World History Lecture Notes: Week 10-13

Week 10 → World War I ● Colonialism in an “enlightened age” ● Otto Von Bismarck, Congress of Berlin (1878) ○ “I cannot tell you when an explosion will occur in the Balkans to start WWI …” ● Europe on the Cusp (1914) ○ “History is not a study of “inevitable” events, movements, or revolutions. Anyone who says otherwise is either purposely misleading or lazy.” ○ Dangerous potentials in the pre-WWI era: ■ Nationalistic tendencies ■ A desire to maintain the political status quo ■ Geo-political rivalry ■ The memory of events from a not so distant past (built resentment) ■ Collective national fear and anger ■ Glorification (romanticism) of war ■ Socio-economic disparity and revolutionary parties ■ Alliance system and political inflexibility ○ European Alliance System: ■ 1871 - Franco-Prussian War: Germany aimed to isolate France ● (1873) Three Emperors League (Germany, Austro-Hungarians, Russia) ■ 1879 - Germany and Austria-Hungary form the Dual Alliance ■ 1882 - Italy joins Germany and Austria-Hungary to form the Triple Alliance ■ 1888 - Kaiser Wilhelm dies and Wilhelm II becomes the German Kaiser ■ 1892 - France and Russia form the Franco-Russian Alliance ■ 1904 - France and Great Britain sign the Entente Cordiale ● Nearly had a war in 1886 because of the Fashoda Crisis, over water access to the Nile River in East Africa ● British eventually seize control of the waterway ■ 1907 - France, GB, and Russia merge to form the Triple Entente ● “The Spark” (28 June 1914) ○ Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne ○ Sarajevo, assassinated by a Serbian nationalist ○ Austrian ultimatum to Serbia (23 July,. 1914) ■ List of demands that present an ultimatum ■ Calling for their outside control of the press and their courts, they essentially have to surrender their sovereignty, Serbia actually agrees … ● A Case of Inflexibility: The Schlieffen Plan ○ Taken Paris and the French army, assuming they invade Alsace-Lorraine ○ Lunch in Paris, dinner in St.Petersburg ○ Fails spectacularly, causes Britain to declare war ● Fritz Haber → German who created Mustard Gas ● Rasputin ● A decisive year (February 1917) ○ The Czar is forced to abdicate ● Colonial influence: ○ German Askari Soldiers ○ British Indian Soldiers ● Japanese soldiers near Tsingtao (a German port in China) ● 1918: ○ Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Germans, and Austro-Hungarians with the new Soviet Union ■ The German army actually did win the war in the East, because the USSR wanted to end hostility right when they came into power ■ Granted Germany and Austro-Hungary modern-day Balkan states that still remain a part of “Europe” ■ Allows the German army to focus on the Western front ■ Paul Von Hindenburg and Erich Von Ludendorff ○ Kaiser Wilhelm II Abdicates (9 November 1918) ■ Pressure from a failed invasion of France ■ His abdication leads to the formal armistice to come into being ○ Paris Peace Confrerence (1919-1920) ■ Wilson was actually the first time a sitting president goes overseas at all ■ League of Nations ■ Wilson’s 14 Points ■ Treaty of Versailles ● The Ramifications of Peace ○ National homogeneity (states for different people) ○ International doctrine ○ The enhanced power of the state increased centralized and centralized governments ○ Bureaucracy and national police forces (not just Europe, globally) ○ “Population Politics”, all civilized peoples deserve a state ○ “Population Exchanges”, internationally recognized and sanctioned ■ Today’s “ethnic cleansing” ○ “National self-determination” of states ■ All peoples have the right to determine their own governments, cultures, and livelihoods Week 11 → World War II and Mass-Killing ● “National self-determination” in Europe ● Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate of Palestine ● Union of South Africa (1919,1920) ○ Essentially existing as its own state after WWII ○ Bust still, is the Cape Colony of the British ● British India ○ Before WWI, talks, and movements of independence ○ Leads to India and Pakistan and Punjab at the time ○ By the end of the 1920s, increasingly becoming more difficult to keep India and the region in the British Empire ● French Indo-China ○ (Modern-day) Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia ○ Becoming increasingly difficult to control because of its size and the monetary expense involved to maintain, and the language of self-determination spreading across the globe ● The most dangerous position in this between war period is to be stateless, without a government for your interests and equitable representation ● Considering what we have discussed … ○ Were Germany and the rest of Europe on a collision course with the Second World War and the Holocaust? ■ NO! ○ Weimar Republic ● Joining the DAP (German Workers’ Party) ○ February 1920, Hitler renames the party NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) and becomes its leader ○ “Stab-in-the-Back Legend” myth at home, the Jewish sabotaged the German war effort ■ An excuse that Germany lost ■ Scapegoat are the Jews ■ Supported by all parties but the German Communist Party ○ The