Term
| Unrestricted Submarine Warfare(863-864) |
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Definition
| On February 1st, 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare because the public was becoming anxious over the mounting casualties and the military’s growing control over decision making. The military continued to promise the end of the war in 6 months because they were going to cut off Britain’s resources and make them surrender. This failed, and brought the U.S. into the war in April 1917, after German U-boats sunk several American ships. |
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Term
| Woodrow Wilson and the Fourteen Points(864) |
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Definition
| In January 1918, Woodrow Wilson issued the Fourteen Points which weekend civilian resolve in Germany and Austria-Hungary. It was a blueprint for a new international order that held out the promise of a non-vindictive peace settlement to war-weary citizens of the Central Powers. |
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Term
| Grigori Rasputin and Tsar Nicholas II(865) |
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Definition
| Since the revolution of 1905, the masses of Russia had become politicized, leading to rising protest against the government’s incompetence and Nicolas II’s stubborn resistance to change. Nicolas failed to unify the bureaucracy and his peoples in wartime. Grigori Rasputin had complete control of Nicholas and his wife by claiming to control the hemophilia of their son. Rasputin’s disastrous influence on state matters led prominent and educated leaders to with draw their support. When riots erupted in March 1917, Nicholas abdicated the throne, and the 300-year-old dynasty came to an end. |
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Term
| Provisional Government and Alexsandr Kerensky(865-866) |
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Definition
| Provisional Government was the initial government to take control in Russia after the overthrow of the Romanov empire in 1917. The government was composed of aristocrats and members of the middle class, often deputies in the Duma – the assembly created after the Revolution of 1905. Alexsandr Kerensky was the new prime minister and a socialist revolutionary, which used commanding oratory to arouse patriotism but lacked the political skills to fashion and effective wartime government. |
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Term
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Definition
| Councils of workers and soldiers first formed in Russia during the Revolution of 1905; they took shape to represent the people in the early days of the 1917 Russian Revolution. These groups saw themselves as a more legitimate political force than the Provisional Government. |
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Term
| Vladimir Lenin & Bolsheviks(865) |
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Definition
| In April 1917, the Germans provided safe rail transportation for Vladimir Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks to return from exile through German territory in hopes of stabilizing Russia. Lenin devoted himself to spread socialism through Russia through his followers, the Bolsheviks. He issued the April Theses. |
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Term
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Definition
| Issued by Vladimir Lenin that called for Russia to withdraw from the war, for the soviets to seize power on behalf of workers and poor peasants, and for all private land to be nationalized. |
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Term
| March 1917, November 1917(865-866) |
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Definition
In March 1917, Nicholas abdicated, and the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty came to an abrupt end.
In November 1917, the Bolshevik leadership seized power on behalf of a congress of soviets while simultaneously asserting its own right to form a government. When elections for a constituent assembly in January 1918 failed to give the Bolsheviks a plurality, the party used troops to disrupt the assembly and staged a coup d’état. |
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Term
| Treaty of Brest-Litovsk(867) |
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Definition
| The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was when the Bolsheviks asked Germany for peace in March 1918, and agreed. This placed vast regions of the old Russian Empire under German occupation. The treaty partially realized the German ideal of a central European region, or Mitteleuropa, under German control. This led to the relocation of the capital from Petrograd, which was now at risk, to Moscow. |
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Term
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Definition
| The Bolsheviks formally adopted the name Communists to distinguish themselves from the socialists and Social Democrats who had voted for the war. |
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Term
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Definition
| Resistance to the Bolshevik policies turned into a civil war in which the pro-Bolsheviks, the Reds, faced an array of antirevolutionary forces, the Whites. |
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Term
| Leon Trotsky and Red Army(868) |
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Definition
| The Bolshevik commissar of war, Leon Trotsky, built the highly disciplined Red Army by ending democratic procedures, such as the election of officers, which had originally attracted soldiers to Bolshevism |
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Term
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Definition
| The Cheka was a secret police which set up detention camps for political opponents and black marketers. They shot many of the prisoners without trial. |
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Term
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Definition
| In March 1919, the Bolsheviks developed the Third International which is also known as The Comintern. They were organized in order to foster revolutionary Marxism across Europe. |
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Term
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Definition
| Tanks were used by the British and French in the spring of 1918. They were effective and supported by airplanes. Although the first tanks were cumbersome, they were able to withstand machine-gun fire made offensive attacks possible. |
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Term
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Definition
