IMPERIALISM BY GERMANY AND AFRICA

NEGOTIATIONS AMONG THE great powers had been going on for weeks. Anguished messages had  been exchanged between Berlin, Vienna, and Saint Petersburg as the crowned heads of three  empires—William II of Germany, Francis Joseph of Austria, and Nicholas II of Russia—alternated  between threats and appeals as they sought to avoid the outbreak of all-out war in Europe. Their  efforts were in vain: on August 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. Three days later, France  and Great Britain had entered the fray. In London, British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey remarked  sorrowfully to an acquaintance: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit  again in our lifetime.”1 As it turned out, his comment was all too prescient. A century of peace and  progress was about to come to an end in four years of bloody conflict on the battlefields of Europe.  The continent would take more than a generation to recover from the slaughter. CRITICAL THINKING  Q For years, historians have debated the underlying reasons for the outbreak of World War I. Based  on the information available to you, what do you think caused the war? The Coming of War The new  century had dawned on a much brighter note. To some contemporaries, the magnificent promise  offered by recent scientific advances and the flowering of the Industrial Revolution appeared about  to be fulfilled. Few expressed this mood of optimism better than the renowned British historian  Arnold Toynbee. In a retrospective look at the opening of a tumultuous century written many years  later, Toynbee remarked: [We had expected] that life throughout the world would become more  rational, more humane, and more democratic and that, slowly, but surely, political democracy would  produce greater social justice. We had also expected that the progress of science and technology  would make mankind richer, and that this increasing wealth would gradually spread from a minority  to a majority. We had expected that all this would happen peacefully. In fact we thought that  mankind's course was set for an earthly paradise.2 Such bright hopes for the future of humankind  were sadly misplaced. In the summer of 1914, simmering rivalries between the major imperialist  powers erupted into full-scale war. By the time it ended, Europe had suffered extensive physical  destruction and the deaths of millions. Several venerable empires across the continent were in a  state of collapse, and the rising power of nationalism appeared unstoppable. The Great War, as it  came to be called, was an eerie prelude to a tumultuous century marked by widespread violence and  dramatic change. Rising Tensions in Europe Between 1871 and 1914, Europeans experienced a long  period of peace as the great powers sought to maintain a fragile balance of power in an effort to  avert the reemergence of the destructive forces unleashed during the Napoleonic era. But rivalries  among the major world powers continued, and even intensified, leading to a series of crises that  might have erupted into a general war. Some of these crises, as we have seen in Chapters 2 and 3,  took place outside Europe, as the imperialist nations scuffled for advantage in the race for new  colonial territories. But the main focus of European statesmen remained on Europe itself, where the  emergence of Germany as the most powerful state on the Continent threatened to upset the fragile  balance of power that had been established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Fearful of a possible  anti-German alliance between France and Russia, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck signed a  defensive treaty with Austria in 1879. Three years later, the alliance was enlarged to include Italy,  which was angry with the French over conflicting colonial ambitions in North Africa. The so-called  Triple Alliance of 1882 committed the three powers to support the existing political and social order  while maintaining a defensive alliance against France. While Bismarck was chancellor, German  policy had been essentially cautious, as he sought to prevent rival powers from conspiring against  Berlin. But in 1890 Emperor William II dismissed the “iron chancellor” from office and embarked on a  more aggressive foreign policy dedicated to providing Germany with its rightful “place in the sun.” As  Bismarck had feared, France and Russia responded by concluding a military alliance in 1894. By 

1907, a loose confederation of Great Britain, France, and Russia—known as the Triple Entente—stood  opposed to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Europe was divided into two  opposing camps that became more and more inflexible and unwilling to compromise. The stage was  set for war. Crisis in the Balkans, 1908–1913 The dispute that led to world war began in the Balkans,  where the decline of Ottoman power had turned the region into a tinderbox of ethnic and religious  tensions. In 1908, Austria decided to annex its two protectorates of Bosnia and Herzegovina to  prevent them from being seized by neighboring Serbia, whose leaders had visions of creating a large  kingdom that would include most of the southern Slavic-speaking peoples. When Russia backed its  protégé Serbia, Germany announced its support of Austria. The standoff ended when Russia backed  down, but tensions within the Balkans had intensified, leading in 1912 and 1913 to a brief and  inconclusive struggle for territory among the newly independent states in the region (see Map 4.1).  In the meantime, Great Britain and France drew closer to Saint Petersburg. MAP 4.1 Europe in 1914.  By 1914, two alliances dominated Europe: the Triple Entente of Britain, France, and Russia and the  Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Russia sought to bolster fellow Slavs in  Serbia, whereas Austria-Hungary was intent on increasing its power in the Balkans and thwarting  Serbia's ambitions. Thus, the Balkans became the flash point for World War I. Which nonaligned  nations were positioned between the two alliances? The Outbreak of War By now Austrian officials in  Vienna had become convinced that Serbia was a mortal threat to their empire and must be crushed.  When Archduke Francis Ferdinand (the heir to the Austrian throne) and his wife, Sophia, were  assassinated on June 28, 1914, in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo by a Serbian terrorist organization,  the Austrian government issued an ultimatum to Serbia. The demands were so extreme that Serbia  felt it had little choice but to reject them in order to preserve its sovereignty. Austria then declared  war on Serbia on July 28. Still smarting from its humiliation in the Bosnian crisis of 1908, Russia was  determined to support Serbia's cause. On July 28, Tsar Nicholas II ordered a partial mobilization of  the Russian army against Austria (see the box on p. 73). The Russian general staff informed the tsar  that their mobilization plans were based on a war against both Germany and Austria simultaneously.  They could not execute a partial mobilization without creating chaos in the army. Consequently, the  Russian government ordered a full mobilization on July 29, knowing that the Germans would  consider this an act of war against them. Germany responded by demanding that the Russians halt  their mobilization within twelve hours. When the Russians ignored the ultimatum, Germany declared  war on Russia on August 1. The World at War Before 1914, many political leaders had become  convinced that war entailed so many political and economic risks that it was not worth fighting.  Others believed that “rational” diplomats could control any situation and prevent the outbreak of war.  At the beginning of August 1914, both of these illusions were shattered, but the new illusions that  replaced them soon proved to be equally foolish. Illusions and Stalemate, 1914–1915 Europeans  went to war in 1914 with remarkable enthusiasm. Government propaganda had been successful in  stirring up national antagonisms before the war. Now, in August 1914, the urgent pleas of  governments for defense against aggressors fell on receptive ears in every belligerent nation. Most  people seemed genuinely convinced that their nation's cause was just. A new set of illusions also  fed the enthusiasm for war. In August 1914, almost everyone believed that because of the risk of  damage to the regional economy, the war would be over in a few weeks. People were reminded that  the major battles in European wars since 1815 had in fact ended in a matter of weeks. Both the  soldiers who exuberantly boarded the trains for the war front in August 1914 and the jubilant citizens  who bombarded them with flowers as they departed believed that the warriors would be home by  Christmas. German hopes for a quick end to the war rested on a military gamble. The so-called 

Schlieffen Plan (named after its creator, Alfred von Schlieffen, the German Chief of Staff from 1891  to 1905) had called for the German army to proceed through Belgium into northern France with a  vast encircling movement that would sweep around Paris and surround most of the French army.  But the high command had not heeded Schlieffen's advice to place sufficient numbers of troops on  the western salient near the English Channel to guarantee success, and the German advance was  halted only 20 miles from Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (September 6–10). The war quickly  turned into a stalemate as neither the Germans nor the French could dislodge the other from the  trenches they had begun to dig for shelter. Two lines of trenches soon extended from the English  Channel to the frontiers of Switzerland (see Map 4.2). The Western Front had become bogged down  in trench warfare that kept both sides immobilized in virtually the same positions for four years. THE  WAR IN THE EAST German strategists had counted on achieving a rapid victory on the Western  Front before launching their offensive against Russia. But the unexpected success of the French  changed the equation. At the beginning of the war, the Russian army moved into eastern Germany  but was decisively defeated at the Battles of Tannenberg on August 30 and the Masurian Lakes on  September 15. The Russians were no longer a threat to German territory. The Austrians, Germany's  allies, fared less well initially. After they were defeated by the Russians in Galicia and thrown out of  Serbia as well, the Germans came to their aid. A German-Austrian army defeated and routed the  poorly equipped Russian army in Galicia and pushed the Russians back 300 miles into their own  territory. Russian casualties stood at 2.5 million killed, captured, or wounded; the Russians had  almost been knocked out of the war. Buoyed by their success, the Germans and Austrians, joined by  the Bulgarians in September 1915, attacked and eliminated Serbia from the war. The Great  Slaughter, 1916–1917 The successes in the east enabled the Germans to move back to the  offensive in the west. The early trenches dug in 1914 had by now become elaborate systems of  defense. Both lines of trenches were protected by barbed-wire entanglements 3 to 5 feet high and 30  yards wide, concrete machine-gun nests, and mortar batteries, supported farther back by heavy  artillery. Troops lived in holes in the ground, separated from the enemy by a no-man's land.After  Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914, Russian support of Serbia and German support of  Austria threatened to escalate the conflict in the Balkans into a wider war. As we can see in these  last-minute telegrams between the Russians and Germans (known as the “Willy-Nicky letters”), the  rigidity of the military war plans on both sides made it difficult to avoid a confrontation once the  process got under way. Communications Between Berlin and Saint Petersburg on the Eve of World  War I Emperor William II to Tsar Nicholas II, July 28, 10:45 P.M. I have heard with the greatest anxiety  of the impression which is caused by the action of Austria-Hungary against Servia [Serbia]. The  inscrupulous agitation which has been going on for years in Servia has led to the revolting crime of  which Archduke Franz Ferdinand has become a victim…. Doubtless You will agree with me that both  of us, You as well as I, and all other sovereigns, have a common interest to insist that all those who  are responsible for this horrible murder shall suffer their deserved punishment…. Your most sincere  and devoted friend and cousin (Signed) WILHELM Tsar Nicholas II to Emperor William II, July 29, 1  P.M. I am glad that you are back in Germany. In this serious moment I ask You earnestly to help me.  An ignominious war has been declared against a weak country and in Russia the indignation which I  fully share is tremendous. I fear that very soon I shall be unable to resist the pressure exercised  upon me and that I shall be forced to take measures which will lead to war. To prevent a calamity as  a European war would be, I urge You in the name of our old friendship to do all in Your power to  restrain Your ally from going too far. (Signed) NICOLAS Emperor William II to Tsar Nicholas II, July  29, 6:30 P.M. I have received Your telegram and I share Your desire for the conservation of peace. 

