroyed at the Battle of Stalingrad. Operation Barbarossa had failed in that the Soviet Union had not surrendered and Moscow had not been captured. Hitler now ordered that his war machine needed the oil fields in the southwest of the USSR and that the campaign would start after the Russian winter had ended in 1942. •Battle of Stalingrad oMajor battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943. It is the largest battle on the Eastern Front and was marked by its brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties. It is among the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. Plan Z oThe name given to the planned re-equipment and expansion of the Nazi German Navy ordered by Adolf Hitler on January 27, 1939. oBy 1945 that was meant to challenge the naval power of the United Kingdom. oWould have positioned H to wage war on US •Lebensborn oA Nazi program set up by SS leader Heinrich Himmler that provided maternity homes and financial assistance to the wives of SS members and to unmarried mothers, and also ran orphanages and relocation program for children. oInitially set up in Germany in 1935, Lebensborn expanded into several occupied European countries during the Second World War. Comb through and look for “amphibiens” in overtaken places oGerman race theory – quasi-aryans could be reconditioned to become real Aryans: marriage btw Pole and Germ oCreated people from those who looked G or had G names – led to kidnapping of Slavic children oSS ran brothels and Norweigan women – also used to create children •Eizengruppen oImmediately following the invasion, Himmler was appointed to take measures to strengthen German ethnicity in the occupied territories and to create lebensraum, or living space for German citizens.
To this end, Himmler created special task forces within the SS, the Eizengruppen, and placed them under the command of Reinhard Heydrich. On September, 21, 1939, Heydrich instructed those under his command to observe a distinction between the “final aim,” which would take some time and “the steps necessary for reaching it which can be applied more or less at once. ” The Eizengruppen became “mobile killing units” charged with liquidating all political enemies of the Reich. •Uprising of Warsaw oA major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army, to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany.
The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union’s Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces. April 1943 – SS prepared for fight > some Germans killed •Warsaw uprising – ghetto rebellion oBattle of Warsaw > complete destruction of the city: Polish home army waiting for the right time to resist – waiting to be helped by Red Army but don’t make sure Stalin will help •BUT Stalin has no intention of helping oBloodbath – G bring in SS battalions specially trained to fight guerilla fighters – survivors marched to slave labor camps •Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabruck and Munster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the independence of the Dutch Republic. ocollective name given to the two treaties concluded on the 24th of October 1648 by the empire with France at Munster and with Sweden and the Protestant estates of the empire at Osnabruck, by which the Thirty Years’ War was brought to an end. •Sarajevo, 1914 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead in Sarajevo, by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six Bosnian Serb assassins coordinated by Danilo Ilic. The political objective of the assassination was to break off Austria-Hungary’s south-Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Greater Serbia or a Yugoslavia. The assassins’ motives were consistent with the movement that later became known as Young Bosnia. Serbian military officers stood behind the attack. •Treaty of Versailles, 1919 One of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties. 1 Although the armistice signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919, and was printed in The League of Nations Treaty Series. Bloody Sunday – Jan 22, 1905 oFather Gapon led several workers to present a petition to the czar for improvement of industrial conditions. As petitioners approached Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, czar’s troops open fired •Summer 1917 – collapse of Russian offensive •October Revolution – Trotsky organized coup: concluded with armed assault on provisional government •December 1917 – signed armistice with Germany •March 3, 1918 – accepted Treaty of Brest-Litovsk oRussia yielded Poland, Baltic states, and Ukraine oSome territory in Transcaucasus region went to Turkey Peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, mediated by South African Andrik Fuller, at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, headed by Germany, marking Russia’s exit from World War I. oProvided breathing space for Lenin’s Bolsheviks, who were tied up in fighting the Russian Civil War. It also affirmed the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania. In Poland, which was not mentioned in the treaty, its signing caused riots, protests and an end to any support for the Central Powers •Summer of 1918 – Bolsheviks murdered tsar and family •March 1921 – Baltic fleet mutinied at Kronstadt Red Army crushed rebellion with grave loss of life oKronstadt Rebellion – one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War. othe rebellion was a major reason for Lenin and the Communist Party’s decision to loosen its control of the Russian economy by implementing the New Economic Policy •1919 – Soviet Communists founded Third International of the European Socialist Movement aka Comintern oThe Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, (1919–1943) was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919.