| Deflecting blame from the military, generals proclaimed they were still fully capable of winning the war. Weak-willed civilians, they claimed, had dealt the military a “stab in the back” that forced surrender. Amid this blatant political deceit, naval officers called for a final sea battle, but the order triggered a sailors’ mutiny against what they saw as a suicide mission. |
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Term
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Definition
| The Spartacists was one of the most radical socialist factions led by cofounders, Karl Leibknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. |
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Term
| Karl Liebknecht & Rosa Luxemburg(870) |
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Definition
| They cofounded one of the most radical socialist factions, the Spartacists. Unlike Lenin, they favored political uprisings that would give workers political experience and thus eliminate the need for an all-knowing part leadership. Like Lenin, they disliked parliamentary politics, but they argued for direct worker control of institutions. |
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Term
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Definition
| Friedrich Ebert was a Social Democratic leader who headed the new government, shunned revolution and supported the creation of a parliamentary republic. He led suppressed the workers’ councils and demonstrators by calling on the German Army and the Freikorps. He endorsed the idea that political differences could be settled with violence. |
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Term
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Definition
| A roving paramilitary band of students, immobilized soldiers, and others that were formed to suppress the workers’ councils and demonstrators who were thought of as extremely inhumane. Members of the Freikorps hunted down Karl Liebknecht & Rosa Luxemburg and murdered them. |
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Term
| Georges Clemenceau & David Lloyd George(871) |
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Definition
| In order to satisfy angry citizens, the Paris Peace Conference opened in January 1919. Leaders such as French premier Georges Clemenceau demanded revenge, or at the very least, compensation for their suffering in the war. Great Britain’s representative, Prime Minister David Lloyd George, caught the mood of the British public by campaigning in 1918 with slogans such as “Hang the Kaiser”. |
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Term
| Woodrow Wilson & Fourteen Points(871-873) |
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Definition
| Woodrow Wilson drew together the Fourteen Points on which the truce had been based, was steeped in the language of freedom and called for open diplomacy, arms reduction, and the right for nationalities to have their own government. However these conditions did not satisfy the allies and many citizens demanded a harsh peace. It went so far as to some military experts believed that Germany was using the armistice only to regroup for more warfare. |
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Term
| The Treaty of Versailles & Article 231(873-874) |
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Definition
| The Treaty of Versailles with Germany was the centerpiece of the Peace of Paris. Wilson accepted his allies’ expectations that Germany would pay substantial reparations for civilian damage during war, reduce its army, almost eliminate its navy, stop manufacturing offensive weapons, deliver a large amount of free coal each year to Belgium and France, forbidden to have an air force, and had to give up its colonies. Article 231 also stated that Germany had to take “responsibility” for damage “imposed….by the aggression of Germany and her allies.” |
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Term
| Weimar Republic(871, 875) |
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Definition
| The parliamentary republic was established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government. In 1921, as an experiment in democracy, the republic needed to woo the citizenry, not alienate it by hiking taxes. When the Germans refused to present a realistic payment scheme, the French occupied several cities in Ruhr until a settlement was reached. |
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Term
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Definition
| Embroiled with powers to the west, the German government deftly turned to eastern Europe. It reached an agreement to foster economic ties with Russia desperate for western trade, in the Treaty of Rapallo. |
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Term
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Definition
| In 1923, after Germany defaulted on coal deliveries, the French and Belgians sent troops into Ruhr, planning to use its abundant resources to recoup their wartime expenditures. Urged on by the government, Ruhr citizens fought back, shutting down industry by staying home from work. |
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Term
| Dawes Plan & Young Plan(875) |
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Definition
| The Dawes Plan (1924) and the Young Plan (1929) reduced payments to the victors and restored the value of German currency. Nonetheless, the inflation had wreaked enduring psychological chaos, wiped out people’s savings, and ruined those living on fixed incomes. |
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Term
| Washington Conference(875) |
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Definition
| In Germany’s favor, the Washington Conference was set up in 1921 which included the U.S., G.B., Japan, France, and Italy agreeing to reduce their number of battleships and to stop constructing new ones for ten years. |
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Term
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Definition
| In 1925, the League of Nations sponsored a meeting of the great powers, including Germany, at Locarno, Switzerland. The treaty provided Germany with a seat at the League of Nations as of 1926. In return, Germany agreed not to violate the borders of France and Belgium and to keep the nearby Rhineland demilitarized. |
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Term
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Definition