Nazi’s built the SA, the brownshirts, to be their paramilitary ● Mussolini and the March on Rome (October 1922) ○ Fascism was not unique to Italy ○ Their own paramilitary, the blackshirts ● Hitler in 1923, the “Beer Hal Putsch) (9 November 1923) ○ The NSDAP tried to seize Munich and march with their support to Berlin, drastically failed ○ Heinrich Himmler - Future leader of the SS ○ (Odeonsplatz) where it failed in Munich with the Weimar police ending it ○ Hitler and his supporters are put on trial in 1924, the court was conservative and looked to the Nazis with more favorability than say the German Communist Party ○ Questions would give Hitler the chance to ramble on about his politics for hours on end with national attention, builds their following in Germany ○ Hitler is guilty, only given a five-year prison sentence where he serves nine months ● Hitler is released in 1924, unlike in Italy, they can’t seize control and figure out that they have to work within the Weimar governmental system to take power ○ Gregor Strasser and Doesph Goebbels ○ Most Nazis are from Southern Germany, not always true but generally the further north you go the fewer Nazis you find ○ Mass politics and propaganda ● “The Great Depression of 1929, was Germany’s second economic struggle that decade and ultimately is Blacker’s no.1 influence that led the NSDAP to gain seats and power in the Reichstag and later Germany.” ● 30 January 1933, Hitler is appointed Chancellor with the only hope of forming a coalition government in Germany after years of elections and three deadlocks in the Reichstag ● (RIGHT) The Nazis and farmers will literally “clean out the shit”, i.e. not dissimilar to “drain the swamp” …? ● Weimar to Nazism, neither calls for the elimination of “foreign bodies” nor “antisemitism” propelled Hitler and the NSDAP into power ● Culmulative Radicalization ○ “In historiography and genocide studies, cumulative radicalization is the notion that genocide and other mass crimes are not planned long in advance, but emerge from wartime crises and a process of radicalization.” ○ Process of slow radicalization to build to a majority to tacitly go along with it ○ The Nazis at the start understood that no one at start would accept their more violence and genocidal campaigns, slowly build on public support to the level where it becomes acceptable ● “America First” ○ The notion at this time (and even now arguably) that problems overseas are not the business of the United States ○ “German American Bund (society)” → large following in the US support the Nazi party initially ● Fascism is not unique to Germany, to Italy, and clearly exists on a world stage. - The Nazi defeat in trying to take Moscow and the US becoming involved in the war led the Nazis to refocus on what would come to be known as the Holocaust Wannsee Conference (20 January 1942) - Effectively the start of the Holocaust - Plans for concentration camps Week 12 → The Cold War and the “Third World” (1945-1989) ● “It brought destruction and death” - Doris Bergen ● Europe (1945): ○ “The prospect of total misery and anguish.” - Tony Judt ● How does the European continent unite and move beyond retribution: ○ “Eventually through unification, the European Coal and Steel Community forms in 1952 and later the Treaty of Rome which created the European Economic Community.” ○ The Marshall Plan ○ The common enemy of the USSR and communism unite Western Europe and NATO powers ● The Potsdam Treaty (1945) upon the end of WWII demarcated different zones of occupation for Germany and Berlin itself ○ This was meant to be temporary, including the Soviets ● Continuation of “population transfers” ○ Armenians and the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire are a past example of this ○ A means to achieve ethnic cleansing ○ Forced displacement ● These characteristics of ethnic cleansing and genocide and nationalism are not exclusively Nazi, not only do they pre-date them but these characteristics occur after WWII. ● European Refugees (1945): ○ Germans Refugees as a result of expulsion from European countries: ■ 3 million from Czechoslovakia ■ 3.25 from Poland ■ 2 from East Prussia ■ Even 2 million from Germany ● Jewish “stateless” citizens ○ Jewish immigration to Israel (est.1949) ○ Voluntary and forced immigrations of Jewish populations to Israel ○ UN Partition Plan (1947), pushing for a two-state solution between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine ○ Jerusalem would be an UN-administered state ● Juridical consequence: IMT The Nuremberg Trials of major war criminals ○ The totality of war ushered in a transformative era internationally, the understanding that with nuclear powers and violence could not result in another global conflict, it would end in global destruction, so they tried the war criminals ○ The IMT tried 24 major Nazi leaders (the same thing happens in Tokyo next year) ■ Hitler, Himmler, and Gobbels posthumously, ERICH EICHMAN) ○ Four indictments: ■ (1) Conspiracy to commit crimes against peace ■ (2) Conspiracy to commit a war of aggression ■ (3) War crimes ■ (4) Crimes against humanity ● How does the world