The International intended to fight “by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State. ” •1920 – Comintern imposed its Twenty-One Conditions on any other socialist party that wished to join Conditions included: acknowledging Moscow’s leadership, rejecting reformist or revisionist socialism, repudiating previous socialist leaders and adopting the Communist Party name •Comintern sought to destroy all democratic socialism, which it accused of having betrayed the working class through reform policies and parliamentary accommodation •1928 – Gosplan: The State Planning Commission = Stalin’s organizational vehicle for industrialization > set goals for production and attempted to organize the economy to meet them oThe committee responsible for economic planning in the Soviet Union.
One of its main duties was the creation of Five Years Plans •A series of nation-wide centralized exercises in rapid economic development in the Soviet Union. • The last Five-Year Plan was for the period from 1991 to 1995 and was not completed, as the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. •1932/33 – famine > deaths in countryside One of major human disasters that occurred in 20th C Europe (besides wars) •1934 – Stalin began to fear that the nation might be left isolated against future aggression by Nazis oNew Policy – permit communist parties in other countries to cooperate with noncommunist parties against Nazism and Facism •New Stalinist policy allowed for the formulation of the Popular Front Government in France •1933 > Great Purges oOne of most mysterious and horrendous political events of 20th C oA series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938.
It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of unaffiliated persons, characterized by widespread police surveillance, widespread suspicion of “saboteurs”, imprisonment, and arbitrary executions. In Russian historiography the period of the most intense purge, 1937–1938, is called Yezhovshchina (literally, the Yezhov regime), after Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the Soviet secret police, NKVD. Notes -World War I (1914-1918) July 1, 1916: Battle of the Somme > British launched offensive against River Somme o60 thou casualties in one day o20 thou deaths -What caused this war? oImportance of war: •War determines course of century: 4 empires collapse: Russian, Ottoman, German, Hapsburg •Successor of regimes – worse than before (ie communist regime in Russia) •Nazi •Collapse of regimes = big deal oConsequence: •Leads to WWII > Germans never acknowledged that they caused and lost World War I > feel they were cheated at victory •WWII – 1939 – begin by Hitler •Mass violence and murder becomes okay Japanese enter world map •US emerges as economic dynamo •Britain loses economic bc has to pay WWI •Feminism •Role of State enhanced much more difficult to believe in laissez-faire •Put on defensive •War and aftermath leave series of unresolved problems •Middle East > Palestine and Israel •Greek/Armenian Genocide •Kurds vs Turks oKurds, after war, emerged as largest minority without country •July 28, 1914 > heir to Hapsburg throne – Franz Ferdiand •Visiting Bosnia •Occupied – 1908 annexed •Slavs: •Roman Catholic – Identify with Croatia Christian Orthodox – identify with Serbia (enemy of Haps) •Muslims •Archduke assassinated because of traffic problem •Serbian young people – suicide mission •1st missed car – landed in front: failed assassin took cyanide then jumped in river – cyanide wasn’t potent •Irredentus: state whole nation is across the border •Serbian-Bosnian oWas Franz mourned? •Thought to have shot ? million animals •Force for peace – Franz against war oAustrians decide to crush Serbians oJuly 25 •Suppress all anti-Austrian •Stricter borders •Close nationalist propaganda groups Austrian forces in Serbia > Austrians open-fire before answer ever received •Arrest list of suspects o •Italian Unification ?Happens in Piedmont under Cavor •Unite entire peninsula with throne in Piedmont •Government corrupt and keeps peasantry in south miserable-allows Mussolini to come into power •German Unification ?Done under Prussians •Under Bizmark, Germany goes to war 3 times and gains independence (Denmark, Austria and France against Napoleon) •As a result becomes strongest state in Europe and best place to live of the time •Austria-Hungary Multi-national empire=harder to govern (slovs, cheks, ukranians) •Many ethnicities within empire want own state like the model of the time •July 28th 1914-Assasinatin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand ?Group of Serbs living in Bosnia under control of Hapsburg empire (wanted to unite themselves with Serbia) •Nationalist group who wanted Serbian-Bosnian to unite hatch plan to kill Archduke as act on Nationalism •Shot by Gavrillo Princep-Bosnian Serb •Austrians declare war in attempt to control different ethnic groups in empire •Causes of World War I (Long Term) Nationalism and competition ?Break down of Alliance System •In 1894 Bizmark sought to keep alliances in balance but when out of power Russian-French alliance sets off balance ? Imperial Rivalry •British build up navy while Germans establish theirs •All nations model army after Germans (centralized power who organizes army) •Build up of weapons with new industrial technology (arms race) •Schieffen Plan-Answer on how to fight a 2 front war against Russia (largest army in world) and British and French ? Leave some soldiers in E.
