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Site: School of Open Learning

Course: Issues in World History: 20th century
Book: SM-1
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Date: Thursday, 27 September 2018, 3:40 PM

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Table of contents
1 Lesson 1 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: SOME CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

2 UNIT 2 Lesson 1 CAUSES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN ANALYSIS

3 Lesson 2 COURSE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD

4 APPENDIX

5 Lesson 3 PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT (1919-1920)

6 Lesson 4 LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND MANDATE SYSTEM

7 UNIT 3 Lesson 1 ORIGINS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917

8 Lesson 2 COURSE OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT ON RUSSIA AND WORLD

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1 Lesson 1 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:

SOME CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS
UNIT 1

Lesson 1

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: SOME CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

Nalini Taneja

Audio

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1.0: Objectives

After reading this essay you should be able to 

understand some basic concepts that define the 20th century world
be able to recognize the elements that went into creating the modern world
define the elements of continuity and change in the 20th century
trace the historical roots of twentieth century world
perceive the nature of the world order and
analyse the causes of inequality and conflict in the 20th century world
understand why socialism posed such a challenge to capitalism
also understand why the collapse of socialism in many countries has strengthened capitalism
but not destroyed the challenge of socialism. 
1.2: Introduction
While the world as we saw it at the end of the 20th century was very different from the world in
the beginning of the 20thcentury, there are some basic features that lend it an element of
continuity. When we speak of the 20th century we speak of the modern world, and this modern
world was not created overnight, nor at the same time chronologically and not even at the same
pace in all areas of the world. The historical roots of the 20th century world can be traced to the
decline of feudalism and the emergence and growth of capitalist societies, to begin with, in
16th century Europe and then elsewhere. Decisive developments in this historical process were
the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution which shaped the modern world. In that
sense there is a relationship and continuity with the 19th  century during which capitalist
industrialization became the dominant mode of production and nationalism and nation states the
predominant feature of politics. Therefore we can safely say that the 20th  century world was
created by capitalist industrialization with all its social and political ramifications. 
You will read about various aspects of the 20th century in the later essays. In this essay we will
discuss some of the defining concepts and definitions necessary for understanding the
20th century.

1.3: Capitalist industrialization

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rapidly and, interestingly, also where it emerged but was hindered in its advance by the
entrenched older social and economic structures. The twentieth century has seen the division of
the world into advanced or ‘developed’ countries and those which are characterized as
‘developing’ countries; and within countries into those considered ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. 
In fact the rapid economic advance that capitalist industrialization entailed itself became a
factor for the backwardness of some societies, and within societies for a large majority of its
people. Colonialism and divisions into classes are aspects of these inequalities. In other words
inequality was as much inbuilt in capitalism as it was in earlier societies.
Definition and features 
As you know industry is older than capitalism. When we talk of capitalist industrialization we
therefore refer to the changes that took place in the organization of production during late
18th  and 19th  century. These changes in the organization of industry are inseparable from the
growth of capitalism. 
Capitalism entails an economic and social system characterized by private ownership of property
i.e., the means of production—land, factory, raw stocks—are all privately owned and controlled
and production takes place for sale and profit rather than for use by the producers. What is
produced, therefore, becomes a commodity, i.e., an item for sale and profit making. It has an
exchange value rather than use value, and an unequal exchange value because those who own
the resources gain from it rather than those who labour to produce it. 
In other words, the means of producing, distributing and exchanging commodities are operated
by their owners solely for the financial gain of the owners. The profits are distributed to owners
or invested in new technology and industries, wages are paid to the labour from it. Capital in its
various forms is thus the major factor of production in capitalist industrialization. 
In addition to the above, i.e.,1) private ownership of means of production and exchange, 2)
production for sale and financial gain rather than use, and 3) capital in its various forms being
the major factor of production, there are certain other equally essential features that
characterize capitalist industrialization. 
For example, Marx and Engels point out in their  Communist Manifesto  (1848) that 4) the
people who have no means of production of their own (and they are in a majority), are forced to
find employment, in other words, to sell their labour power, in order to live. Labour, also,
therefore, becomes commodity, an item to be sold in return for wages (livelihood). 
Further, if everything is subjected to buying and selling then 5) market becomes the essential
and central feature of a society based on capitalist industrialization. All inputs and outputs are
supplied commercially through the market. All relationships are contractual relationships
determined by the laws of supply and demand, or what is known as the rationality of the
market. For example if there are more workers seeking employment than employers demanding
work the wages will be lower and vice versa. Again in times of scarcity prices can go higher, in
times of recession and financial crisis for the industrialists there may be heavy discounts. 
6) Due to the ownership pattern the owners hold all the decision making powers and workers and
other employees can only use their collective bargaining power through their organizations or
trade unions and strikes etc. But as you can gauge, since they own no means of income other
than their labour they are at a disadvantage, except in their numbers and in their unity, to the
extent that there is unity amongst them. 
Now the question arises that if owners are paying for the production then why should they not
have the profit and what is so unfair about it?  Many economists and thinkers believe that this is
a reasonably fair deal. Marx and Engels, however, argued for a deeper analysis. 7) They argued
that the profits of the employer essentially came from the exploitation of the labour of the
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worker because the worker produced surplus value over and above what he was paid for. The
wages paid are lower than the value of the goods and services produced for the capitalist. They
showed that a worker is paid for his labour time, which is the number of hours he/she worked,
and not on the basis of the volume of goods produced or the amount gained when the product is
sold in the market. With improvements in technology and more advanced machines the workers
collectively produced much more in the same time but their wages did not rise in the same
measure. The factory owner gained his increased profits from this discrepancy between the
value gained by the industrialist and what he has paid for. Everything utilized by the industrialist
—raw stocks, infrastructure, capital, credit from banks, the distribution and transportation,
machinery, even a pin—has involved  labour underpaid for. This is known as the creation of
surplus value out of the labour of the worker and is the crux of the injustice inherent in
capitalism. Therefore, they argued, as long as private property (in the means of production)
exists this contradiction between the interest of the capitalist and the worker will remain.
Capitalist industrialization reflects this basic contradiction and inherent injustice and inequality
of opportunity. 
Thus both technology and social organization of labour-- the relationship between owners and
workers—were reshaped at a certain stage in history to conform to the commercial logic. This is
what is characterized as capitalist industrialization. 
Perceptions of capitalist development
For some historians and economists technical progress, leading to new inventions and their
widespread use and diffusion, constituted the core of capitalist industrialization. Others regard
the application of science to industry as its most significant characteristic. Still others have
given more significance to the agrarian changes which created some of the pre requisites for
large scale industrialization. Many have emphasized the growth of markets, within countries and
across the world, the increasing division of labour, again within countries or across the world, or
the changes taking place within industrial production itself (which they refer to as proto-
industrialization). Some, following Karl Marx, have emphasized the new relationships which
emerged from changes in the productive forces (technical progress), the transformations in the
organization of production (new institutional arrangements) and new ownership patterns.   
Stages of capitalist industrialization
Different thinkers and scholars emphasized some or a particular set of features of capitalist
industrialization as crucial and identified its various stages through time differently. All of them,
however, agree that it is a historical phenomenon: that it originated at a certain point in history
and has been undergoing significant changes within the continuing social formation (social and
economic framework). 
For capitalist or industrial society to emerge as dominant, for it to permeate the whole
production process of society, many different economic, cultural, technological, legal and
political conditions had to come together—improved technology for mass production, a class of
property less workers, a legal system protecting private ownership and market in private
property, development of infrastructure to promote economic activity on a large scale, a
political system that is conducive to it. 
The earliest phase is termed as merchant or mercantile capitalism and is said to correspond to
the period from the 15th  to the 18th  centuries when western European nations like England,
France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain dominated the seas and international trade and
embarked on the colonization of other continents. The next phase spreading over the
19thcentury is seen as growth of full blown capitalism linked inseparably with investments in
industrial production and the growth of large scale production facilitated by technological
progress -- use of steam engines, new inventions in textile machinery and agriculture, new
means of transportation especially railways, new methods of coal and iron mining—and factories
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The early years of the 20th  century saw rapid strides in steel industry, ship building, and
concentration of production in large scale firms, cartels, and financial capital. It also saw
monopoly capitalism, imperialism and inter imperialist rivalries take on a more aggressive
stance. Monopolies in capitalist industrialization resulted from the more advanced countries
recognizing heir pre-eminent position in industrial production and seeking to maintain this pre-
eminence by protecting and monopolizing markets and the economies of their colonies rather
than leaving it to open market and competition. In other words they now favoured a regulated
market, controlled by them, rather than laissez faire, or leaving the laws of supply and demand
to determine economies. 
The second half of the 20th century saw the emergence of multi or transnational corporations,
new economic policies which involved structural adjustments in both advanced countries and the
third world countries as a result of pressure from the advanced countries, and cuts in welfare
spending by governments across the world. It also increasingly led to neo liberal economic
policies, privatization of public or state owned assets. Multinationals spread their production
processes and control across national boundaries, moving production overseas to reduce costs
where labour was cheaper and to pre-empt competition from third world economies. These
policies representing a new phase in capitalist industrialization and the consequent imperialist
pressure on third world economies has been known as globalization. 
Forms of capitalist
industrialization
The time periods for the emergence of capitalist industrialization have differed and there have
also been variations in the paths to capitalist industrialization. This is because of the great
historical and geographical diversities involved, and the specific social and political
particularities of the countries concerned. Apart from these factors the pattern of agricultural
changes in the different countries and colonialism also had a great role to play in defining the
specific features of capitalist industrialization in each country.
 

Imperialism and capitalist industrialization

Imperialism is the world framework of political and economic relations imposed by the advanced
capitalist countries on the rest of the world. It emerges from and is historically linked with
capitalist industrialization and colonialism. The manner in which the unequal and exploitative
relationship between the advanced capitalist countries, also called the imperialist countries, and
the rest of the world has been worked out and maintained has depended on the stage of
capitalist industrialization and the balance of political power derived from economic strength. 
Early stages of colonialism were marked by politically imposed and protected (for the benefit of
the colonizer country that is) unequal terms of trade. They were reworked at a later stage of
capitalist industrialization as the imperialism of free trade or unfettered exploitation of
colonies.  Finally, in the last decades of the 19th century, with the emergence of monopolies and
finance capital there were attempts at division and re divisions of the world between the
advanced capitalist countries.
  In the 20th  century the alternating periods of economic expansion and depression led to both
crises for the capitalist system and intensification of inter imperialist rivalries. The 20th century
was also the century of the rise and success of socialist economies. The challenge that socialist
economies with their emphasis on social justice and equality and opposition to the whole
colonial framework presented to capitalist industrialisation led to the great conflict between the
socialist world and the capitalist countries whose rivalries among themselves were held in check
by their joint hatred and opposition to socialism. 
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  The
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the dilution of the socialist elements within the Chinese economy has strengthened capitalism
but it has not destroyed the promise of socialism. The capitalist industrialized world and the
unequal world order that it sustains is still subject to financial crises which adversely affect lives
of billions of people, but also because the globalization policies of today’s world  are leading to
even greater inequalities between nations and within nations.

 1.4: Modernity
Modernity as a term applies to the modern era and is distinct from modernism which refers to
specific features within different forms of art, literature, music, cinema etc. The modern also
implies the opposite of being backward and evokes a sense of being progressive. In historical
terms it refers to the post medieval period of history, particularly the intellectual and cultural
developments associated with Renaissance and the Age of Reason and Enlightenment. It was first
used in this sense.
 But increasingly the term has come to denote not just intellectual trends but the transformation
of attitudes and a change in the world outlook of a larger set of people than those affected by
the intellectual currents in the 16th-18th  centuries. The French revolution and the industrial
revolutions in various parts of the world transformed lives of many more millions of people. This
also broadened the scope and meaning of what is meant by being modern. The term modernity
came to denote the basic features of an industrialized society. It is contained in capitalist
society and in socialist societies as well.
  In this broader sense modernity implies an industrial civilization, a certain complex of
economic, social and political institutional arrangements associated with the changes that the
development of capitalist industrialization entailed: right to private property, representative
governments, the idea of free nations and popular sovereignty, the practice of electoral
democracy, the secularization of societies and a value for religious tolerance and individual
rights. The 19th century is said to mark the first phase of modernity in this sense, based on the
fruits of new inventions, the steam engine, trains, ships, petroleum. The Newtonian revolution
and Darwin’s theory of revolution, Harvey’s discoveries of circulation of blood changed the way
people looked at the world.  There was expansion and change in the nature of what is conceived
of as the public sphere, a reorganization of social and personal lives, a new relationship with
work and leisure. Printing technology, disappearance of old patronage and the intervention of
the market, along with expansion of education enabled the democratization of culture and
increased the access to knowledge and what was considered as ‘high’ culture.
 Of the twentieth century one can say that most parts of the world had civilizations influenced if
not completely transformed by capitalist industrialization. The use of technology in
communication—radio, telephone, film, television, computers—and dissemination of knowledge
expanded the consumer base for products of industry and for culture. They created bases for
new solidarities and collective actions. Modernity meant changes in family and household,
between work and leisure, between society and individual, between church and state, between
church and believers, between men and women. The idea of equality and women’s
emancipation, of women’s vote and entry of women into various professions, the changes in
dress are all inconceivable without this context of modernity. Modernity made possible the
creation of a strong force of intelligentsia that could talk for the larger society even as it came
from within its privileged section. Capacities for production, space exploration, higher life
expectations, cures for several diseases, created possibilities for a better world not just for a
few but for all.
 All this was on the plus side. The context of capitalist society into which modernity was inbuilt
had its flip side for the vast majority of people. Critiques of modernity had their bases in the
contradictions inherent in capitalist society.

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  One
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to loss of spiritualism and decline of religion,
technology and mass production had destroyed individual creativity, industry and urbanization
had destroyed the environment and link with nature and all this had in turn affected man’s
nature. Nuclear bombs, wars, loss of neighborhood and community solidarities, dilution of
certain traditional values and relations, were seen as results of modernity and unbridled
individualism fostered by modernity.  These critics opposed what they called the ugliness of
modern production, rejected capitalism and democracy at the cost of older values. This took the
form of romanticism, because this critique did not take into account the reality that going back
in time is not realizable or a possibility.
  Another kind of critique valued the advances of capitalist industrialization, particularly the
increased production that now made it possible to alleviate the standards of living of the
majority of the people of the world and the values that modernity brought. But they were very
conscious of its limitations as well. They wanted political and individual liberties to be
supplemented with economic rights and social and economic equality in the real sense. They
were critical of the inequalities inherent in the system of capitalist industrialization and the
wide gap between theory and reality with regard to other rights. They stood for socialism,
classless societies and equality between nations and within nations. They stood for equality
between men and women and for minority rights. They thought all this was not achievable
within the framework of capitalist society. Theirs was therefore a critical appreciation of
modernity: they wanted to realize in practice the promise of freedom and equality, which was
possible only by overthrowing the system that had both created the possibilities of their
realization and also prevented their actual realization because of the injustice structurally
inbuilt in capitalist societies. The socialist movements and the socialist and communist parties
and their various organizations best represented this world view.
  A third response to modernity, which can be characterized as reactionary modernism, is one
which accepted the fruits of modern society, such as large scale production and new
technologies and the comforts they made possible, but were repulsed by its ideas. Equality,
workers rights, women’s emancipation, democracy were an anathema to them. This trend
became particularly successful in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, although it had supporters
elsewhere as well.
 Linked to this last response to modernity is what has been termed as post modernism. This is a
response which is rooted in the unhappiness over the changes that took place in the US and
following that in Western Europe during the 1960s and the subsequent decades. Some social
scientists saw this as the period of post industrialism and therefore characterized the societies
of this phase as the ‘post-modern’ condition. Post modernism is thus a critique of modern society
which refuses to acknowledge the capitalist basis of the modern society. It detaches society from
its moorings and criticizes modernity rather than capitalism. This is not a rational critique of
society. This irrationality of its critique of society gets transferred to its over all world view, and
all the ills of modern life are attributed to modernity.
  Because modernity means an understanding of the world and of human development  on the
basis of the principles of rationality, scientific temper and an appreciation of the laws of human
development, post modernism on the contrary opposed reason, application of general laws and
what they called the ‘meta narratives’.  For post modernists each person has his/her own truth
and every person’s situation and therefore vantage point differs. A text does not contain except
what we personally see in it: everything is relative, everything is subjective and everything
exists only to the extent that we recognize it.
 This kind of a critique of modernity has had some negative consequences for how we look at the
world and what can be done to transform society for the better, because we can simply refuse to
see what we don’t want to or are unable to.  
 1.6: Contemporary era
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twentieth century to those events and developments which impinge on or continue to impact on
the present. In short, the contemporary, for us, as in the dictionary meaning of being
simultaneous, defines what we call our times or whatever exists in our lifetimes, and all that
forms a background that determines our present lives.
  The three defining developments or events that still live with us are the World War I (1914-
1918), the Russian revolution of 1917, and World War II (1939-1945). They have definitively set
their stamp on our world, not only because of the millions of people involved in them, but also
because the causes they represented still remain alive with us and the conflicts they generated
have not been resolved. International conflict, inter-imperialist rivalry and conflict of interests
between the advanced capitalist countries and what is known as the Third World remain with us
unresolved. The threat of wars and peace movements are important issues of today. Poverty and
inequalities in societies make socialism and the 1917 revolution still relevant to us.
  The contemporary era has also seen the unification of nationalities and particularly in the
second half of the twentieth century a process of decolonization and the consequent creation of
independent nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. From the 40s to the 90s of the twentieth
century we see the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, representing the tensions
between the socialist and the capitalist world. This is also the period of what we term the Space
Age characterized by fast pace of space exploration and race for space dominance and the
growth of technology and cultural developments associated with it. This is followed by the
digital revolution or the age of information technology, characterized by extensive expansion and
transformation in industry due to computers and the possibilities of manipulation of information
and knowledge by those countries which dominated this field.
 The changes of the 20th century encompassed not just North America and Europe, but the entire
world. Three quarters of the world awakened into new nationhood, political rights so far not
available to them and new arrangements of civil society. As Prabhat Patnaik has put it, “the
institutionalization of ‘one-person-one-vote’ constituted a veritable social revolution.” The
actual existing democracy is thus an achievement of popular movements of the 20th  century.
Women won their right to vote in the advanced countries only in the 20th  century after great
struggles, and in the rest of the world by virtue of being active participants in national
liberation. A third of the humanity broke away from the capitalist system to adopt socialism as
basis of economy and state. Democracy itself was given a new meaning and content by these
democratic upsurges. Reigned against them were the forces of fascism represented by Fascist
Italy and Nazi Germany, and the rule and onslaught of big Capital on the movements of the
working people and the marginalized all over the world.
  In terms of historical time the contemporary era marks the high time of capitalist
industrialization and modernity. But it is an era in which, as Aijaz Ahmad has commented,
“socialism emerged as the central fact around which most aspirations and conflicts on the global
scale were shaped.” There was imperialist domination on the one hand and on the other mass
struggles against it which involved billions of people. National liberation movements reflected a
democratic upsurge the world over. These struggles were shaped by socialism and the entry of
masses of people as actors and subjects of their own history. The Soviet Union not only actively
supported national liberation movements, there would have been no defeat of fascism without
the sacrifice and heroism of the Soviet armies, and the resistance forces linked with socialism in
the advanced capitalist countries.
 1.7: Conclusion

You have seen how the world we live in has been defined by capitalist industrialization and
socialism in the 20th century. It continues to be so in the 21st century.
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   The
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Europe, US hegemony over the world and the important international institutions, and the
beginning of the 21st century has seen a financial crisis that has important negative ramifications
for living standards of billions of people. Despite these disastrous consequences the US, and
other advanced capitalist countries, continue to pursue and impose on the rest of the world the
neo liberal economic policies which constitute the core of globalization, as they have been doing
since the 1980s and more particularly 1990s. While in our part of the world it seems the middle
classes are under the spell of these policies and the popular resistance to them is weak, in the
Latin American countries both people and governments are actively opposing these policies and
the US hegemony in world affairs. How these contestations will unfold in the 21st century is not
yet clear.
 

1.8: Some questions

Answer the following questions in approximately 200 words. (Please consult the relevant
readings recommended for the course, given in the syllabus and also at the end of the course
material).
 
1. Explain four features of capitalist industrialization.
2. Describe some of the changes in capitalist industrialization in the 20th century.
3. How is modernity related to capitalist industrialization?
4. Discuss the main aspects of modern civilization as seen in daily life.
5. Discuss one trend that represented a critique of modernity.
6. Write about any one important development which shaped the twentieth century.
7. How did capitalist industrialization contribute to inequalities in the world?
8. In what way did socialism constitute a challenge to the imperialist world order? 

