Julieta Anyul Hisi López Global History III

IMPERIALISM: BEFORE THE GREAT WAR

OVERVIEW OF THE WWI

- Triple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy

- Triple Entente: Russia, Great Britain, France
- Thought that it would be a short conflict → Belle
Epoque: hope for the progress of humankind
- “Changing the map of Europe”: The Financial Times posted in 1914 a contest inviting
readers to predict the future borders of Europe
- Stages from a military perspective:
1. 19th century fashion: complicated manoeuvring of armies, individual acts of heroism,
great reliance on horses
2. Trench warfare: interim characterized by intense trench warfare
→ Advances: train (supplies), new communications
3. Blitzkrieg fashion: French offensive at Viller-Cotterets (18 July 1918) developed in a
lightning war, foreshadowing WWII
- Great loss of human lives:
o Mainly young men from Germany, France and Great Britain
o Battlefield death in Russia not as important as famine
o Spanish1 flu began in the French trenches because of the poor sanitary conditions

ORIGINS OF THE WAR

1. Faith in progress: high expectations of life and development → sinking of the Titanic
2. Rise of the German Empire: general idea that international peace was best maintained
when one power governed Europe. From 1870 to 1914, Europe was generally at peace with
Great Britain as leader. But Germany’s industrial output, population and army size
surpassed Britain’s, and Keiser Wilhelm announced the Weltpolitik (imperial foreign policy)

1
Called Spanish because, since it was not part of the war, there was no censorship and its newspapers posted about it

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A GLOBAL WAR

- Not a European war, but an inter-imperial war

between modern empires
- Empires use colonial resources
- Volunteers from the colonies joined the armies
hoping a greater home rule (not explicitly
promised by metropole). They thought that, by
fighting, they could demonstrate their ability to
self-govern (even Gandhi)
- British army: more than 8 million answer its German “Uniforms of our enemies in the
West” shows us how they were dressed at
call; 20% from colonies in Africa, Caribbean and,
the beginning of the fighting. They gave up
chiefly, India
bright coloured uniforms and helmets so
→ New image of the Indian man: previously they wouldn’t be seen in the trenches.
portrayed as feminine (or, with a weapon,
terrorist), now propaganda of a strong man
→ Indian army: largest volunteer army. In 1914, four Indian divisions landed in France and
helped contain the German advance
→ Australian and New Zealand army: Maori participated in Gallipoli campaign in 1915
- Martial races: the recruiters believed that some are better warriors than others (E.g. Bengali
Indians are cowards as they represent the resistance against the British Empire)
- Role of Africa: first and last shots → fighting in German East Africa + money and resources
- US: does not see itself as an empire but acts as one
- Japan: alternative to European modernity, successful war against Russia

THE OTTOMAN FRONT

- Old land-based empire → one great non-European

front
- Entrance of Ottoman empire with the Central/Allied
powers in 1914: closed Turkish straights and sealed
off Russia from her western allies
- Battle of Gallipoli: forced British back to Egypt
- British succeeded in breaking the empire: seek alliances with local elites in Lebanon,
Palestine… They identify nationalist and promise them independence → Suez Canal
→ advance of British troops from Egypt into Palestine and Syria in 1917 puts an end
- Lawrence of Arabia: British postgraduate archaeologist turned military colonel, fought with
Arab irregular troops under the command of Emir Faisal, son of the Sharif of Mecca against
the Ottoman Empire during WWI
→ 9 December 1917: Lawrence entered Jaffa Gate with British General Allenby,
“reconquering” Jerusalem for Christianity for the first time since the Crusades

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SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE WAR

Women’s role

- Nursing: job traditionally reserved for women

- But also, absence of men brings new opportunities
Women’s Canteen at Phoenix
- Position in society that they had never taken before: Works, Bradford, Flora Lions, 1918
ammunition factories, heavy machinery
- Limited role within the army: support work → take part in non-combatant parts
→ Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC): British women doing non-combatant tasks

Chinese and Indian men

- Security tasks
- Cooking
- Role of food tying soldiers to local traditions (Ex: tofu factories)

IMPERIALISM: AFTER THE GREAT WAR

RECONSTRUCTION

- Advances in facial surgery: doctors dealing with the facial injuries → cosmetical surgery has
its origins in the aftermath of the war
- Reconstruction of gender values and identities: change in the mindsets due to women
being involved in jobs traditionally assigned to men
- White superiority into question: discourse that justified colonial rule questioned
→ E.g. Armenian Genocide: massive killing of members of the Armenian community in the
Ottoman Empire (Western concerned because Armenians are a Christian minority). The
Near East Relief was set (rescue homes for Armenian women in operation: tattoo removal)

PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE AND THREATY OF VERSAILLES (28 June 1919)

- Political reconstruction of the borders

- Result of the disappearance of the three empires who lost the war: German, Austro-
Hungarian and Ottoman
- The ones benefiting: France and Great Britain
- Woodrow Wilson2:
o First president of the US to travel out of the US while in office
o Moral authority over the war
o Reaches Paris with an idealistic agenda

2
President of the US 1913-21

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o Massive appeal to the young man who have been in the trenches
o Wants to end the poor diplomatic relations in Europe and the quasi-empires
o New international order based on self-determination and democracy
o “The War to end all wars and make a peaceful world”
- BUT European leaders have other practical considerations
- The Great Four:
o David Lloyd George: Great Britain
o Vittorio Orlando: Italy
o Georges Clemenceau: France
o Woodrow Wilson: US