However: I cannot—as I told You in my first telegram—consider the action of Austria-Hungary as an  “ignominious war.” Austria-Hungary knows from experience that the promises of Servia as long as  they are merely on paper are entirely unreliable…. I believe that a direct understanding is possible and  desirable between Your Government and Vienna, an understanding which—as I have already  telegraphed You—my Government endeavors to aid with all possible effort. Naturally military  measures by Russia, which might be construed as a menace by Austria-Hungary, would accelerate a  calamity which both of us desire to avoid and would undermine my position as mediator  which—upon Your appeal to my friendship and aid—I willingly accepted. (Signed) WILHELM Emperor  William II to Tsar Nicholas II, July 30, 1 A.M. My Ambassador has instructions to direct the attention  of Your Government to the dangers and serious consequences of a mobilization. I have told You the  same in my last telegram. Austria-Hungary has mobilized only against Servia, and only a part of her  army. If Russia, as seems to be the case, according to Your advice and that of Your Government,  mobilizes against Austria-Hungary, the part of the mediator with which You have entrusted me in  such friendly manner and which I have accepted upon Your express desire, is threatened if not made  impossible. The entire weight of decision now rests upon Your shoulders; You have to bear the  responsibility for war or peace. (Signed) WILHELM German Chancellor to German Ambassador at  Saint Petersburg, July 31, URGENT In spite of negotiations still pending and although we have up to  this hour made no preparations for mobilization, Russia has mobilized her entire army and navy,  hence also against us. On account of these Russian measures, we have been forced, for the safety  of the country, to proclaim the threatening state of war, which does not yet imply mobilization.  Mobilization, however, is bound to follow if Russia does not stop every measure of war against us  and against Austria-Hungary within 12 hours, and notifies us definitely to this effect. Please to  communicate this at once to M. Sazonoff and wire hour of communication. Based on these  telegrams, what was the chief issue that led to the outbreak of war? Was Emperor William II correct  when he told Tsar Nicholas II that the latter would “have to bear the responsibility for war or peace”?  SOURCE: The Western World: From 1700, Vol. II, by W. E. Adams, R. B. Barlow, G. R. Kleinfeld, and R.  D. Smith (Dodd, Mead, and Co., 1968), pp. 421–442. MAP 4.2 World War I, 1914–1918. This map  shows how greatly the Western and Eastern Fronts of World War I differed. After initial German gains  in the west, the war became bogged down in trench warfare, with little change in the battle lines  throughout the war. The Eastern Front was marked by considerable mobility, with battle lines shifting  by hundreds of miles. How do you explain the difference in the two fronts? The unexpected  development of trench warfare baffled military leaders who had been trained to fight wars of  movement and maneuver. Taking advantage of the recent American invention of the Caterpillar  tractor, the British introduced tanks on the Western Front in 1915, but their effectiveness in breaking  through enemy defenses was not demonstrated. The only plan generals could devise was to attempt  a breakthrough by throwing masses of men against enemy lines that had first been battered by  artillery barrages. Periodically, the high command on either side would order an offensive that would  begin with an artillery barrage to flatten the enemy's barbed wire and leave the enemy in a state of  shock. After “softening up” the enemy in this fashion, a mass of soldiers would climb out of their  trenches with fixed bayonets and hope to work their way toward the opposing trenches. The attacks  rarely worked, as the machine gun put hordes of men advancing unprotected across open fields at a  severe disadvantage. In 1916 and 1917, millions of young men were sacrificed in the search for the  elusive breakthrough. In ten months at Verdun in 1916, 700,000 men lost their lives over a few miles  of terrain. The Horrors of War. The slaughter of millions of men in the trenches of World War I  created unimaginable horrors for the participants. For the sake of survival, many soldiers learned to 

harden themselves against the stench of decomposing bodies and the sight of bodies horribly  dismembered by artillery barrages. Warfare in the trenches of the Western Front produced  unimaginable horrors. Battlefields were hellish landscapes of barbed wire, shell holes, mud, and  injured and dying men (see the box on p. 76). The introduction of poison gas in 1915 produced new  forms of injuries, but the first aerial battles were a rare sideshow and gave no hint of the horrors to  come with air warfare in the future. Soldiers in the trenches also lived with the persistent presence of  death. Since combat went on for months, soldiers had to carry on in the midst of countless dead  bodies and the remains of men dismembered by artillery barrages. Many soldiers remembered the  stench of decomposing bodies and the swarms of rats that grew fat in the trenches. At one point,  battlefield conditions became so bad that units of the French army erupted in open mutiny. The high  command responded by carrying out widespread executions of suspected ringleaders. The Widening  of the War As the war settled into a long, grueling struggle that consumed almost the entire  continent, its tentacles began to stretch into other parts of the world as well. Faced with high  casualties on the battlefield, the major imperialist countries began to recruit troops from their  colonies to serve on the front lines. Punjabis and Gurkhas from India, Zouaves from North Africa,  Cossacks from Central Asia, and infantry units from Australia and New Zealand fought side by side  with their European counterparts. Thousands of others, mainly from Africa and French Indochina,  served in factories to replace workers who had been drafted into military service. The Middle East, in  particular, became an important front in the war. The German war planners had hoped that the  Ottoman Empire, as an influential force in the Middle East, could be persuaded to conduct a holy war  that would eliminate British and French influence throughout the region, especially in the oil-rich  Arabian peninsula. The Turks, always suspicious of the Russians, did agree to enter the war on the  German side, causing the British to launch a disastrous attack at Gallipoli, south of Constantinople,  in 1915. But Berlin had miscalculated. In 1917, the dashing but eccentric British adventurer T. E.  Lawrence (1888–1935), popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia, incited Arab princes to revolt  against their Ottoman overlords (see the Film & History feature on p. 78). In 1918, British forces from  Egypt destroyed the rest of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. For these campaigns, the British  mobilized forces from India, Australia, and New Zealand. The Allies (Britain, France, Russia, and their  allies) also took advantage of Germany's preoccupations in Europe and lack of naval strength to  seize German colonies in Africa. Japan seized a number of German Held islands in the Pacific, and  Australia took over German New Guinea (for further discussion of these events, see Chapter 5). THE  YANKS ARE COMING Most important to the Allied cause was the entry of the United States into the  war. At first, the United States tried to remain neutral, but that became more difficult as the war  dragged on. The naval conflict between Germany and Great Britain was the immediate reason for  U.S. concern. Britain took advantage of its superior naval power to impose a naval blockade on  Germany. The latter retaliated with a counter blockade enforced by unrestricted submarine warfare.  Strong U.S. protests over the German sinking of passenger liners—especially the British ship  Lusitania on May 7, 1915, when more than one hundred Americans lost their lives—forced the  German government to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare to avoid further antagonizing the  Americans. In January 1917, however, German naval officers convinced Emperor William II that the  renewed use of unrestricted submarine warfare could starve the British into submission within five  months. To create a distraction in case the administration of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson should  decide to enter the war on the Allied side, German Foreign Minister Alfred von Zimmerman secretly  encouraged the Mexican government to launch a military attack to recover territories lost to the  United States in the American Southwest.The incredible outpouring of patriotic enthusiasm that 

greeted the declaration of war at the beginning of August 1914 in many European countries  demonstrated the power that nationalistic feeling had attained at the beginning of the twentieth  century. Many Europeans seemingly believed that the war had given them a higher purpose, a  renewed dedication to the greatness of their nation. That sense of enthusiasm was captured by the  Austrian writer Stefan Zweig in his book The World of Yesterday. The reality of war was entirely  different. Soldiers who had left for the front in August 1914 in the belief that they would be home by  Christmas found themselves shivering and dying in the vast networks of trenches along the  battlefront. Few expressed the horror of trench warfare as well as the German writer Erich Maria  Remarque in his famous novel All Quiet on the Western Front, first published in a German newspaper  in 1928. Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday The next morning I was in Austria. In every station  placards had been put up announcing general mobilization. The trains were filled with fresh recruits,  banners were flying, music sounded, and in Vienna I found the entire city in a tumult…. There were  parades in the street, flags, ribbons, and music burst forth everywhere, young recruits were marching  triumphantly, their faces lighting up at the cheering…. And to be truthful, I must acknowledge that  there was a majestic, rapturous, and even seductive something in this first outbreak of the people  from which one could escape only with difficulty. And in spite of all my hatred and aversion for war, I  should not like to have missed the memory of those days. As never before, thousands and hundreds  of thousands felt what they should have felt in peace time, that they belonged together. What did the  great mass know of war in 1914, after nearly half a century of peace? They did not know war, they  had hardly given it a thought. It had become legendary, and distance had made it seem romantic and  heroic. They still saw it in the perspective of their school readers and of paintings in museums;  brilliant cavalry attacks in glittering uniforms, the fatal shot always straight through the heart, the  entire campaign a resounding march of victory—“We'll be home at Christmas,” the recruits shouted  laughingly to their mothers in August of 1914…. A rapid excursion into the romantic, a wild, manly  adventure—that is how the war of 1914 was painted in the imagination of the simple man, and the  younger people were honestly afraid that they might miss this most wonderful and exciting  experience of their lives; that is why they hurried and thronged to the colors, and that is why they  shouted and sang in the trains that carried them to the slaughter; wildly and feverishly the red wave  of blood coursed through the veins of the entire nation. Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the  Western Front We wake up in the middle of the night. The earth booms. Heavy fire is falling on us.  We crouch into corners…. Every man is aware of the heavy shells tearing down the parapet, rooting  up the embankment and demolishing the upper layers of concrete…. Already by morning a few of the  recruits are green and vomiting…. No one would believe that in this howling waste there could still be  men, but steel helmets now appear on all sides out of the trench, and fifty yards from us a  machine-gun is already in position and barking. [Finally the attack begins.] The wire-entanglements  are torn to pieces. Yet they offer some obstacle. We see the storm-troops coming…. We recognize  the distorted faces, the smooth helmets: they are French. They have already suffered heavily when  they reach the remnants of the barbed wire entanglements. I see one of them, his face upturned, fall  into a wire cradle. His body collapses, his hands remain suspended as though he were praying. Then  his body drops clear away and only his hands with the stumps of his arms, shot off, now hang in the  wire. According to Stefan Zweig, why did so many Europeans welcome the outbreak of war in 1914?  Why had they so badly underestimated the cost? SOURCES: From The World of Yesterday by Stefan  Zweig, translated by Helmut Ripperger. Translation copyright 1943 by the Viking Press, Inc. All Quiet  on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Im Westen nichts Neues, copyright 1928 by Ullstein  A. G.; copyright renewed © 1956 by Erich Maria Remarque. All Quiet on the Western Front, copyright 