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2 UNIT 2 Lesson 1 CAUSES OF THE FIRST

WORLD WAR: AN ANALYSIS
UNIT 2
Lesson 1

CAUSES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN ANALYSIS

                                                                                                                        -Dr.Naveen

Vashishta

Audio

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The twentieth century was the century of crisis and catastrophe for Europe after the
immense peace, prosperity and optimism of the nineteenth. The century witnessed two
destructive wars across the European continent, but due to the European domination of the
world, these became world wars.  World War I, also known as the  First World War,
theGreat War, and the War to End All Wars, was the first international conflict of great
scale since the Napoleonic era. It involved all the Great Powers, with Italy entering the war
in1915, and the United States in1917. The wars for national unity in Germany and Italy, Greek
War of Independence, the Crimean War, the Russo-Turkish War, the Boer War, and the Russo-
Japanese War, were more or less limited to few powers and did not lead into a general
conflagration. But First World War was a  total war[1], that is, fought not merely by
professional armies, but as much by the civilian population engaged in producing for the war
effort and being targeted in effect as combatant.
The catastrophic conflagration was set off by the assassination of Prince Archduke Francis
Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on 28th June
1914, by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. But any attempt to understand the origins of the
war must take account of a large number of long standing causes. It became one of the most
controversial and debated subjects in history. For much of the nineteenth century, much of the
major European powers maintained a balance of power. However, between 1871 and 1914 a wide
variety of factors served to undermine international stability. The First World War was really the
culmination of long-drawn-out crisis within the European system.
The Rise of Germany and Alliance System of Bismarck
The rise of Germany was the principal factor which produced anxiety among the major
European countries. The victory of Prussia over France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871
culminated in the Unification of Germany and created a new power in the heart of Europe. The
foreign policy of new Germany, dominated by Bismarck, the first Chancellor of Germany, was
designed to reassure Europe that Germany was a satisfied country, with no intention of upsetting
the delicate balance of power in Europe. This clever style of diplomacy secured a dominant
position for Germany in European affairs through the formation of delicate  system of
treaties and alliances which often comprised secret clauses.Bismarck captured the urgency,
the European Great Powers felt about the necessity of alliances, and the delicate nature of the
balance of power itself: “All[international] politics reduces itself to this formula: Try to be  a
trios(three) as long as the world is governed by the unstable equilibrium of five Great Powers”-
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Britain and France. In 1872 the League of Three Emperors
(Driekaiserbund) consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia, was formed. He knew that
France was Germany’s irreconcilable enemy, so his diplomatic skill and political insight were
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Germany. In pursuit of this policy, Germany
entered into an alliance with Austria in 1879 with a promise of reciprocal   protection in case of
Russian aggression on either power. Three years later in 1882, Bismarck generated the Franco-
Italian rivalry over Tunis (in Africa) and persuaded Italy to forget her enmity towards Austria. A
secret Triple Alliance was formed in 1882 between Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary, openly
defensive, in part against France, in part against Russia.
                      It is now evident that Bismarck was never firmly committed to his Triple Alliance
partner. In 1887, for example, he signed the secret Re-insurance Treaty with Russia without the
knowledge of Austria-Hungary or Italy, which pledged Russia’s neutrality in the event of a
German attack on France, German neutrality in the event of a Russian attack on Austria-Hungary,
and a promise that Germany would support Russia’s attack in the Balkans. The nightmare of
isolation haunted France. But after Bismarck ceased to be the German Chancellor in 1890, his
successors abandoned his diplomacy. The German Emperor Kaiser William II insisted that his
country must have ‘a place in the sun’ and tried to pursue the policy ofWeltpolitik (namely that
Germany as a Great power must play its legitimate role in the world or the desire for world
power). He did not believe that Germany was a satisfied power and called for an ambitious
policy of a World Empire.  Some resentment arose between Germany and Russia at the Congress
of Berlin over the settlement of Eastern Question. Taking advantage of this situation and
proceeding cautiously, France successfully formed an alliance with Russia in 1891. This Dual
Alliance ended the period of isolation of France and served as counterbalance to the Triple
Alliance. The renunciation of Bismarckian diplomacy by Germany forced Britain to come out of
the state of “splendid isolation.”[2]  The first move by the British government away from
isolation was the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty(1902), which was designed to ease
Britain’s worry over trade in the region and to ease the fears over the Russian threat to India. In
1904, she made an agreement of Entente Cordiale with France resolving all mutual differences.
This was followed by a similar agreement with Russia in1907. Thus France, Russia and Britain
formed a separate political group called Triple Entente. As the Triple Alliance confronted the
Triple Entente, the condition of Europe became one of “armed peace”. The European powers,
though at peace with each other, kept a jealous watch upon their neighbors and so an
atmosphere of fear and suspicion prevailed in Europe.
            The formation of such alliances (see table on p.3) undoubtedly led to increased tensions
in Europe. But they could not automatically lead to war and conversely they could contribute to
peace by acting as a deterrent against possible aggressors. It was the change in the nature of
these alliances from defensive to aggressive that made a difference. A.J.P Taylor points out that
the pre-1914 alliances were so unstable and delicate that they cannot be seen as a major cause
of war. It seems that the alliance system raised expectations about the likely Allies[3]  in the
future war, however each nation seemed to base its decision for war on national interests. Thus
it is to this extent that a link can be drawn between the alliance system and the outbreak of the
First World War.
 

Table showing system of alliances reads clockwise from the top left picture
 
Growth of Militarism
            The growth of militarism[4], which was actually closely connected with the system of
alliances, has also been assigned as a factor responsible for the war. The system of maintaining
large armies actually begin with the French Revolution and was later continued under Napoleon.
It was extended and efficiently developed by Bismarck during the Unification of Germany.
Europe has been observed as an “armed camp” from 1870-1914. According to Michael Howard
each declaration of increased armaments expenditure by a European power before 1914 was
perceived as a threat by its rival, and thus created an atmosphere of mutual fear and suspicion
which greatly contributed in creating the mood for the war in 1914. However, the idea that arms
build up unavoidably leads to war remain doubtful and unproved. Niall Ferguson has claimed that
the role of arms race in encouraging the First World War has been greatly exaggerated.
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9/27/2018 Many scholars believe that the considerations
SM-1 of the leading powers regarding the
balance of power was a much greater influence than a simple build up of arms on policy during
July crisis. The balance of power in the Balkans was turning sharply against Austria-Hungary and
this was a critical factor which caused her to argue for a ‘preventive war’ to weaken Serbia. 
A.J.P Taylor argued that the outbreak of the First World War was caused entirely by rival plans
for mobilization[5]  by the European powers. All European powers had developed detailed war
plans in expectation of war. The famous German war plan, the Schlieffen Plan, relied on the
quick movement of troops and the assumption that once Germany found itself at war with
Russia, it would also is at war with France.
It involved:
Concentrating German forces on an attempt to take Paris and so defeat France.
When that was accomplished troops would be transferred to attack Russia. This is the most
famous plan as it came very close to success.
            It also meant that once Germany declared war on Russia in August 1914, she would also
have to attack France. However in invading France, Belgium's neutrality was violated and this
brought Britain into the war. France had her own plan called Plan XVII (which Niall Ferguson
described as “mad strategy”) and so also did Russia (Plan G) and Austria-Hungary (Plans R and B).
All of these plans assumed the support of their respective Allies. Once the first steps towards
mobilization were taken, everyone assumed that it would be fatal to stand still while their
possible enemies moved forward.   However the relationship between military plans and actual
decisions for war is complex.
             The roots of militaristic attitude of the late 19th and early 20th century has been seen
by many as the crisis in the liberal, enlightenment and rational values which in turn was
transformed into politics. The suppression of the revolutions of 1848 signified the climax of
idealistic approach to society and politics which drew from enlightenment. The ideas of thinkers
like Charles Darwin and Friedrich Nietzsche also contributed to the creation of militaristic
environment in this period. Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ placed the origin of species in a
competitive process of natural selection which was later applied to the society. Similarly
Nietzsche believed that life was a constant struggle, and existence fundamentally chaotic. These
new ideas provide a rhetoric in which the international relations came to be argued, but this
language did not create the war itself. The effect of these ideas can however be seen in the
manner people were responding to the European situation. Militaristic ideas also explain the
unnatural hysteria on the eve of the war.
Rise of Nationalism in Europe
Another very important factor responsible for the war was the wave of nationalism
which swept all over Europe. It was in fact one of the legacy of the French Revolution. The
success of nationalism in Germany and Italy invested it with a new vigor and made it a strong
force in politics. The unifications of Germany and Italy were achievable mainly because Bismarck
and Cavour were successful in arousing the spirit of nationalism. In the process it inflamed the
racial pride of the people, encouraged them to laud their country above all others, and made
them arrogant in their attitude towards their neighbors. It was the excessive zeal of nationalism
that strengthened the rivalries of Germany and Britain and encouraged them to engage on a
vigorous naval and military competition. It was the aggressive nationalism that led the European
powers to quarrel over their interests in Asia, Africa and the Balkans. It was the outraged
nationalism of the French that kept alive their spirit of revenge for the loss of Alsace and
Lorraine and made France the bitterest enemy of Germany. The ecstasy of nationalist upsurge,
manifested in the outbreak of Franco-Prussian War in 1870, opened a new era of popular frenzy
in international relations. The outbreak of war was greeted by cheering crowds in Berlin, Vienna
and Paris. As A.J.P Taylor wrote “the people of Europe leapt willingly into war.”
            There were dissatisfied national minorities along the western periphery of the Russian
empire. Poles and Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Finns continued to exert a strong centrifugal pull
on the empire after 1870. The Russian policy towards these nationalities was of intense
‘Russification’ which had the effect of turning the most extreme patriots of these minorities
towards the Russian Social Revolutionaries. These local movements represented the spirit13/71
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9/27/2018 nationalism which was in ascendancy duringSM-1
this period.
            The responsibility of national self-determination[6] in the origins of the war has been an
important area of debate. Martel has argued that the First World War grew out of a conflict
between Slav nationalism and the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire. The murder of
Archduke Francis Ferdinand was the final straw in this struggle for mastery over the Balkans. It
offered Austro-Hungarian government an ideal opportunity to rouse public opinion in support of a
war. This type of interpretation which sets the July crisis in the context of long running Eastern
Question[7] views the First World War as one which was fought for the future of Central and
Eastern Europe.
Only a handful of historians would object to the view that the struggle to supplant the
Ottoman Empire in the Balkans was a significant factor in the outbreak of war. In July 1914 the
military leaders of Austria-Hungary were so determined to deal with Serbia that they lost their
heads and ignored all plans for negotiation. However, John Leslie opines that Austria-Hungary
can be blamed for planning a local Austro-Serbo conflict which was associated to its fears about
Balkan nationalism, but Germany which was not interested in this conflict quite intentionally
used it as an opportunity to launch the European war which Austria-Hungary never desired. John
Lowe perhaps puts the significance of Austro-Serbo quarrel into its proper context by stating:
“The crisis in the Balkans was the occasion, rather than the cause of the First World War”.
Urge to Imperialism
The expansion of Europe overseas in the 19th century led to new imperialist rivalries
among the great powers. The movement of imperial expansion has been explained by a number
of factors and different theories give varying importance to economic, social, cultural and
strategic factors. Among the earliest theories explaining imperialism were those that linked new
imperialism with economic factors and saw imperialism as arising out of modern capitalism. J.A.
Hobson, a British economist, advanced a theory that advanced capitalist societies in the West
were marked by an unequal distribution of wealth and this concentrated surplus capital exerted
pressure on their respective governments to search for outlets abroad for investment avenues.
This need forced the European powers to divide the world between them in a struggle for new
industrial markets and new areas in which to invest. The result was an increased rivalry. Lenin in
1916 in his pamphletImperialism-The Highest Stage of Capitalism portrayed the Great War
as an imperialist war, caused by rivalries triggered off by pressures of highly organized financial
monopolies operating in the different European countries. He believed that German monopoly
capital was behind German foreign policy. He argued that capitalism has reached its highest
stage in the form of imperialism and that frenzied competition amongst commercial rivals for
markets and for raw materials had inevitably brought about war.
Paul Kennedy, a leading diplomat historian, has recently suggested that economic
interests are a key reality behind diplomacy. In his opinion politicians have autonomous freedom
to pursue foreign policy-even make crucial decisions for war-without reference to economic
interest groups within society. However economic and industrial interests of each nation
ultimately determine the success and failure of those decisions. This implies that politicians
have primacy of political decisions for war but no control over economic consequences of such
decisions. Hence economics plays a vital role in deciding the fate of nations in an international
system.
            Carl Stirkwerda argues that the crisis of 1914 must be understood within the framework
which examined whether all European leaders believed that political and military power are
essential to economic success. He shows a very high level of economic cooperation and
integration in Europe before 1914. Most industrialists preferred mutually beneficial economic
relations and many wanted greater economic integration within European trade and financial
sectors. In other words, many German industrialists saw no need for war. However, it was not
industrialists who had the most significant influence over foreign policy, but the political
leaders.
            J.A Schumpeter however denies any link between capitalism and imperialism because
two of the most aggressively imperialist countries of the late 19th century- Russia and Italy were
severely capital deficit. We can therefore comprehend that capitalism played a critical role in
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9/27/2018 but its effect cannot be generalized
SM-1 and no inevitable causative relationship
between the two can be established.
Imperialism has also been seen in terms of extra-economic origins. C.J.H Hayes
highlighted the political climate of Europe, which was one of mass-based nationalism. He also
points to the importance of public opinion and sentiments. Others have stressed military and
strategic factors, such as the need to secure defensive frontiers. James Joll has emphasized the
idea of sub-imperialism. He argued that once colonies were launched, they took on their own
momentum and developed vested interests which pushed for imperialism. Many historians have
also observed cultural factors in the rise of imperialism, in terms of the role of religion. In the
19th  century, many colonial ventures started as missionary activity. The desire of Christian
missionaries to convert the heathen led to imperialism. Imperialism was justified by civilizing
mission of Christian faith and concepts of White Man’s Burden. It however needs to be
considered in its specific context, which varied from country to country.
Domestic Politics
Modern historians have drawn attention to the influence of internal politics on the
actions of the Great Powers. Socialism had become a very popular political creed in Germany,
Austria, Russia, Italy and France. The ruling class in some of these countries hoped that a short
victorious war would put an end to class differences and reduce the support for socialism that
threatened the existing order.
            In Germany left wing parties, especially the Social Democratic Party (SDP) made large
gains in 1912 election. German government at that time was still dominated by the Prussian
Junkers who feared the rise of these left wing parties. Some authors feel that they purposely
sought an external war to distract the population and whip up patriotic support for the
government. Other authors feel that German conservatives were ambivalent about a war,
worrying that losing a war would have disastrous consequences, and even a successful war might
alienate the population if it was lengthy or difficult.
            In France the situation was quite the opposite, but with the same results. There was a
fierce struggle between the left wing French government and its right wing opponents. A “good
old war” was seen by both sides as a way to solve this crisis. Everyone thought that the war
would be short and would lead to easy victory. The left side government thought that it would be
an ideal opportunity to implement social reforms and the right side politicians hoped that their
connections with the army leaders could give them the opportunity to regain power.
            British domestic politics had just the opposite effect, pulling Britain away from the war.
The liberals, who had come to power in 1905, had long opposed entangling international
alliances and large military expenditures and also the government was weighed down by a
number of pressing political issues. While domestic factors mitigated against Britain’s entry into
an eventual European conflict, foreign policy considerations pushed Britain in the direction of
war. Yet in Britain too, nationalism popularized the expectation that a major war was inevitable.
            In Russia, the Czar’s immediate circle was divided over the advisability of going to war.
Some advisors saw war as a means of rallying the support of an entire people behind the Czar.
Yet others remembered Russia’s disastrous defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. This in turn
contributed to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1905, which brought reforms however short-
lived. Here, too, it did not seem to be in Russia’s interest to push Europe to war. Underlying the
assumptions of all the Great Powers during the July Crisis was the belief that if war did break out
it would be a short one. Many in Britain felt that the war would be over by Christmas.
Role of Newspapers, Press and Public Opinion
Another essential cause of the war was the poisoning of the public opinion by the
newspapers in almost all European countries. The newspapers were often tending to ignite
nationalistic feelings by distorting and misrepresenting the situation in foreign countries. On a
number of occasions when peaceful solutions of complex international problems could be
possible, the biased tone of newspapers in the countries involved in the conflict spoiled matters.
The popular press went very far sometimes to produce results in national and international
politics. In 1870 the publishing of  Ems  telegram by Bismarck immediately inflamed and
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9/27/2018 the extreme nationalist opinion in Paris
SM-1 and precipitated into the Franco-Prussian
War. The shows the inestimable harm the press could do in creating tension in Europe.
The Crisis before 1914
            Between 1900 and 1914 there had been three major crises between the great powers.
These crises exposed the differences between the powers and reinforced the hostility between
them. Two were over Morocco (1905, 1911) and the other was over the Austrian annexation of
Bosnia (1908).
1. First Moroccan Crisis
            In 1905 Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the Moroccan port of Tangier and condemned French
influence in Morocco. The move was designed to test the strength of the recent Anglo-French
entente. The visit aggravated an international crisis, which was resolved in France's favour at the
Algeciras Conference, 1906. This crisis hardened the rapprochement between Britain and France.
Edward VII called the German actions "the most mischievous and uncalled for event which
the German Emperor has been engaged in since he came to the throne."
2. Second Moroccan Crisis
            This crisis erupted when the Germans sent the gunboat "Panther" to the Moroccan port of
Agadir, to protect German citizens there. Germany claimed that the French had ignored the
terms of the Algeciras Conference. This provoked a major war scare in Britain until the Germans
agreed to leave Morocco to the French in return for rights in the Congo. Many Germans felt that
they had been humiliated and that their government had backed down.
3. The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina
                      The two Turkish provinces had been administered by Austria since the  Congress of
Berlin. Austria annexed Bosnia after tricking Russia during negotiations between their respective
foreign ministers. The action irritated Serbia as there was a large Serbian population in Bosnia.
There was a crisis among the Great powers and it brought Europe to the threshold of war. Russia
bowed to German pressure when they supported Austria and they agreed to the annexation.
However she was determined not to be humiliated again. The effects of these crises had been a
hardening of attitudes and an increase in distrust between the different European powers. It led
to a strengthening of the different alliances:
Britain and France during the Moroccan Crises
Austria and Germany during the Bosnian crisis.
The Eastern Question and the Balkans
            During the 19th and early 20th century, the Ottoman Empire had lost land in the Balkans
to the people who lived there. The great powers were also interested in extending their
influence in the region. Relations between Austria and Russia were poor over their rivalry in the
Balkans. Both hoped to expand there at the cost of the Ottoman Empire. Another important
factor was the growth of Slav nationalism among the people who lived there, especially Serbia.
Russia encouraged Slav nationalism while Austria was worried that this nationalism could
undermine her empire. Russia supported Serbia which was very bitter at the annexation of
Bosnia and saw herself as Serbia’s protector.
            As a result of the Balkan Wars (1912 - 1913) Serbia had doubled in size and there was
growing demands for the union of south Slavs (Yugoslavism) under the leadership of Serbia.
Austria had a large south Slav population in the provinces of Slovenia, Croatia, the Banat and
Bosnia. Austria was very alarmed at the growing power of Serbia. She felt Serbia could weaken
her own Empire. The Austrians decided that they would have to wage a  preventative  war
against Serbia in order to destroy her growing power. They were waiting for the right pretext.
The Immediate Occasion and the Outbreak of War

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9/27/2018 The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand
SM-1 and his wife in Sarajevo on 28th June
1914 provided the immediate occasion for the outbreak of the war. Sarajevo was the capital of
Bosnia which had been annexed by Austria-Hungary a few years earlier. The conspirator of the
assassination was a secret society, called the “Black Hand” or “The Union of Death”, of
extremist Serbian nationalists whose aim was to unite all Serbians into a single Serbian state.
Historians are generally agreed that the Serbian government was aware of the conspiracy to
murder the Prince but did nothing to stop it. On 4th  July, 1914, Franz losef of Austria sent a
letter to Kaiser William asking for German support to get rid of Serbia as a power factor in the
Balkans. The Kaiser consulted with Bethmann Hollweg, the German Chancellor, to decide the
German position. They decided that Austria should be given free hand known as the ‘blank
cheque’ to start war with Serbia. The Russian and French governments met from 20th  to
23rd  July, 1914 to discuss their position in view of the mounting crisis. France offered full
support Russia in resisting any attempts by Austria to jeopardize the independence of Serbia.
This is viewed as a  second ‘blank cheque.’ Convinced of Serbia’s involvement in the
assassination, Austria served an ultimatum on 23rd July making eleven demands on Serbia which
were not accepted in its entirety. Serbia’s reply of 25th  July did not conciliate Austria, and
Serbia knowing that it would not, had already ordered mobilization of her troops. Austria
rejected Serbia’s reply and immediately ordered the mobilization of her army for an attack on
Serbia. On 28th July Austria declared war on Serbia. On 29th July, the Austrian army bombarded
Belgrade, the Serbian capital.
            The outbreak of the war between Serbia and Austria was soon followed by two other
wars, and the three wars, militarily linked together, led to the general war or the First World
War. In order to pressurize Austria to abandon the war against Serbia, Russia ordered
mobilization against Austria. She could not allow Austrian expansion in the Balkans, where she
had her own ambitions which would suffer in the event of Serbia’s defeat. As Germany would
come to the aid of Austria if Russia entered the war against Austria, Russia also prepared for war
with Germany. Germany was convinced that in the event of war between her and Russia, France
would join Russia against Germany. This would mean that Germany would have to fight on two
fronts, with France in the west and with Russia in the east. To be successful in the war, Germany
had made plans to first defeat France in a quick war by mobilizing most of her troops for this
purpose and then turn to Russia against whom a quick victory was not possible. Thus the second
war was fought between Austria and Germany on one side and Russia and France on the other.
The British position was still unclear as the British government was divided on the issue of going
to war. She responded to the French request for help by promising to defend northern coast of
France against the German navy. However German invasion of neutral Belgium finally ended
Britain’s indecisiveness, and Germany and Britain were at war. Thus the rival alliances, formed in
the preceding years, had come into play. Only Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance, remained
neutral on the ground that Germany was not fighting a defensive war.
The Scope of the War
            Germany declared war on Russia on 1st August 1914 and began to mobilize her troops.
But the immediate German attack fell not on Russia but on Belgium and France. On 2nd August
the German government presented an ultimatum to the Belgian government, demanding a
passage for German armies through neutral Belgium, which the Belgians resentfully rejected.
The French government fully aware of the threat facing them, had already ordered mobilization,
and on 3rdAugust Germany declared war on France. German troops marched into Belgium to
press on to France on 4th August and on the same day Britain declared war on Germany. In the
meantime, the Serbo-Austrian war appeared to have become secondary. In the celebrated words
of Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, as the Great War began, “The lights are going
out all over Europe. They will not be lit again in our lifetime.”
            Many other countries soon entered the war. Japan declared war on Germany. She had
entered into an alliance with Britain but her main aim was to seize the German territories in the
Far-East. Portugal, often referred to by Britain as her oldest ally, also entered the war. In 1915,
Italy declared war against Austria. Britain and France had promised her Austrian and Turkish
territories. Later, Romania and Greece also joined Britain, France and Russia, and these
countries along with their allies came to be known as the Allied Powers. Germany and Austria
were joined by Bulgaria having been promised territories in Serbia and Greece. Turkey declared
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9/27/2018 on Russia in November and joined the war SM-1 on the side of Germany and Austria. These
countries i.e. Germany and Austria and their allies came to be known as the Central Powers.
Various other countries in other parts of the world also joined the war. USA entered the war in
1917 on the side of the Allied powers. In all, the number of belligerent countries rose to twenty-
seven. Thus the extent of conflict was widened.       
Conclusion
            In summing up we can say that the Great War had several causes, with none alone
standing as a sufficient cause. Any single explanation of this complex problem is likely to be too
simple. While in the final crisis of July 1914 Germany acted in a way that made war more likely,
the enthusiasm with which it was greeted in all the belligerent countries and the assumption by
each of the governments concerned that their vital national interests were at stake, were the
result of accumulation of factors-social, intellectual, psychological, economic, political and
cultural-which all contributed to the outbreak of the war.  
Suggested Readings
1. Frank McDonough,  The Origins of the First and Second World Wars  (Cambridge
Perspectives in History), 1997.
2. James Joll, The Origins of the First World War, London, 1984
3. Ruth Henig, The Origins of the First World War, Second edition, Roultedge, London & New
York, 2002.
4. John Merriman,  History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present,
Vol.II, 1996, p.1003-34.
5. Keith Robbins, The First World War, Oxford University Press, 2002.
6. Stephan J.Lee,  Aspects of European History (1789-1980),  1982, Roultedge, London &
New York, p.145-55.
   7. A.J.P.Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918(1954).
8. A.J.P Taylor, The Outbreak of War, in D.E Lee (ed.) The Outbreak of the First World
War: Who Was Responsible? London, 1963.
9. S.B Fay, Origins of the World War, 2 Vols, London, 1938.
10. E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes. 1914-1991 (New York: Vintage,
1996   
11. IGNOU Study Material, EHI-01 & EHI-07.       
 