Prussia, defeat France quickly then rush back to defeat Russia •To defeat French must go along British Chanel through Belgium to France •While doing this commit “Belgian atrocities” and brutalize civilians ->enrages everyone •Did not fully accomplish defeat of France because of exhaustion of German army and lack of supplies •Battle of the Marne [think FLANK] ?German objective was to cut into East of Paris •Must expose flank of army to do so and this makes it hard to defend themselves •German retreat because of exposed flank back to English channel- British and French victory •Dig in and trench warfare begins •1915-Battle of Verdun German attempt to break the stalemate caused by trench warfare against the French •British launch Some during this •Germans fail to capture city of Verdun •General Ludendorf=military dictator of the German army and Hindenburg another important character •Dardanelles Campaign- fail ?Out flank Germany and its allies by opening theater of war in Turkey (want to relieve pressure on Russian army in Caucus) •Attack Constantinople in south and get Turkey out of war •Once landed in Turkey suffered casualties just as bad as in the west-poor leadership and equipment made world believe Entente was inept •Armenian Genocide For over 30 years prior, Turks suspicious of Christian Armenians •Armenians had nationalist movement for better treatment •Afraid that Christian Armenians would cleanse new state of Muslims like in many other nationalist movements->resentment by Turks ? Turks also believe that Armenians are traitors and fighting on the side of the Russians •Try to kill them off as a result •Battle of the Somme General Douglas Haig formulates an idea to defeat Germany army and distract them from Verdun •Intense shell bombardment for several days into German trenches •Once bombardment was over British and French cross over No Man’s land to kill the remaining survivors and move forward •Turned out very few Germans died due to inaccuracy of the shells and the British army was completely wiped out-one of greatest military failures of all time •1917-Russians taken out of war by Lenin as Russian Revolution takes place •*Turning point 1918- Germans launch storm trooper attack but flu outbreak leaves them weak •British push them off of the Marne and gain advantage in war •November Criminals ?Ludendorf knows war is lost so quits position to not get the blame ? Armistice is signed with the other powers and Germans receive all the blame •Myth is created that the Germans did not lose the war but were back stabbed by Jews and Communists -> emergence of Nazism •Peace Conference ?David Lloyd George of Britain- re-establish European balance and avoid antagonizing Germans ? Clemanceau of France- Be very harsh with Germans and prevent them from invading France ever again ?
Orlando of Italy- Get as many territories from Austria ?Woodrow Wilson- 14 Points- world peace, disarmament, free trade and League of Nations •Calls for “self determination” when looking to redraw map •Impossible because too many different groups scattered all over map •Results of Peace Conference ?Germans forced to pay reparations, and de-arm. Rhineland is demilitarized and Alcaise Lorraine goes back to French •German economy collapses as result of reparations •Why WWI lead to WWII ?De-armament was not re-enforced and Germans built up military immediately ?