1929, 1930 by Little, Brown and Company. Copyright renewed © 1957, 1958 by Erich Maria  Remarque. All Rights Reserved. The resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, combined with  outrage over the Zimmerman telegram (which had been decoded by the British and provided to U.S.  diplomats in London), finally brought the United States into the war on April 6, 1917. Although  American troops did not arrive in Europe in large numbers until 1918, the U.S. entry into the war gave  the Allies a badly needed psychological boost. The year 1917 was not a good year for them. Allied  offensives on the Western Front were disastrously defeated. Then, in November 1917, the Bolshevik  Revolution in Russia (see “Revolution in Russia” later in this chapter) led to Russia's withdrawal from  the war, leaving Germany free to concentrate entirely on the Western Front. The Home Front: The  Impact of Total War Because most of the participants had expected the war to be short, they had  given little thought to economic problems and long-term wartime needs. Governments had to  respond quickly, however, when the war machines failed to achieve their knockout blows and made  ever-greater demands for men and matériel. The extension of government power was a logical  outgrowth of these needs. Most European countries had already devised some system of mass  conscription or military draft. It was now carried to unprecedented heights as countries mobilized  tens of millions of young men for that elusive breakthrough to victory. Throughout Europe, wartime  governments also expanded their powers over their economies. Free market capitalistic systems  were temporarily shelved as governments experimented with price, wage, and rent controls; the  rationing of food supplies and matériel; the regulation of imports and exports; and the  nationalization of transportation systems and industries. Some governments even moved toward  compulsory employment. In effect, to mobilize the entire resources of the nation for the war effort,  European countries had moved toward planned economies directed by government agencies.  WOMEN IN WORLD WAR I The war also created new roles for women. Because so many men went  off to fight at the front, women were called on to take over jobs and responsibilities that had not  been available to them before. Overall, the number of women employed in Britain who held new jobs  or replaced men rose by 1,345,000. Their occupations included chimney sweeps, truck drivers, farm  laborers, and factory workers in heavy industry. By 1918, some 38 percent of the workers in the  Krupp armaments factories in Germany were women. While male workers expressed concern that  the employment of females at lower wages would depress their own wages, women began to  demand equal pay legislation. A law passed by the French government in July 1915 established a  minimum wage for women home-workers in textiles, an industry that had grown dramatically thanks  to the demand for military uniforms. Later in 1917, the government decreed that men and women  should receive equal rates for piecework. Despite the noticeable increase in women's wages that  resulted from government regulations, women's industrial wages still were not equal to men's wages  by the end of the war. MORALE PROBLEMS As the Great War dragged on and both casualties and  privations worsened, internal dissatisfaction replaced the patriotic enthusiasm that had marked the  early stages of the conflict. By 1916, there were numerous signs that civilian morale was beginning  to crack under the pressure of total war. War governments, however, fought back against the  growing opposition to the war, as even parliamentary regimes resorted to an expansion of police  powers to stifle internal dissent. At the very beginning of the war, the British Parliament passed the  Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), which allowed the public authorities to arrest dissenters as  traitors. The act was later extended to authorize public officials to censor newspapers by deleting  objectionable material and even to suspend newspaper publication. In France, government  authorities had initially been lenient about public opposition to the war, but by 1917, they began to  fear that open opposition to the war might weaken the French will to fight. When Georges 

Clemenceau (1841–1929) became premier near the end of 1917, the lenient French policies came to  an end, and basic civil liberties were suppressed for the duration of the war. When a former premier  publicly advocated a negotiated peace, Clemenceau's government had him sentenced to prison for  two years for treason. The Last Year of the War For Germany, the withdrawal of the Russians from  the war in March 1918 offered renewed hope for a favorable end to the conflict. Erich von  Ludendorff (1865–1937), who guided German military operations, persuaded civilian leaders to  make one final gamble—a grand offensive in the west to break the military stalemate. The German  attack was launched in March and lasted into July, but an Allied counterattack, supported by the  arrival of 140,000 fresh American troops, defeated the Germans at the Second Battle of the Marne  on July 18. Ludendorff's gamble had failed. With the arrival of 2 million more American troops on the  Continent, Allied forces began to advance steadily toward Germany. FILM & HISTORY Lawrence of  Arabia (1962) The conflict in the Middle East produced one of the great romantic heroes of World  War I. T. E. Lawrence, a British army officer popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia, organized Arab  tribesmen and led them in battle against the Ottoman Turks, who had become allies of the Central  Powers (Germany and its allies). Although the military significance of Lawrence's exploits was  limited, their long-term implications for the region were enormous. During the peace negotiations  that followed the German surrender in November 1918, most Ottoman possessions in the Middle  East were replaced by British and French mandates, while the Arabian peninsula embarked on the  road to independence under the tribal chieftain Ibn Saud. The political implications of that  settlement are still important today. The movie Lawrence of Arabia (1962), directed by the great  British filmmaker David Lean, won seven Oscars and made an instant star of actor Peter O'Toole,  who played the eccentric Lawrence with mesmerizing perfection. The photography and the acting  are both superb, and Lean's deft portrayal of the behavior and motives of all participants makes the  lengthy film (more than three hours) essential viewing for those interested in comprehending the  complex roots of the current situation in the Middle East. British objectives, as voiced by the British  general Viscount Edmund Allenby (played by the veteran actor Jack Hawkins), were unabashedly  military in nature—use Arab unrest in the region as a means of taking the Ottomans out of the war.  Arab leaders such as Prince Faisal—languidly played by the consummate actor Alec  Guinness—openly sought their independence from Turkish rule, but initially appeared hopelessly  divided. It was Major Lawrence who provided the spark and the determination to knit together a  coalition of Arab forces capable of winning crucial victories in the final year of the war. Faisal  himself would eventually be chosen by the British to become the king of the artificial state of Iraq. T.  E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole in white) at the head of the Arab tribes. Lawrence himself remains an  enigma—in the movie as in real life. Combining a fervent idealism about the Arab cause with an  overweening sense of self-promotion, he played to the end an ambiguous role in the geopolitics of  the Middle East. Disenchanted with the postwar peace settlement, he eventually removed himself  from the public eye and died in a motorcycle accident in 1935. On September 29, 1918, General  Ludendorff informed German leaders that the war was lost and demanded that the government sue  for peace. When German officials discovered that the Allies were unwilling to make peace with the  wartime leadership, reforms were instituted to create a liberal government. But these constitutional  reforms came too late for the exhausted and restive German people. On November 3, naval units in  Kiel mutinied, and within days, councils of workers and soldiers were forming throughout northern  Germany and taking over civilian and military administrations. William II, bowing to public pressure,  abdicated on November 9, and the Socialists under Friedrich Ebert (1871–1925) announced the  establishment of a republic. Two days later, on November 11, 1918, the new German government 