move forward? ○ Tony Judt - “Forgot as soon as possible.” ■ Collectively speaking, to move on you have to somewhat forget what happened ■ Makes possible other kinds of problematic governments ■ Shifted memories of the Holocaust and fascism ● “Eventually through unification, the European Coal and Steel Community forms in 1952 and later the Treaty of Rome which created the European Economic Community.” ● The Cold War unites Europe and western powers and impacts world dynamics ● The Marshall Plan → rebuilding the continent economically to be able to collaborate ○ European governments had to decide how to spend the money ○ Marshall wanted to encourage economic development, therefore the Plan provided assistance over a period of years ○ Both rebuilding infrastructure but not becoming dependent on foreign aid because of the slow spread of funding to build a sustainable economy to support modernization ○ Acceptance required European governments to cooperate economically ○ Economic aid was massive - @ 13 million US Dollars (which today is a few trillion) ○ This was not a loan, the US was the only power in the world that could do this economically, it wasn’t out of generosity but with hopes of avoiding a massive global conflict, collective historical memory ■ It is during times of economic crisis when there are rises in extremism ● However, this makes the Cold War possible and turns the political climate ● Economic Recovery Program (Marshall Plan) ○ European governments had to decide how to spend the money ○ Marshall wanted to encourage economic development, therefore the plan provided assistance over a period of years ○ Acceptance required European governments to cooperate economically ○ Economic aid was massive → 13 billion USD then ● “Ich bin ein Berliner” (JFK at the wall) ○ “Life your eyes from the danger of today for the hope of tomorrow.” ○ “When one man is enslaved, all are not free.” ● “Some distance from the full reality.” ○ Winston Churchill ○ An unapologetic defender of colonialism both before and after WWII ○ James Scott on → “officials of a modern state of necessity at least one or often several steps removed from the society they are in charge with governing. They assess the life of their society by a series of typification that are always some distance from the full reality these abstractions are meant to capture.” ● Israel-Palestine (1947) ○ British: “Washing their hands” (February 1947) ○ United Nations’ Partition Plan (1947) ■ UN Resolution 181 created the “two-states” ■ Jerusalem remains as a mandate of the UN to be open to everyone ○ Israel declares its independence on its own (May 14, 1948) ■ The West at first was very hesitant to become involved in this ○ Arab-Israeli War (May 15, 1948) ■ Israel is invaded by many Arab regional powers ■ After armistice (Israeli victory): ● Israel gained territory ● Jerusalem became a part of Israel ● No formal Palestinian state ● British India (1909) ○ India-Pakistan (1948) ■ Violent actions from peoples on both sides ■ Emergence of Indian nationalism (Hinduism) ■ Emergence of Pakistani nationalism (Islam) ○ Population transfers between the two new states ■ Estimates around 500,000-700,000 in 1948 alone died travelling between the two states ● French-Indo China (1930) ○ One of the most important French colonies, only second to Algeria ○ Ho Chi Minh ■ Hồ Chí Minh led the Viồt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at the Battle of Điồn Biên Phồ, ending the First Indochina War. ● Truman Doctrine ○ The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 ○ More generally, the Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations thought to be threatened by Soviet communism ● Dien Bien Phu (1954) ○ The battle of Dien Bien Phu was a significant turning point in Indochina. The battle was fought between the French and the Vietminh (Vietnamese Communist and nationalist). The French wanted to reclaim Vietnam as one of their colonies, while the Vietnamese wanted their independence. ○ Vietnam War (1964) Week 12 → New Democracy Movements (1977 →) ● Apartheid ○ Afrikaners (Boers) & Indigenous/Black-Africans ○ Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela ● Revolt and Rebellion ○ In these violent decades, many of the roots of future movements and revolts are planted ● East/West Germany: “Change through Rapprochement” ○ West and East Germany → Willy Brandt (Social Democratic Party) becomes Chancellor of West Germany (1969) ■ Introduces Ostpolitik: ● “Neue Ostpolitik (German for "new eastern policy"), or Ostpolitik for short, was the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany) and Eastern Europe, particularly the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) beginning in 1969.” ■ Continued by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, starts the conversation for West and East Germany recognizing one another officially (occurs in 1972) as different states ● “Change through rapprochement” ○ Easing of diplomatic negations and relations between two states ○ West Germany decides, with respect to the East, they want autonomy over their decisions and policy in Central Europe ○ Results: ■ Eventually leads to West German travel to the East ■ Establishment of phone lines ■ Lets reunification become more possible in the next few generations ○ “One German nations, two German states” ● Poland’s Revolution ○ Karol Wojtyla → Cardinal of Kraków during the 1970s ■ Becomes Pope John Paul II (on October 16, 1978) ■ Big deal for Poland’s Catholicism ■ First visit to Poland (June 1979) ● Technically since Poland is a communist state, they are not to condone a religion statewide ○ Brings back a Polish identity around Catholicism and more broadly around being Polish ○ Lech Wałęsa ■ President of Poland from 1990 to 1995 ■ Leader of the democracy movement in Poland initially ■ “In August 1980, he was instrumental in political negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government. He co-founded the Solidarity trade-union which membership rose to over ten million people.” ● Initially a labor movement, not a democratic movement ■ By 1980, over ồ of working people in Poland joined the movement that could call strikes, protest, distribute information, this shuts down a country ■ Over the 1980s, this repeatedly happens and strong democratic movements form in Poland that spread throughout Eastern Europe ● USSR’s “Revolution” ○ Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Secretary General of the USSR (11 March 1985) ■ First Secretary General that did not know Stalin: ● Represented a youthful ambition for new movements in the USSR ● Progressive movements in the context of the USSR ● Advocating for a change in USSR’s political and economic structures ○ Still a devout Communist, sought to reform the economic system, but not in a radical way ○ Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (transparency and relaxing political doctrine): ○ Called for elections of the Party’s Peoples Deputies in 1988 ● GDR (East Germany) (7 October 1989) ○ Celebrated its “40th Anniversary” ○ Massive protests when Gorbachev is there to call for freedom/independence ○ “Life punishes those who come too late.” ■ The last thing Gorbachev reportedly said to Erich Honecker before leaving to go back to the USSR ○ Two days later … the East German Polit Beuaru kicks Honecker out ○ Egon Krenz stages a coup and assumes control of the SED ■ After receiving the endorsement of Gorbachev, Krenz begins planning an East GermanPerestroika: ● Mass demonstrations throughout East Germany (including Lepizig) ■ Gunter Shabowski, Krenz wanted daily press brieifings, so Shabowski fills this role and has press briefings ■ 9 November, 1989 → in Poland on a diplomatic mission, in East Berlin, Krenz had started talking about the future potential of East Germans receiving visas to travel to West Germany and the rest of Europe ■ In the daily press briefings, he would read off lists, he returns though from Poland and this future proposal builds ● when Shabowski states “to my knowledge … immediately” , within a half hour of the press conference, people rush to the border ■ 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall falls ultimately because of a series of a lack of communication in Germany… ● “Looking for Freedom!” David Hasselhouf ● Beginning of the End … with familiar problems ○ “Patriotism offered an alternative way …” ○ Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian League of Communists ■ “During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Milošević was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with war crimes in connection to the Bosnian War, the Croatian War of Independence, and the Kosovo War. He became the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes.” ■ Identified first as being Serbian, not Yugoslavian ■ Milosevic assumed the Serbian presidency with a national pledge (May 1989) ■ Serbia annexes Kosovo and Vojvodina three months later (August 1989) ● Other Yugoslavia states want independence ○ Slovenia and Croatia declare independence (January 1991) ○ “...but produced the same results” ■ Yugoslav army invaded Croatia a bloody conflict for two weeks ■ After a cease-fire, Croatia’s Serbian minority population rebelled against the government ■ A civil war taking place with an ethnic conflict at its core ■ Slovenians and Croatians in Bosnia voted for independence, which led Bosnia’s minority Serbian population to declare war on both Croatia and Bosnia (March 1992) ○ Ethnic and Civil Conflict ■ A separate war broke out between Bosnia’s Muslim and Croatian populations (January 1993) ● Ethnic cleansing occurred throughout the entire Yugoslav region ○ Dayton (Ohio) Accords (December 1995) ■ Clinton signs to try and “bandaid” issues in Yugoslav ● Create Bosnia and Herzegovina ○ Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1996) ● Kosovo (1998-1999) ○ NATO Bombing (1999) of Kosovo, led by the US Air force, nearly one hundred days straight of bombings ■ Deemed to be successful because it brought an end to violence in Kosovo ○ “Tensions between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo continued into the 21st century. Sporadic violence occurred, as when anti-Serb riots broke out in March 2004 in numerous cities and