Germans believed they did not lose the war and it was “traitors at home”‘s fault ? Angry because mostly German Sudetenland was given to the Czechs ? No League of Nations to keep peace Regimes Core identity of Fascism: Oct 26, 1922 – Mussolini Jan 30, 1933 – Adolf Hitler -against democracy -authoritarian movement -believe democracy will break up and weaken the country -Fac = for strong, executive gvt -Anti-liberal = individual -Anti-Women oVery misogynist movement oWomen are supposed to make soldiers -Fascists = “enemies of the left” oAnti-communists, anti-socialists > speak for working folk oIT – Nation oG – Aryan Race Super-nationalists and expansionalists oIrredentists – redeem national pop living in other nations > take over areas where their ppl were living (ie – Italians in Alps) -Like War oWar = beautiful oBeauty of violence oSadistic movements -Loved communion w/other men [represented in Triumph of the Will] -Many Fascist leaders were veterans of WWI oEarliest supporters of Fac = soldiers •Ie – shock troops of IT army oVeterans who don’t want to stop fighting Fascism & Nazism – Triumph of the Will -Leader embodies will of the ppl – he knows what’s best – understands what ppl want -Political ritual – sacrilezation of politics Leader = God-like -Hitler – halo-like feature in many scenes -Religious mysticism – many scenes in dark -Pseudo-religious ritual: when other leading members of Party read something of Hitler’s (ie speech) as though it is scripture -Chanting – workers w/shovels -Sacrelization of politics oWant to be confirmed that they are okay – carrying out God’s mission -Emphasis on youth o”Old Foggies make way” – old guys that let traitors onto home front on WWI omany teenagers who just missed fighting in WWII came to make huge part of war and became leaders •head of SS – Himmler
Hitler Regime Anti -Racism is profoundly evident Germany -Consequences in G: oFolkish nationalism – exclusive – must be Christian – Aryan Race o1. Racial thinking/hierarchy of races is imagined o2. Policy of Eugencies •body of pseudoscientific thinking using social policy to strengthen the race -Hitler = 2 stages o1. Sterilization: suffers: anyone who was considered a socialist were qualified as mentally deficient •95 % were German ppl who had mental illness- scizophrenia- mental deficiency and nonconventional lives –ie: prostitute o2. Euthenasia: mercy killing 1939 finishing off patients in mental hospitals •exact pathway to Holocaust •1900-1940 – US/CA/Brit -Hitler’s ideas: oAryan Race •Because of outcome of WWI, G needed a new identity – Aryan •H scapegoating Jews •Antyminy – what you are alleging to the group is contradictory projection •H’s world view similar to Lenin’s •History driven by race •Lenin – class distinctions oHitler thought that there were three fundamental principles that determined and controlled the existence of a nation: the concept of struggle, the purity of blood and the resourcefulness of the individual.
He believed struggle was the father of all things oRace, according to Hitler, is a factor transmitted by blood. It distinguishes a people from all others, not only physically but also mentally and spiritually. Race is a key element that governs and explains all of history and all of the human experience. A man’s strength or weakness, Hitler said, is in his blood. The will of nature is pure blood, so “the stronger must dominate, not blend with the weaker” (Hitler). Accordingly, Hitler was also anti-Marx, saying that all men are not equal and that Marxist beliefs govern “the peoples with a dictatorial and brutal fist” (Hitler).
Citizenship, according to Hitler, was not based on territorial considerations or geographical residence, but on blood and race. oThe two most important methods Hitler used were propaganda and organization. Properly used propaganda was a tool to be used always and exclusively for the masses. Its function was to “call (their)attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc, whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision” (Hitler). It should be aimed at the emotions of the people and “only to a very limited degree (to) the so-called intellect” (Hitler).
All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the level of intelligence of the audience. Since most of the general public has low intellectual capacities, the wider the masses it reaches, the lower the intellectual level should be. The masses forget easily, as indicated by Hitler, so only a few points must be addressed and the same slogans must be repeated until absorbed oHe developed the idea of Germany’s need for Lebensraum in the East, his plans for an absolute German “land-empire” at the expense of Russia, the extirpation of Christianity and the “Final Solution” to the perceived Jewish problem. The existence and growth of the Aryan race required territorial expansion, the acquisition of adequate Lebensraum (living space). -Fascism and Defining Characteristics: oHow to lead oPropeganda •Film •Political control through prop oRace and other dimensions oSocial Darwinism – struggle btw states and ppl is the natural order of things – Stalin -generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy. Stalinist policies in the Soviet Union included: rapid industrialization, Socialism in One Country, a centralized state, collectivization of agriculture, and subordination of interests of other communist parties to those of the Soviet party. -When used in its broadest sense, the term “Stalinist” refers to socialist states comparable to the Stalin-era Soviet Union (i. e. , those characterized by a high degree of centralization, totalitarianism, the use of a secret police, propaganda, and especially brutal tactics of political coercion). -According to Encyclop? ia Britannica, “Stalinism is associated with a regime of terror and totalitarian rule. ” -Totalitarianism -Comintern -At the start of the 1930s Stalin launched a wave of radical economic policies, which completely overhauled the industrial and agricultural face of the Soviet Union. This came to be known as the ‘Great Turn’ as Russia turned away from the near-capitalist New Economic Policy. 3 Phases of Holocaust – The Pianist 1. Eizengruppen – massacres in East 2. Death in ghettos 3. Concentration camps a. Reason Gs determined to use camps: i. Already conquered W.