agreed to an armistice. The war was over. The final tally of casualties from the war was appalling.  Nearly 10 million soldiers were dead, including 5 million on the Allied side and 3.5 million from the  Central Powers. Civilian deaths were nearly as high. France, which had borne much of the burden of  the war, suffered nearly 2 million deaths, including one out of every four males between eighteen and  thirty years of age. Seeking Eternal Peace In January 1919, the delegations of twenty-seven  victorious Allied nations gathered at the palace of Versailles near Paris to conclude a final  settlement of the Great War. Some delegates hoped that this conference would avoid the mistakes  made at Vienna in 1815 by aristocrats who rearranged the map of Europe to meet the selfish desires  of the great powers. As Harold Nicolson, one of the British delegates, remarked: “We were journeying  to Paris not merely to liquidate the war, but to found a New Order in Europe. We were preparing not  Peace only, but Eternal Peace. There was about us the halo of some divine mission…. For we were  bent on doing great, permanent and noble things.”3 The Vision of Woodrow Wilson National  expectations, however, made Nicolson's quest for “eternal peace” a difficult one. Over the years, the  reasons for fighting World War I had been transformed from selfish national interests to idealistic  principles. No one expressed the latter better than Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924). The American  president outlined to the U.S. Congress “Fourteen Points” that he believed justified the enormous  military struggle then being waged. Later, Wilson spelled out additional steps for a truly just and  lasting peace. Wilson's proposals included “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at” instead of  secret diplomacy; the reduction of national armaments to a “point consistent with domestic safety”;  and the self-determination of peoples so that “all well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded  the utmost satisfaction.” Wilson characterized World War I as a people's war waged against  “absolutism and militarism,” two scourges of liberty that could be eliminated only by creating  democratic governments and a “general association of nations” that would guarantee “political  independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.” As the spokesman for a new  world order based on democracy and international cooperation, Wilson was enthusiastically cheered  by many Europeans when he arrived in Europe for the peace conference. Wilson soon found,  however, that other states at the conference were guided by considerably more pragmatic motives.  The secret treaties and agreements that had been made before and during the war could not be  totally ignored, even if they conflicted with Wilson's principle of self-determination. National interests  also complicated the deliberations of the conference. David Lloyd George (1863–1945), prime  minister of Great Britain, had won a decisive electoral victory in December 1918 on a platform of  making the Germans pay for this dreadful war. France's approach to peace was determined primarily  by considerations of national security. To Georges Clemenceau, the feisty French premier who had  led his country to victory, the French people had borne the brunt of German aggression and deserved  security against any possible future attack. Clemenceau wanted a demilitarized Germany, vast  reparations to pay for the costs of the war, and a separate Rhineland as a buffer state between  France and Germany—demands that Wilson viewed as vindictive and contrary to the principle of  national self-determination. The Europeans, he once complained to a colleague, just want to “divide  the swag.”4 Although twenty-seven nations were represented at the Paris Peace Conference, the  most important decisions were made by Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George. Italy was  considered one of the so-called Big Four powers but played a much less important role than the  other three countries. Germany was not invited to attend, and Russia could not because it was  embroiled in civil war. FORMING THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS In view of the many conflicting demands  at Versailles, it was inevitable that the Big Three would quarrel. Wilson was determined to create a  League of Nations to prevent future wars. Clemenceau and Lloyd George were equally determined to 

punish Germany. In the end, only compromise made it possible to achieve a peace settlement. On  January 25, 1919, the conference adopted the principle of the League of Nations (the details of its  structure were left for later sessions); Wilson willingly agreed to make compromises on territorial  arrangements to guarantee the League's establishment, believing that a functioning League could  later rectify bad arrangements. Clemenceau also compromised to obtain some guarantees for  French security. He renounced France's desire for a separate Rhineland and instead accepted a  defensive alliance with Great Britain and the United States, both of which pledged to help France if it  was attacked by Germany. The Peace Settlement The final peace settlement at Paris consisted of  five separate treaties with the defeated nations—Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey.  The Treaty of Versailles with Germany, signed on June 28, 1919, was by far the most important one.  The Germans considered it a harsh peace and were particularly unhappy with Article 231, the  so-called war guilt clause, which declared Germany (and Austria) responsible for starting the war  and ordered Germany to pay reparations for all the damage to which the Allied governments and  their people had been subjected as a result of the war “imposed upon them by the aggression of  Germany and her allies.” The military and territorial provisions of the treaty also rankled the  Germans. Germany was required to lower its army to 100,000 men, reduce its navy, and eliminate its  air force. German territorial losses included the return of Alsace and Lorraine to France and sections  of Prussia to the new Polish state. German territory west and as far as 30 miles east of the Rhine  was established as a demilitarized zone and stripped of all armaments or fortifications to serve as a  barrier to any future German military moves westward against France. Outraged by the “dictated  peace,” the new German government complained but accepted the treaty. The separate peace  treaties made with the other Central Powers extensively redrew the map of eastern Europe (see Map  4.3). Many of these changes merely ratified what the war had already accomplished. Both Germany  and Russia lost considerable territory in eastern Europe; the Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared  altogether. New nation-states emerged from the remnants of these three empires: Finland, Latvia,  Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary. Territorial rearrangements were  also made in the Balkans. Romania acquired additional lands from Russia, Hungary, and Bulgaria.  Serbia formed the nucleus of a new South Slav state, called Yugoslavia, which combined Serbs,  Croats, and Slovenes. The Ottoman Empire was also broken up, remaking the map of the Middle  East (see Chapter 5). Although the Paris Peace Conference was supposedly guided by the principle  of self-determination, the mixtures of peoples in eastern Europe made it impossible to draw  boundaries along neat ethnic lines. Compromises had to be made, sometimes to satisfy the national  interest of the victors. France, for example, had lost Russia as its major ally on Germany's eastern  border and wanted to strengthen Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania as much as  possible so that those states could serve as barriers against Germany and Communist Russia. As a  result of such compromises, virtually every eastern European state was left with national minorities  that could lead to future conflicts: Germans in Poland; Hungarians, Poles, and Germans in  Czechoslovakia; and the combination of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Albanians in  Yugoslavia all became sources of later conflict. Moreover, the new map of eastern Europe was  based on the temporary collapse of power in both Germany and Russia. As neither country accepted  the new eastern frontiers, it seemed only a matter of time before both would seek to make changes.  In retrospect, the fear expressed by U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing that the principle of  self-determination aroused hopes that “can never be realized” seems all too justified. Revolution in  Russia One of the more important consequences of the Great War was the impact that it had on  Imperial Russia. In the summer of 1914, Tsar Nicholas II had almost appeared to welcome the 

prospect of a European war. Such a conflict, he hoped, would unite his subjects at a time when his  empire was passing through a period of rapid social change and political unrest. The imperial  government had survived the popular demonstrations that erupted during the Russo-Japanese War  of 1904–1905, although the tsar had been forced to grant a series of reforms in a desperate effort to  forestall the collapse of the traditional system (see Chapter 1). As it turned out, the onset of war  served not to revive the Russian monarchy, but rather—as is so often the case with decrepit empires  undergoing dramatic change—to undermine its already fragile foundations. World War I halted the  trajectory of Russia's economic growth and set the stage for the final collapse of the old order. After  stirring victories in the early stages of the war, news from the battlefield turned increasingly grim as  poorly armed Russian soldiers were slaughtered by the modern armies of the German emperor.  Between 1914 and 1916, 2 million Russian soldiers were killed, and another 4 to 6 million were  wounded or captured. The conscription of peasants from the countryside caused food prices to rise  and led to periodic bread shortages in the major cities. Workers grew increasingly restive at the  wartime schedule of long hours with low pay and joined army deserters in angry marches through  the capital of Saint Petersburg (now for patriotic reasons renamed Petrograd). MAP 4.3 Territorial  Changes in Europe and the Middle East After World War I. The victorious Allies met in Paris to  determine the shape and nature of postwar Europe. At the urging of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson,  many nationalist aspirations of former imperial subjects were realized with the creation of several  new countries from the prewar territory of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, and the Ottoman  Empire. What new countries emerged in Europe and the Middle East? It was a classic scenario for  revolution—discontent in the big cities fueled by mutinous troops streaming home from the  battlefield and a rising level of lawlessness in rural areas as angry peasants seized land and burned  the manor houses of the wealthy. Even the urban middle class, always a bellwether on the political  scene, grew impatient with the economic crisis and the bad news from the front and began to  question the competence of the tsar and his advisers. In March 1917 (late February according to the  old style Julian calendar still in use in Russia), government troops fired at demonstrators in the  streets of the capital and killed several. An angry mob marched to the Duma, where restive delegates  demanded the resignation of the tsar's cabinet. The March Revolution Nicholas II, whose character  combined the fatal qualities of stupidity and stubbornness, had never wanted to sharethe supreme  power he had inherited. After a brief period of hesitation, he abdicated, leaving a vacuum that was  quickly seized by leading elements in the Duma, who formed a provisional government to steer  Russia through the crisis. On the left, reformist and radical political parties—including the Social  Revolutionaries (the legal successors of the outlawed terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya) and  the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), the only orthodox Marxist party active in  Russia—cooperated in creating a shadow government called the Saint Petersburg Soviet. It  supported the provisional government in pursuing the war but attempted to compel it to grant  economic and social reforms that would benefit the masses. The March 1917 uprising had brought  about the collapse of the monarchy but showed little promise of solving the deeper problems that  had led Russia to the brink of civil war. As the crisis continued, radical members of the RSDLP began  to hope that a social revolution was at hand. Marxism had first appeared in Russia in the 1880s.  Early Marxists, aware of the primitive conditions in their country, asked Karl Marx himself for advice.  The Russian proletariat was oppressed—indeed, brutalized—but small in numbers and  unsophisticated. Could agrarian Russia make the transition to socialism without an intervening  stage of capitalism? Marx, who always showed more tactical flexibility than the rigid determinism of  his system suggested, replied that Russia might be able to avoid the capitalist stage by building on 