towns in the Kosovo region.” ● Cambodia (1975) ○ “April 17, 1975, to January 7, 1979, the Khmer Rouge perpetrated one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century. Nearly two million people died under the rule of the fanatical Communist movement, which imposed a ruthless agenda of forced labor, thought control, and mass execution on Cambodia. The purported goal was to transform the Southeast Asian country into a classless agrarian utopia. The result was an ancient society’s wholesale destruction and a horrifying new term for the world to confront: “the killing fields. The Khmer Rouge began their reign with the murder of surrendering officials of the former government and the brutal emptying of the capital and other cities. Black-clad soldiers marched millions of people into the countryside and put them to work as slaves digging canals and tending crops. Religion, popular culture, and all forms of selfexpression were forbidden. Families were split apart, with children forced into mobile labor brigades.” ○ Khmer Rouge (1975) (Communist Party of Kampuchea) ■ Pol Pot ● Most of his early schooling was in France ● Exposure to different understandings and political experiences ■ When taking power, Pot first takes out all ideas with the West, which leads to cleansing and genocide of those ideas in Cambodia ○ Genocide/Mass Murder (1975-1979) ■ Concentrated around cities where Western reforms seemed more clear to Pot ■ Pot wanted an agrarian society, returning to their original non-West ways ■ At minimum 1.7 million people died, a little under a fourth of the population at the time (~ 6-7 million) ○ Vietnamese - Cambodian War (January 1979) ■ Ends the regime, and installs a different government/state ● Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (December 1979) ○ “In December 1979, in the midst of the Cold War, the Soviet 40th Army invaded Afghanistan in order to prop up the communist government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) against a growing insurgency. ... The Soviet Union feared the loss of its communist proxy in Afghanistan.” ○ “Soviets wanted to weaken Pakistan which was an ally of United States and China. ... Soviet Union also believed that the hostile behavior of Afghanistan against Pakistan and Iran could alienate Afghanistan from the west and Afghanistan would be forced to into a closer relationship with Soviet Union.” ○ The USSR’s Vietnam, referred to sometimes as ● Mujahideen in Afghanistan ○ “guerrilla fighters in Islamic countries, especially those who are fighting against nonMuslim forces.” ○ The Taliban is the group that rose up out of opposition to Soviet occupation, in the 1990s ● Nelson Mandela and South Africa (1993) ○ Wins the presidency ○ Ushering in of post-colonial rule ○ Imprisoned in 1962 at Robben Island ○ “He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state following the Rivonia Trial. Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison.” ○ Founded the truth and reconciliation, to look to the future of South Africa ○ Winnie Mandela Week 13 → Globalization 1990 → ● A “new” Europe … ○ This interconnectedness (globalization) is growing but, nationalism still exists ● Soviet Union (1991) ○ President Boris Yeltsin (pre-Putin) ■ “Yeltsin transformed Russia's state socialist economy into a capitalist market economy by implementing economic shock therapy, market exchange rate of the ruble, nationwide privatization, and lifting of price controls. Economic collapse and inflation ensued.” ○ August Putsch (August 19, 1991) ■ Failed coup against USSR ○ Commonwealth of Independent States (September 1991) ■ “The aim of the organization is to facilitate and strengthen cooperation among its member states in the political, economic, ecological, humanitarian, cultural, and other fields.” ○ December 25, 1991 ■ Dissolution/fall of the USSR ■ Start of the modern Russian Federation ○ The end of the Cold War does not usher in a moment of globalization but does allow it to flourish. ● Post Cold War possibilities: ○ Considering Europe an interconnected region instead of a region with independent states ○ A United Europe: ■ “The Schengen Agreement signed on June 14, 1985, is a treaty that led most of the European countries towards the abolishment of their national borders, to build a Europe without borders known as the “Schengen Area” ■ “Maastricht Treaty introduced European citizenship, allowing citizens to reside in and move freely between Member States. The Treaty established a common foreign and security policy with the aim of "safeguarding the common values, fundamental interests and independence of the Union.” ■ “The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank responsible for monetary policy of those European Union (EU) member countries which have adopted the euro currency. This region is known as the eurozone and currently comprises 19 members.” ● Gastarbeilter (Guest workers) in Germany/ throughout Europe ○ “German for 'guest worker') are foreign or migrant workers, particularly those who had moved to West Germany between 1955 and 1973, seeking work as part of a formal guest worker program.”