[1]  This term was first coined by German General Erich Ludendroff in 1918. It meant
mobilization of all material as well as moral energies in the process of waging a modern war. 
[2]  A term used with reference to the British policy of non-intervention in European conflicts
during the late   19thcentury.
 
[3]  A group of countries or political parties who are formally united and working together
because they have                 a similar aim.
[4]  A policy of maintaining a strong military base.
 
[5]  A military term used for calling up troops for fight.
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 [6] 
9/27/2018 Right of a nationality to choose its future SM-1

 
[7]  A term related to the problem in the middle-east, like the problem of declining Turkish
Empire, the struggle of European Nationalists for freedom in the Turkish Empire and the
conflicting interests of European powers in Turkey.

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9/27/2018 SM-1

3 Lesson 2 COURSE AND CONSEQUENCES OF

THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN EUROPE AND
THE WORLD
Lesson 2

COURSE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN EUROPE AND

THE WORLD

-Dr.Naveen Vashishta

Audio

0:00 / 0:00

When the First World War was declared, eager commanders put long-standing military
plans into effect. The German general staff counted on a rapid victory against France in the west
before the Russian army could be brought into action in the east. But expecting a quick victory,
German forces occupied Belgium. However, this violation of Belgian neutrality unavoidably
brought Britain into war on the side of Russia and France.
The Schlieffen Plan
Germany’s plan for war against France had been established by Count Alfred von
Schlieffen, a former chief of the German General Staff. Based on the assumption that it would
take Russia, France’s ally, some time to prepare her armies to fight, the Schlieffen Plan called
for German armies to knock the French out of the war within six weeks. To accomplish this, the
German armies would storm around the network of fortifications on the eastern frontier of
France. German forces would march through Belgium and Holland and turn south. A pincer
movement southwards would encircle Paris from the northwest, and then turn to trap the French
armies struggling in Alsace-Lorraine. Schlieffen and his successors all believed that the plan
would probably bring Great Britain into the war because it would never accept the breach of
Belgian territory and the possible presence of an enemy power just across the English Channel.
But the Germans believed that a small British army would pose little threat. Then once Paris had
fallen, there would still be time to send the victorious army to east to defeat the Russians. This
was the solution to Bismarck’s nightmare, a simultaneous war on two fronts.
Schlieffen last words had been “Keep the right wing (of the attacking armies) strong.”
However his successor, Von Moltke,  reduced the strength of attacking force by strengthening
German defenses in Alsace-Lorraine. He also eliminated Holland from the invasion plan for lack
of men. The French high command which had known the basics of the Schlieffen Plan for years
did not believe that German army could rapidly move through Belgium, partly because the
attacking forces would have to conquer the daunting fortress at Liege. The French also knew
that the plan called for inclusion of reserves into the main German army, and doubted they could
quickly become an able fighting force.
Similarly the French high command had its own plan for war. It too visualizes a swift
attack based on patriotic energy of the troops. “Plan XVII” would send two French armies into
Alsace-Lorraine, as the Germans expected. The French planned another thrust to drive German
forces back. With the bulk of German army tied up by French and British troops in Belgium the
way to Berlin would be open. But having miscalculated the size of the effective German fighting

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 force,
9/27/2018 the French also underestimated the speed with
SM-1 which their enemy could mobilize for war
and attack. The Schlieffen Plan dictated the course of the opening hostilities and the stalemate
that followed.
         
 
 
Battles in Europe
The battles of First World War were fought in different parts of the world. In terms of
intensity of fighting and killings, the battles in Europe overshadowed the battles outside Europe.
On the Western front in Europe, the war began when the German armies, sweeping across
Belgium, entered southern France and by early September had reached in the close vicinity of
Paris. The French army in the mean time had moved to the France-German frontier to march
into Alsace-Lorraine. The German army hoped to surround the French army and achieve a quick
victory. The French offensive into Alsace-Lorraine was repulsed but the withdrawing French
forces along with the British forces met the German forces in theBattle of Marne.[1] The
German forces had to move back and they entrenched themselves along the river Aisne. There
were desperate fights, but by November end the war entered a period of a long deadlock on the
Western front when neither could remove the other for about four years.
Behind a long continuous chain of opposing trenches and barbed wire extending from the
southern border of France with Switzerland to the northern seacoast of France, the opposing
armies dug themselves in. Protected from the machine gun and rifle fire behind the trenches,
neither side could break through the other’s line of trenches. Each side conducted raids on the
other with little success. Germany, in 1915, started the use of poison gas to achieve the
breakthrough, and Britain, in 1916, introduced the use of tanks for the same purpose but neither
made much difference.
On the Eastern front, Russia achieved some initial successes against Germany and Austria
but these were short-lived. In 1915, the Russian armies suffered heavy defeats and the forces of
the Central Powers entered many territories of the Russian empire. In 1916, Russia launched
another offensive but it was repulsed. After the October Revolution of 1917 Russia withdrew
from the war. On 2nd March 1918, she signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany and
abandoned many of its territories as a price of peace. In the meantime, Serbia and Romania had
surrendered.  
War Outside Europe
Outside Europe, some major battles were fought in North Africa and West Asia. Germany
and Turkey united to intimidate the Allied possessions and influence in North Africa and West
Asia. Britain and France fought these attempts and tried to seize the Arab territories of the
Ottoman Empire. They also established contacts with Arab nationalists and others and provoked
anti-Turkish Arab risings. While pretending to champion the cause of Arab country’s freedom
from Turkish rule, Britain and France entered into a secret agreement, known as the  Sykes-
Picot agreement in 1916 which provided for the division of Arab countries between Britain and
France. In 1917, the British government also promised to establish a national home for the
Jewish people in Palestine. This pledge by Britain about another country was to have serious
repercussions for peace and stability in West Asia.
During the war years, German colonial possessions in Africa and Asia were seized by Allied
powers. Japan made colonial gains in China by acquiring control over the German sphere of
influence and forcing China to make further concessions to her. German Southwest Africa was
occupied by South African troops, Togoland by British, French and Belgian troops. The fighting
between British and German troops in German East Africa continued till the end of the war.
The Deadlock in Europe
In the meantime, the “war of attrition” was on in Europe. It meant a war of material,
of industrial strength and supply capacity of the belligerent states. Each side was trying to wear
out the other side by mobilizing more and more men and using huge amounts of war equipments.
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9/27/2018 catastrophic battles were fought as a part SM-1
of this “war of attrition.” In February 1916,
Germany launched a massive attack on the French forts stretched around Verdun. The French
were prepared to hold Verdun at all costs. Its loss would be a potentially mortal blow to French
morale. So the French poured hundreds of thousand of their soldiers into the battle. In the damp
chilling mists of the hills of Argonne, there were a lot of casualties. Although the French army
held but lost 315,000 men killed or wounded; 90,000 died at the appropriately named “Dead
Man’s Hill” alone. The Germans suffered 281,000 casualties. A French counterattack in the fall
recaptured many of the forts the Germans had taken; again the casualties increased. In all, the
French suffered 540,000 casualties and the Germans 430,000 casualties at Verdun. It was the
longest battle of World War I.
The Battle of Verdun merely delayed plans for a massive British offensive on Somme,
supported by a similar French thrust. The assault began on 1st  July 1916 after a week’s
bombardment. At the first end of the first day of theBattle of Somme[2], about 60,000
soldiers of the 110,000 British soldiers had become casualties, including 19,000 killed.[3] When
the disastrous offensive finally ended in mid-November, Britain had lost 420,000 men killed and
wounded. The French lost 200,000 men and the Germans lost 650,000 soldiers.
The war had become a total war. It was no longer restricted to battles between armies.
It required total mobilization of all the resources of the main warring nations. An increasing
amount of armaments and other war materials were required to be produced which meant
changing the production pattern. Every economic activity had to be subordinated to the needs of
the war. So warring groups started a system of imposing an economic blockade. It necessitated
that no goods i.e. food, war materials, raw materials should be allowed to enter the enemy’s
country from anywhere. By doing this, each side thought that the other would be starved into
submission. Britain imposed a naval blockade on Germany and though the naval fleets of the two
countries fought only one major battle, and that too indecisive, the British succeeded in the
blockade of Germany. To prevent food and other supplies from reaching Britain, Germany started
using submarines[4]  which it had developed not only to destroy enemy ships but also ships of
neutral countries heading for British ports.
A large number of new weapons were introduced in this war. The machine gun and liquid
fire were two such weapons. For the first time, aircrafts were used in warfare for bombing the
civilian population but it had little role in deciding the outcome of the war. The British
introduced the use of the tank. Another horrible weapon used in the war was poison gas.
The Final Stages of War
In 1917, two events of great consequence occurred, each of which appeared to one side
to present an opportunity to end the stalemate on the western front. Reacting in part to a
German campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping, the United States
entered the war in April on the Allies side. And Russia withdrew from the war after the
Bolsheviks seized the power in the October Revolution. Meanwhile, the French armies seemed on
the verge of collapse and a massive German offensive that began in March 1918 pushed Allied
forces back further than they had been since 1914. The stage was set for the final phase of the
war.
1. The United States Enters the War
            On 6th April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. USA had become the
major source of arms and other essential supplies for the Entente powers. On May 7th May, 1915,
a German submarine sank the British cruise linerLusitania off the coast of Ireland. The ship was,
despite U.S denials, carrying American manufactured ammunition to the Allies; 128 U.S citizens
were among the almost 1,200 killed. The U.S already annoyed by the fresh German introduction
of the mustard gas into warfare, protested strongly, and on 1st September the German
government accepted the American demand to abandon the unrestricted submarine warfare. For
the next two years, the Germans, wanting to keep the U.S neutral, adopted a policy of warning
liners before sinking them, providing for the safety of the passengers.
But the fact remained that Germany could prevent Britain from maintaining total control
of the high seas only with submarines. The continuing success of the British blockade led
Germany to announce on 1st February, 1917, that its submarines would attack any ship in “war
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9/27/2018 Moreover there was a pressure from the German
SM-1 high command who believed that this
was the only hope for knocking Britain out of the war. With more Americans killed in submarine
attacks USA entered the war on 6th April, 1917 on the side of the Allied Powers.
2. Russia Withdraws from the War
                      The second significant event of 1917 was the Russian Revolution. The Russian
revolutionaries had opposed the war from the beginning and, under the leadership of Lenin,
decided to transform it into a revolutionary war to overthrow the Russian autocracy and to seize
power. The Russian army had suffered severe reverses in the war. Over 600,000 Russian soldiers
had been killed. As soon as the Bolsheviks came to power, it issued the Decree on Peace with
proposals to end the war without any annexations and indemnities. Russia decided to withdraw
from the war and signed the  Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3rd  March, 1918 with Germany,
which officially ended Russia’s participation in what the Allies called “the Great War of
Civilization.”
The End of War
Many efforts were made to bring the war to an end. Discontent had been rising in the
civilian population and among the soldiers of all the major warring countries. There were
demonstrations and mutinies. The Russian emperor had already fallen. The discontent was much
widespread in the countries of the Central Powers. There was a wave of strikes in Germany and
Austria-Hungary and a succession of mutinies in their armies and navies. In Austria-Hungary,
there were desertions on large scale among the soldiers of “subject nationalities” and many of
them were fighting on the side of the Allies. By about the middle of July 1918, the tide of the
war was beginning to turn against Germany which had launched a series of offensives on the
western front, inflicting heavy casualties on the Allies. But by July, the German offensive was
contained and the Allies launched counter-offensives. In the meantime the Allied forces had
started their military intervention in Russia. In the east, thousands of Japanese troops poured
into Siberia. While the Allied intervention in Russia was to survive the end of the First World War,
the collapse of the Central Powers had begun.
On 8th  January, 1918, American President Woodrow Wilson set out a blueprint for
permanent peace. His “Fourteen Points” were based upon his understanding of how the Great
War had begun, and how future wars could be avoided. The first point called for “open
covenants (agreements), openly arrived at,” in place of the secret treaties whose obligations
had put Europe into war. Wilson also called for freedom of the seas and freedom of trade, and
the impartial settlement of colonial rivalries. Other points included the principle of non-
intervention in Russia; the return of full sovereignty to Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine to France;
autonomy for the national groups within the Austro-Hungarian Empire; and the independence of
Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Poland. The last of the Fourteen Points called for the
establishment of an organization or association of nations to settle other national conflicts as
they arose.
Bulgaria surrendered on 29th September, 1918. By the end of October the Ottoman Empire
had ceased to exist. On November 12, the Habsburg emperor renounced his throne. Most people
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire-the Czechs, the Poles, the Yugoslavs and the Hungarians-had
already declared their independence. Now only Germany remained and final Allied offensives
against her were launched in September. On 3rd November, revolution broke out in Germany; on
9thNovember, the German emperor abdicated and fled to Holland, and on 10th  November
Germany was proclaimed a republic. On 11th November, 1918, a representative of the provisional
German government and  General Foch  of France signed an armistice and the First World War
came to an end.   
The celebrations in London, Paris, New York, and elsewhere on the Allied side went on
for days. A French veteran, tiring of the street festivities in his town, went in the evening to a
graveyard. There he came upon a woman crying next to the tomb of her husband. Their small
boy was with her, playing with a tricolor flag. Suddenly he cried out, “Papa, we’ve won!”
Consequences of the War

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9/27/2018 The First World War lasted for four years andSM-1 three months. It began on August 4, 1914
and ended on November 11, 1918. It involved sixty sovereign states, overthrew four Empires
(German Empire, Hapsburg Empire, Turkish Empire, Russian Empire), gave birth to seven new
nations, took ten million combatant lives (another 30 million were wounded), and cost about £
35,000 million.  This war was in several ways exclusively novel in human history.  It has been
described as the "primordial catastrophe of the twentieth century." It was the
largest global conflict yet seen, leading to the deaths of millions and the devastation of
parts of Western Europe. There had been wars in Europe before, involving many states. This
one, however, was a general conflict between highly organized states that had at their control
all the resources of modern warfare and were well equipped to find new methods of destruction
and defence. It was fought with determination and desperation by the nations because they
believed that it was a war for the survival and for high ideals; it was fought everywhere-on land,
above land, on sea and under sea. Obviously any such conflict was bound to have enormous and
far reaching consequences for Europe and rest of the world.
Destruction of Human Lives
The destruction caused by war in terms of human lives lost was terrible. There had
been nothing like the Great War in history. The figures of persons who fought in the war are
shocking. About 6,000 people had been killed each day for more than 1,500 days. In more than
four years of fighting, at least 65 million soldiers were mobilized. Out of 42 million men who
served in the Allied armies, 22 million were casualties; thus making the war Europe’s cruelest
scourge. The Central Powers mobilized 23 million, and had 15 million casualties. The table below
shows casualties (in million) during World War I in different countries.
 

Country Mobilized Casualties Percentage

Austria-Hungary 7.8 7 90

Russia 12 9.15 76

France 8.4 6 71

Germany 11 7 63

Italy 5.5 2.15 39

Britain 8.9 3 34

United States 4.35 0.36 8

 
Source: John Merriman: History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to
the Present, Vol.II, 1996, p.1082.
This was of course an unprecedented rate of casualties in any European warfare. This massive
loss of human lives affected the structure of population both in sex and in age groups. The loss
of life among women was much lower. Thus in Britain in the year 1911 there were 1067 females
to every 1000 males. However, in 1921, the sex ratio changed to 1093 females to every 1000
males. This disequilibrium led to many social complexities and other related problems in the
society.
But sheer numbers do not tell the entire story. The psychic damage to the generation of
survivors can hardly be measured. Of the wounded who survived, many were destined to spend
the rest of their lives in hospitals. Soldiers who had lost their limbs or who were injured in other
ways became a common sight in European countries after the war. The flower of European
youth-or much of it-had perished. Europe seemed a continent of widows and spinsters so many
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9/27/2018 killed in the prime of their life that the birth rate fell strikingly after the war. Support for
SM-1
families of the dead soldiers and the invalid unable to work strained national budgets. The
bloodshed was not confined to Europe alone. In an outbreak of ethnic hostility and in response to
Armenian demands for independent state, the Turks forced 1.75 million Armenians to leave their
homes in Turkey; more than a third of them died without water in the desert sun on the way to
Syria, their bodies consumed by animals. Furthermore, about 27 million people died in an
influenza epidemic during the last years of and after the war.
 
Social and Cultural Consequences

European countries directed all of their resources into total war which resulted in
enormous social changes. This war had the effect of accelerating women’s emancipation whe
rever the movement started before 1914. Women over 30 years of age were granted parliame
ntary vote in Britain in 1918 because the war required a national effort and in modern warfar
e civilian morale and industrial production had become as important as the army. Moreover, c
onscription created labor shortages which had to be filled at once, and women soon dispelled
many anti-feminist myths as they proved their ability to do hard jobs in the factories and on t
he farm. Women participated in all activities and worked on factories, shops, offices and volu
ntary services, hospitals and schools. They worked hand in hand with men and so won their cl
aim of equality with them. It became easier now for them to find work as traditional hindranc
es were eliminated. They undertook a variety of jobs previously held by men. They were also
more widely employed in industrial jobs. By 1918, 37.6 percent of the work force in the Krup
p armaments firm in Germany was female. In England the proportion of women works rose stri
kingly in public transport (for example, from 18,000 to 117,000 bus conductors), banking (9,50
0 to 63,700), and commerce (505,000 to 934,000).  Many restrictions on women disappeared d
uring the war.  It became acceptable for young, employed, single middle-class women to have
their own apartments, to go out without chaperones[5], and to smoke in public. Even the ba
rriers of class and wealth were weakened to quite a great extent by the “fellowship of the tre
nches.” If women edged nearer to some kind of equality, the same was even truer of organize
d labor in nearly all belligerent countries. For government to mobilize manpower in the war, t
he cooperation of the trade union movement was essential and by the end of the war, unions
were in a much stronger position after collaboration with the government.

This social trauma manifested itself in many different ways. Some people were revolted
by  nationalism  and what it had caused; so, they began to work toward a
more  internationalist  world through organizations such as the  League of
Nations. Pacifism became increasingly popular. Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that
only military strength could be relied on for protection in a chaotic and inhumane world that did
not respect hypothetical notions of civilization. Certainly a sense
of  disillusionment  and  cynicism  became pronounced.  Nihilism  grew in popularity. Many
people believed that the war heralded the end of the world as they had known it, including the
collapse of  capitalism  and  imperialism.Communist  and  socialist  movements around the
world drew strength from this theory, enjoying a level of popularity they had never known
before. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or particularly harshly affected by
the war, such as central Europe, Russia and France.
Artists such as  Otto Dix,  George Grosz,  Ernst Barlach, and  Käthe
Kollwitz  represented their experiences, or those of their society, in blunt  paintings  and
sculpture. Similarly, authors such as Erich Maria Remarque  wrote grim novels detailing their
experiences. These works had a strong impact on society, causing a great deal of controversy and
highlighting conflicting interpretations of the war. In Germany, nationalists including
the  Nazis  believed that much of this work was  degenerate  and undermined the cohesion of
society as well as dishonouring the dead.
The war destroyed the cultural fabric of Europe. It caused widespread destruction of
buildings. Old established values were questioned and often unthinkably repudiated, while the
newer ones restored nothing lasting of any significance. The void thus left, saw an alarming
decline of moral standards.
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9/27/2018 Impact SM-1

            The economic impact of the war was much disproportioned. At one end there were th
ose who profited from the war and at the other end were those who suffered under the effect
s of inflation. The prospects of making enormous amounts of money in war manufacture were
ample. War profiteers were a public scandal. Fictional new rich had numerous real-life count
erparts. However, government rarely interfered in major firms, as happened when the Germa
n military took over the Daimler motor car works for padding costs on war-production contrac
ts. Governments tended to favor large, centralized industries over smaller ones. The war was
a stimulus towards grouping companies into larger firms. When resources became scarce, non
essential firms, which tended to be small, were simply closed down. Inflation was the greates
t single economic factor as war budgets rose to astronomical figures and massive demand forc
ed shortages of many consumer goods. Virtually ever able-bodied person was employed to kee
p up with the demand. This combination of high demand, scarcity, and full employment sent p
rices soaring, even in the best managed countries. In Britain, a pound sterling brought in 1919
about one-third of what it had bought in 1914. French prices approximately doubled during t
he war and it only got worse during the 1920's. Inflation rates were even higher in other bellig
erents. The German currency ceased to have value in 1923. All of this had been foreseen by J
ohn Maynard Keynes as a result of the Versailles Treaty: “The danger confronting us, therefor
e, is the rapid depression of the standard of life of the European populations to a point which
will mean actual starvation for some (a point already reached in Russian and approximately r
each in Austria).”

