Modern World History

Dr. Dragoş C. MATEESCU

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 1

 Asia in the Interwar Years
• WOODRUFF, William. 1998. A concise history
of the modern world: 1500 to the present,
Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 183-202.
• Relevant sections from Kennedy (1988) and
the other sources indicated in the syllabus.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 2

 Japan (日本 Nippon or Nihon)

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 3

 Tokugawa Yoshinobu - the 15th and last
shogun (1866-1867) of the Tokugawa
shogunate in Japan (1600-1868).

Meiji Emperor
1867-1912
Taishō Emperor
1912-1926
 Hirohito Emperor
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 (1926-1989) 5
 Paris Peace Conference - 1919
Japan profited from the First Great War.
It emerged as a major power with new territories and a
permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations.
1914
 Japan
• Washington Naval Conference – called by the US (November
1921–February 1922): Japan accepts Britain’s decision to
terminate the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902.
– The alliance had never been accepted by the US.
– The US leaders saw the Pacific as a sphere of American influence.
• The Four Power Pacific Treaty (US, British Empire, France and
Japan) replaced the 1902 alliance.
– The Japanese fleet was limited below the level of US and Britain.
• Anti-American and anti-British feeling in Japan.
Assassinations of Japanese political and industrial leaders
followed.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 8

Japan
• The London Naval Treaty (1930): Japan
pledged itself with Britain and the US to
maintain the status quo in the Pacific.
– The Americans and the British reciprocated by
agreeing not to increase their bases at Pearl
Harbor and Singapore. Japan was also given a free
hand in eastern waters.
• Washington and London were soon to regret
this arrangement.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 11

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 12
Japan
• Japan depended and still depends on
participation in world trade.
– The US banned Japanese products from its markets.
• Commercial and financial crash in the US in 1929
led to further decline in international trade.
• Between 1929 and 1931, the value of Japanese
exports was halved.
• Protective measures taken by the Dutch in 1932
and by the British in 1933 further restricted the
sale of Japanese goods.
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 13
 Japan
• Huge population increase:
– from 35 to 65 million between 1873 and 1918 (1 million/year) !!!
• Japan had to find – either through the expansion of world
commerce, or by territorial expansion – a solution to its
demographic and economic problems.
• The popularity of militarists and ultra-nationalists in the
country’s politics was on the rise.
• Japan was condemned by the League of Nations for its
occupation of Manchuria (1931).
– Japan abandoned the League in 1933.
• In 1936, Japan withdrew from the London Naval Treaty.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019

 Last Chinese Emperor
Puyi as Emperor Kangde
of Manchukuo
(1934-1945)

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 15

 Japan
• 1939: the US rescinded (annulled) its Treaty of
Commerce and Navigation with Japan.
• The American Pacific Fleet was also moved from
its base in San Diego to Pearl Harbor, 2,000
miles closer to the Japanese archipelago.
• 1940: Japan signed a tripartite Pact of Mutual
Assistance with Italy and Germany.

16
 Japan
• In 1941, though nominally still at peace with Japan, the US
banned virtually all normal trade and froze all Japanese
assets. Japan was forced to look for other sources of raw
materials and oil.
• Non-Aggression Pact with Moscow (April 1941).
• November 1941: decision to attack all the major western
powers in the Pacific.
• 7 December 1941: surprise (???) Japanese attack against the
US fleet at Pearl Harbor and installations in the Philippines.
– The day after Pearl Harbor, Germany and Italy entered the war
on Japan’s side.
• 1942: The Japanese Empire reaches its peak.

18
 Japan
• The war ended for Japan with the atomic
bombardments at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
August 1945. More than two million Japanese
lost their lives for the Empire.
• Japan’s image in the region is still that of a
detested aggressor.

20
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 21
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 22
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 23
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 24
 China (中國 Zhōngguó)
of the Chinese Nationalist Party
(Kuomintang)

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 25

China at the Paris Peace Conference - 1919
• The Chinese Republic (est. 01.01.1912) ordered their
delegates home, boycotted western products and
discarded western democratic ideas.
• The Chinese unity was shattered by the competing claims
of warlords, nationalists and communists.
• The Chinese provinces of Tibet and Outer Mongolia
broke away.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 26

 CHINA
1923: Chinese leader Sun Yat-sen makes
alliance with the Chinese Communist
Party (founded three years earlier under
Soviet supervision).
Mix of communism and Confucianism: the project of a new
state built on a collectivist, hierarchical, totalitarian
ideological basis.
Soviet support was given to the re-arming and training of
Sun’s Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang.
Forced industrialisation under Soviet influence (following
similar steps by India, Persia and Turkey).