the communal traditions of the Russian village, known as the mir. But as Russian Marxism evolved,  its leaders turned more toward Marxist orthodoxy. Founding member George Plekhanov saw signs in  the early stages of its industrial revolution that Russia would follow the classic pattern. In 1898, the  RSDLP held its first congress. LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIKS During the last decade of the  nineteenth century, a new force entered the Russian Marxist movement in the figure of Vladimir  Ulyanov, later to be known as Lenin (1870–1924). Initially radicalized by the execution of his older  brother for terrorism in 1886, he became a revolutionary and a member of Plekhanov's RSDLP. Like  Plekhanov, Lenin believed in the revolution, but he was a man in a hurry. Whereas Plekhanov sought  to prepare patiently for revolution by education and mass work, Lenin wanted to build up the party  rapidly as a vanguard instrument to galvanize the masses and spur the workers to revolt. In a  pamphlet titled What Is to Be Done? he proposed the transformation of the RSDLP into a compact  and highly disciplined group of professional revolutionaries that would not merely ride the crest of  the revolutionary wave but would unleash the storm clouds of revolt. At the Second National  Congress of the RSDLP, held in 1903 in Brussels and London, Lenin's ideas were supported by a  majority of the delegates (thus, the term Bolsheviks, or “majorityites,” for his followers). His victory  was short-lived, however, and for the next decade, Lenin was a brooding figure living in exile on the  fringe of the Russian revolutionary movement, which was now dominated by the Mensheviks  (“minorityites”), who opposed Lenin's single-minded pursuit of violent revolution. Scoffing at his  more cautious rivals, Lenin declared that revolution was “a tough business” and could not be waged  “wearing white gloves and with clean hands.”5 From his residence in exile in Switzerland, Lenin  heard the news of the collapse of the tsarist monarchy and decided to return to Russia. The German  government secretly provided him and his followers with a sealed railroad car to travel through  Germany, undoubtedly in the hope that his presence would promote instability in Russia. On his  arrival in Petrograd in April 1917, Lenin laid out a program for the RSDLP: all power to the soviets  (locally elected government councils), an end to the war, and the distribution of land to poor  peasants. But Lenin's April Theses (see the box on p. 83) were too radical even for his fellow  Bolsheviks, who continued to cooperate with the provisional government while attempting to push it  to the left. His onetime mentor Plekhanov remarked that Lenin's plans for a general uprising were  “delirious.” The Bolshevik Revolution During the summer, the crisis worsened, and in July, riots by  workers and soldiers in the capital led the provisional government to outlaw the Bolsheviks and call  for Lenin's arrest. The “July Days,” raising the threat of disorder and class war, aroused the fears of  conservatives and split the fragile political consensus within the provisional government. In  September, General Lavr Kornilov, commander in chief of Russian imperial forces, launched a coup  d'état to seize power from Alexander Kerensky, now the dominant figure in the provisional  government. The revolt was put down with the help of so-called Red Guard units, formed by the  Bolsheviks within army regiments in the capital area (these troops would later be regarded as the  first units of the Red Army), but Lenin now sensed the weakness of the provisional government and  persuaded his colleagues to prepare for revolt. On the night of November 7 (October 25 old style),  forces under the command of Lenin's lieutenant, Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), seized key installations  in the capital area, while other units loyal to the Bolsheviks, including mutinous sailors from the  battleship Aurora stationed nearby on the Neva River, stormed the Winter Palace, where supporters  of the provisional government were quickly overwhelmed. Alexander Kerensky was forced to flee  from Russia in disguise. All Power to the Soviets! On his return to Petrograd in April 1917, the  revolutionary Marxist Vladimir Lenin issued a series of proposals designed to overthrow the  provisional government and bring his Bolshevik Party to power in Russia. At the time his April 

Theses were delivered, his ideas appeared to be too radical, even for his closest followers. But the  Bolsheviks' simple slogan of “Peace, Land, and Bread” soon began to gain traction on the streets of  the capital. By the end of the year, Lenin's compelling vision had been realized, and the world would  never be the same again. Lenin's April Theses, 1917 1.The specific feature of the present situation in  Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution—which, owing to the  insufficient class-consciousness and organization of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of  the bourgeoisie—to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the  poorest sections of the peasants…. This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt  ourselves to the special conditions of Party work among unprecedentedly large masses of  proletarians who have just awakened to political life…. 2.No support for the Provisional Government:  the utter falsity of all the promises should be made clear, particularly of those relating to the  renunciation of annexations. Exposure in place of the impermissible, illusion-breeding “demand” that  this government of capitalists should cease to be an imperialist government. The masses must be  made to see that the Soviets of Workers' Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary  government, and that therefore our task is, as long as this government yields to the influence of the  bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics,  an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses. As long as we are in the  minority we carry on the work of criticizing and exposing errors and at the same time we preach the  necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers' Deputies, so that the  people may overcome their mistakes by experience. Nationalization of all lands in the country, the  land to be disposed of by the local Soviets of Agricultural Laborers' and Peasants' Deputies. The  organization of separate Soviets of Deputies of Poor Peasants. The setting up of a model farm on  each of the large estates (ranging in size from 100 to 300 dessiatines [about 270 to 810 acres],  according to local and other conditions, and to the decisions of the local bodies) under the control of  the Soviets of Agricultural Laborers' Deputies and for the public account. What were the key  provisions of Lenin's April Theses? To what degree were they carried out?The following morning, at a  national congress of delegates from soviet organizations throughout the country, the Bolsheviks  declared a new socialist order. Moderate elements from the Menshevik faction and the Social  Revolutionary Party protested the illegality of the Bolshevik action and left the conference hall in  anger. They were derided by Trotsky, who proclaimed that they were relegated “to the dustbin of  history.” With the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917, Lenin was now in command. His power  was tenuous and extended only from the capital to a few of the larger cities, such as Moscow and  Kiev, that had waged their own insurrections. There were, in fact, few Bolsheviks in rural areas, where  most peasants supported the moderate leftist Social Revolutionaries. On the fringes of the Russian  Empire, restive minorities prepared to take advantage of the anarchy to seize their own  independence, while supporters of the monarchy began raising armies to destroy the “Red menace”  in Petrograd. Lenin was in power, but for how long? Lenin Addresses a Crowd. Vladimir Lenin was  the driving force behind the success of the Bolsheviks in seizing power in Russia and creating the  Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Here Lenin is seen addressing a rally in Moscow in 1917. THE  BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION IN RETROSPECT The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 has been the subject  of vigorous debate by scholars and students of world affairs. Could it have been avoided if the  provisional government had provided more effective leadership, or was it inevitable? Did Lenin stifle  Russia's halting progress toward a Western-style capitalist democracy, or was the Bolshevik victory  preordained by the autocratic conditions and lack of democratic traditions in Imperial Russia? Such  questions have no simple answers, but some hypotheses are possible. The weakness of the 

moderate government created by the March revolution was probably predictable, given the political  inexperience of the urban middle class and the deep divisions within the ruling coalition over issues  of peace and war. At the same time, it seems highly unlikely that the Bolsheviks would have  possessed the self-confidence to act without the presence of their leader, Vladimir Lenin, who  almost single-handedly employed his strength of will to urge his colleagues to make their bid for  power. The November revolution in Russia is often cited as a cardinal example of the role that a  single individual can sometimes have on the course of history. Without Lenin, it would probably have  been left to the army to intervene in an effort to maintain law and order, as would happen so often  elsewhere during the turbulent twentieth century. In any event, the Bolshevik Revolution was a  momentous development for Russia and for the entire world. Not only did it present Western  capitalist societies with a brazen new challenge to their global supremacy, but it also demonstrated  that Lenin's concept of revolution, carried through at the will of a determined minority of  revolutionary activists “in the interests of the masses,” could succeed in a society going through the  difficult early stages of the Industrial Revolution. It was a repudiation of orthodox “late Marxism” and  a return to Marx's pre-1848 vision of a multiclass revolt leading rapidly from a capitalist to a  proletarian takeover (see Chapter 1). It was, in short, a lesson that would not be ignored by radical  intellectuals throughout the world, as we shall see in the chapter to follow. The Civil War The  Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd (soon to be renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924)  was only the first, and not necessarily the most difficult, stage in the Russian Revolution. Although  the Bolshevik slogan of “Peace, Land, and Bread” had considerable appeal among workers, petty  merchants, and soldiers in the vicinity of the capital and other major cities, the party—only 50,000  strong in November—had little representation in the rural areas, where the majority of the peasants  supported the moderate leftist Social Revolutionary Party. On the fringes of the Russian Empire,  ethnic minority groups took advantage of the confusion in Petrograd to launch movements to  restore their own independence or achieve a position of autonomy within the Russian state. In the  meantime, supporters of the deposed Romanov dynasty and other political opponents of the  Bolsheviks, known as White Russians, attempted to mobilize support to drive the Bolsheviks out of  the capital and reverse the verdict of “Red October.” And beyond all that, the war with Germany  continued. Lenin was aware of these problems and hoped that a wave of socialist revolutions in the  economically advanced countries of central and western Europe would bring the world war to an end  and usher in a new age of peace, socialism, and growing economic prosperity. In the meantime, his  first priority was to consolidate the rule of the working class and its party vanguard (now to be  renamed the Communist Party) in Russia. The first step was to set up a new order in Petrograd to  replace the provisional government that had been created after the March Revolution. For lack of a  better alternative, outlying areas were simply informed of the change in government—a “revolution  by telegraph,” as Leon Trotsky termed it. Then Lenin moved to create new organs of proletarian  power, setting up the Council of People's Commissars (the word “commissar,” Lenin remarked  “smells of revolution”) to serve as a provisional government. Lenin was unwilling to share power with  moderate leftists who had resisted the Bolshevik coup in November, and he created security forces  (popularly called the Cheka, or “extraordinary commission”), which imprisoned and brutally executed  opponents of the new regime. In January 1918, the Constituent Assembly, which had been elected  on the basis of plans established by the previous government, convened in Petrograd. Composed  primarily of delegates from the Social Revolutionary Party and other parties opposed to the  Bolsheviks, it showed itself critical of the new regime and was immediately abolished. Lenin was  determined to prevent the Romanov family from becoming a rallying cry for opponents of the new 