REDRAWING THE BORDERS OF EUROPE

- Importance of post-Versailles treaties (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Neuilly, Trianon, Sèvres)

- Poland: divided in the early modern period between Prussia, Austria and Russia, now
became independent
- Germany:
o returned Alsace-Lorain to France
o France also occupied the Rhineland, with hopes to annex
o lost the Danish-speaking land of Holstein to Denmark
o lost part of East Prussia (technically free port city of Danzig) to Poland
- Austria: creation of an independent republic; not allowed to join Germany, as many
Austrians hoped
- Hungary: shrunk to half its size after losing its German-speaking territories
- Bulgaria: blamed for much of the problems in the Balkans due to its belligerent role in the II
Balkan War (1913); lost half of its territory
- Czechoslovakia: odd political entity created with two ethnicities that had rebelled against
Austria in the last days of the War
- Yugoslavia: creation of a Pan-Slavic state of Southern Slavs, hence rewarding Serbian
nationalism
- New independent states in the Baltic: Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania → Russia lost
to Germany following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
→ during the Russian Civil War (1917-22) and after the Red victory, there countries retained
their independence largely due to the protection of British warships operating in the Baltic

LIMITS OF SELF-DETERMINATION

Did national self-determination extend to the colonies? No

- Paris Peace Conference did not extend discussions over national self-determination to the
colonies, nor did colonial representatives’ pressure for it

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- Elite colonial leaders were seeking better citizenship agreements with Britain and France,
rather than independence
- The First Pan-African Congress was held in Versailles in 1919 over three days, paralleling the
Paris Peace Conference. It was led by Blaise Diagne, major of Dakar (Senegal) and the first
black political leader elected by the Chamber of Deputies. The Vice-President was W.E.B.
Dubois, black US civil rights activists. → most African leaders pressured for extension of
metropolitan citizenship rights and some degree of home rule

However,…

- The one quasi-exception was the Middle East, where the principle of tutelage was applied
to appease Arab nationalists and to reward key aristocratic families.
- In the top-secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, Britain and France had already agreed to divide
the Ottoman Empire into their respective spheres of interest.

REDRAWING THE BORDERS OF THE MIDDLE EAST

Sykes-Picot Agreement

- Signed by British Mark Sykes and French François

Georges-Picot in 1916
- Envisions shared sphere of British and French
influence over Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria
- Explains many modern-day conflicts

In the Persian Gulf

- Iraq: Emir Faisal, Hashemite Dynasty in Mecca, attended the Paris Peace Conference with
T.E. Lawrence. He was named King of Iraq, put in the throne of Baghdad, becoming a Sunni
leader in a majority Shi’ite state.
- Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain: maintained as independent hereditary
sheikdoms (not protectorates) under British control.
→ UAB: seven small entities who sought protection from one another and from Iran, under
British protection, until it became an independent entity in 1971.

On the Arabian Peninsula

- Yemen, Oman: independent sheikdoms, BUT under umbrage of British informal power.
- Saudi Arabia: after WWI, British loosened ties with Hashemite Dynasty in Mecca and
supported a rival family, Ibn Saud, victorious on the Arabian Peninsula, and established the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.

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→ in 1933, House of Saud loosened ties with Britain, shunned British Petroleum, and signed
a deal with four US oil companies – Chevron, Texaco, Exxon, Mobile – for the exploitation of
its reserves.

In the “Holy Land”

- Transjordan: Abdullah, son of Hussein bin Ali, brother of Prince Faisal (Hashemite dynasty)
was given the Emirate of Transjordan
- Palestine: British chose to rule directly, establishing the capital of their mandate in
Jerusalem.
→ reason for direct rule: Balfour Declaration (technically a letter from Foreign Secretary
Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild) of November 1917, promising Jewish Zionist a homeland
in Palestine (“a national home for the Jewish people”).

In non-Arab Islamic countries

- Turkey: The former Ottoman military officer Mustafa Kemal separated Church and state;
closed Islamic schools and courts; replaced the Arabic with a Latin-script alphabet; and
banned the use of Islamic law (sharia) in civil matters. In 1934 the Turkish Parliament
granted him the surname “Atatürk” (“father of the Turks”), in recognition of his role in the
making of the modern Turkish Republic.
- Iran: In 1921, Reza Shah Pahlavi overthrew the ancient Qajar dynasty and put his own
Pahlavi Dynasty on the throne.
- Atatürk and Reza Shah were both leaders of non-Arab Islamic countries who pursued
western-style modernisation and independent foreign policies. They portrayed themselves
as nationalist, anti-imperial figures.

CONCLUSIONS

1. The Great War as a turning point

2. The Great War and Germany’s bid for European dominance
3. The continuation of French, British and US imperialism — in a new incarnation
4. The post-war world was a mixture of ideas that took the form of multiple political regimes
o New states born out of idealistic Wilsonian ideas of national self-determination and
democratic republicanism, though all with their peculiarities: Poland, Yugoslavia,
Czechoslovakia, the Baltic Republics, Finland.
o New states representative of anti-imperial modernizing nationalism, though not
democratic: Horthy’s Hungary, Atatürk’s Turkey, Reza Shah’s Iran.
o Client states of the British and US informal empires, often somewhat clothed in the
ideology of pan-Arab nationalism: Hashemi Iraq, Ibn Saud’s “Saudi” Arabia.
o The Soviet Union (formerly Russia) as the sole socialist state, the new leader of
international communism.