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 27

CHINA
USSR invades Manchuria in 1924 – communist
insurrection.
1925: Sun dies and is replaced by Moscow-trained
Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975).
1927: Brutal repression of nationalists and (later)
communists. Chiang’s Russian communist advisers
flee to Moscow.
Between 1928 and 1937 Chiang takes control of the
whole of China.
– The extra-territorial rights of foreigners are terminated.
– Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist government was quickly
recognized by the great Powers, except the USSR.
Japan invades and annexes Manchuria in 1931
(puppet state Manchukuo).
28
CHINA
• China divided between the nationalists led by
Chiang, the communists led by Mao Zedong and
the Japanese. The conflict was frozen until the end
of World War II.

30
 Other actors in Asia in the interwar period

In Burma (Myanmar), the

outbreak of war in late 1941
was the signal to Japan and
local patriots to overthrow
British rule…
…replaced by Japanese rule.
The British defenses in Malaya
and Singapore were also easily
overrun by the Japanese (1941).

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 31

 Other actors in Asia in the
interwar period
• The countries of French Indo-China –
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia –
remained under French influence from
1914 until the Japanese began their
invasions in the autumn of 1940.
• With the collapse of the Japanese in
1945, Ho Chi Minh, the unquestioned
leader of Vietnamese resistance,
declared independence.
• Fighting with the French was renewed
at the end of 1946.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 33

 Other actors in Asia in the interwar period
• Thailand: no European colonial rule. Occupied
by the Japanese in 1941 (as Siam), Thailand
subsequently declared war on Britain and the US.
• Indonesians fought for independence from the
Dutch since the end of the First World War. By
the 1930s, the leading Indonesian nationalists
and communists were all in jail.
– It was Japanese intervention in 1942 and Japanese
weapons that eventually allowed the Indonesians to
break free of the Dutch.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 34

Japanese World War II veterans recall
horrors of Unit 731
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx7loRv7
0y8

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 36

INDIA

38
 INDIA
• The Hindus and the Muslims demanded
independence from Britain.
• The impasse was broken by Gandhi who had
returned to India from South Africa in 1915.
• Toleration for the British rule until the end of the
First World War.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 39

 INDIA
• 1917: the British promised ‘the gradual
development of self-governing institutions’.
• The Montagu–Chelmsford Proposals of 1918 granted
partial self-government to Indian provinces.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 45

 INDIA
• The Government of India Act (1919) made
further concessions.
• HOWEVER, subsequent disturbances, severe crop
failures and widespread famine received
repressive British anti-sedition measures in 1919.
These measures brought Hindu, Muslim and Sikh
discontent with Britain.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 46

 INDIA
• 1922-1924: Gandhi and other members of the
Indian Congress Party were jailed on charges of
sedition (inciting people to rebel against
authority).
• 1924-1930: Gandhi travels extensively through
the villages of India, preaching the moral force of
nonviolence, the unity of Hindus and Muslims and
the adoption of Swadeshi strategy (the use of
local, indigenous products, especially hand-spun
and hand-woven cloth).
• January 1932: Gandhi is again jailed for non-
violent disobedience.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 47

 INDIA
• Achievements:
– Positions in the armed forces and the civil services opened to
Indians.
– The country was divided into 11 provinces, each with wide
autonomy.
– By 1937, when the Government of India Act of 1935 took
effect, the Congress Party had obtained control of nine of
India’s 14 provincial governments.
– The principle of equality of all before the law was introduced.
– In the 1930s women were granted the right to vote.
– Long before political independence had been achieved in
1947, the Indians had extended their activities into industrial
and business enterprises that had been the preserve of the
British.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 50

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 51
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 52
 Persia

• The Qajar dynasty had ruled Persia since the 1790s

(following the end of the Safavid dynasty).
• As a state with a will of its own, Persia almost ceased to
exist during the First World War.
• British ambitions in Persia set the scene for the
(Russian-sponsored?) coup d’état of February 1921.
• Zia ud-Din, a writer and publisher, became Prime
Minister, and a Russian-trained Cossack officer, Reza
Khan Pahlavi, became Minister of War and
Commander-in-Chief.
• By the end of 1921 the Russians had withdrawn their
troops from northern Persia as they had promised.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 53

Persia
• However, three months after the coup
d’état, Zia ud-Din fled to British Haifa.
• In 1923, Reza Khan Pahlavi assumed
the duties of Prime Minister.
• In 1925, having officially deposed the
ineffectual Ahmad Shah (Qajar
dynasty), he ascended to the throne as
the first of the Pahlavi dynasty of Iran.
The Qajar era was ended.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 54

 Persia
• Introduction of civil marriage,
compulsory primary education and
the abolition of the Islamic veil.
• After 1931, foreigners could no
longer own agricultural land; foreign
trade was more closely controlled;
and the Persian sections of the Indo-
European system of communications
were nationalized.
• Harsh legislation dealing with
alcohol, drugs and corruption.
• 1935: the name ‘Persia’ was changed
to the ancient name of ‘Iran’.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 55