               Inflation affected different people quite differently. Skilled workers in strategic ind
ustries found that their wages kept pace with prices or even rose a little faster.  Unskilled wor
kers and workers in less important industries fell behind. Clerks, lesser civil servants, teacher
s, clergymen, and small shopkeepers earned less than many skilled labors. Those who suffered
the most were those dependent on fixed incoming. The incomes of old people on pensions or
middle class living on small dividends remained about the same while prices double or triple
d. These dropped down into poverty. These "new poor" kept their pride by repairing old clothe
s, supplementing food budget with gardens, and giving up everything to appear as they had be
fore the war. Inflation radically changed the relative position of many in society. Conflicts aro
se over the differences in purchasing power. All wage earners had less real purchasing power
at the end of the war than they had had at the beginning. To make matters worse some great
fortunes were built during the wartime and postwar inflation. Those who were able to borro
w large amounts of money could repay their debts in devalued currency from their war profit.
It has been pointed out, that all the economic slogans of the post-war years, strangely enoug
h, began with the prefix re: reconstruction, recovery, reparations, retrenchment, repayment
of war debts, restoration of gold standard etc.

Political Implications

The First World War and Peace Treaty concluded after it transformed the political
map of the world, particularly Europe. As mentioned earlier, four ruling dynasties were destr
oyed. It uprooted the hereditary autocracy and monarchy from almost all the European countr
ies. The war had been declared ‘to make the world safe for democracy.’ There were some cou
ntries like England, Spain, Romania and Greece etc., where the monarchy could not be uproot
ed. But nobody could deny the fact that the governments of these countries could not preserv
e the tone of monarchy in the real sense and democratization of the governments became ord
er of the day after the First World War which compelled the autocratic rulers to rule as consti
tutional monarchs or to abdicate. This war promoted the feelings of democracy all over the w
orld.

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               Governments took on many new powers in order to fight the total war.  War govern
ments fought opposition by increasing police power. Authoritarian regimes like tsarist Russia h
ad always depended on the threat of force, but now even parliamentary governments felt the
necessity to expand police powers and control public opinion.  Britain gave police powers wid
e scope in August 1914 by the Defence of the Realm Act which authorized the public authoriti
es to arrest and punish rebels under martial law if necessary.  Through later acts, police powe
rs grew to include suspending newspapers and the ability to intervene in a citizen's private lif
e in the use of lights at home, food consumption, and bar hours. Police powers tended to gro
w as the war went on and public opposition increased as well. In France a sharp rise of strike
s, mutinies, and talk of a negotiated peace raised doubts about whether France could really c
arry on the war in 1917. A group of French political leaders decided to carry out the war at th
e cost of less internal liberty. The government cracked down on anyone suspected of supporti
ng a compromise peace. Many of the crackdowns and sedition charges were just a result of wa
r panic or calculated political opportunism. Expanded police powers also included control of p
ublic information and opinion. The censorship of newspapers and personal mail was already a
n established practice. Governments regularly used their power to prevent leaking of military
secrets and the airing of dangerous opinions considering war efforts. The other side of using
police power on public opinion was the "organizing of enthusiasm," which could be thought of
as: “Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people; the organization embraces wit
hin its scope only those who do not threaten on psychological grounds to become a brake on t
he further dissemination of the idea.”

               World War I provided a place for the birth of propaganda which countries used with
even more horrifying results during World War II. Governments used the media to influence p
eople to enlist and to persuade them war into supporting the war. The French prime minister
used his power to draft journalists or defer them in exchange for favorable coverage. The Ge
rman right created a new mass party, the Fatherland Party.  It was backed by secret funds fro
m the army and was devoted to propaganda for war discipline. By 1918, the Fatherland Party
was larger than the Social Democratic Party. Germany had become quite effective at influenc
ing the masses.

               The war weakened the world’s centre, Europe, and strength the periphery-North A
merica, Russia and Asia. The period after the war saw the beginning of the end of the Europea
n supremacy in the world. Economically and militarily, Europe was surpassed by the United St
ates which emerged as world power after the war. The Soviet Union became the first socialist
country and was also to come up as a major world power. Thus Europe’s primacy was at the e
nd and its future looked miserable.

        The period after the war also saw the strengthening of the freedom movements in Asia a
nd Africa. The weakening of Europe and the emergence of Soviet Union which declared her su
pport to the struggles for national independence contribute to the growing strengths of these
struggles. There was also a problem of redistribution of balance of power in the world. As a r
esult of this war, there was a military and political collapse of old empires. The pre-war Germ
an and Austrian dominance, for a time, came to an end. The supreme task before the peacem
akers was to see that Germany is kept in check and also, weakened militarily. Another proble
m was the reshaping of eastern and central Europe in the light of newly emerging realities of
national grouping, economic viability and military security.  

Environmental Impact of War

In terms of environmental impact, World War I was most damaging, because of landscape
changes caused by trench warfare. This war was fought from trenches, dug from the North Sea
to the border of Switzerland. In 1918 when the war was over, empires disintegrated into smaller
countries, marking the division of Europe today. Over 9 million people had died, most of which
perished from influenza after the outbreak of the Spanish Flu. The war did not directly cause the
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 influenza
9/27/2018 outbreak, but it was amplified. Mass movement
SM-1 of troops and close quarters caused
the Spanish Flu to spread quickly. Furthermore, stresses of war may have increased the
vulnerability of soldiers to the disease.
Digging trenches caused trample of grassland, crushing of plants and animals, and
churning of soil. Erosion resulted from forest logging to expand the network of trenches. Soil
structures were transformed severely, and if the war was never fought, in all likelihood the
landscape would have looked very differently today.
Another destructive impact was the application of poison gas. Gases were spread
throughout the trenches to kill soldiers of the opposite front. Examples of gases applied during
World War I are tear gas (aerosols causing eye irritation), mustard gas (cell toxic gas causing
blistering and bleeding), and carbonyl chloride (carcinogenic gas). The gases caused a total of
100,000 deaths, most caused by carbonyl chloride (phosgene). Battlefields were polluted, and
most of the gas evaporated into the atmosphere. After the war, unexploded ammunition caused
major problems in former battle areas. Environmental legislation prohibits explosion or dumping
chemical weapons at sea; therefore the cleanup was and still remains a costly operation. In
1925, most war participants signed a treaty banning the application of gaseous chemical
weapons. Chemical disarmament plants were planned in France and Belgium.
Peace Treaties
When the First World War ended there were a great deal of near sighted decisions
made that directly lead to the Second World War thus it has been said that the Second World War
was actually a continuation of the First World War.  After the First World War, the Allies
imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The1919 Treaty of
Versailles, in which Germany was kept under blockade until she signed, ended the war.
It declared Germany responsible for the war and required Germany to pay
enormous war reparations and awarding territory to the victors. Unable to pay them
with exports (a result of territorial losses and postwar recession), she did so by
borrowing from the United States, until the reparations were suspended in 1931. The
"Guilt Thesis"[6]became a controversial explanation of events in Britain and the
United States. The Treaty of Versailles caused enormous bitterness in Germany, which
nationalist movements, especially the Nazis, exploited. The treaty contributed to one
of the worst economic collapses in German history, sparking runaway inflation in the
1920s.
The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920.
The treaty, however, was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the Turkish
republican movement. This led to the Turkish Independence War and, ultimately, to
the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.Austria-Hungary was also partitioned, largely along
ethnic lines. The details were contained in the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty
of Trianon.
 
The New International Organization
The League of Nations was a world organization contrived to replace the old system of
‘power politics.’ It  was aninternational organization founded as a result of the Treaty of
Versailles in 1919–1920. The scheme of League of Nations was sponsored with great
fervor by President Woodrow Wilson. The League's goals includeddisarmament,
preventing war through collective security, settling disputes
between countries throughnegotiation, diplomacy and improving global quality of life.
The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in
thought from the preceding hundred years. The League failed in its supreme task of
preserving peace. The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on
the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the
League ordered, or provide an army, when needed, for the League to use. However,
they were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could also hurt the League members
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 imposing
9/27/2018 the sanctions and given the pacifistSM-1
attitude following World War I, countries
were reluctant to do so. Benito Mussolini stated that "The League is very well when
sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."
            After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League
ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the  Axis Powers  in the 1930s. The
onset of the Second World War  suggested that the League had failed in its primary purpose,
which was to avoid any future world war. The United Nations replaced it after the end of the
war and inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League.
Conclusion
Thus to conclude we can say that World War I did not completely end with
the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, for its social, cultural, political, economic,
environmental and psychological effects influenced the lives of people long after the
last shot was fired. The Great War could not be relegated to the past. War became the
continuing experience of the 20th century.
Suggested Readings
1. John Merriman, History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present,
Vol.II, 1996, p.1039-84.
2. Frank McDonough,  The Origins of the First and Second World Wars (Cambridge
Perspectives in History), 1997.

3. Keith Robbins, The First World War, Oxford University Press, 2002.
4. IGNOU Study Material, EHI-01, Block 3.
 

[1]  It was named after the river Marne near which the battle was fought.

[2]  This battle was named after the river Somme along which it was fought.
 
            [3]  There were more British soldiers killed and wounded in the first three days of the Battle
of Somme than    Americans killed in World War I, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War
combined, and three times as many killed as had been killed in fifteen years of war against
Napoleon.
 

[4] U-boat, in German Unterseeboot.

[5] Older person, usually a woman, who looks after a girl or a young unmarried woman on social
occasions.

[6]  See appendix.

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4 APPENDIX
APPENDIX
FIRST WORLD WAR: WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE?
The historical debate on the origins of the First World War has been affected by the
existing political climate and by the urge to find out as to who was primarily responsible. The
official report on the origins of the war, written by victorious powers, and presented to the
Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 concluded that the war was premeditated by Germany
and resulted from acts deliberately committed in order to make it
unavoidable. Germany and Austria-Hungary deliberately worked to defeat all the many
conciliatory proposals made by Entente powers to avoid war. The German War Guilt is enshrined
in Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles.
During the inter-war years the Germans sought to reverse the verdict and released many
official documents to accomplish this end. In 1927 Erich Brandenburg, a German historian argued
that Germany did not plan the First World War. He blamed Russia for wanting control over the
Balkans, and France for wanting revenge for the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. In 1930, Sidney Fay,
an American historian, argued that no European power wanted war in 1914 and that all to a
greater and lesser degree must share the blame. Fay attached some liability to each power
involved in the July Crisis and came to the conclusion that the verdict of German War Guilt was
defective. Thus the idea of collective responsibility  for the outbreak of the war came to
become an orthodox interpretation. In 1938, G.P Gooch, a British historian, reflected the
prevailing orthodoxy by stating that “The belief that any nation or statesman was the arch
criminal in 1914 is no longer held by serious students of history.” Lloyd George, the British Prime
Minister, suggested that “all the nations of Europe slithered over the edge of the boiling cauldron
of war in 1914.”  Slowly and slowly, the debate over the origins of the war began to move away
from apportioning guilt towards an assessment of long-term causes. 
Debate over German responsibility for the war:  The debate over whether Germany
intended an offensive war or a war of territorial expansion is still a topic of debate. In 1961,
Fritz Fisher, a German historian, published a voluminous book titled ‘Germany’s Aims in the First
World War’(1967) in which he apportioned chief responsibility to Germany for preparing and
launching World War I. According to him, the German desire for territorial expansion and to
break free of its diplomatic encirclement culminated in the war. Fisher stated that Germany was
ready to go to war at any cost in order to establish herself as a great power. He further alleged
that Germany even went to the extent of provoking her allies into initiating war. He tried to
show that Germany was following an aggressive policy inspired by economic interests and
designed to achieve world power. He never deviated from his basic line of thinking that Germany
was eager to make up for the disadvantage suffered as a result of entering late into world
politics and this would have made the war inevitable. In his view there was a continuity
in German objectives from 1900 to the Second World War.
Fisher’s work was criticized by Gerhard Ritter, another German historian, who saw Fisher’s
work as an act of national disloyalty. Ritter admitted that the German War Guilt Thesis needed
revision but did not accept Fisher’s thesis. He also condemned Fisher for applying what he saw as
basically Marxist approach to history without actually being openly Marxist as this would have
made him unpopular. According to him Germany had no desire for world domination and its main
aim was to support its ally Austria-Hungary. He also accused Fisher of ignoring the environment
of the time and of not comparing different kinds of foreign imperialism including that of USA and
Japan. In this sense we can see that aggression was not the prerogative of any one country. The
imperial objectives that Germany has been accused of were also experienced by the other Great
Powers. The clearest example of this is the feeble pretexts on which Britain and USA entered the
war.
There are many other views as well on the extent of responsibility that needs to be
apportioned to Germany for the war. Immanuel Geiss, a supporter of Fisher’s thesis suggest that
the main long-term cause of the war was the German desire for Weltpolitik[1]. John Rohl sees
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9/27/2018 origins of the war in the German government pursuit
SM-1 of a pre-existing plan to split the Triple
Entente or provoke a European war. Most historians however reject the idea of a pre-planed
German war. The argument of a defensive German war has been articulated by scholars like
Egmont Zechlin and Karl Erdmann. They still reject the idea of Germany cold-bloodedly planning
a war for vast territorial gains. They believed that German policy in 1914 decided on a
preventive war born of desperation and with no master plan for vast expansion, designed to
ensure the survival of Germany as a major European power.
Thus to conclude we can say that the anti-Fisher school of thought is willing to accept
that Germany should take the major responsibility for the war but rejects the view of German
policy being determined by domestic problems and the view that Germany was planning an
aggressive war of territorial expansion. Instead, it suggests that German leaders desired a
localized European war, with a quick German victory to break free from its diplomatic
encirclement.
 

[1]  For  Geiss, Weltpolitik  was a belligerent policy which invited a hostile reaction and
ultimately raised the international temperature to a point at which peace became impossible to
sustain.

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5 Lesson 3 PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT

(1919-1920)
Lesson 3

PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT (1919-1920)

-Dr.Naveen Vashishta

Audio

0:00 / 0:00

The principal peace terms concluding the First World War were drawn up at a conference
held at Paris in the first half of 1919. This conference was a more representative body than the
Congress of Vienna in 1815 had been. Although the representatives of many countries
participated in the deliberations and were consulted in cases directly involving their interests,
the peace terms were in large measure were set by the big powers, the so called Council of four,
composed of American President (Woodrow Wilson) and Prime Ministers of Great Britain (David
Lloyd George), France (Georges Clemenceau), and Italy (Vittorio Orlando). The defeated powers
did not participate in the negotiations and had to accept conditions in the framing of which they
had taken no part. Soviet Russia, which had dropped out of the war in March 1918 by signing the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, was not represented either.
The Council of Four planned to lay the groundwork of a lasting peace, but there was a
considerable difference of opinion on how to go about it. Two general approaches were
apparent: the hard line, advocated by the French, and the soft line, advanced by the United
States. The Italians sided with France, while the British fluctuated between the two positions.
The Makers
Out of the four only three men really mattered, Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd
George. The treaty was signed on June 28th 1919 after months of argument and negotiation
amongst the so-called "Big Three" as to what the treaty should contain. They had very
different objectives.
Woodrow Wilson: He was a high minded idealist, a bit doctrinaire, bent upon
founding a new world order and so led greatest stress on establishing League of
Nations. The Allied victory, he believed had provided an opportunity that mankind
could least afford to slip out. The war had been a war to end all wars and the world
must be made safe for democracy. When he first arrived in Europe, he had received
tremendous popular welcome which convinced him that he was right, and in the
negotiations he proved very stubborn. He was virtually a single-tracked mind which
seldom saw the other’s man point of view. In U.S.A itself, support for his policies was
receding and he became an increasingly lonely and hopeless figure.
Clemenceau: He was nicknamed ‘Tiger’. He was the oldest and the ablest diplomat at
conference. A stern realist in policies, he never lost sight of the goals he had set
before. He was deeply suspicious about human nature in general and German nature
in particular. His only concern was the security of France and France would only be
secure if Germany was weak. He was a very clever person. He knew when and where
to change his moods. He was very tactful and deployed extraordinary skills in
negotiations. He was responsible for the insertion of certain provisions of the Treaty of
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9/27/2018 which proved to be its undoingSM-1
later on. He was responsible for the
humiliation of the German delegates as they went to Versailles to sign the Peace
Treaty in 1919.
Lloyd George: Lloyd George was a great statesman. However, he often found himself
in a difficult position as Wilson and Clemenceau differed from each other on many
points. While Wilson wanted to base the peace settlement on idealism, Clemenceau
wanted to base it on force and it was the function of Lloyd George to bring about a
compromise between his colleagues. In many cases, that involved self-effacement on
his part. However, that does not mean that he overlooked his country’s interest at the
peace conference. He agreed with Wilson that a harsh peace such as France wished
for was unlikely to bring lasting peace to Europe but he had just fought and won an
election during which it became clear that, like the French, the British electorate
wanted the enemy to be crushed. This anti-German feeling was amply demonstrated
by the then popular slogans like “Hang the Kaiser”, “Make Germany pay” and “Home
fit for Heroes” with which the sky of that country echoed loudly.
Peace Treaties
Six separate treaties signed between 1919 and 1923 made up the final settlement. The
Treaty of Versailles made peace with Germany, of St.Germain with Austria, of Neuilly with
Bulgaria, of Trianon with Hungary, and of Serves and Lausanne with Turkey.
1.Treaty of Versailles (28th June 1919)
The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly 5 years after
the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the events that triggered the
start of the war. Although the armistice signed on November 11, 1918 put an end to
the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to
conclude a peace treaty. The documents containing the terms of the Treaty consisted
of 440 articles and many annexures.The victorious powers of World War I (the United
States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and other Allied states) imposed punitive
territorial, military, and economic treaty terms on defeated Germany. German
representatives were not permitted to participate in the treaty negotiations and the
terms were non-negotiable. The terms of the Treaty, which Germany had no choice
but to accept, were announced on May 7, 1919. In the north, Northern Shlezwig went
to Denmark and, in the west, Eupen and Malmady to Belgium, and Alsace and
Lorriane to France. Memel, a small strip of territory in East Prussia along the Baltic
Sea, was ultimately placed under Lithuanian control. Posen, the Polish Corridor and
part of Upper Silesia went to Poland and the great port of Danzig became a free city
witin the Polish customs union. The Saar coalfields were also handed over to the
French while the Saar itself was to be run by the League of Nations(It was returned to
Germany after a plebicite in 1935). The Rhineland was to be occupied by the Allied
troops for fifteen years. A strip of territory on both sides of the Rhine was forbidden to
German troops and this area was known as Demilitarised Zone (DMZ).
            Wilson believed that there could be no lasting peace in Europe unless the principal of
self-determination was implemented in Central and Eastern Europe[1]. The new map of Europe
attempted to give some reality to this ideal of self-determination. The Poles, the Czechs, the
Slovaks, the South Slavs(in Yugoslavia), the Magyars (in Hungary), the Latvians, Lithuanians,
Finns and Estonians governed themselves in 1923 when in 1914 they had been governed by the
foriegners. However the pattern of racial settlement in Eastern Europe combined with the need
to please the victors at the expense of the defeated caused rough justice to be done and many
discontended groups were left under the rule of other races whom they despised and feared.
                      Germany lost all her colonies. The German African colonies were divided between
Britain, France, Belgium and South Africa and her colonies in the Far East and Pacific north of
equator went to Japan, south of the equator went to Britain, Australia and New Zealand. In
addition to these considerable territorial losses, Germany was also forced to agree to make
compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied Associated Powers and
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 their
9/27/2018 property. These compensation payments orSM-1 raparations had not been mentioned in the
original Fourteen Points but had to be included in the armistice terms on the insistence of
France and Britain.Germany also had to surrender all her merchant ships over 1600 tons and
some smaller ships also; give free coal for ten years to France, Belgium and Italy; horses, sheep
and cattle to France and Belgium.
            Every effort was made to cripple the military strength of Germany. The total strength of
the German army was limited to one lakh men. Conscription, tanks and armoured cars were all
forbidden. Germany was allowed to have only six battleships, some smaller crafts but no
submarines. Nor could she have an airforce. Naval forces were limited to 15,000 men, 6
battleships (no more than 10,000 tons displacement each), 6 cruisers (no more than 6,000 tons
displacement each), 12 destroyers (no more than 800 tons displacement each) and 12 torpedo
boats (no more than 200 tons displacement each). Apart from this import and export of weapons
and manufacture or stockpiling of poison gas was prohibited.
Germany had to admit full responsibility for starting the war. This was Clause 231 - the
infamous "War Guilt Clause" which read as follows: the Allied and Associated governments
affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss
and damage to which the Allied and Associated governments and their nationals (citizens) have
been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany
and her allies. The Allies included this article to justify their demand for reparations. The
Germans, however, read it to mean that they alone were responsible for causing the war and
greatly resented it.
After agreeing to the armistice in November 1918, the Germans had been convinced
that they would be consulted by the Allies on the contents of the Treaty. This did not happen and
the Germans were in no position to continue the war as her army had all but disintegrated.
Though this lack of consultation angered them, there was nothing they could do about it.
Therefore, the first time that the German representatives saw the terms of the Treaty was just
weeks before they were due to sign it in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on June
28, 1919.
            There was anger throughout Germany when the terms of the Treaty were made public.
The Treaty became known as a Diktat (dictated peace) - as it was being forced on them and the
Germans had no choice but to sign it. Many in Germany did not want the Treaty signed, but the
representatives there knew that they had no choice as German was incapable of restarting the
war again.
Germany was given two choices: 
1) sign the Treaty or                                                                                            
2) be invaded by the Allies.
They signed the Treaty as in reality they had no choice. When the ceremony was over,
Clemenceau went out into the gardens of Versailles and said "It is a beautiful day".
The Treaty seemed to satisfy the "Big Three" as in their eyes it was a just peace as it kept
Germany weak yet strong enough to stop the spread of communism; kept the French border with
Germany safe from another German attack and created the organization, the  League of
Nations  that would end warfare throughout the world. However, it left a mood of anger
throughout Germany as it was felt that as a nation Germany had been unfairly treated. Above all
else, Germany hated the clause blaming her for the cause of the war and the resultant financial
penalties the treaty was bound to impose on Germany. Those who signed it became known as the
"November Criminals". Many German citizens felt that they were being punished for the mistakes
of the German government in August 1914 as it was the government that had declared war not
the people.
2. Treaty of St.Germain-en-Laye (10th September 1919)
This treaty was signed between the Allied and Associated Powers and Austria. It
consisted of 14 parts and 381 Articles and several annexure. The treaty declared that
the Austro-Hungarian Empire was to be dissolved. The new Republic of Austria,
consisting of most of the German-speaking Alpine part of the former Austrian Empire,
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9/27/2018 the independence of Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
SM-1 Poland, and the State of
Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The treaty included 'war reparations' of large sums of
money, directed towards the allies, to pay for the costs of the war. Austria was
reduced not only by the loss of crownlands incorporated into the states
ofCzechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia (the “successor states”) but by the cession
of Trentino, South Tyrol,Trieste, Istria and several Dalmatian islands to Italy and the
cession of Bukovina to Romania. In total, it lost land to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia,
Poland, Romania, and Italy. Burgenland, then a part of Hungary, was awarded to
Austria.
            An important article of the treaty required Austria to refrain from directly or indirectly
compromising its independence, which meant that Austria could not enter into political or
economic union with Germany without the agreement of the council of the League of Nations.
Accordingly, the new republic's initial self-chosen name of German Austria had to be changed
to Austria. The Austrian Army was limited to a force of 30,000 volunteers. There were numerous
provisions dealing with Danubian navigation, the transfer of railways, and other details involved
in the breakup of a great empire into several small independent states
3.Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine (27th November 1919)
This treaty was signed between Bulgaria and the Principal Allied and Associated Powers. It
established borders over contested territory between Bulgaria,  Turkey,  Greece  and
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. As a Central Powers were belligerent, Bulgaria
received the least land, and was required to reduce its army to 20,000 men, pay reparations
exceeding $400 million, and recognize the existence of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes. Bulgaria was required to hand over western Thrace to Greece, a part of Macedonia to
Yugoslavia and parts of Dobruja to Romania. In Bulgaria, the results of the treaty are popularly
known as the Second National Catastrophe.
4. Treaty of Trianon (4th June 1920)
This peace treaty was signed between Hungary, on the one hand, and the Principal Allied and
Associated Powers, on the other. It consisted of 14 parts, 364 articles, many annexures, a
protocol and declaration. It established the borders of Hungary and regulated its international
situation. Hungary lost over two-thirds of its territory and about two third of its inhabitants
under the treaty. It was even harsher than the treaty of St.Germain. The principal beneficiaries
of  this territorial adjustment were  Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the  Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes.
5. Treaty of Sèvres (10th August 1920)
This treaty was signed between the Sultan of Turkey (who was at that time the prisoner of
the allies who were also in occupation of Constantinople) and the Principal Allied and Associated
Powers. The Arab state of Hedjar was freed and put under British occupation. Rumania which
had declared her independence, was created into a Christian Republic and put under an
international guarantee. Mesopotamia, Trans-Jordan, and Palestine were taken away from Turkey
and later on given as mandates to Britain and Syria, which was also grabbed from Turkey, was put
under French mandate. There was however one condition imposed regarding Palestine and this
pertained to Britain’s undertaking that in Palestine would be established “a national home for
the Jewish people”which was called as Balfour Declaration. This commitment ultimately enabled
the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel.
6. Treaty of Lausanne (24th July 1923)
The terms of the Treaty of Serves accepted by the Sultan, but not so by a parallel
government headed by Mustafa Kemal Pasha. He retired to Ankara and set up a rival government
and also gathered a large army. Repeated attempts by the Greeks to defeat Mustafa Kemal failed
and a large number of Greeks were killed and the remaining were expelled from Asia Minor.
There was no one to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Serves. The French and Italian forces