Bolshevik regime. In the spring of 1918, the former tsar and his family were placed under guard in  Ekaterinburg, a small mining town in the Ural Mountains. On the night of July 16, the entire family  was murdered on Lenin's order. The bodies were dropped into a nearby mine shaft. For decades,  rumors persisted that one of Nicholas II's daughters, Anastasia, had survived execution. In foreign  affairs, Lenin's first major decision was to seek peace with Germany in order to permit the new  government to focus its efforts on the growing threat posed by White Russian forces within the  country. In March 1918, a peace settlement with Germany was reached at Brest-Litovsk, although at  enormous cost. Soviet Russia lost nearly one-fourth of the territory and one-third of the population of  the prewar Russian Empire. In retrospect, however, Lenin's controversial decision to accept a  punitive peace may have been a stroke of genius, for it gained time for the regime to build up its  internal strength and defeat its many adversaries still operating in the territories that once  composed the empire of the tsars. Indeed, the odds for a Bolshevik success must have seemed dim  in the immediate aftermath of the seizure of power. Lenin himself initially predicted that defeat was  likely in the absence of successful revolutionary outbreaks elsewhere in Europe. Support for the  Bolsheviks in Russia was limited, and the regime antagonized farmers by the harsh measures it used  to obtain provisions for its troops. Although Leon Trotsky showed traces of genius in organizing the  Red Army, he was forced to station trusted lieutenants as “political commissars” in army units to  guarantee the loyalty of his commanders. In the end, Lenin's gamble that the Russian people were  desperate enough to embrace radical change paid off. The White Russian forces were larger than  those of the Red Army, and they were supported by armed contingents sent by Great Britain, France,  and the United States to assist in the extinction of the “Red menace.” Nevertheless, they were also  rent by factionalism and hindered by a tendency to fight “red terror” with “white terror” and to return  conquered land to the original landowners, thereby driving many peasants to support the Soviet  regime. By 1920, the civil war was over, and Soviet power was secure. The Failure of the Peace In the  years following the end of World War I, many people hoped that the world was about to enter a new  era of international peace, economic growth, and political democracy. In all of these areas, the  optimistic hopes of the 1920s failed to be realized. The Search for Security The peace settlement at  the end of World War I had tried to fulfill the nineteenth-century dream of nationalism by creating  new boundaries and new states out of the now-defunct empires in central and eastern Europe. From  the outset, however, the settlement had left many unhappy. Conflicts over disputed border regions  between Germany and Poland, Poland and Lithuania, Poland and Czechoslovakia, Austria and  Hungary, and Italy and Yugoslavia poisoned mutual relations in eastern Europe for years. Many  Germans viewed the peace of Versailles as a dictated peace and vowed to seek its revision. To its  supporters, the League of Nations was the place to resolve such problems. The League, however,  proved ineffectual in maintaining the peace. One of the reasons for its weakness was the lack of  adequate provisions for enforcement. Because many nations were reluctant to compromise their  own national security, the League could use only economic sanctions to halt aggression. The French  attempt to strengthen the League's effectiveness as an instrument of collective security by creating  a peacekeeping force was rejected by nations that feared giving up any of their sovereignty to a  larger international body. Another reason that the League failed to achieve its promise was that the  United States, where many were disillusioned by the disputes at Versailles, failed to join the new  organization. The U.S. Senate also rejected President Wilson's proposal for a defensive alliance with  Great Britain and France. FRANCE GOES IT ALONE The weakness of the League of Nations and the  failure of both the United States and Great Britain to honor their promise of a defensive military  alliance with France led the latter to insist on a strict enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles. This 

tough policytoward Germany began with the issue of reparations—the payments that the Germans  were supposed to make to compensate for the “damage done to the civilian population of the Allied  and Associated Powers and to their property,” as the treaty asserted. In April 1921, the Allied  Reparations Commission settled on a sum of 132 billion marks ($33 billion) for German reparations,  payable in annual installments of 2.5 billion (gold) marks. Allied threats to occupy the Ruhr valley,  Germany's chief industrial and mining center, induced the new German republic to accept the  reparations settlement and to make its first payment in 1921. By the following year, however, facing  rising inflation, domestic turmoil, and lack of revenues because of low tax rates, the German  government announced that it was unable to pay more. Outraged by what they considered to be  Germany's violation of one aspect of the peace settlement, the French government sent troops to  occupy the Ruhr valley. If the Germans would not pay reparations, the French would collect  reparations in kind by operating and using the Ruhr mines and factories. French occupation of the  Ruhr seriously undermined the fragile German economy. The German government adopted a policy  of passive resistance to French occupation that was largely financed by printing more paper money,  thus intensifying the inflationary pressures that had already begun at the end of the war. The German  mark became worthless. Economic disaster fueled political upheavals as Communists staged  uprisings in October and nationalist elements under the leadership of an as yet little known army  veteran by the name of Adolf Hitler attempted to seize power in Munich in 1923. The following year,  a new conference of experts was convened to reassess the reparations problem. SOLVING THE  REPARATIONS PROBLEM The formation of liberal-socialist governments in both Great Britain and  France opened the door to conciliatory approaches to Germany and the reparations problem. At the  same time, a new German government led by Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) ended the policy of  passive resistance and committed Germany to carry out the provisions of the Versailles Treaty while  seeking a new settlement of the reparations question. In August 1924, an international commission  produced a new plan for reparations. Named the Dawes Plan after the American banker who chaired  the commission, it reduced reparations and stabilized Germany's payments on the basis of its ability  to pay. The Dawes Plan also granted an initial $200 million loan for Germany's recovery, which  opened the door to heavy American investments in Europe that helped create a new era of European  prosperity between 1924 and 1929. THE SPIRIT OF LOCARNO A new approach to European  diplomacy accompanied the new economic stability. A spirit of international cooperation was  fostered by the foreign ministers of Germany and France, Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand  (1862–1932), who concluded the Treaty of Locarno in 1925. This treaty guaranteed Germany's new  western borders with France and Belgium. Although Germany's new eastern borders with Poland  According to Woodrow Wilson, World War I had been fought to make the world “safe for democracy.”  During the decade that followed the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, there seemed to be some  justification for his optimism. Several major European states, as well as a number of the new  countries established in eastern Europe, had functioning political democracies. A number of nations,  including the United States, broadened the right to vote to include women, and the individual liberties  of citizens were strengthened in other ways as well. Even Germany appeared to share in the shift  toward political pluralism, as a new republic based in the city of Weimar took steps to establish  democratic political institutions under the able leadership of moderate statesmen like Friedrich Ebert  (1871–1925) and Gustav Stresemann. But the “return to normalcy,” as Woodrow Wilson's successor,  President Warren Harding (1865–1923), called it, was based on fragile economic foundations, as  recovery from the four years of bitter conflict was slow and halting. France was only partially  successful in reconstructing areas in the northern parts of the country that had been devastated by 

the Great War. Great Britain went through its own period of painful adjustment. The country had lost  many of its markets for industrial products, especially to the United States and Japan. The postwar  decline of such staple industries as coal, steel, and textiles led to a rise in unemployment, which  reached the 2 million mark by 1922. An economic recovery began in the next few years but proved to  be superficial, and unemployment remained at the 10 percent level throughout the decade. Coal  miners were especially affected by the decline of the antiquated and inefficient British coal mines,  which suffered from a global glut of coal. The United States continued its gradual emergence as an  industrial powerhouse—marked by the rapid development of the motor car industry under the  leadership of Henry Ford. But the benefits of economic expansion were uneven, and rural areas  generally did not share in the surface prosperity that had begun to appear in the larger industrialized  cities. In the meantime, labor organizations fought with only limited success to improve the working  conditions and wages of their constituents in the face of legal hurdles and stiff resistance by  corporate interests. None of the larger Western democracies, however, faced greater challenges  than Germany, where the Weimar Republic, burdened by heavy war reparations, encountered serious  economic difficulties from the start. The runaway inflation of 1922 and 1923 mentioned earlier had  grave social effects, as widows, orphans, the elderly, army officers, civil servants, and others who  lived on fixed incomes all watched their monthly stipends become worthless or their lifetime savings  disappear. Ominously, these continuing economic difficulties inexorably pushed the middle class,  which still lacked experience in using its political influence to achieve its objectives, toward the  young German Communist Party or to rightist parties that were equally hostile to the republic. The  Great Depression During the first few years after the end of World War I, there had been some  tantalizing signs that Europe was on the path of recovery from the consequences of that devastating  conflict. But that illusion was burst in 1929, with the onset of the Great Depression. CAUSES Two  factors played a major role in the coming of the Great Depression: a downturn in European  economies and an international financial crisis created by the collapse of the American stock market  in 1929. Already in the mid-1920s, global prices for agricultural goods were beginning to decline  rapidly as a result of the overproduction of basic commodities, such as wheat. In 1925, states in  central and eastern Europe began to impose tariffs to close their markets to other countries' goods.  Meanwhile, an increase in the use of oil and hydroelectricity led to a slump in the coal industry. Much  of the European prosperity in the mid-1920s was built on U.S. bank loans to Germany, but in 1928  and 1929, American investors began to pull money out of Germany to invest in the booming New  York stock market. When that market crashed in October 1929, panicky American investors  withdrew even more of their funds from Germany and other European markets. The withdrawal of  funds seriously weakened the banks of Germany and other central European states. The  Credit-Anstalt, Vienna's most prestigious bank, collapsed on May 31, 1931. By that time, trade was  slowing down, industrialists were cutting back production, and unemployment was increasing as the  ripple effects of international bank failures had a devastating impact on domestic economies.  REPERCUSSIONS Economic downturns were by no means a new phenomenon in the rise of Western  capitalism, but the Great Depression was exceptionally severe and had immediate repercussions. In  the United States, great fortunes were lost overnight, and, with consumer demand dropping,  industrial production fell dramatically, throwing millions out of work. President Herbert Hoover  (1874–1964) signed legislation imposing high tariffs on imported goods. In Great Britain, the Labour  Party failed to resolve the crisis and fell from power in 1931. A new government dominated by the  Conservatives took office and sought to lift the country out of the depression by using the traditional  policies of balanced budgets and protective tariffs. France did not suffer from the effects of the 