 Persia
• The Trans-Persian Railway built between 1933 and 1939
(Scandinavian engineers).
• This railway became indispensable to the Allies in the Second
World War and one of the chief causes of their invasion. Reza Khan
subsequently abdicated and fled in 1941 to Haifa.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 56

Turkey
• Britain, France and Russia had connived during
the First World War to dismember the Ottoman
Empire. On 30 October 1918, the defeated Turks
were forced to sign an armistice at Mudros
(Lemnos Island).
– The Ottoman Empire was formally dissolved, and
Allied troops began a four-year occupation of
Constantinople – the city that tsarist Russia had
always hoped to control.
• Treaty of Sèvres (1920): left only Constantinople,
a small part of Europe and Anatolia to Turkey.
Even Anatolia was to be divided into French and
Italian spheres of influence. The Dardanelles were
to be administered by an Allied commission.
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 57
 Turkey
• Following the Allied-backed
Greek invasion of Anatolia in
May 1919, in which British and
American naval units took
part, the Turks made a
startling recovery under the
leadership of Mustafa Kemal
(1881–1938).

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 59

 Turkey
Treaty of Lausanne (24 July 1923):
confirmed Turkish sovereignty over
the entire Anatolia, eastern Trace and
Constantinople.
The demilitarized Dardanelle Straits
were returned to Turkish control
entirely in 1937 (Treaty of Montreux).
29 October 1923: the Turkish Republic
was proclaimed, with Mustafa Kemal
as president.
The most radical transformation of a
people followed under the banner of
aggressive Turkish nationalism.
marți, 16 aprilie 2019
Turkey
• 1929: suppression of Russian-sponsored
communist activities in Turkey.
• 1932: Turkey joined the League of Nations.
• 1934: Balkan Pact with Greece, Romania and
Yugoslavia which guaranteed the Balkan frontiers.
• Treaties of friendship were signed with Iran,
Afghanistan and Iraq.
• May 1939: – following Italy’s attack on Albania –
Turkey also signed with Britain an agreement of
mutual assistance in case of aggression or war in
the Mediterranean area.
• June 1939: non-aggression pact with France.
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 61
 The Arab World
• The Zionist movement was founded in the late 1890s by the
Jewish Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl (1860–1904).
• 1917: Balfour Declaration.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 62

 The Arab World
• With the American door almost closed to the Jews by the US
Immigration Quota Acts of the early 1920s, Palestine became
their only option.
• In trying to give the same piece of territory to two contesting
parties, the British came to be distrusted by both Jews and Arabs.
• What was promised was that the Jews should have a national
home in Palestine, not that Palestine should become the national
home of the Jews.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 63

 The Arab World
• 1914: Manifesto of Arab
Nationalism.
• 1919: US President Woodrow
Wilson sent the King–Crane
Commission of Inquiry to Syria
and Palestine to investigate
Arab aims and policies.
• Conclusion: the Arabs were
ready to govern themselves
and opposed Jewish
immigration in Palestine.

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 65

 The Arab World
• In dismembering the Ottoman Empire, France and Britain made
no allowance for Arab independence and wanted the US not to
interfere in their imperial affairs in the region.
• ‘Colonies’ turn into ‘mandates’ until the end of WWII.
• The adventures of pan-Arabist Faisal, son of Hussein of Mecca
(Hashemite dynasty): King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria (1920)
and King of Iraq (1921-1933).

marți, 16 aprilie 2019 66

The Arab World
• June 1916: Hussein of Mecca, head of the Hashemites of
western Arabia, had proclaimed the Arab revolt against the
Ottoman Empire.
• His rival, Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud of eastern Arabia (based at
Riyadh) was leading a puritanical sect of Muslims – the Wahabi.
Ibn Saud defeated the Hashemite by 1924.
• In 1927, London recognized ibn Saud’s conquests.
• By 1932, the kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd become Saudi Arabia.
• 1933: ibn Saud’s desperate need for money caused him to grant
to Standard Oil of California the right to exploit his country’s oil
resources.
• Trans-Jordan remained under British de facto control with
Prince Abdullah as Emir (second son of the Hashemite prince
Hussein of Mecca).
marți, 16 aprilie 2019 68
1914
1914
 HASHEMITE KING ABDULLAH of
TRANSJORDAN (1921-1951)
HASHEMITE KING FAISAL of SYRIA
(1918-1920) and IRAQ (1921-1933)
Emir Faisal's delegation at Versailles, during
the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
Emir Abdullah of
Transjordan in Turkey

Faisal and ibn Saud (1922)

Churchill, TE Laurence and

Emir Abdullah of
Transjordan
In 1945, partly as a result of British efforts,
the Arab League was formed.