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9/27/2018 withdrawn from there. The small British army
SM-1 remained at its stations and instead of
attacking it, Mustafa Kemal entered into negotiations which led to the signing of the Treaty of
Laussane.
         The treaty provided not only for the independence of the Republic of Turkey but also for
the protection of the ethnicGreek minority in Turkey  and the mainly ethnically
Turkish  Muslim minority in Greece. Much of the Greek population of Turkey
was  exchanged  with the Turkish population of Greece. The treaty delimited the boundaries
of Greece,Bulgaria, and Turkey, formally ceded all Turkish claims on Cyprus, Iraq and Syria,
and (along with the  Treaty ofAnkara) settled the boundaries of the latter two nations. The
treaty also led to international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as
the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire.
An Evaluation of the Treaty of Versailles: A Case Study
Having gone through the terms of this treaty a question arises as to whether
this was a fair settlement or not? There is a long standing argument that it was not.
This originated from the forebodings of contemporary diplomats and observers like
Norman Davies and
Harold Nicolson[2], of economist J.M. Keynes, and historian W.H. Dawson and Ruth
Henig.[3] Although the sympathy for Germany was subsequently diluted by the rise of
Hitler, there emerged a feeling that the Treaty of Versailles could well have contributed
to the destructive phenomenon of Nazism. It then became a common to question, the
wisdom of visiting the guilt of the Kaiser’s Germany upon moderate Weimer republic
which had been engaged in a desperate struggle for survival against the forces of
extreme Right. The Germans constantly attacked the Versailles Diktat.
         Using these sources, we can now build a composite crticism of the Treaty of Versailles. On
the issue of territorial changes there is some support for the implementation of national self-
determination, but considerable criticism of the uneven use of plebiscite. Why, for example, this
facility has been provided to the Danes of Northern Schlezwig and the Poles and Czechs of
Southern Silesia, but not to the Germans of the Sudetanland or of Austria? Germany’s frontier
literally bled. Poland, in particular, was treated too generously at German’s expense, a clear
perversion of the thirteenth of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points. As for the confiscation of
German colonies, many observers point to the element of hypocrisy. Wilson’s avowed reason for
this was to protect the inhabitants from the proven harshness of the German rule.
The most influential critque of the economic provisions of the Treaty was J.M. Keynes[4]. He
argued that settlement lacked wisdom in its aim to destroy Germany’s very means of
subsistence. The coal and iron provisions, for example, were disastrous. Germany would be left
with a capacity to produce only 60 million tonnes annually, whereas in 1913 she had consumed
110 million tonnes. Above all the indemnity being considered by the Allies in 1919 was well
beyond the German means to pay. According to Keynes, the real dangers for the future lay not in
boundary questions but rather in questions of food, coal and commerce. He remain convinced
that ‘The Treaty, by overstepping the limits of the possible, has in practice settled nothing’. The
subsequent economic crisis suffered by the Weimer Republic, including the collapse of the mark
in 1923, seemed to provide immediate evidence to support his prediction.
Why did a treaty of such severity emerge in the first place? The reason most
commonly given was that the ideals of Wilson were heavily diluted by the ideals
of Clemenceau and the practical approach of Lloyd George. Clemenceau influenced
the whole proceedings because he knew only one goal: “security for France.” The
British delegation took a more moderate stance, but Lloyd George was, nevertheless,
under heavy pressure from the public opinion at home to make Germany pay for all
the damage caused during the war. The result was the triumph of expediency over
ideals leading to a deterioration of moral awareness.
There could be only one solution. The revision of the treaty was the necessary and
inevitable first step forward. In 1924, the Dawes Plan modified the method of paying
reparations, while the Young Plan of 1930 extended the deadline, and the Lausanne Agreement
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9/27/2018 1932 cancelled outstanding reparations. Meanwhile,
SM-1 all occupation forces were withdrawn
from the Rhineland by 1930 and League of Nations provided for the full return of the Saar to
Germany by 1935. But critics of the treaty maintained that these concessions were too late to
reconcile the Germans to a settlement which it bitterly hated.
                      However in recent times a different picture of the Treaty of Versailles emerged. By
emphasizing three points it is possible to show that the treatment meted out to Germany was
not unduly harsh. First, her territorial losses in 1919 were tiny compared with the alterations
which the German victory would have brought. According to Fritz Fisher(German historian),
Germany’s war aims included economic dominance over Belgium, Holland and France; supremacy
over Courtland, Livonia, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland in Eastern Europe, and over Bulgaria,
Romania and Turkey in the Balkans; unification with Austria and the creation of Greater
Germany; and control over the entire Eastern Mediterranean and over dismantled Russia. In
sharp contrast the Allied ambassadors, far from humiliating a defeated country, showed
considerable restraint in removing only those ethnic minorities who had clearly suffered
inclusion in the German Reich. Second, some form of economic compensation was only to be
expected, given the terrible French losses. German industries, by contrast, had largely escaped
destruction since the Rhineland and Ruhr never came within the scope of Allied operations.
There was, therefore, a clear-cut argument for transferring some of the wealth of a complete
industrial economy to assist the reconstruction of a shattered one. Third, it has not been
conclusively proved that the Treaty of Versailles crippled Germany in the process of
compensating France and Belgium. The chronic inflation between 1919 and 1923 was due at least
as much to the German government’s unrestrained use of bank notes and to the heavy
speculation by the Rhineland industrialists. There remains a strong suspicion that Germany could
not meet the reparation because she had no intention of doing so. A general hike in taxation
could have met all foreign debts. No ministry, however, was prepared to risk the internal
opposition which this step would have brought; a short-term policy based on the reckless
printing of paper money seemed a much easier choice.
The role of France and Britain at the Peace Settlement has also been extensively
reassessed. It seemed that France had every right to consider itself the aggrieved party
between1919 and 1923. The French originally sought to accomplish two objectives only:
economic reconstruction and military security. These could be attained most effectively within
the structure of an Atlantic community which would perpetuate the unity of the war time
alliance. Hence the Minister of Commerce, Clemental, had in 1918 proposed an economic bloc
which would operate the system of preferential tariffs and come to an agreement on currency
matters. As for the future security of France, Tardieu, the French delegate, argued that a
neutralized Rhineland would be the best guarantee against future German invasion. This should
be related to a permanent pact between the Western powers. Once Western Europe had
achieved a new strength and stability as a result of these agreements, Germany could be allowed
to regain her economic and industrial status without the danger of future aggression and war.
Unfortunately the French scheme proved unsuccessful. Clemental’s proposals were rejected by
the United States, with the result that France had to depend entirely on German reparations for
her economic recovery. Worse followed when the U.S Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of
Versailles. This meant that the treaty of mutual guarantee between France, Britain and the
United States also collapsed. The United States withdrew from all military commitments in
Europe, while Britain, whose membership of the alliance had been tied to American
involvement, considered her own obligation to France ended by the Senate’s decision. France
was by now virtually isolated and faced the prospect of containing, by herself, the inevitable
revival of Germany. By 1923, moreover, it had become evident that the German government was
doing its utmost to escape fulfilling the terms of the treaty. Was it surprising, therefore, that
Poincare, the French President, should have tried to restore the French plan by ordering the
occupation of Ruhr?
British government was the main critique of this action. But, it has been argued, that the
record of the British delegation at Paris was far from moderate or even consistent. The usual
view that Lloyd George was a pragmatist, driven by occasional harshness only by pressure from
the British public opinion, will not do. If anything, the British position was more extreme than
the French. Lloyd George, for example, appeared just as revanchist as Clemenceau; in 1918 he
told the Imperial War Cabinet: ‘The terms of peace must be tantamount to some penalty for the
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 offence.’
9/27/2018 In one of the sub-commissions, a British representative claimed that Germany could
SM-1
afford to pay reparations of 120,000 million dollars. Although Lloyd George appeared to have
been won over to moderation, the British government still put reparations figure almost twice as
high as did the French, and then complicated the proceedings by demanding the inclusion of war
pensions and separate allowances as war damages. Largely because of British stubbornness, the
reparations figure had to be settled separately and was not announced until 1921. By this time
the German government had taken comfort from the evident disintegration of the alliance
between the victorious powers and had begun to probe for weaknesses in the Versailles
Settlement. The country most seriously affected by this was France, who had taken a
consistently reasonable line on the whole reparations issue.
Conclusion
It is difficult for anyone to seriously argue that the Treaty of Versailles was a success.
But, whereas the treaty’s detractors maintained that the major need was fundamental review,
some of its defenders have put the case for more effective  enforcement. The settlement
failed not because it was too harsh, but because the alliance which devised it fell apart
with the withdrawal of the United States and Britain, and the isolation of France.
Although the treaty was supported by Collective Security and the Locarno Pact (1925),
it remained susceptible to any German refusal to implement it. The modification
secured by the Dawes Pact (1924) was sufficient to win the temporary co-operation of
moderate statesmen like Stressmann. But, in the long term, German public opinion
continued to see the whole settlement as a Diktat and eventually supported its
overthrow by the Nazi regime. Opponents of the treaty argued that Nazism was one of
the legacies; its defenders maintain that Hitler succeeded only because the treaty was
not enforced.  Germany did have grounds for complaint but the Treaty could have been more
severe.
             As stated by Norman Lowe, “In conclusion it has to be said that this collection of
peace treaties was not a conspicuous success. It had the unfortunate effect of dividing
Europe into the states which wanted to revise the settlement (Germany being the
main one), and those which wanted to preserve it. On the whole, the latter turned out
to be lukewarm in support... and it became increasingly difficult to apply the terms
fully.Hobsbawm argues that “the Versailles settlement could not possibly be the basis
of a stable peace. It was doomed from the start, and another war was practically
certain.” The French politician Marshal Foch, as the Versailles Treaty was being signed,
stated rather prophetically, “This is not peace; it is an armistice for 20 years.” Gilbert
White, an American delegate at the Conference, put it perfectly when he remarked
that given the problems involved, 'it is not surprising that they made a bad peace;
what is surprising is that they managed to make peace at all.’
 
Suggested Readings
1. Ruth Henig,  Versailles and After: 1919-1933, (London:
Routledge), Lancaster Pamphlets, 1995.
2. Norman Lowe. Mastering Modern World History (London: Palgrave Macmillan,
1997).
3.  Stephan J.Lee,  Aspects of European History(1789-1980),  1982, Roultedge, London &
New                   York, p.199-206.

4 .Andrew J. Williams, Failed Imagination?: New World Orders of the Twentieth

Century, Manchester University Press, 1998.
5. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, A History of the World, 1914 – 1991 (New
York: Vintage Books, 1996)

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 6.
9/27/2018 John Maynard Keynes,  The Economic Consequences
SM-1 of the Peace  (New York: Harcourt,
Brace and Howe, 1920).
7. M. Kitchen, Europe Between the Wars (New York: Longman, 2000)
 

[1]  By this he meant that every people with a sense of common nationality based on a common
language and             history should have the right to govern them, to determine their own
futures.
 
    [2]  Harold Nicolson, author of the book Peacemaking 1919, wrote: “The historian,
with every justification,will come to the conclusion that we were very stupid men... We
arrived determined that a Peace of justice and wisdom should be negotiated; we left the
conference conscious that the treaties imposed upon our enemies were neither just nor
wise.”
 
[3] According to Ruth Henig, “Compared to the treaties which Germany had
imposed on defeated Russia and Rumania in 1918, the Treaty of Versailles was
quite moderate... The Treaty of Versailles was not excessively harsh on Germany,
either territorially or economically. However, the German people were expecting
victory not defeat. It was the acknowledgement of defeat as much as the treaty
terms themselves, which they found so hard to accept.”
 

    [4]  He argues that the German economy would be destroyed by the post-war
Versailles Treaty. A series of treaties which overlooked the really important issues
of economic recovery, food, fuel, and finance would further exacerbate the
situation.

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9/27/2018 SM-1

6 Lesson 4 LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND

MANDATE SYSTEM
Lesson 4

LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND MANDATE SYSTEM

                                                                                                                   -Dr. Naveen

Vashishta

Audio

0:00 / 0:00

The League of Nations was an international association for the furtherance of cooperation
among nations, the settlement of international disputes, and the preservation of the peace
formed after the First World War. The concept of a peaceful community of nations had
been outlined as far back as 1795, in Immanuel Kant’s work Perpetual Peace: A
Philosophical Sketch. One attempt to put such a concept into practice were the
international Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It was to have been a universal
alliance aiming at disarmament and the peaceful settlement of disputes through
arbitration. Following the failure of the Hague Peace Conferences, a third conference
had been planned for 1915. The League is often spoken as being the brainchild of the
American President Woodrow Wilson. Although Wilson was certainly a great supporter
of the idea of international organisation for peace, the League was in reality the result
of a coming together of similar suggestions (made during the First World War) by a
number of world statesman. Lord Robert Cecil of Britain, Jan Sumts of South Africa
and Leon Bourgeois of France put forward detailed schemes as to how an organisation
was to set up: Lloyd George reffered to it as one of Britain’s war aims, and Wilson
included it as the last of his fourteen points. Wilson’s great contribution was to insist
that the League Covenant[1], which had been drawn up by an international
committee, should be included in each of the separate peace treaties. It had two main
aims: To maintain peace through collective security[2] and to
encourage international co-operation in order to solve economic and social
problems.
The League's creation was a centerpiece of Wilson's  Fourteen Points for Peace,
The Paris Peace Conferenceaccepted the proposal to create the League of Nations on January
25, 1919. The Covenant of the League of Nationswas drafted by a special commission, and
the League was established by  Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on  June
28, 1919. Initially, the Charter was signed by 44 states, including 31 states which had taken
part in the war on the side of the  Triple Entente  or joined it during the conflict. Despite
Wilson's efforts to establish and promote the League, for which he was awarded the  Nobel
Peace Prize in 1919, the United States neither ratified the Charter nor joined the League due
to opposition in the U.S. Senate. On 10th January 1920, the League of Nations, officially came
into existence with its headquarters at Geneva in Switzerland. The League held its first council
meeting in Paris on January 16, 1920 six days after the Versailles Treaty came into force. In
November, the headquarters of the League moved toGeneva, where the first general assembly
of the League was held on  November 15,  1920  with representatives from 41 nations in
attendance.
Symbols

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9/27/2018 The League of Nations had neither an official flag nor logo.
SM-1 Proposals for adopting an
official symbol were made during the League's beginning in 1920, but the member states never
reached agreement. However, League of Nations organization used varying logos and flags (or
none at all) in their own operations. An international contest was held in 1929 to find a design,
which again failed to produce a symbol. One of the reasons for this failure may have been the
fear by the member states that the power of the supranational organization might supersede
them.
                      Finally, in 1939, a semi-official emblem emerged: two five-pointed  stars  within a
blue  pentagon. The pentagon and the five-pointed stars were supposed to symbolize the
five continents and the five races of mankind. In a bow on top and at the bottom, the flag had
the names in English (League of Nations) and French (Société des Nations). This flag was used
on the building of the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940.