Great Depression as soon as other countries because it was a protected market and a majority of  French industrial plants were small enterprises. Consequently, France did not begin to face the crisis  until 1931, but then it quickly led to political repercussions. During a nineteen-month period in  1932–1933, six different cabinets were formed as France faced political chaos. The European nation  that suffered the most damage from the depression was probably Germany. Unemployment  increased to more than 4 million by the end of 1930. For many Germans, who had already suffered  through difficult times in the early 1920s, the democratic experiment represented by the Weimar  Republic had become a nightmare. Some reacted by turning to Marxism because Karl Marx had long  predicted that capitalism would destroy itself through overproduction. As in several other European  countries, communism took on a new popularity, especially with workers and intellectuals. But in  Germany, the real beneficiary of the Great Depression was Adolf Hitler, whose Nazi Party came to  power in 1933 (see Chapter 6). The first reaction of all major Western governments faced with the  depression was to adopt the traditional policy of tight money and balanced budgets. But as the  Great Depression worsened, the Cambridge University economist John Maynard Keynes  (1883–1946) took issue with the traditional view that depressions should be left to work themselves  out through the self-regulatory mechanisms of a free economy. Keynes argued that unemployment  stemmed not from overproduction but from a decline in consumer demand, which could be  increased by public works, financed if necessary through deficit spending to stimulate production.  Such policies, however, could be accomplished only by government intervention in the economy, a  measure that most political leaders were unwilling to undertake.were conspicuously absent from the  agreement, the Locarno pact was viewed by many as the beginning of a new era of European peace.  On the day after the pact was concluded, the headline in the New York Times read “France and  Germany Ban War Forever,” and the London Times declared “Peace at Last.”6 Germany's entry into  the League of Nations in March 1926 soon reinforced the atmosphere of conciliation engendered at  Locarno. Two years later, similar attitudes prevailed in the Kellogg-Briand Pact, drafted by U.S.  Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Briand. Sixty-three nations signed  this accord, in which they pledged “to renounce war as an instrument of national policy.” Nothing  was said, however, about what would be done if anyone violated the treaty. The spirit of Locarno was  based on little real substance. Germany lacked the military power to alter its western borders even if  it wanted to. Pious promises to renounce war without mechanisms to enforce them were virtually  worthless. And the issue of disarmament soon proved that paper promises could not bring nations  to cut back on their weapons. The League of Nations Covenant had recommended the “reduction of  national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety.” Numerous disarmament  conferences, however, failed to achieve anything substantial as states proved unwilling to trust their  security to anyone but their own military forces. By the time the World Disarmament Conference  finally met in Geneva in 1932, the issue was already dead.FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT AND THE NEW  DEAL After Germany no Western nation was more affected by the Great Depression than the United  States. The full force of the depression had struck the United States by 1932. In that year, industrial  production fell to 50 percent of what it had been in 1929. By 1933, there were 15 million unemployed.  Under these circumstances, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) was able to win a  landslide victory in the presidential election of 1932. A pragmatist who was willing to adopt  unorthodox measures to deal with a crisis situation, FDR (as he was popularly known) pursued a  Keynesian policy of active government intervention in the economy that came to be known as the  New Deal. Initially, the New Deal attempted to restore prosperity by creating the National Recovery  Administration (NRA), which required government, labor, and industrial leaders to work out 

regulations for each industry. Declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935, the NRA was  soon superseded by other efforts collectively known as the Second New Deal. Its programs included  the Works Progress Administration (WPA), established in 1935, which employed between 2 and 3  million people building bridges, roads, post offices, airports, and other public works. The Roosevelt  administration was also responsible for new social legislation that launched the American welfare  state. In 1935, the Social Security Act created a system of old-age pensions and unemployment  insurance. At the same time, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 encouraged the rapid growth  of labor unions. Brother, Can You Spare a Job? The Great Depression devastated the world economy  and led to a dramatic rise in unemployment throughout the industrialized world. In the United States,  manufacturing centers like Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit were especially hard hit as consumer  demand for appliances and automobiles plummeted throughout the decade of the 1930s. In this  poignant photograph taken in 1930, an unemployed worker in Detroit pleads for a job at the height of  the depression. Unfortunately, full recovery would not come until many years later. The New Deal  undoubtedly provided some social reform measures and may even have averted social revolution in  the United States. But it did not immediately solve the unemployment problems created by the Great  Depression. In May 1937, during what was considered a period of recovery, American unemployment  still stood at 7 million; a recession the following year, triggered in part by a decline in public  spending, increased that number to 11 million. Only World War II and the subsequent growth of  armaments industries brought American workers back to full employment. Building Socialism in  Soviet Russia In Russia, Bolshevik leaders had their own plans for the future. With their victory over  the White Russians in 1920, Lenin and his colleagues could turn for the first time to the challenging  task of building the first socialist society in a world dominated by their capitalist enemies. In his  writings, Karl Marx had said little about the nature of the final communist utopia or how to get there.  He had spoken briefly of a transitional phase, variously known as “raw communism” or “socialism,”  that would precede the final stage of communism. During this phase, the Communist Party would  establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat” to rid society of the capitalist oppressors, set up the  institutions of the new order, and indoctrinate the population in the communist ethic. In recognition  of the fact that traces of “bourgeois thinking” would remain among the population, profit incentives  would be used to encourage productivity (in Marxist terminology, payment would be on the basis of  “work” rather than solely on “need”), but major industries would be nationalized and private  landholdings eliminated. After seizing power in 1917, however, the Bolsheviks were too preoccupied  with survival to give much attention to the future nature of Soviet society. War  communism—involving the government seizure of major industries, utilities, and sources of raw  materials and the requisition of grain from private farmers—was, by Lenin's own admission, just a  makeshift policy to permit the regime to mobilize resources for the civil war. THE NEW ECONOMIC  POLICY In 1920, it was time to adopt a more coherent approach. The realities were sobering. Soviet  Russia was not an advanced capitalist society in the Marxist image, blessed with modern technology  and an impoverished and politically aware underclass imbued with the desire to advance to  socialism. It was poor and primarily agrarian, and its small but growing industrial sector had been  ravaged by years of war. Under the circumstances, Lenin called for caution. He won his party's  approval for a moderate program of social and economic development known as the New Economic  Policy, or NEP. The program was based on a combination of capitalist and socialist techniques  designed to increase production through the use of profit incentives while at the same time  promoting the concept of socialist ownership and maintaining firm party control over the political  system and the overall direction of the economy. The “commanding heights” of the Soviet economy 

(heavy industry, banking, utilities, and foreign trade) remained in the hands of the state, while private  industry and commerce were allowed to operate at the lower levels. The forced requisition of grain,  which had caused serious unrest among the peasantry, was replaced by a tax, and land remained  firmly in private hands. The theoretical justification for the program was that Soviet Russia now  needed to go through its own “capitalist stage” (albeit under the control of the party) before  beginning the difficult transition to socialism. As an economic strategy, the NEP succeeded  brilliantly. During the early and mid-1920s, the Soviet economy recovered rapidly from the ravages of  war and civil war. A more lax hand over the affairs of state allowed a modest degree of free  expression of opinion within the ranks of the party and in Soviet society at large. Under the surface,  however, trouble loomed. Lenin had been increasingly disabled by a bullet lodged in his neck from an  attempted assassination, and he began to lose his grip over a fractious party. Even before his death  in 1924, potential successors had begun to scuffle for precedence in the struggle to assume his  position as party leader, the most influential position in the state. The main candidates were Leon  Trotsky and a rising young figure from the state of Georgia, Joseph Djugashvili, better known by his  revolutionary name, Stalin (1879–1953). Lenin had misgivings about all the candidates hoping to  succeed him and suggested that a collective leadership would best represent the interests of the  party and the revolution. After his death in 1924, however, factional struggle among the leading  figures in the party intensified. Although in some respects it was a pure power struggle, it did have  policy ramifications as party factions argued about the NEP and its impact on the future of the  Russian Revolution. At first, the various factions were relatively evenly balanced, but Stalin proved  adept at using his position as general secretary of the party to outmaneuver his rivals. By portraying  himself as a centrist opposed to the extreme positions of his “leftist” (too radical in pursuit of  revolutionary goals) or “rightist” (too prone to adopt moderate positions contrary to Marxist  principles) rivals, he gradually concentrated power in his own hands. In the meantime, the relatively  moderate policies of the NEP continued to operate as the party and the state vocally encouraged the  Soviet people, in a very un-Marxist manner, to enrich themselves. Capital investment and  technological assistance from Western capitalist countries were actively welcomed. An observer at  the timemight reasonably have concluded that the Marxist vision of a world characterized by class  struggle had become a dead letter. STALIN TAKES OVER Stalin had previously joined with the  moderate members of the party to defend the NEP against Trotsky, whose “left opposition” wanted a  more rapid advance toward socialism. Trotsky, who had become one of Stalin's chief critics, was  expelled from the party in 1927. Then, in 1928, Stalin reversed course: he now claimed that the NEP  had achieved its purpose and called for a rapid advance to socialist forms of ownership. Beginning  in 1929, a series of new programs changed the face of Soviet society. Private capitalism in  manufacturing and trade was virtually abolished, and state control over the economy was extended.  The first of a series of five-year plans was launched to promote rapid “socialist industrialization,” and  in a massive effort to strengthen the state's hold over the agricultural economy, all private farmers  were herded onto collective farms. The bitter campaign to collectivize the countryside aroused the  antagonism of many peasants and led to a decline in food production and in some areas to mass  starvation. It also further divided the Communist Party and led to a massive purge of party members  at all levels who opposed Stalin's effort to achieve rapid economic growth and the socialization of  Russian society. A series of brutal purge trials eliminated thousands of “Old Bolsheviks” (people who  had joined the party before the 1917 Revolution) and resulted in the conviction and death of many of  Stalin's chief rivals. Trotsky, driven into exile, was dispatched by Stalin's assassin in 1940. Of the  delegates who attended the National Congress of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) 