| The Kellogg-Briand Pact started out as the Little Entente created in 1920-1921, which was made by Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania. It was created to meet the threat of Germany attempting to regain territory lost to Poland, to form a merger with Austria, or to launch aggression against the states spun off from Austria-Hungary. Between 1924 and 1927, France and Poland allied itself with Little Entente. The major European powers, Japan, and the U.S. also signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), which formally rejected international violence. The nations failed, however, to commit themselves to concrete action to prevent the outbreak. |
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Term
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Definition
| Maimed, disfigured veterans were present everywhere. Some used prostheses; others without limbs were sometimes carried in baskets – hence the expression basket case. |
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Term
| Jazz Age, Roaring Twenties(877) |
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Definition
| Although contemporaries referred to the 1920s as the “Roaring Twenties” and the “Jazz Age,” the sense of cultural release masked the serious problem of restoring social stability and implementing democracy. |
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Term
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Definition
| The economic downturn brought strikes and violence in 1922-1923, and the inability of coalition parliaments to affect economic prosperity led to a coup in 1926 by strongman Jozef Pilsudski. Economic hardship and strong-arm solutions went hand in hand in east-central Europe. |
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Term
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Definition
| A disaffected youth and veteran who led the Brown Shirts and directed the Beer Hall Putsch during the Ruhr occupation of 1923. The Putsch was a launched coup d’état form a beer hall in Munich, but the government troops suppressed it. He spent less than a year in jail for the Putsch ordeal. |
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Term
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Definition
| Bands of disaffected youth and veterans proliferated, among them was a group called the Brown Shirts led by Adolf Hitler. |
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Term
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Definition
| Led by Adolf Hitler and Erich Ludendorff which was held in a beer hall in Munich during the military occupation in Ruhr of 1923. It was a launched coup d’état, but the government suppressed the effort. |
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Term
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Definition
| On May 3, 1926, workers launched a nine-day general strike against wage cuts and dangerous conditions in the mines. The strike prompted unprecedented middle-class resistance. University students, homemakers, and businessmen shut down the strike by driving trains, working on docks, and replacing workers in other jobs. Thus citizens from many walks of life revived the wartime spirit to descend the declining economy. |
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Term
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Definition
| Created by the British government whom refused to recognize the parliament in Ireland. So they sent in the Black and Tans, a volunteer army of demobilized soldiers so called for the color of their uniforms. Terror reigned in Ireland, as both the pro-independence forces and the Black and Tans waged guerrilla warfare, taking hostages, blowing up buildings, and even shooting into crowds and soccer matches. |
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Term
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Definition
| In 1921, British negotiated a treaty. It reversed the Irish declaration of independence and made the Irish Free State a self-governing dominion owing allegiance to the British crown. Northern Ireland gained a separate status. |
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Term
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Definition
| The prewar pattern of mergers and cartels continued after 1918, giving rise to gigantic food-processing firms such as Nestle in Switzerland. Owners of these large manufacturing corporations wielded more financial and political power than entire small countries. By the late 1920’s Europe had overcome the wild economic swings of the immediate postwar years an d was enjoying renewed economic prosperity. |
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Term
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Definition
| Many European businessmen made pilgrimages to Henry Ford’s Detroit assembly line, which by 1929 produced a Ford automobile every ten seconds. Ford touted that the miracle of productivity resulted in a lower cost of living and increased purchasing power for workers. |
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Term
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Definition
| Scientific management sometimes called the science of work, also aimed to raise productivity. American efficiency expert Frederick Taylor developed methods to streamline workers’ tasks and motions for maximum productivity. In theory, increased productivity not only would produce prosperity for all but also would bind workers and management together. |
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Term
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Definition
| Members of all classes had rubbed shoulders in the trenches. The identical, evenly spaced crosses in military cemeteries implied that all the dead were equal, as did the mass “brothers’ graves” as the battlefront, in which rich and poor lay side by side in a single burial pit or the tomb that overlooked Verdun. |
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Term
| Marie Stopes and Theodore van de Velde |
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Definition
| In 1918, the British scientist, Marie Stopes published the best seller Married Love, and in 1927, the wildly successful Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique by Dutch author Theodor van de Velde appeared. Both described sex in rhapsodic terms and offered precise information about birth control and sexual physiology. |
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Term
| D.H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway |
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Definition
| These authors glorified men’s sexual vigor in, respectively, Women in Love, and The Sun Also Rises. Mass cultures focus on heterosexuality encouraged the return to traditional social norms after the gender disorder caused by independent women and troubled masculinity of the prewar and war years. |
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