Languages
                      The official languages of the League of Nations
were  French,  English  and  Spanish  (from 1920). The League seriously considered
adopting  Esperanto  as their working language and actively encouraging its use but neither
option was ever adopted. In 1921, there was a proposal by  Lord Robert Cecil  to introduce
Esperanto into state schools of member nations and a report was commissioned to investigate
this. When the report was presented two years later it recommended the teaching of Esperanto
in schools, a proposal that 11 delegates accepted. The strongest opposition came from the
French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux, partially in order to protect the French Language which he
argued was already the international language. The opposition meant the report was accepted
apart from the part that approved Esperanto in schools.
Structure of League of Nations
The League had four principal organs, a Secretariat, a Council, an Assembly
and a Permanent Court of International Justice. The League also had numerous
Agencies and Commissions. Authorization for any action required both a unanimous
vote by the Council and a majority vote in the Assembly.
The Secretariat
The Secretariat of the League consisted of the Secretary-General (based
in Geneva) who was appointed by the Council with the approval of the Assembly and
such other staff as was required for its work. The other staff of the Secretariat was
appointed by the Secretary-General in consultation with the Council. There were two
Deputy Secretary-General and two Under Secretaries-General, subordinate to the
Secretary-General. The nember-states paid the expenses of the Secretariat. The
Secretariat functioned throught the year in contrast to the Council and the Assembly.
The Council
The Council of the League comprised of permanent members, non-permanent
members and ad hoc representatives. It began with four permanent members
(the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan) and four non-permanent members, which
were elected by the Assembly for a three year period. The first four non-permanent
members were Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Spain. The United States was meant to be
the fifth permanent member, but the United States Senate voted on March
19, 1920 against the ratification of theTreaty of Versailles, thus preventing American
participation in the League. This prompted the United States to go back to policies
of isolationism.
            The initial composition of the Council was subsequently changed a number of times. The
number of non-permanent members was first increased to six on  September 22,  1922, and
then to nine on  September 8,  1926.  Germany  also joined the League and became a fifth
permanent member of the Council on the latter date, taking the Council to a total of fifteen
members. When Germany and Japan later both left the League, the number of non-permanent
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SM-1 The Council met on average five times a
year, and in extraordinary sessions when required. In total, 107 public sessions were held
between 1920 and 1939. every member of the Council had only one vote.
            The Council was required to deal with any matter within the sphere of action of the
League or affecting the peace of the world. The main function of the Council was the settlement
of disputes among the various countries of the world. It was required to formulate plans for
disarmanent by various states. It was to recommed methods by which the territorial integrity of
the states could be guaranted. 
The General Assembly
The League of Nations' Assembly was a meeting of all the Member States, with each state
allowed up to three representatives and one vote. It was required to meet at least once a year.
In case of necessity, there could be additional meetings of the Assembly. It was given the
authority to deal with any matter within its sphere of action or which affected the peace of the
world. It could not discuss those matters which were exclusively reserved for the Council. It
could admit new members of the League by two-third majority. Every year it elected a certain
member of non-permanent members of the Council. The Judges of the Permanent Court of
International Justice were elected by the Assembly for a certain number of years. The Assembly
revised the budget prepared by the Secretariat and also supervised the work of the Council.
Permanent Court of International Justice
The Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), sometimes called the World
Court, was the international court of the League of Nations, established on15th
February 1922 under Article XIV of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The PCIJ began its
preliminary session in the Hague in January 1922 and heard its first case, an advisory opinion, in
May 1922. Between 1922 and 1940 the Court dealt with 38 contentious cases between
States and delivered 27 advisory opinions. It was replaced in 1946 by
the International Court of Justice when theUnited Nations was organized.
            Technically speaking, the PCIJ was not an organ of the League of Nations, although the
Court's existence was closely connected to the League. The jurisdiction of this Court extended to
all the cases which the party referred to it and all matters specially provided for in the treaties
and conventions in force. The members were allowed to accept the optional clause by signing
the separate protocol and that gave the Court jurisdiction in matters concerning the
interpretation of any treaty, questions of international law, any dispute which involved a
violation of international law etc. While making decisions, the Court applied the international
convention recognized by the states in conflict, international customs, general principles of law
recognized by the civilized states, judicial decisions, and the teachings of highly qualified
publicists of the various states. The Court was also required to give its advisory opinion in
certain matters. The judgment of the Court was final and there was no provision for appeal.
However, the Court could review its previous decisions in the light of new facts brought before
it, provided those facts were not known to the parties at the time of decision.
Second World War marked the end of the Permanent Court of International Justice.  The
Court held its last wartime session in the Hague in February 1940, before the German invasion of
the Netherlands.  With the search for a new post-war international order, delegates at the
Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC (August-October 1944) discussed the
development of a new International Court of Justice, which would work in association with the
new United Nations Organization.  Delegates at the San Francisco Conference approved the new
International Court of Justice (June 1945) as one of the principal organs of the United Nations
(Article VII) and as the UN's chief judicial organization. In October 1945, the members of the
PCIJ held their last session in the Hague and on January 31, 1946, the judges of the Permanent
Court of International Justice resigned.
Other bodies
Several other agencies and commissions were created by the League to deal with major
international problems.These were the  Disarmament  Commission, the  Health Organization,
the  International Labour Organization, the  MandatesCommission, the  International
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9/27/2018 on Intellectual Cooperation  (ancestor
SM-1 of the  UNESCO), the Permanent
Central Opium Board, the Commission for Refugees, and the Slavery  Commission. Several of
these institutions were transferred to the United Nations after the  Second World War. In
addition to the International Labour Organization, the Permanent Court of International Justice
became a UN institution as the  International Court of Justice, and the Health Organization
was restructured as the World Health Organization.
                      The League's health organization had three bodies, a Health Bureau, containing
permanent officials of the League, an  executive  section the General Advisory Council or
Conference consisting of medical experts, and a Health Committee. The Committee's purpose
was to conduct inquiries, oversee the operation of the League's health work, and get work ready
to be presented to the Council. This body focused on ending  leprosy,  malaria  and  yellow
fever, the latter two by starting an international campaign to exterminate  mosquitoes. The
Health Organization also worked successfully with the government of the  Soviet Union  to
prevent typhus epidemics including organising a large education campaign about the disease.
In 1919 the International Labour Organization was created as a part of the
Versailles Treaty and became part of the League's operations with Albert Thomas as its
first director. It successfully convinced several countries to adopt an eight-hour work
day and forty-eight hour working week. It also worked to endchild labour, increase
the rights of women in the workplace, and make shipowners liable for accidents
involving seamen. The organization continued to exist after the end of the League,
becoming an agency of the United Nations in 1946.
            The League wanted to regulate the drugs trade and established the Permanent Central
Opium Board to supervise the statistical control system introduced by the second International
Opium Convention that mediated the production, manufacture, trade and retail of opium and
its by-products. The Board also established a system of import certificates and export
authorizations for the legal international trade in narcotics.
The Slavery Commission sought to eradicate slavery and slave trading across
the world, and fought forced prostitution. Its main success was through pressing the
countries who administered mandated countries to end slavery in those countries. The
League also secured a commitment from Ethiopia, as a condition of joining the League
in 1926, to end slavery and worked with Liberia to abolish forced labour and inter-
tribal slavery. It succeeded in gaining the emancipation of 200,000 slaves in Sierra
Leone and organized raids against slave traders in its efforts to stop the practice
of forced labour in Africa. It also succeeded in reducing the death rate of workers
constructing the Tanganyika railway from 55% to 4%. Records were kept to control
slavery, prostitution, and the trafficking women and children. Led by Fridtjof
Nansen the Commission for Refugees looked after the interests of refugees including
overseeing their repatriation and, when necessary resettlement. At the end of the First
World War there were two to three million ex-prisoners of war dispersed throughout
Russia, within two years of the commission's foundation, in 1920, it had helped
425,000 of them return home. It established camps in Turkey in 1922 to deal with a
refugee crisis in that country and to help prevent disease and hunger. It also
established the Nansen passport as a means of identification for statelesspeoples. The
Committee for the Study of the Legal Status of Women sought to make an inquiry into
the status of women all over the world. It was formed in April 1938 and dissolved in
early 1939.
The Mandate System
League of Nations Mandates were established under Article 22 of the
Covenant of the League of Nations. Previously, the conquered territories were annexed
by the conquerers. In 1919, a new device called Mandate System was adopted
according to which conquered territories were to be put under the guardianship of the
League of Nations and certain powers were to be put in charge of those territories to
carry on their administration. While appointing a member country as a mandatory
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9/27/2018 its resources, experience, and geographical
SM-1 positions were taken into account.
The mandated territories were considered as a sacred trust of civilisation. These
territories were former colonies of the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire that
were placed under the supervision of the League following World War I. The
Permanent Mandates Commission supervised League of Nations Mandates, and also
organised plebiscites in disputed territories so that residents could decide which
country they would join.
Types of mandates: The exact level of control by the Mandatory power over each
mandate was decided on an individual basis by the League of Nations. However, in
every case the Mandatory power was forbidden to construct fortifications or raise an
army within the mandate and was required to present an annual report on the
territory to the League of Nations. Despite this, mandates were seen as de facto
colonies of the empires of the victor nations.The mandates were divided into three
distinct groups based upon the level of development each population had achieved at
that time.
Class A mandates: The first group or Class A mandates were areas formerly
controlled by the Ottoman Empire deemed to "...have reached a stage of development
where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject
to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such
time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a
principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory."
The Class A mandates were:
Iraq (United Kingdom), 10 August 1920 - 3 October 1932, then an independent kingdom.
Palestine  (United Kingdom), from 25 April 1920 (effective 29 September 1923 - 14 May
1948 to the independence of Israel), till 25 May 1946
including Transjordan (the Hashemite emirate, later kingdom of Jordan).
Syria (France), 29 September 1923 - 1 January 1944, including Lebanon; Hatay (a former
Ottoman Alexandrettasandjak) broke away from it and became a French protectorate, until
it was ceded to the republic Turkey.
By 1948  these mandates had been replaced by new monarchies (Iraq, Jordan) and republican
governments (Israel, Lebanon, Syria).

Class B mandates:The second group or Class B mandates were all former German
territories in the SubSaharan regions of West and Central Africa, which were deemed
to require a greater level of control by the mandatory power: "...the Mandatory must
be responsible for the administration of the territory under conditions which will
guarantee freedom of conscience and religion". The mandatory power was forbidden
to construct military or naval bases within the mandates.
The Class B mandates were :
Ruanda-Urundi (Belgium), formerly two separate German protectorates, joined as a single
mandate from 20 July 1922, but 1 March 1926 - 30 June 1960 in administrative union with the
colony Belgian Congo, since 13 December 1946 a United Nations Trust Territory (till their
separate Independences on 1 July 1962)
Tanganyika (United Kingdom) from 20 July 1922, 11 December 1946 made a United Nations
trust territory; from 1 May 1961 enjoys  self-rule, on 9 December 1961 independence (as
dominion), on 9 December 1962 a Republic, in 1964 federated with  Zanzibar, and soon
renamed together Tanzania
and two former German territories, each split in a British and a French League of Nations
mandate territory, according to earlier military occupation zones:

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9/27/2018 Kamerun was split on 20 July 1922 into BritishSM-1 Cameroons (under a Resident) and French
Cameroun  (under aCommissioner  till 27 August 1940, then under a  Governor), on 13
December 1946 transformed into United Nations Trust Territories, again a British (successively
under senior district officers officiating as Resident, a Special Residentand Commissioners)
and a French Trust (under a Haut Commissaire)
the former German colony of  Togoland  was split in  British Togoland  (under an
Administrator, a post filled by the colonial Governor of the British  Gold Coast  (present
Ghana) except 30 September 1920 - 11 October 1923 Francis Walter Fillon Jackson)
and  French Togoland  (under a Commissioner) (United Kingdom and France), 20 July 1922
separate Mandates, transformed on 13 December 1946 into United Nations trust territories,
French Togo  Associated Territory  (under a Commissioner till 30 August 1956, then under
a High Commissioner as Autonomous Republic ofTogo) and British Togoland (as before; on
13 December 1956 it ceased to exist as it became part of Ghana)

Class C mandates: A final group, the Class C mandates, including South-West Africa
and certain of the South Pacific Islands, were considered to be "best administered
under the laws of the mandatory as integral portions of its territory"
The Class C mandates were former German possessions:
former German New Guinea (Australia) from 17 December 1920 under a (at first Military)
Administrator; after (wartime) Japanese/U.S. military commands from 8 December 1946
under UN mandate as North East New Guinea (under Australia, as administrative unit), until it
merged into present Papua New Guinea.
Nauru, formerly part of German New Guinea (Australia  in effective control, formally
together with  United Kingdomand  New Zealand) from 17 December 1920, 1 November
1947 made into a United Nations trust territory (same three powers) till its 31 January 1968
independence as a Republic - all that time under an Administrator
former German Samoa (New Zealand) 17 December 1920 a League of Nations mandate,
renamed  Western Samoa(as opposed to  American Samoa), from 25 January 1947 a
United Nations trust territory till its 1 January 1962 independence
South Pacific Mandate (Japan)
South-West Africa (South Africa);
from 1 October 1922 Walvisbaai's administration (still merely having a Magistrate until
its 16 March 1931 Municipal status, thence a  Mayor) was also assigned to South West
Africa Mandate
According to the Council of the League of Nations, meeting of August 1920
"draft mandates adopted by the Allied and Associated Powers would not be definitive
until they had been considered and approved by the League ... the legal title held by
the mandatory Power must be a double one: one conferred by the Principal Powers
and the other conferred by the League of Nations,"
                      Three steps were required to establish a Mandate under international law: (1) The
Principal Allied and Associated Powers confer a mandate on one of their number or on a third
power; (2) the principal powers officially notify the council of the League of Nations that a
certain power has been appointed mandatory for such a certain defined territory; and (3) the
council of the League of Nations takes official cognisance of the appointment of the mandatory
power and informs the latter that it [the council] considers it as invested with the mandate, and
at the same time notifies it of the terms of the mandate, after assertaining whether they are in
conformance with the provisions of the covenant.The Mandate System was critisized as “a hallow
mockery”, “ a hypocritcal sham and designed to disguise old imperialistic wolves in new sheep’s
clothing”.
The Successes of the League
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9/27/2018 It would be unjust to dismiss the League as SM-1
a total failure; in fact many of its commissions
and committees achieved valuable results and much was done to foster international co-
operation. One of the most successful was the International Labour Organisation under its French
socialist director, Albert Thomas. Its obejective was to improve the conditions of labour all over
the world by persuading governments to fix maximum working day and week, specify adequate
minimum wages and introduce sickness and unemployment benefits and old age pensions. It
collected and published a vast amount of information and many governments were prevailed to
take upon action. The Refugee Organisation led by a Norweign explorer, Fridtjof Nansen solved
the problems of thousands of war prisoners marooned in Russia after the war ended. The Health
Organisation did good work in investigating the causes of epidemics and was particularly
successful in combating a typhus epidemic in Russia which at one time seemed likely to engulf
Europe. The Mandates Commission supervised the government of the territories taken away from
Germany and Turkey, while another commission was resposible for administering the Saar to be
returned to Germany. Not all were successful, however, the Disarmament Commission made no
progress in the near impossible task of persuading member states to reduce armaments, though
they had all promised to do so when they agreed to the covenant.
Many political disputes were referred to the League in the early 1920s; in all but two of
the League’s decisions were accepted. For example in the dispute between Sweden and Finland
over the Aland Islands, the decision was in favour of Finland (1920); over the rival claims of
Germany and Poland to the important industrial area of Upper Silesia, the League decided that it
should be partitioned between the two (1921). When the Greeks invaded Bulgaria after some
shooting incidents on the frontier, the League swiftly intervened: Greek troops were withdrawn
and damages paid to Bulgaria (1925). When Turkey claimed the province of Mosul, part of the
Britain mandated territory of Iraq, the League decided in favour of Iraq. Even further afield,
squabbles were settled between Peru and Columbia and between Bolivia and Paraguay. It is
significant, however, that none of these decisions went against a major state, which might have
challened the League’s verdict. In fact during this same period the League twice found itself
overruled by the Conference of Ambassadors based in Paris, which was intended to deal with
problems arising out of the Treaty of Versailles. There were first the rival claims of Poland and
Lithuania to Vilna (1920) followed by the Corfu Incident, a quarrel between Italy under Mussolini
and Greece (1923). The fact that the League seemed unable or unwilling to respond to these
affronts was not a promising sign.
Failure of League of Nations
Although The League of Nations has done much that it should be proud of, its failures are
much too noticeable to turn a blinds eye on. At the time of Corfu Incident in1923, many
people wondered what would happen if a powerful state were to challenge the League
on an issue of major importance, for example by invading an innocent country. How
effective would League be then? Unfortunately several such challenges occurred
during the 1930s, and on every ocassion the League was found wanting. Reasons
ascribed for this failure are discussed below:
1.   An initial disadvantage of the League was that it was too closely linked with the Treaty of
Versailles, giving it the air of being an organisation for the benefit of the victorious powers.
In addition, it had to defend the peace settlement which was far from perfect. Some of the
provisions were bound to cause trouble- for example, the disappointment of Italy and the
inclusion of Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
 
2.  The League was dealt a severe blow in March 1920 when the United States Senate rejected
the Versailles Settlement and the League. There were many reasons behind this decision:
many Americans wanted to return to a policy of isolation and feared that membership of the
League might cause them to be embroiled in another war; the Republicans, now in majority
in the Senate, strongly opposed Woodrow Wilson(a Democrat), but he refused to compromise
over either the League Covenant or the terms of the treaties. Thus the League was deprived
of a powerful member whose presence would have been of great psychological and financial
advantage.
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 3.
9/27/2018   Germany was not allowed to join the LeagueSM-1until 1926 and the USSR became its member
only in 1934(when Germany left), so that for the first few years of its existence the League
was deprived of three of the world’s most important powers.
4.   In the early years, the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris was an embarrassment. It was
intended to function only until the League machinery was established, but it lingered on, and
on several ocassion took precedence over League. In 1920 the League supported Lithuania in
her claim to Vilna which had just been taken away from her by the Poles, but then allowed
the Ambassadors to award Vilna to Poland. A later example was the Corfu Incident(1923)
which arose from the boundary dispute between Greece and Albania, in which three Italian
officers working on the boundary commission were killed. Mussolini blamed the Greek Island
of Corfu. Greece appealed to the League, Mussolini refused to recognize its competence to
deal with the problem and threatened to withdraw from the League, whereupon the
Ambassadors ordered Greece to pay the full amount demanded. At this early stage, however,
supporters of the League dismissed these incidents as teething troubles.
5.   There were serious weaknesses in the Covenant making it difficult to ensure that decisive
action was taken against any aggressor. It was difficult to achieve unanimous decisions. The
League had no military of its own and through Article 16 expected member states to supply
troops if necessary, a resolution was passed in 1923 that each member would decide for itself
whether or not to fight in a crisis. This clearly made nonsense of the idea of collective
security. Several attempts were made to strengthen the Covenant but these failed because a
unanimous decision was needed to change it and this was never achieved. The most notable
attempt was made in 1924 by the British Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay McDonald, in a
resolution known as Geneva Protocol which pledged members to accept arbitration and help
any victim of unprovoked aggression. With supreme irony, the Conservative government which
followed McDonald informed the League that they could not agree to the protocol; they were
reluctant to commit Britain and the dominions to the defence of all the 1919 frontiers.
Unfortunately this left the League as its critics remarked, ‘lacking teeth’.
6.  The continued absence of the USA and the USSR plus the hostility of Italy made the League
very much a Franco-British affair, but as their rejection of  Geneva Protocol showed, the
British Conservatives were never enthusiastic about the League and preferred to sign the
Locarno Treaties(1925) outside the League instead of conducting negotiations within it. None
of these weaknesses necessarily doomed the League to failure, however, provided all the
members were prepared to refrain from aggression and accept League decisions; between
1925 and 1930 events ran fairly smoothly but unfortunately dictators rose to power in Japan
and Germany together with Italy; they refused to keep up the rules and pursued a series of
actions which revealed the League’s weaknesses.
7. In 1931 Japanese troops invaded the Chinese territory of Manchuria. China
appealed to the League which condemned Japan and ordered her troops to be
withdrawn. When Japan refused, the League appointed a commission under Lord
Lytton in1932 which decided that there were faults on both sides and suggested
that Manchuria be governed by the League. However, Japan rejected this and
withdrew from the League (March 1933). The question of economic sanctions let
alone military ones was not raised because Britain and France had serious
economic problems and were reluctant to apply a trade boycott of Japan in case it
led to war, which they were ill-equipped to win, especially without American help.
Japan had sucessfully defied the League, and its prestige was damaged though not
yet fatally.
8.  The failure of the World Disarmament Conference(1932) which met under the auspices of the
League was a grave disappointment. The Germans asked for equality of armaments with
France, but when the French demanded that this should be postponed for at least eight
years, Hitler was able to use the French attitude as an excuse to withdraw Germany from the
conference and later from the League.
9.   The most serious blow was the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in October 1935. The League
condemned Italy and introduced economic sanctions which, however, did not include a ban on
exports of oil, coal and steel to Italy. So half-hearted were the sanctions that Italy was able
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9/27/2018 to complete the conquest of Abyssinia withoutSM-1too much inconvenience in May 1936. A few
weeks later sanctions were abandoned and Mussolini had flouted the League. Again Britain
and France must share the blame for League’s failure. Their motives was the desire not to
antagonise Mussolini too much so as to keep him as an ally against the real danger-Germany,
but the results were disastrous: Mussolini was annoyed by the sanctions anyway and began to
draw closer to Hitler. In this way the small states lost all faith in the League and Hitler
himself was encouraged to break the Versailles Treaties. After 1935, therefore, the League
was not taken seriously again.
Demise and Legacy
As the situation in Europe deteriorated into war, the Assembly transferred,
on 30 September 1938 and14 December 1939, enough power to the Secretary
General to allow the League to continue to legally exist and continue with operations
on a reduced scale. After this was completed, the headquarters of the League
remained unoccupied for nearly six years until the Second World War had ended. The
final meeting of the League of Nations was held in April in Geneva. Delegates from 34
nations attended the assembly where their first act was the closure the twentieth
meeting, adjourned on 14 December 1939, and opened the twenty-first. This session
concerned itself with liquidating the League, the Palace of Peace was given to the UN,
reserve funds were returned to the nations that had supplied them and the debts of
the League were settled. Robert Cecil is said to have summed up the feeling of the
gathering during a speech to the final assembly when he said: “aggression where it
occurs and however it may be defended, is an international crime, that it is the duty of
every peace-loving state to resent it and employ whatever force is necessary to crush
it ... that every well-disposed citizen of every state should be ready to undergo any
sacrifice in order to maintain peace ... I venture to impress upon my hearers that the
great work of peace is resting not only on the narrow interests of our own nations, but
even more on those great principles of right and wrong which nations, like individuals,
depend.”The motion that dissolved the League, stating that "The League of Nations
shall cease to exist except for the purpose of the liquidation of its affairs" passed
unanimously. The motion also set the date for the end of the League as the day after
the session was closed. On the 18 April 1939 the President of the Assembly, Carl J.
Hambro of Norway, declared "the twenty-first and last session of the General
Assembly of the League of Nations closed." As a result the League of Nations ceased
to exist on 19 April 1939.
            With the onset of World War II, it had been clear that the League had failed in its
purpose – to avoid any future world war. During the war, neither the League's Assembly nor
Council had been able or willing to meet, and its Secretariat in Geneva had been reduced to a
skeleton staff, with many offices moving to North America. At the 1943  Tehran Conference,
the Allied Powers agreed to create a new body to replace the League. This body was to be
the  United Nations. Many League bodies, such as the  International Labour Organization,
continued to function and eventually became affiliated with the UN. The League's assets of
$22,000,000 were then assigned to the U.N.
            The structure of the United Nations was intended to make it more effective than the
League. The principal  Allies  in World War II (UK,  USSR,  France,  U.S., and  China) became
permanent members of the  UN Security Council, giving the new "Great Powers" significant
international influence, mirroring the League Council. Decisions of the UN Security Council are
binding on all members of the UN; however, unanimous decisions are not required, unlike the
League Council. Permanent members of the UN Security Council were given a shield to protect
their vital interests, which has prevented the UN acting decisively in many cases. Similarly, the
UN does not have its own standing armed forces, but the UN has been more successful than the
League in calling for its members to contribute to armed interventions, such as the  Korean
War, and peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia. However, the UN has in some cases been
forced to rely on economic sanctions. The UN has also been more successful than the League in
attracting members from the nations of the world, making it more representative.
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 Conclusion
9/27/2018 SM-1

According to Pat Buchnan, in the final analysis, it was not the League that
failed. It was the Allies that failed. Neither Britain nor France—nor the United States—
was willing to risk war for high principle, if authenticated that principle jeopardized
vital interests. None of the three had a vital interest in whether or not Japan (or
Russia or China) controlled Manchuria. And if the United States refused to join the
League, how could nations object if Germany walked out? As for Ethiopia, was
upholding the principle of non-aggression in Africa worth a war that might drive Italy
into the arms of Nazi Germany? Indeed, the limited sanctions imposed on Italy helped
to create the Rome-Berlin Pact of Steel, that first Axis of Evil.  As for Hitler’s military
occupation of the Rhineland, this was a direct challenge to France. But if France, with
its huge army, would not act militarily in its own vital interests, why should anyone
else?
Although the League was called a ‘League of Notions’ or a ‘League of Robbers’ and it
was believed that the League could only bark and did not bite, yet it did a lot of work which
proved very significant. There were some quarrels, which the League settled very successfully,
yet it had to come forth a number of problems, which it failed to settle at all. On the whole,
according to F.P. Walters, “The League as a working institution is dead, but the ideals which it
sought to promote, the hopes to which it gave rise, the method it devised, the agencies it
created, have become an integral part of the political thinking of the civilized world.”

Suggested Readings
1.Andrew J. Williams, Failed Imagination?: New World Orders of the Twentieth
Century, Manchester University Press, 1998.
2. F. P Walters, A History of the League of Nations, Vol.2, O.U.P, London, 1952.
3. F.S Northedge,  The League of Nations: Its Life and Times, 1920–1946. New York:
Holmes & Meier, 1986.
4. Frank McDonough,  The Origins of the First and Second World Wars(Cambridge
Perspectives   in History), 1997.
 

