Unit 12 - World Wars + Depression

• Treaty of Versailles

  1919
• Parties at the Treaty of Versailles

  • Allied powers
  • Central powers
• The "Big Three"

  • US
  • GB
  • France
• The "Big Three" dominated the Treaty of Versailles


  Created massive resentment among less recognized allied powers (Japan, Italy)
• GB's ultimate goal

  To humiliate Germany
• France's goal


  Pay back from war being fought on mostly their land - want colonies, resources, money
• The "Big Three" ignored Japan


  Resentment enough for war and hatred towards "Big Three"
• Treaty of Versailles for Germany

  • Forced to pay war reparations (destroyed economically/financially)
  • "War guilt clause" only Germany forced to sign/admit at all of WW1 is their fault
  • Empire is dismantled (colonies handed over to Japanese, B, F)
  • Set restrictive limits on their military (no navy, no airforce, army has to stay under 100,000 men) keeping them weak/defenseless
• Germany humiliated and crippled by Treaty of Versailles

  Anger soon harnessed by Hitler and the Nazis in 1930s (promised to overturn/tear treaty of Versailles)
• League of Nations

  First global peacekeeping organization - goal is to prevent another world war through negotiate peace
• Ottoman and Austrian empires are dissolved - new states are created under idea of "self-determination" - ethnic minorities gain the right to rule themselves
• Promises of "self-determination" creates nationalistic movements in Afro-Eurasian colonies to gain that same privilege
• Main cause of the Great Depression = debt from WW1
• Dominoes of Depression

  1. Cost of War (WW1) - everyone in debt and shambles, US rises to global power

  2. Dependence on American money and goods - euro countries borrowing from US banks

  3. Overproduction and overspending - industries meet saturation points, lay off workers

  4. Overextension of credit - people borrow, go bankrupt

  5. Credit Crunch and Bank Failure - banks increase requirements, small banks fail

  6. Lack of cheap funding leads to Global market Failure - euros crash, colonies affected

  7. US stock market crash in 1929
• National household income worldwide drops by over 50% (late 20s early 30)
• Millions of families lose their homes -> they flood into major cities look for work (destroys cities)
• Overwhelm the social structure of cities - most live in streets in cars, millions starve, crops rot, increase in divorce, mental illness, alcoholism, and suicide + huge drop in birth rates
• Hyperinflation - overprinting of money to pay war debts/loans -> makes many currencies worthless ->by 1928 German dollar bill is basically worthless, 1 US dollar is 17 mill german RM - life savings = empty/disappear - German economy regresses neolithic standards (bartering)
• Unemployment in West hits 20-40%, filters into colonies as demand plummets - massive gov intervention in national economies, abandoned capitalism again
• Leads to massive disenfranchisement and disillusionment with democracy and capitalism as depression continues -> desperate populations turn to other forms of gov for answers/solutions → leads to rise of Totalitarianism (desperate people make desperate choices)
• Totalitarianism


  Ideology/belief that government should control everything - economic, cultural, political - government control all aspects of life
• Disillusionment with democracy and capitalism


  Leads many populations towards totalitarian governments which promise them solutions and restoration of national pride
• Totalitarian government

  The needs of the individual are secondary to needs "the state" - enforces this through propaganda which influences personal beliefs so citizens willingly sacrifice individualism to conform to the "state"
• Totalitarian government enforces control

  1. Writing of laws aimed at collective thinking/action

  2. Limit personal freedom

  3. Government control media to bombard with state-centered propaganda
• Totalitarian government

  • Use of fear/terror to create fully unified state and people (all opposition to state is violently suppressed, political parties and democratic institutions also erased)
  • Forced labor camps (those who resist are used as slave laborers), prisons courts and secret police are common (suppress quietly in private) → creates atmosphere of fear (people conform rather than risk death, refusal = state-approved terrorism
• Economic crisis

  Pulls people toward this type of centralized government - constant reassure with propaganda, respond to economic problems, pulls state out of depression with government intervention
• Fascism


  A system of government that exploits nationalism to create enthusiasm for greater government control – creates a sense of national pride (based on cultural/racial superiority) to exploit this pride/greatness of the past to create image of "the people"
• Fascist state

  The state is an extension of the people, doing what's best for "the people" (state does not govern or rule over you just does what's best for you) – any opposition to government is seen as opposition to the people (because people and state are one)
• Causes of WW2

  • End of WW1 (Treaty of Versailles)
  • Response to German, Italian and Japanese aggressive military expansion (war of imperialism)
  • Fought over land/resources (German and Japanese think land and resources held by others they see as inferior)
  • War of extermination (cultural/racial overtones, brutal invasion showing racial/ethnic hatred)
  • War of ideologies (Fascism and Communism)
• Lebensraum


  German concept of needing more land and resources for the German people
• Nazis saw the Soviet Union as part of the mortal enemy of Communism that needed to be exterminated
• Causes of Japanese aggression in Asia

  • Anger and resentment at treatment by the West
  • Desperate need for resources to supply expanding population
  • Resent treatment by "big three" powers
• Japan embarked on a conquest of land and resources in East Asia, seeing other Asian nations as uncivilized and in need of enlightenment
• US imposes scrap iron and oil embargoes on Japan


  Japan responds by attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941
• Causes of the war in Europe

  • Hitler/Nazi "lebensraum" ideology (Germans are racially superior Aryans entitled to land/resources of inferior people/Slavs)
  • Nazis rebuild Germany and military to test Britain, France, and Soviet Union
  • Policy of "appeasement" by Britain and France
• Nazi Germany's expansion in Europe

  1. 1934 - Rebuild navy, air force, and army

  2. 1938 - Annex Austria and German-speaking Czechoslovakia

  3. 1939 - Sign non-aggression pact with Soviet Union, then conquer Poland with "blitzkrieg" tactics

  4. 1940 - Conquer Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and France
• Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941

  Initially successful with "blitzkrieg" tactics, but stalled by winter and Soviet counterattack
• After Pearl Harbor, Germany declares war on the US


  US arms flow into Britain, leading to massive submarine warfare in the Atlantic
• American and Soviet troops push from the west and east, leading to Germany's surrender in May 1945
• Imperial Japan

  • Partially totalitarian and fascist
  • Power in military oligarchy
  • Opponents are arrested and sent for re-education (secret police enforced labor camps)
  • Harness/exploit Japanese peoples feelings of racial inferiority + resentment towards Big Three (want New Asian Order)
  • Hyper-nationalistic links to samurai past and Code of Bushido (reawakening of honor/duty for the people)
  • Propaganda used to unify people with opposition towards West (emphasized military and NAO)