Europe so needed to deport ppl to East – away from cities bc couldn’t massacre them in Paris (ie) ii. SS realized massacres had toll on shooters – SS had many mental hospitals 1. Gas chambers start out in basements of mental hospitals to kill patients The Duel -On May 10, 1940, Adolf Hitler began his swift and devastating attack on Western Europe; the very same day Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain. The story of these events, and those of the following two months, which include the fall of France, Hitler’s peace overtures to Britain, and his planned invasion of England, have been written about over and over.
What is original about Lukacs’ book is that he concentrates throughout his riveting, detailed narrative on the character and actions of the two protagonists. His premise is that history is not made inexorably by large, impersonal social and material forces, but is shaped by outstanding individuals. -In 1940, Lukacs argues, the destiny of the world lay largely in the hands of two men—Hitler and Churchill. The outcome of the struggle depended largely on their thoughts, ideas, and actions, particularly how they perceived each other’s character and intentions.
A recurring theme in the book is that Churchill understood Hitler far better than Hitler understood Churchill. -Lukacs ends his narrative on July 31, 1940, because after that point Hitler and Churchill ceased to be the sole protagonists; President Roosevelt’s decision to abandon U. S. neutrality by selling fifty dilapidated World War I destroyers to Britain, and Hitler’s decision to plan for the invasion of Russia transformed the conflict into a world war, at the same time tipping the scales against Hitler. -What is remarkable about The Duel is that although everyone knows the outcome of the struggle, the book reads like a suspense novel.
Lukacs has the gift of transporting the reader back to those tumultuous and uncertain days, when myriad dark possibilities lay before the world. One is left with the strong impression of how different the outcome might easily have been, and thankful once more that the free world found its champion in a reactionary English aristocrat who was prepared to fight till the end. -Lukacs makes strong mention of how close Hitler came to victory. Hitler got everything he wanted for so long, without even having to resort to force.
Lukacs describes Hitler as ”being an amateur at generalship, but he posessed the great professional talent applicable to all human affairs: an understanding of human nature and the understanding of the weaknesses of his opponents. That was enough to carry him very far”(3). Lukacs wants to make that a point in all of his readers’ minds; that Hitler could manipulate people so he could get what he wanted without resorting to violence. Of course, the threat of violence was always present but Hitler was smart enough that he could scare his enemies enough hat they would not want to engage in combat. Once actually forced to fight, Hitler still dominated and he could have very possibly won the war if not for that one fatal mistake he made by hesitating in his plans against the English. I think it is important that Lukacs makes sure to get this message across because some people choose to ignore this truth due to the devastating outcomes that would have resulted if Hitler succeeded. -The major point presented by Lukacs concerning the difference between Hitler and Churchill has to do with nationalism versus patriotism.
Lukacs describes Hitler as a nationalist and Churchill as a patriot. He describes Hitler as a man of ideas and Churchill as a of man principles, because Churchill’s ideas changed throughout the war while Hitler tended to think that his ideas were principles. In a footnote there lies a brilliant explanation of this idea. Dr. Johnson states ”Nationalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Patriotism is defensive, while nationalism is aggressive. Patriotism is not a substitute for a religious faith, whereas nationalism often is; filling the spiritual and emotional needs of uprooted men.
It is often the result of hatred. ”(50) This explanation is a very powerful and precise one. We can all understand this, especially when looking back at the horror of WWII. Hitler abused the idea of nationalism and that is why the author made sure not to leave this footnote out of his book. Hitler got the German people to follow him under this demented idea that Germany should be considered better than everybody else, and yet it is astonishing that nobody seemed to noticed that Hitler was not even a German.