[1]  The list of rules by which the League was to operate.

 
[2]  If one state attacked another, the member state of the League would act together,
collectively, to restrain the aggressor, either by economic or by military sanctions.

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9/27/2018 SM-1

7 UNIT 3 Lesson 1 ORIGINS OF THE

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917
UNIT 3
Lesson 1

ORIGINS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917

Dr.Naveen Vashishta

Audio

0:00 / 0:00

Introduction
The Russian Revolution was a pivotal event in the history of the twentieth century. It
ushered in an era of ideological conflict culminating in the Cold War and remained an especially
politicized historical event. Only the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 finally
transformed the Russian Revolution into an historical fact.  The Russian Revolution of 1917
actually refers to a series of events in imperial Russia that culminated in 1917 with the
establishment of the Soviet state that became known as the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR). The two successful revolutions of 1917 are referred to collectively
as the Russian Revolution. The first revolution overthrew the autocratic imperial
monarchy. It began with a revolt on February 23 to 27, 1917, according to the Julian,
or Old Style, calendar then in use in Russia[1]. The second revolution, which opened
with the armed insurrection of October 24 and 25, organized by the Bolshevik Party
against the Provisional Government, effected a change in all economic, political, and
social relationships in Russian society; it is often designated as the Bolshevik, or
October Revolution.
Causes of the Russian Revolution
Although the events of the Russian Revolution happened abruptly, the causes
may be traced back nearly a century. Prior to 1917 Russian society was undergoing
significant changes that resulted in the crisis of the old order. The new social and
economic forces generated by these changes had different interests and desires.
Therefore, by 1917 there emerged an extreme contradiction and divergence between
the old and new Russia. The Russian Revolution represented the democratic ambitions
of these new forces. The Russian state on the other hand represented the interests of
the old ruling classes. The Russian autocracy remained strong on the support of
landed nobility. So there emerged, by 1917, a crisis not only between the old and new
forces but also between these new forces and the Russian state. According to Richard
Pipes “The Russian Revolution of 1917 was not an event or even a process, but a
sequence of disruptive and violent acts that occurred more or less concurrently but
involved actors with differing and in some measure contradictory objectives.” So what
were the long and short term causes that led to this milestone in history?  Let us examine
these in detail.
1. Autocratic rule and inefficiency of the Tsar
The government in Russia was autocratic without being efficient. The Tsar’s
administration was weak and corrupt. His autocracy had outlived the purpose. The
spread of western ideas led to the development of progressive ideas among the
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 people.
9/27/2018 The demand for truly representative SM-1 body with adequate powers to satisfy the
needs of the people was a gathering force. Instead of fulfilling the demands of the
people, Tsar Nicholas II of Romanov dynasty, announced that he would preserve the
principles of autocracy as firmly and unwaveringly as his predecessor. He kept
Constantine Pobedonostev[2], the evil genius of Russia, in power. Another evil genius
who exercised great influence on the administration of the Tsar was  Gregory Rasputin.
[3]The government was run by the bureaucracy who was inflexible and inefficient. It is true that
Russia did come to have its first Parliament (Duma) in 1906. But it did not lead to the
establishment of parliamentary institutions on the English model. It did not have full authority
over legislation and finance. It had no control over the ministry. Even the budget was
safeguarded from parliamentary interference. Due to successive interference of the imperial
government in the elections, the Duma became a reactionary body. All kinds of restrictions were
placed on the individual freedom as well as the freedom of press.
Another weakness of the autocracy was the personality of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II
himself. Poorly educated, narrow in intellectual perspective, a bad judge of people, isolated
from the Russian society at large and in contact only with the most narrow military and
bureaucratic circles, intimidated by the ghost of his imposing father and helpless under the
destructive influence of his endlessly unfortunate wife: Nicholas II was obviously inadequate to
the demands of his high position and this was an inadequacy for which no degree of charm, of
courtesy of delicacy of manner, could compensate. He was short-sighted and his lack of grasp of
the realities of the life of the country interfering with political process in ways that were for him
absolutely suicidal.
2. Discontent of the Peasantry
The Russian peasants were dissatisfied with the conditions of their life. They
were not happy with the terms of the emancipation settlement[4] which freed them
from serfdom in 1861 but required them to pay compensation to the landlords for the
loss of their labor rights.  The problem was further compounded by the failure of
Witte's land reforms of the early 1900s. The serfs claimed that the release of landlords
from their military commitments in the 18th century should have automatically
liberated them from their periodical obligations which they owed to the landlords. So
they resented the imposition of financial burdens in lieu of labor burdens as a violation
of an implied contract. The exaction of these redemption payments[5] was maintained
up to 1907. Further the peasants were assigned less land than they had previously
possessed. The situation deteriorated because of their inability to make the best use
of the soil which they occupied. The system of cultivation in Russia was backward. The
peasants lacked the capital and technique to raise it to a higher level by adopting the
methods of intensive cultivation. The scope for individual action was further reduced
by the system of land ownership which was assigned to the mir[6], by the
intermixture of strips into which many of the holdings were divided and by the status
of the peasant household as legal representatives of its members in all property
relations.
The root cause of the dissatisfaction of the Russian peasants was the shortage of
land. The peasants cast hungry eyes upon the estates of big landlords. Long before
the revolution they pressed for a fresh allocation of land.  Peter Stolypin, prime minister
from 1906 to 1911, made determined efforts to win over the peasants believing that given
twenty years of peace there would be no question of revolution. Redemption payments were
abolished and peasants were encouraged to buy their own land (about 2 million had done so by
1916 and another 3.5 million had immigrated to Siberia where they had their own farms). As a
result there emerged a class of comfortably-off peasants (called kulaks) whom, Stolypin hoped;
the government could rely on for support against revolution. By 1911 it was becoming clear that
Stolypin's land reforms would not have the desired result, partly because the peasant population
was growing too rapidly (at the rate of 1.5 million a year) for his schemes to cope with, and
because farming methods were too inefficient to support the growing population comfortably.  
The assassination of Stolypin in 1911 removed one of the few really able tsarist ministers and
perhaps the only man who could have saved the monarchy
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 3.
9/27/2018 Discontent of the Workers SM-1

During the concluding years of the 19th century, the Russian industry developed
a great deal. It was owing to several factors. The emancipation of serfs made available
a plentiful supply of cheap labor for the industry. The creation of railways opened up
the means of communication and increased the facilities of transport. Foreign loans
provided the necessary basis for large industrial undertakings. As a result of
exceptional growth of industry, factory system grew rapidly. The industrial workers are
always more intelligent and less conservative in their nature than the rural laborers.
The factory system had done away with the isolation of the worker and brought the
great masses of men together. It also gave them an insight of their economic power.
The workers suffered from long hours of work, low wages, brutality, and a system of
rapacious fines. The government was generally blind to the sufferings of the workers.
The capitalists blocked the path of factory reform on the ground of what they termed
freedom of the people’s labor which actually meant the freedom of the strong to
exploit the weak. The Russian workmen sought to redress their grievances through
strikes.
The expansion of industry not only created an industrial proletariat, but also
called into existence a class of wealthy manufacturers. Russia thus passed into the
stage of capitalism. She had fallen into the line with western industrialism. Labor for
the fast developing industries was continuously recruited from the rural population.
Their abrupt divorce from the land and their isolation from the educated classes, made
the Russian workers hospitable to the revolutionary ideas. But this advantage was off-
set by their illiteracy, backwardness, lack of organizational abilities and absence of
system in labor.
Apart from this, the Russian industry in its techniques and capitalist structure
stood at the level of the advanced countries and even outperformed them in some
respects. There was a great concentration of industry in Russia. Enterprises employing
more than a thousand workers employed 41.4 percent of the Russian labor which
meant that there was no transitional layer between the capitalists and the workers.
Sheila Fitzpatric in her book ‘The Russian Revolution’ states that "...the factory
committees took over [the factories in order] to save the workers from unemployment, when the
owner or manager abandoned the plant or threatened to close it because it was losing money. As
such events became more common, the definition of workers' control moved closer to something
like workers' self-management." She notes that because of the growing disagreement between
the workers and the government, that real grievances were developed and that a program of
self-management became every more necessary in the eyes of the working classes. Instead of
foreign anarchistic elements conspiring to get worker support, it was the conditions in Petrograd
that caused the workers to become more rebellious. Workers angered by "...the Bolsheviks [who
had gained] influence in the factory committees...[that] there was an emerging sense in the
working class that 'soviet power' meant that the workers should be sole masters in the district,
the city, and perhaps the country as a whole...this was closer to anarchism or anarcho-
syndicalism than to Bolshevism, and the Bolshevik leaders did not in fact share the view that
direct workers’ democracy through factory committees and the soviets was a plausible or
desirable alternative to their own concept of party-led 'proletarian dictatorship."
4. Spread of Socialism
As the industrialization of Russia began to make great progress there arose a
new generation of industrial workers who had to work hard in the crowded towns
under circumstances which made their lives an intolerable burden. Naturally it was
from this class that the message of socialism met with a heavy response. In the
1890’s the teachings of Marx[7] were popularized and spread by radicals like the
novelist Maxim Gorkey, and revolutionary socialism made rapid progress among
factory workers, winning over many of the intelligentsia, to its cause. In 1895 was
founded the Workmen’s Social Democratic Party with a programme similar to that of
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 the
9/27/2018 socialists in other countries. The peasantrySM-1 now led by middle-class radicals,
emulated the example of the urban proletariat and in 1901 organized a Social
Revolutionary Party with a platform that included the confiscation of the large estates
of the nobility and their division into small individual holdings. The party believed in
terrorism as a weapon, though they kept it for the present in reserve. Thus was set on
foot a revolutionary movement which aimed at reconstructing the social and political
systems of Russia on socialist principles. In 1903 there was a split in the Social
Democratic Party on the questions of party discipline and tactics, and its radical
section led by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov popularly known as Lenin, seceded from the
main body. This section came to be known as Bolsheviks (men of majority) and the
more moderate wing of the party came to be known as Mensheviks (minority men). As
a party the Bolsheviks remained far inferior in numbers to the Mensheviks, although
they had secured the majority on the questions which caused their secession.  Both
believed in strikes and revolution, but the Bolsheviks felt it was essential to win the support of
peasants as well as industrial workers, whereas the Mensheviks, doubting the value of peasant
support, favored close co-operation with the middle class; Lenin was strongly opposed to this.  In
1912 appeared the new Bolshevik newspaper Pravda (Truth), which was extremely important as a
means of publicizing Bolshevik ideas and giving political direction to the already developing
strike wave.
 
 
5. Demands for liberal reforms by the new middle classes
When the twentieth century opened the challenge to autocracy in Russia came more from
liberalism than socialism. The industrial revolution had created well-developed and energetic
middle class, and merchants, factory-owners and other businessmen joined hands with
intellectual liberals in demanding some system of representative government. The
Zemstva[8] also became active and drew up a definite programme of reform demanding a freely
elected national assembly, a responsible ministry, equality of all citizens and freedom of the
press, of religion and of speech. But Tsar Nicholas II, who was under the influence of the
reactionary minister Plehve, turned a deaf ear to these demands. The Russian government failed
to recognize that the people had outgrown the necessity of an autocrat and that the old bottles
would not contain the new wine. Hence it continued to be oppressive and repressive quite
unmindful of the gathering storm. The stubbornness of the Tsar and his blindness to the potential
strength of the new forces that were surging around him, were among the important causes
which produced the Russian Revolution.
6. The Revolution of 1905
The Revolution of 1905 proved a dress rehearsal of the Revolution of 1917. The storm that
had been brewing burst forth in 1905 when the government stood discredited by its failure in the
Russo-Japanese War. The Russian army suffered heavy reverses in the war. This had further
strength the revolutionary movement in Russia. There were agitations and disturbances all over
the country. On 9th January 1905, a mass of peaceful workers with their wives and children was
fired at in St. Petersburg while on its way to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the Tsar.
More than a thousand of them were killed and thousand of others were wounded. This day is
known as  Bloody Sunday. The news of the killings provoked unprecedented disturbances
throughout Russia. Even the sections of the army and navy revolted. A new form of organization
called the ‘Soviet’, or the council of worker’s representatives was developed in this revolution
which proved decisive in the upheaval of 1917. Soviet of peasants was also formed. The
Zemstvos demanded reforms, the workman struck work, and the peasantry plundered the
landlords. Unable to suppress the growing disorders the Tsar promised reforms and announced
the summoning of a Duma or national assembly[9]. But the experiment of reconciling
parliamentary government with autocracy ended in failure. Taking advantage of the divisions in
the rank of the opposition the Tsar reduced the Duma to a mere consultative body and was able
to secure the triumph of autocracy. By 1906, the revolutionary wave had spent its main force

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9/27/2018 reaction was in full swing. The government under
SM-1 the influence of Stolypin continued the
policy of alternate (sometimes combined) repression and concession, and the hatred aroused by
the former more than undid any benefits from the latter.    
7. The attempt to diminish the power of the Duma (Russian Parliament)
No sooner had the 1905 Revolution died out than Nicholas II thought of withdrawing the
liberal concessions from the people. Before the first Duma met, the government propagated the
constitution the Fundamental Laws. The Tsar was described as 'the supreme autocratic power' in
the constitution. He kept huge executive and legislative powers, including the control of the
army and foreign policy, the right to dissolve the Duma and to dismiss his ministers.
The Duma was to consist of the Upper and Lower Chambers. Half of the members of the
Upper Chamber were appointed by the Tsar. Although the Lower Chamber was elected by wide
male suffrage and secret voting, the elaborate system of indirect voting favored the wealthier
class. The voters first voted for the electors who then voted for those further electors who could
finally vote for the members of the Duma. This system of election favored the wealthier class
who had the freedom to take part in a series of elections. The wealthier class was usually
conservative in their political outlook and inclined to support the Tsar. Thus the autocratic power
of the Tsar was well-protected by the undemocratic provisions of the constitution.
The First Duma took place in May-July 1906. Even though indirect voting favoured the
wealthier and politically conservative classes[10], the majority of the people elected to sit in
the First Duma were anti-government. The First Duma consisted of the members of the following
groups: the Constitutional Democrats or Cadets[11], the Octobrists[12], the national groups,
the labor group, the peasant members[13], a few Social Democrats (The socialist parties
boycotted the first election because they had not forgotten the suppression of St. Petersburg and
the Moscow Soviets. But a few Social Democrats disobeyed the order of the Party and took part
in the elections.) The largest party was the Cadets. These political groups and parties demanded
ministerial responsibility and full control of all affairs of the state, including taxation. In other
words, they wanted a constitutional monarchy. The Tsar promptly dissolved the Duma. On the
whole the First Duma lasted for 73 days.
In the election of the Second Duma the Tsar intimidated many anti-government voters to
give up their candidature or their right to vote. But intimidation was useless. Many anti-
government candidates were elected to the Second Duma. Most threatening to the Tsar, 65 Social
Democrats were elected. The Social Democrats made demands to liberalize the Tsarist
government. As a result, the Second Duma met the same fate as the First Duma. Within 3 months
(March-June, 1907), it was again dissolved by the Tsar.
The Tsar was firm not to face a rebellious Duma again. He altered the franchise to deprive
many of the peasants and non-Russian nationalities of the vote and to give so many votes to the
wealthy landowners as to assure that 60 percent of the seats of the Duma were taken up by
them[14]. Because of the new franchise system, most of the men elected into the Duma were
government supporters.
The Third Duma (1907-1912) and the Fourth Duma (1912-1917) served their period of
office of five years. They were dominated by the Octobrists and the Monarchists. The Cadets and
the handful of socialists occupied about one quarter of the seats in the Duma. As the Duma grew
conservative in its composition, the frustration among the Russian masses found little chance of
expression in the Duma. Many of the Russian people turned against Tsardom again.
Despite the promises of the October Manifesto that civil liberties would be granted to the
people, a policy of repression was adopted by Stolypin, Prime Minister from 1906 to 1911. He
was infamous for persecuting the Jews and ruthless treatment of rioters in the countryside. To
punish the Finnish nationalists, he deprived Finland of independence. Many Social Democrats,
including Lenin, were deported.
8. Discontent of the non-Russian National Minorities
The Russian Empire was a multi-ethnic Empire. Nearly half of the population of
Russia was made up of national minorities like Poles, Finns, Jews, Latvians and Lithuanians.
If the Russian government had wished it could have done everything to reconcile them
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 to
9/27/2018 the Russian state and play them off against
SM-1 potential rebellious central Great
Russian group. But the Tsar’s government did neither; it instead followed the policy of
forceful ‘Russification’[15] towards them. The publication of newspapers and books in
the languages of non-Russian nationalities was completely forbidden. Instructions
could not be imparted to students in the schools in their native languages. Russian
government intentionally promoted contempt and hatred for the non-Russians.
Russian population was made to look upon them as aliens and as inferior races. Most
of the highly placed government officials were Russians and the entire business in the
numerous organs of the administration was conducted in the Russian language.
Russian officials spared no effort in insulting, humiliating and oppressing the non-
Russian nationalities. They had to suffer untold miseries at the hands of Tsardom,
which has rightly called as the ‘hangman and torturer of the non-Russian peoples.’ As
a result a high percentage of members of national minorities participated in the
revolution.
Freedom from national oppression in the Tsarist Empire coincided with the victory of the
socialist revolution. Apart from the disaffection felt by the peoples of the Baltic region, Central
Asia, Transcaucasia and other areas as a result of political and cultural bias, the economic
backwardness that Tsarist economic policies involved for these regions ensured that they
remained primarily agricultural with a strong stake in the land question. There surfaced strong
movements for national self-determination, demanding rights for their own languages, culture,
equal opportunities and even a separate political identity. The Bolsheviks supported land for the
peasant as well as the right to secession and a voluntary union. The peasantry in these areas
played a vital role in the victory of the socialist alternative to the Tsarist autocracy, completely
evading all liberal solutions to nationalist objectives.
9. Economic Crisis
The economic causes of the Russian Revolution were based mainly on the Tsar's mis-
management, compounded by World War I. More than fifteen million men joined the army, which
left an insufficient number of workers in the factories and on the farms. The result was
widespread shortages of food and materials. Factory workers had to bear terrible working
conditions, including twelve to fourteen hour days and low wages. Many riots and strikes for
better conditions and higher wages broke out. Although some factories agreed to the requests
for higher wages, wartime inflation quashed the increase. Prices rose high because all kinds of
goods and food became scarce during the war. In general, the price rose by 500 - 700 per cent
between 1914 and 1917. The scarcity of food and all kinds of goods were due to the following
reasons: (i) Russia was cut off from outside aid by the blockade of the Central Powers; (ii) the
transport system was poor; (iii) the devastation of the wheat-growing Ukraine early in the war;
(iv) the factories had to manufacture military goods to meet the needs of the unnaturally large
army[16]. Because of the exorbitant prices of bread, many Russian people were hungry. Hunger
led to waves of strikes of workers who cried out not only economic demands but also political
demands: "Down with the Tsar".
There was one protest to which Nicholas II responded with violence in response, industrial
workers went on strike and effectively paralyzed the railway and transportation networks. What
few supplies were available could not be effectively transported. As goods became more and
more scarce, prices skyrocketed. By 1917, famine threatened many of the larger cities.
Nicholas's failure to solve his country's economic suffering and communism's promise to do just
that comprised the core of the revolution.
10. The Impact of the First World War
The outbreak of war in August 1914 initially served to quiet the prevalent social and
political protests, focusing hostilities against a common external enemy, but this patriotic unity
did not last for very long. As the war dragged on inconclusively, war-weariness gradually took its
toll. More important, though, was this deeper fragility: although many ordinary Russians joined
anti-German demonstrations in the first few weeks of the war, the most popular reaction

