UNIT 7

• The Ottoman


  • Young Turks began to take over and overthrew the sultans
  • Implemented several reforms to "modernize" the empire
  • Several ethnic minorities were discriminated
• Ottoman reforms


  1. Secularization of schools & law codes

  2. Establishment of political elections

  3. Imposition of turkish language
• Young Turks implementing nationalistic policies through reforms

  Alienated many other minorities within the empire, leading to their own waves of nationalism which further fractured the empire
• The Russian Revolution


  • Growing middle class and working class began to resent Tsar Nicholas
  • 1905 Russian Revolution led to Bloody Sunday where workers revolted against the Tsar
  • WWI and continued industrialization difficulties led to the 1917 Russian Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks
• Bloody Sunday


  1. Workers revolted against the Tsar due to terrible factory conditions

  2. Tsar led his forces to stop the revolts, leading to killings
• Collapse of Qing China

  • Taiping Rebellion put down by Qing authorities at great cost
  • Losses in Opium Wars and Sino-Japanese War showed China was no match for industrialized powers
  • Boxer Rebellion had to be put down by foreign powers as China was too broke to stop it
• The Mexican Revolution


  • Mexico was ruled by a dictator
  • Massive peasant armies fought against the dictator
  • 1917 Mexican Revolution ended with peasants winning reforms that implemented and justified their rights
• Total war


  New military technologies made WWI one of the deadliest wars in human history
• Propaganda


  Used to promote nationalism
• Total war strategies


  1. Generals realized victory usually came to the first mover and those who leveled the most spirited attacks

  2. French and British tried this but were killed quickly, leading to trench warfare

  3. Trench warfare led to years of stalemates with mounting casualties

  4. Imperial powers began using colonial troops
• Germany thought they would win the war


  Kept spending money on military equipment
• German government began printing more money

  Value of the German market plummeted, leading to hyperinflation
• Germany unable to pay war debts to Britain and France


  Britain and France struggled to repay their own debts to the United States
• Soviet Union not paying back their own debt


  Due to the Russian Revolution
• Colonial governments suffered


  Due to depending on the economies of their parent countries
• Lenin's New Economic Policy


  Introduced new limited free market principles, with biggest institutions remaining under state control
• Stalin's Five Year Plan

  Aimed to multiply Soviet industrial capacity by five years
• Stalin's collectivization of agriculture

  1. Merged small privately owned farms into large, state-owned collective farms

  2. Wealthier "kulak" farmers who resisted were imprisoned or executed

  3. Peasant farmers who took over were less productive, leading to agricultural decline and famines
• The Great Depression


  Stock market crash was bad for European countries dependent on the US economy
• Roosevelt's New Deal


  1. Put people to work on infrastructure projects

  2. Introduced government-sponsored retirement program

  3. Created government medical insurance for elderly and children
• The Mandate System


  • Divided the Ottoman Empire territory into 3 parts, with Middle Eastern territories becoming League of Nations mandates
  • Classified into 3 tiers - Class C (smallest population, least developed, treated as colonies), Class B (larger populations, underdeveloped), and Class A (large populations, sufficiently developed for independence but not given it)
• Japan's expansion


  • Invaded Manchuria for natural resources to fuel industrialization
  • Left the League of Nations and continued to take over China and the Pacific
• Colonial resistance


  • Indian National Congress petitioned for greater self-rule in India
  • African National Congress dedicated to obtaining equal rights for colonial subjects in South Africa, influenced by pan-Africanism
• Germany's resentment from the Treaty of Versailles


  Europeans kept attacking them economically, militarily, and territorially
• Italy not given promised territorial land

  Led to Italy, Germany, and Japan deciding to expand imperial rule
• Policy of appeasement


  Gave Hitler more power as Britain did not want to provoke another world war
• Fascism and totalitarianism


  Ideologies of Italy, Japan, and Germany
• Hitler's policies


  1. Cancelling reparation payments

  2. Remilitarizing Germany

  3. Territorial expansion (Lebensraum)

  4. Eliminating "impure" races (Jews, disabled, Black people)
• Hitler's invasion of Poland


  Caused WWII to start
• WWII propaganda


  Used to provoke nationalism, demonize enemies, and sow fear to assemble massive armies and keep civilians sacrificing on the home front
• Fascism


  Glorification of the state, use of militaristic means, serving the interests of the state
• Communism


  Soviet economy, rapid industrialization through Five Year Plans, brutal and unflinching demands in service of the war
• Democracy


  Propaganda dubbed WWII a "people's war", government promised expansion of welfare
• Repression of freedom


  1. Japanese Americans forced into internment camps out of fear

  2. Jews forced into ghettos, killed, or sent to concentration camps
• Blitzkrieg


  A shock and awe strategy that aimed to eliminate the enemy with incredible speed
• Firebombing


  Meant to fall on urban areas to start fires in the region
• Atomic bomb


  Used on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, part of the reason for Japan's surrender
• Two world wars resulted in around 120 million deaths, with 50% being civilian deaths
• New technologies like aerial warfare (firebombing, atomic bomb) contributed to mass atrocities
• Extremist political ideologies also contributed to mass atrocities