in 1934, fully 70 percent had been executed by the time of the National Congress in 1939. THE  LEGACY OF STALINISM By the late 1930s, as the last of the great purge trials came to an end, the  Russian Revolution had been in existence for more than two decades. It had achieved some  successes. Stalin's policy of forced industrialization had led to rapid growth in the industrial sector,  surpassing in many respects what had been achieved in the capitalist years prior to World War I.  Between 1918 and 1937, steel production increased from 4 to 18 million tons per year, and hard coal  output went from 36 to 128 million tons. New industrial cities sprang up overnight in the Urals and  Siberia. The Russian people in general were probably better clothed, better fed, and better educated  than they had ever been before. The cost had been enormous, however. Millions had died by bullet or  starvation. Thousands, perhaps millions, languished in Stalin's concentration camps. The remainder  of the population lived in a society now officially described as socialist, under the watchful eye of a  man who had risen almost to the rank of a deity, the great leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.  The impact of Stalin on Soviet society in one decade had been enormous. If Lenin had brought the  party to power and nursed it through the difficult years of the civil war, it was Stalin, above all, who  had mapped out the path to economic modernization and socialist transformation. To many foreign  critics of the regime, the Stalinist terror and autocracy were an inevitable consequence of the  concept of the vanguard party and the centralized state built by Lenin. Others traced Stalinism back  to Marx. It was he, after all, who had formulated the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which  now provided ideological justification for the Stalinist autocracy. Still others found the ultimate  cause in Russian political culture, which had been characterized by autocracy since the emergence  of Russian society from Mongol control in the fifteenth century. Was Stalinism an inevitable  outcome of Marxist-Leninist doctrine and practice? Or as the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev  later claimed, were Stalin's crimes “alien to the nature of socialism” and a departure from the course  charted by Lenin before his death? Certainly, Lenin had not envisaged a party dominated by a figure  who became even larger than the organization itself and who, in the 1930s, almost destroyed the  party. On the other hand, recent evidence shows that Lenin was capable of brutally suppressing  perceived enemies of the revolution in a way that is reminiscent in manner, if not in scope, of Stalin's  actions. In a 1922 letter to a colleague, he declared that after the NEP had served its purpose, “we  shall return to the terror, and to economic terror.”7 It is also true that the state created by Lenin  provided the conditions for a single-minded leader like Stalin to rise to absolute power. The great  danger that neither Marx nor Lenin had foreseen had come to pass: the party itself, the vanguard  organization leading the way into the utopian future, had become corrupted.The mass destruction  brought by World War I precipitated a general disillusionment with Western civilization on the part of  artists and writers throughout Europe. Avant-garde art, which had sought to discover alternative  techniques to portray reality, now gained broader acceptance as Europeans began to abandon  classical traditions in an attempt to come to grips with the anxieties of the new age. New Schools of  Artistic Expression A number of the artistic styles that gained popularity during the 1920s originated  during the war in neutral Switzerland, where alienated intellectuals congregated at cafés to decry the  insanity of the age and exchange ideas on how to create a new and better world. Among them were  the Dadaists, who sought to destroy the past with a vengeance, proclaiming their right to complete  freedom of expression in art. A flagrant example of Dada's revolutionary approach to art was the  decision by French artist Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) to enter a porcelain urinal in a 1917 art  exhibit in New York City. By signing it and giving it a title, Duchamp proclaimed that he had  transformed the urinal into a work of art. Duchamp's Ready-Mades (as such art would henceforth be  labeled) declared that whatever the artist proclaimed to be art was art. Duchamp's liberating concept 

served to open the floodgates of the art world, obliging the entire twentieth century to swim in this  free-flowing, exuberant, exploratory, and often frightening torrent. PROBING THE SUBCONSCIOUS  While Dadaism flourished in Germany during the Weimar era, a school of Surrealism was established  in Paris to liberate the total human experience from the restraints of the rational world. By using the  subconscious, Surrealists hoped to resurrect the whole personality and reveal a submerged and  illusive reality. Normally unrelated objects and people were juxtaposed in dreamlike and frequently  violent paintings that were intended to shock the viewer into approaching reality from a totally fresh  perspective. Most famous of the Surrealists was the Spaniard Salvador Dalí (1904–1989), who  subverted the sense of reality in his painting by using near-photographic detail in presenting a  fantastic and irrational world. Yet another modernist movement born on the eve of World War I was  Abstract, or Nonobjective, painting. As one of its founders, Swiss artist Paul Klee (1879–1940),  observed, “the more fearful this world becomes, … the more art becomes abstract.”8 Two of the  movement's principal founders, Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) and Piet Mondrian (1872–1944),  were followers of Theosophy, a religion that promised the triumph of the spirit in a new millennium.  Since they viewed matter as an obstacle to salvation, the art of the new age would totally abandon  all reference to the material world. Only abstraction, in the form of colorful forms and geometric  shapes floating in space, could express the bliss and spiritual beauty of this terrestrial paradise. A  MUSICAL REVOLUTION Just as artists began to experiment with revolutionary ways to represent  reality in painting, musicians searched for new revolutionary sounds. Austrian composer Arnold  Schoenberg (1874–1951) rejected the traditional tonal system based on the harmonic triad that had  dominated Western music since the Renaissance. To free the Western ear from traditional harmonic  progression, Schoenberg substituted a radically new “atonal” system in which each piece  established its own individual set of relationships and structure. In 1923, he devised a twelve-tone  system in which he placed the twelve pitches of the chromatic scale found on the piano in a set  sequence for a musical composition. The ordering of these twelve tones was to be repeated  throughout the piece, for all instrumental parts, constituting its melody and harmony. Even today,  such atonal music seems inaccessible and incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Yet Schoenberg,  perhaps more than any other modern composer, influenced the development of twentieth-century  music. Black Lines No. 189, 1913 (oil on canvas), Wassily Kandinsky. Abstract painting was a  renunciation of the material world and a glorification of the spiritual realm. Deeming it no longer  necessary to represent objects and people, artists chose to express their emotions solely through  color and abstract form. In this painting by Kandinsky, we rejoice in the springlike swirling splashes  of color of the artist's abstract world. MODERNISM IN ARCHITECTURE Other fields of artistic  creativity, including sculpture, ballet, and architecture, also reflected these new directions. In  Germany, a group of imaginative architects called the Bauhaus School created what is widely known  as the international school, which soon became the dominant school of modern architecture. Led by  the famous German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1881–1969), the internationalists  promoted a new functional and unadorned style (Mies was widely known for observing that “less is  more”) characterized by high-rise towers of steel and glass that were reproduced endlessly all  around the world during the second half of the century. For many postwar architects, the past was  the enemy of the future. In 1925, the famous French architect Le Corbusier (1877–1965) advocated  razing much of the old city of Paris, to be replaced by modern towers of glass. In his plan, which  called for neat apartment complexes separated by immaculate areas of grass, there was no room  for people, pets, or nature. Fortunately, the plan was rejected by municipal authorities. Culture for the  Masses During the postwar era, writers followed artists and architects in rejecting traditional forms 

in order to explore the subconscious. In his novel Ulysses, published in 1922, Irish author James  Joyce (1882–1941) invented the “stream of consciousness” technique to portray the lives of  ordinary people through the use of inner monologue. Joyce's technique exerted a powerful influence  on literature for the remainder of the century. Some American writers, such as Ernest Hemingway  (1899–1961), Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945), and Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951), reflected the rising  influence of mass journalism in a new style designed to “tell it like it is.” Such writers sought to  report the “whole truth” in an effort to attain the authenticity of modern photography. For much of  the Western world, however, the best way to find (or escape) reality was through mass  entertainment. The 1930s represented the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, which in the  single year of 1937 turned out nearly six hundred feature films. Supplementing the movies were  cheap paperbacks and radio, which brought sports, soap operas, and popular music to the mass of  the population. The radio was a great social leveler, speaking to all classes with the same voice.  Such new technological wonders offered diversion even to the poor while helping to define the  twentieth century as the era of the common people. CONCLUSION WORLD WAR I SHATTERED the  image of a progressive and rational society in early-twentieth-century Europe. The widespread  destruction and the deaths of millions of people undermined the Enlightenment belief in human  progress. New propaganda techniques had manipulated entire populations into sustaining their  involvement in a meaningless slaughter. Who was responsible for the carnage? To the victorious  Allied leaders, it was their defeated former adversaries, on whom they imposed harsh terms at the  Paris Peace Conference at the end of the war. In later years, some historians placed the primary  blame on Russia for its decision to order full military mobilization in response to events taking place  in the Balkans. Perhaps, however, the real culprit was the system itself. The system of nation-states  that began to emerge in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century had led not to  cooperation, as many liberals had hoped, but to competition. Governments that exercised restraint  to avoid war wound up being publicly humiliated; those that went to the brink of war to maintain their  national interests were often praised for having preserved national honor. As British historian John  Keegan has noted, for European statesmen in the early twentieth century, “the fear of not meeting a  challenge was greater than the fear of war.” In either case, by 1914, the major European states had  come to believe that their allies were important and that their security depended on supporting those  allies, even when they took foolish risks. To make matters worse, the very industrial and  technological innovations that had brought the prospect of increased material prosperity for millions  had also led to the manufacture of new weapons of mass destruction such as the long-range  artillery, tanks, poison gas, and airplanes that would make war a more terrible prospect for those  involved, whether military or civilian. If war did come, it would be highly destructive. The victorious  world leaders who gathered at Versailles hoped to forge a peace settlement that would say good-bye  to all that. But as it turned out, the turmoil wrought by World War I seemed to open the door to even  greater insecurity. Revolutions in Russia and the Middle East dismembered old empires and created  new states that gave rise to unexpected problems. Expectations that Europe and the world would  return to normalcy were soon dashed by the failure to achieve a lasting peace, economic collapse,  and the rise of authoritarian governments that not only restricted individual freedoms but sought  even greater control over the lives of their subjects, manipulating and guiding their people to achieve  the goals of their totalitarian regimes. In the next chapter, we will examine these events in greater  detail. TIMELINE