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 appears
9/27/2018 to have been skepticism and fatalism. Hostility
SM-1 toward the Germany and the desire to
defend their land and their lives did not necessarily translate into enthusiasm for the Tsar or the
government.
Russia's first major battle of the war was a disaster: in the 1914 Battle of
Tannenberg, over 120,000 Russian troops were killed, wounded or captured, while
Germany suffered just 20,000 casualties. In the autumn of 1915, Nicholas II had
taken direct command of the army, personally overseeing Russia's main theatre of war
and leaving his ambitious but incapable wife Alexandra in charge of the government.
Reports of corruption and incompetence in the Imperial government began to emerge,
and the growing influence ofGregori Rasputin in the Imperial family was widely
resented. In 1915, things took a critical turn for the worse when Germany shifted its
focus of attack to the Eastern front. The superior German army which was better led,
trained and supplied was terrifyingly effective against the ill-equipped Russian forces,
and, by the end of October 1916, Russia had lost between 1,600,000 and 1,800,000
soldiers, with an additional 2,000,000 prisoners of war and 1,000,000 missing, all
making up a total of nearly 5,000,000 men. These staggering losses played a definite
role in the mutinies which began to occur and, in 1916, reports of fraternizing with the
enemy started to circulate. Soldiers went hungry, and they lacked shoes, munitions,
and even weapons. Widespread discontent lowered morale, only to be further
undermined by a series of military defeats.
Casualty rates were the most vivid sign of this disaster. Already, by the end of 1914, only
five months into the war, nearly 400,000 Russian men had lost their lives and nearly 1,000,000
were injured. Far sooner than expected, scarcely-trained recruits had to be called up for active
duty, a process repeated throughout the war as staggering losses continued to mount. The officer
class also saw remarkable turnover, especially within the lower echelons, which were quickly
filled with soldiers rising up through the ranks. These men, usually of peasant or worker
backgrounds, were to play a large role in the politicization of the troops in 1917.
The huge losses on the battlefields were not limited to men, however. The army quickly
ran short of rifles and ammunition (as well as uniforms and food), and, by mid-1915, men were
being sent to the front bearing no arms; it was hoped that they could equip themselves with the
arms that they recovered from fallen soldiers, of both sides, on the battlefields. With patently
good reason, the soldiers did not feel that they were being treated as human beings, or even as
valuable soldiers, but, rather, as raw materials to be squandered for the purposes of the rich and
powerful. By the spring of 1915, the army was in steady retreat -- and it was not always orderly:
desertion, plunder and chaotic flight were not uncommon. By 1916, however, the situation had
improved in many respects. Russian troops stopped retreating, and there were even some
modest successes in the offensives that were staged that year, albeit at great loss of life. Also,
the problem of shortages was largely solved by a major effort to increase domestic production.
Nevertheless, by the end of 1916, morale among soldiers was even worse than it had been during
the great retreat of 1915. The fortunes of war may have improved, but the fact of the war, still
draining away strength and lives from the country and its many individuals and families,
remained an oppressive unavoidability. The crisis in morale (as was argued by Allan Wildman, a
leading historian of the Russian army in war and revolution) "was rooted fundamentally in the
feeling of utter despair that the slaughter would ever end and that anything resembling victory
could be achieved."
The war was devastating, of course, and not only to soldiers. By the end of 1915, there
were many signs that the economy was breaking down under the heightened strain of wartime
demand. The main problems were food shortages and rising prices. Inflation propelled real
incomes down at an alarmingly rapid rate, and shortages made it difficult to buy even what one
could afford. These shortages were especially a problem in the capital, Petrograd[17], where
distance from supplies and poor transportation networks made matters particularly bad. Shops
closed early or entirely for lack of bread, sugar, meat and other provisions, and lines lengthened
massively for what remained. It became increasingly difficult both to afford and actually buy
food. Not surprisingly, strikes increased steadily from the middle of 1915, and so did crime; but,
for the most part, people suffered and endured -- scourging the city for food -- working-class
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 women
9/27/2018 in Petrograd reportedly spent about forty SM-1
hours a week in food lines --, begging, turning
to prostitution or crime, tearing down wooden fences to keep stoves heated for warmth,
complaining about the rich, and wondering when and how this would all come to an end. With
good reason, the government officials responsible for public order worried about how long the
people's patience would last. A report by the Petrograd branch of the security police, the
Okhrana, in October 1916, warned quite bluntly of "the possibility in the near future of riots by
the lower classes of the empire enraged by the burdens of daily existence.”
Nicholas II was blamed for all of these crises, and what little support he had left began to
crumble. As discontent grew, the State Duma issued a warning to Nicholas in November 1916. It
stated that, inevitably, a terrible disaster would grip the country unless a constitutional form of
government was put in place. In typical fashion, however, Nicholas ignored them, and Russia's
Tsarist regime collapsed a few months later during the February Revolution of 1917. One year
later, the Tsar and his entire family were executed. Ultimately, Nicholas's inept handling of his
country and the War destroyed the Tsars and ended up costing him both his rule and life.
Conclusion
 In conclusion we can say that there were many reasons for a revolution in Russia. Some
were political, others were social and economic, but they all had something in common - they all
helped to dethrone Tsar Nicholas II. Russia in the early 20th century covered a huge area that
was a large proportion of the Asian continent and one very powerful man, the Tsar Nicholas II,
ruled it all. Most of the country was living in poverty in overcrowded areas, working with the
same system as in medieval times, and being paid very little. There were only two industrial
cities, Petrograd and Moscow, with the rest of it countryside slums. Nicholas had a tough time
ruling over this huge country, nearly 8000km across with tens of millions of people, which
stretched from Poland nearly to Alaska. We can be sympathetic towards him because of the size
of his empire but some of his problems were his own fault. He was a strict autocrat - giving the
people no power or control over their lives. His decision to go to the war in 1914 proved
disastrous for the imperial regime. According to Richard Pipes “Had it not been World War 1, the
Russian Imperial government might have muddled through and in time yielded to some kind of
parliamentary regime. ”  

Suggested Readings
1. Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, Oxford University Press, 1994
2. Orlando Figes, A People’s tragedy: the Russian Revolution 1891-1924, London,
1996.
3. Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution 1899-1919, London, 1990.
4. J.L.H.Keep, The Russian Revolution a Study in Mass Mobilization, London 1976.
5. John Merriman,  History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present,
Vol.II, 1996.
6. Norman Lowe, Mastering Modern World History(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997).
7. Clive Emsley, Conflict and Stability in Europe, Routledge, 1979
8. IGNOU Study Material, EHI-01 & EHI-07.      
 

[1] On January 31, 1918, the Soviet government adopted the Gregorian, or New
Style, calendar, which moved dates by thirteen days; therefore, in the New Style
calendar the dates for the first revolution would be March 8 to 12.
 
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 [2] Pobedonostev
9/27/2018 was a strong monarchist with fervent
SM-1 beliefs about which path was in the best
interest of Russia. He was a reactionary and he passed these beliefs to Alexander and then later
to Nicholas. According to Pobedonostev, the monarch's absolute rule was ensured by God. He
believed that any infringement on this power was against God's wishes. He instilled in Nicholas
the belief that his most important job was to pass along to his heir the same form of absolute
power which had been passed to him. "Pobedonostev did succeed in getting some of his ideas
into Nicholas' head, and especially this one: that it was the duty of a Tsar-autocrat to pass on all
his powers intact to his son.”
 
[3]  Another figure that played a significant part in causing the Russian revolution. He was a
monk in the Russian Orthodox Church and had increasing importance and influence on the Tsar.
 

[4] It was introduced by Alexander II (1855-1881), the Russian Tsar.

 
[5] The peasants were to pay an annual sum for 49 years to the government, at the end of which
time the land was to be their property.
 

[6] The village community

[7] Karl Marx wrote “Communist Manifesto” which is known as the ‘Bible of Russian Revolution’.
In this book Marx declared that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggles. He predicted that in the ongoing struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat,
the latter was bound to win, leading to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat
which in turn would finally give place to a classless society.
[8]  The reform of 1864 created district and provincial assemblies (Zemstva). The members of
the district assemblies were elected by the inhabitants of each rural district, peasants and
nobles alike. Members of the district assemblies then elected delegates of the provincial
assemblies. This system of election tended to cut down the power of the nobles and gave more
political right to the non-noble classes.
 
[9] This was a supposed ‘parliament’ that could only give advice to the Tsar and this was ignored
– members who opposed the Tsar were executed or imprisoned.
 

[10]  The conservative classes comprised the landowners, rich merchants and pro-Tsarist
supporters.
 
[11]  The Cadets comprised liberals who demanded the establishment of a parliament, with
legislative power. Their views were very much like those of the British liberals.
 
[12]  The Octobrists were the right-wing liberals. They were well-satisfied with the October
Manifesto and would not ask for more political rights.
 

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 [13] The
9/27/2018 national groups represented the nationalSM-1
minorities. The labour group and the peasant
members represented those peasants and workers who did not join the Social Revolutionary
Party and the Social Democratic Party
 
[14] According to the government decree of 1907, the Duma should be elected on a class basis
by a number of electoral colleges. The wealthier landowners were to choose 60 per cent of the
electors, the peasants 22 per cent, the merchants 15 per cent, and the working men 3 per cent.
 
[15] It means suppression of the languages and literatures and cultures of other nationalities.

[16] Because Russia was industrially backward, she found it necessary to recruit a large army to
fight against Germany so that her superiority in numbers could compensate her deficiency in
equipment. By 1917 about fifteen million were recruited 37% of the male population of working
age. This led to labor shortage and less production in factories.
[17] Formerly the City of St. Petersburg

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9/27/2018 SM-1

8 Lesson 2 COURSE OF RUSSIAN

REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT ON RUSSIA
AND WORLD
Lesson 2

COURSE OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT ON RUSSIA AND WORLD

Dr.Naveen Vashishta

Audio

0:00 / 0:00

Stages of Russian Revolution

A. The First Stage – The Fall of Tsardom
On March 8, 1917, the first street disturbances broke out in Petrograd. It was sparked off
by the shortage of bread. After a few days came the demand; ‘Down with the Autocracy’. There
were red flags all over the city. Soon it spread to other cities and also to the countryside. The
Tsar ordered his troops to suppress the strikers. The troops at first fired on the strikers but then
refused to do so and fraternized instead. When the Petrograd troops turned to the side of these
hungry strikers on March 10, it meant that the army which had been used to preserve the
autocratic monarchy would not protect the Tsar. On March 12, the Tsar ordered the Fourth Duma
to suspend its sessions. The Duma refused to obey the orders. Since both the upper and lower
classes did not accept the rule of the Tsar, his rule was over.
The top generals of the army informed the Nicholas II that the well-being of the
nation and the successful pursuit of war required his abdication so in order to pacify
the discontent of his people he renounced the throne in favour of his brother Grand
Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovich (1878–1918). The latter, however, decided against
accepting the crown saying that he would do so only at the request of a future
constituent assembly. The provisional government, except for the addition of the
socialist leader Kerensky, was made up of the same liberal leaders who had organized
the progressive bloc in the Duma in 1915. The prime minister, Prince Lvov, was a
wealthy landowner and a member of the Constitutional Democratic (or Cadet) party,
which favored an immediate constitutional monarchy and ultimately a republic. Lvov
was largely a figurehead; the outstanding personality in the government was Milyukov
(1859–1943), minister of foreign affairs and strongest leader of the Cadet party since
its founding in 1905. He played the principal role in formulating policy. Kerensky, the
minister of justice, who had been leader of the Trudovik (“laborite”) faction in the
Duma, was the only representative of moderate socialist opinion in the provisional
government. But his brother knew that there was widespread hatred of Tsardom. Thus
on March 16, 1917, the Romanov dynasty came to an end and Russia lost the pivot
around which its political life revolved for three centuries (1613-1917).
The March Revolution was a spontaneous revolution set off by the lower classes. It came
as a result of their deep-seated hatred of the Tsars who deprived them of political freedom, and
brought them severe economic sufferings and military defeats. The First World War brought the
dissatisfaction of the Russians to a head. The Russian masses made the revolution impulsively
without any leadership from the revolutionary parties.
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9/27/2018 SM-1

B. The Second Stage – Dual Power (dvoevlastie)

(1) Two Parallel Developments

On March 12, a group of Duma deputies, rejecting the Tsar's order to dissolve, constituted
a Provisional Government and assumed the interim responsibility for public order. On March 11,
the hungry strikers and the Petrograd troops had set up the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and
Soldiers' Deputies. Workers and soldiers in other places followed their example and also set up
soviets to take over functions of local governments. These soviets were popularly elected by the
masses and so enjoyed more popular support than the Provisional Government which represented
the interests of the bourgeoisie and the landlords. This situation was one of ‘dual power’.
The Provisional Government, formed under the premiership of Prince Lvov, was recognized
as the legal authority by both the foreign governments and the soviets in Russia. The foreign
governments recognized the Provisional Government because it advocated those democratic
principles close to British and American democracy. The soviets accepted the legality of the
Provisional Government on condition that it did not go against the aims of the soviets. A curious
situation arose: the Provisional Government ruled the country with full support only of the
middle classes; the soviets got the majority support from the people but did not want to rule the
country. Thus, the rule of the Provisional Government had to depend upon the conditional
support of the soviets.

(2) The Attempts of the Provisional Government to Preserve Its Own Power

The Provisional Government tried to strengthen its authority by various means but all of
her efforts gave more chances for the political opponents to attack it.

(i) The granting of political freedom- Many of the members of the Provisional
Government were middle-class liberals. They believed in political democracy. Thus the
Provisional Government granted an official pardon to political prisoners, cancelled the
discriminatory legislation, introduced the eight-hour day, legalized strikes, and granted
freedom of the press, speech and assembly. The ethnic minorities received autonomy.
The political prisoners were allowed to return to Russia. Thus the Bolsheviks and
Mensheviks had full freedom to attack the Provisional Government as soon as they
returned from their exiles.

(ii) Compromise with the Soviets-The Petrograd Soviet declared that it would
support the Provisional Government if it approved the latter's action. On March 14, the
Soviet issued the Army Order No. 1. According to this order, the soldiers should send
their representatives to the Petrograd Soviet should elect their own committees to run
their military units and should take orders only from the Petrograd Soviet. In short,
the Provisional Government had to share her control of the Russian army with the
Petrograd Soviet. Since the Petrograd Soviet did not encourage the army to fight and
so there was a further decline in the fighting spirit of the army.

(iii) The continuation of the war-The Provisional Government decided to continue

the war. They still thought that if they could win the war, they could gain the support
of the Russian people. Moreover, they hoped to honor their international obligations
with the Allied countries-- Britain and France, for example, the Anglo-Russian Entente
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 and
9/27/2018 the French-Russian Alliance. . BesidesSM-1all these, the Provisional Government
hoped to get Constantinople. Thus the Provisional Government fought many battles in
May and June, although the Russian army was unwilling to fight.

In July, the Russian forces were mobilized for a 'July offensive in Galacia'. Russian forces
suffered heavy losses. People at the front and behind the front turned to the Bolsheviks because
they demanded the immediate ending of the war.

(iv) The calling of the Constituent Assembly-Soon after the March Revolution, the
Provisional Government promised to call a Constituent Assembly to be elected by
universal manhood suffrage. The general public hoped that the election for the
Constituent Assembly would be held as soon as possible.

The peasants expected that once the Constituent Assembly was called, it would legalize
the confiscation and distribution of the landlords' estates. To the great disappointment of the
Russian people, the Provisional Government hesitated to call the Constituent Assembly due to
the turmoil within the country. Meanwhile the prices of food and other daily necessities
continued to rise, this turned many Russians against the Provisional Government.

To sum up, the Provisional Government which had support from the upper and middle
classes could only prolong its rule by getting the support from the masses. The continuation of
the war and the failure to tackle with the economic questions of the day alienated the masses
from the Provisional Government. Under this situation, any political party professing to satisfy
these needs of the masses would be welcomed and could easily seize political power. The
Bolsheviks led by Lenin seized this opportunity.

C. The Third Stage – Lenin’s return (April 1917) and internal split within the
Provisional Government (August 1917)

(1) Lenin's Return- When the March Revolution broke out, the prominent leaders of the
Bolshevik Party were in exile. In April, Lenin returned to Russia with the help of the German
government because the latter thought that they could make use of Lenin's anti-war propaganda
to weaken the Provisional Government's will and ability to fight[1]. As expected, Lenin
immediately launched his antiwar attack on the Government upon his arrival at Finland Station
in Russia. He demanded the Provisional Government to give 'All power to the Soviets'[2]. He
convinced his Bolshevik supporters that the seizure of power by the soviets would be the signal
for a European-wide socialist revolution. To prepare for the seizure of power, his Bolshevik
supporters set out to win support from the masses in the soviets. Up to June, their efforts were
not very successful. When the First All Russian Congress of Soviets met in the capital, the Social
Revolutionaries (285 deputies) and the Mensheviks (245 deputies) still dominated the soviets[3].
The Bolsheviks had 105 deputies in the Congress.

From June onwards the situation began to change. A number of moderate Socialists took
part in the Provisional Government. Kerensky, a leading member of the Social Revolutionary
Party, even became the Prime Minister of the government. He was responsible for continuing to
send the poorly-equipped troops into battle and inviting the Mensheviks to take part in the
administration. Thus the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks were discredited in the eyes
of the Russian people as they were identified with the unpopular Provisional Government.
Although the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks represented the interests of the people
but they failed to realize that the time was ripe for the socialist revolution i.e. the second stage
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 of
9/27/2018 the revolution. They did not see that the bourgeoisie
SM-1 was already in opposition to a further
progress of the revolution. Only the Bolsheviks realized all this. They were the only political
party to give voice to the aspirations of the people and put forward the demand of the time. The
popularity of the Bolshevik Party rose as a result of its antiwar policy. They demanded land for
the peasants; workers control over industries; the right of nations to self-determination; and
above all bread. ‘Peace! Land! Bread! Democracy!’ became the popular slogans. Thus the
Bolsheviks had a popular base.

(2) Lenin's setback- The Bolsheviks were soon involved in a spontaneous rising of the
workers in July. Kerensky immediately seized this opportunity to suppress the Bolshevik Party.
Lenin escaped to Finland and Trotsky was imprisoned[4]. The Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda, was
suppressed. The growing influence of the Bolsheviks came to a halt for a short while, but soon
the Bolsheviks had their chance to seize power again.The Bolsheviks quickly revived their
influence when the Provisional Government had to make use of the military support of the
Bolshevik workers in Petrograd to defeat a coup d'etat by a right-wing politician named Kornilov
in August[5].

D. The Fourth Stage-The November Revolution (September-November 1917)

Kornilov's coup, combined with more battle defeats by the Germans and the failure of the
government to solve the economic problems of the workers and peasants, produced a decisive
swing of opinion in Petrograd towards the Bolsheviks. In September, the Bolsheviks, for the first
time, won a majority in both the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. Trotsky, released from prison,
was elected as the President of the Petrograd Soviet. Seeing that the prestige of the Provisional
Government was at its lowest ebb, Lenin made the decision to seize power on October 20. A
'Military Revolutionary Committee' was set up for the coup d'etat.

On November 6, under the direction of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Red
Guards and the regular troops occupied the key points in Petrograd. (The regular troops in
Petrograd and Moscow were won over because of the propaganda against the war policy of Lvov
and Kerensky.) The Provisional Government, like the Tsarist government before them, offered
almost no resistance. Kerensky escaped from Russia and power passed to the soviets.

On November 7, in the evening, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets met in

Petrograd and approved by a two-thirds of the coup. (Lenin had manipulated the Congress in
such a way as to dominate it.) The Congress elected the Council of People's Commissars as the
executive body of the Soviets. Lenin was the Chairman of the Commissars, Trotsky was the
Commissar for Foreign Affairs and Stalin was the Commissar for Nationalities[6].

Summary of the 1917 Revolutions

The two revolutions in 1917 were of different character. The first was a spontaneous
revolution made by the masses. They hated the reactionary monarchy for its suppression of
personal liberty and its general backwardness. The Provisional Government, soon set up,
consisted chiefly of liberal bourgeoisie[7]. They wanted to create a democratic republic similar
to that of the United States and France. They wanted to give to the Russians those political
liberties and civil liberties as enjoyed by the Western countries. They regarded Russia as an ally
of the western democratic nations and deemed it necessary to continue the war against
Germany. But the middle class had neglected the land hunger and war-weariness of the masses.

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9/27/2018 The masses gradually turned to the Bolsheviks.
SM-1 The peasants welcomed the Bolsheviks'
slogan 'peace, land and bread'. The workers welcomed the Bolsheviks slogan 'All power to the
Soviets'. Popularity of the Bolsheviks increased when there was rapid inflation at home and more
military defeats at the front. The number of party members increased tenfold between January
and August 1917[8]. When the Provisional Government was digging its own grave by an internal
split in August, Lenin made use of his well-organized and highly disciplined party to seize power
at once[9]. Lenin's coup d'etat was a planned revolution and his intention was to set up a
socialist society in Russia. This was how the first communist government set up in the world.
  
Brief Chronology Leading to Revolution of 1917[10]
Date(s) Event(s)
1855       Start of reign of Tsar Alexander II.
1861       Emancipation of the serfs.
1874–81 Growing anti-government terrorist movement and government reaction.
1881       Alexander II assassinated by revolutionaries; succeeded by Alexander III.
1883       First Russian Marxist group formed.
1894       Start of reign of Nicholas II.
1898       First Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP).
1900       Foundation of Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR).
1903    Second Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Beginning of split
between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
1904–5   Russo-Japanese War; Russia loses war.
1905       Russian Revolution of 1905.
January: Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg.
June: Battleship Potemkin uprising at Odessa on the Black Sea
October: general strike, St. Petersburg Soviet formed; October Manifesto: Imperial
agreement on elections to the StateDuma.
1906       First State Duma. Prime Minister: Peter Stolypin. Agrarian reforms begin.
1907       Second State Duma, February–June.
1907       Third State Duma, until 1912.
1911       Stolypin assassinated.
1912       Fourth State Duma, until 1917. Bolshevik/Menshevik split final.
1914       Germany declares war on Russia.
1915       Serious defeats, Nicholas II declares himself Commander in Chief. Progressive
Bloc formed.
1916       Food and fuel shortages and high prices.
1917       Strikes, mutinies, street demonstrations lead to the fall of autocracy.
 
Expanded chronology of Revolution of 1917

Gregorian Date Julian Date Event

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January Strikes and unrest in Petrograd

February February Revolution

March 8th February 23rd International Women's Day: Strikes and

demonstrations in Petrograd, growing over the next
few days.

March 11th February 26th 50 demonstrators killed in Znamenskaya Square.

Tsar Nicholas II prorogue the State Duma and orders
commander of Petrograd military district to suppress
disorders with force.

March 12th February 27th Troops refuse to fire on demonstrators, desertions.

Prison, courts, and police stations attacked and looted
by angry crowds.
Okhranka  buildings set on fire. Garrison joins
revolutionaries.
Petrograd Soviet formed.
Formation of Provisional Committee of the Duma by
liberals from Constitutional Democratic Party
(Kadets).
 

March 14th March 1st Order No.1 of the Petrograd Soviet

March 15th March 2nd Nicholas II abdicates. Provisional

Governmentformed under Prime Minister Prince
Lvov.

April 16th April 3rd Return of Lenin to Russia. He publishes his April

Thesis

May 3rd–4th April 20th–21st "April Days": mass demonstrations by workers,

soldiers, and others in the streets of Petrograd and
Moscow triggered by the publication of the Foreign
Minister Miliukov's note to the allies, which was
interpreted as affirming commitment to the war
policies of the old government. First Provisional
Government falls

May 18th May 5th First Coalition Government forms when socialists,
representatives of the Soviet leadership, agree to
enter the cabinet of the Provisional
Government.Kerensky, the only socialist already in
the government, made minister of war and navy.

June 16th June 3rd First All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers'
Deputies opens in Petrograd. Closed on 24th. Elects
Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK),
headed by Mensheviks and SRs.

June 23rd           June 10th         Planned Bolshevik demonstration in Petrograd banned

by the Soviet.
 
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June 29th           June 16th         Kerensky orders offensive against Austro-Hungarian
forces. Initial success only.
 

July 1st              June 18th         Official Soviet demonstration in Petrograd for unity is
unexpectedly dominated by Bolshevik slogans: "Down
  with the Ten Capitalist Ministers", "All Power to the
Soviets".

July 15th            July 2nd           Russian offensive ends. Trotsky joins Bolsheviks.

 

July 16th–17th    July 3rd–4th      The "July Days"; mass armed demonstrations in
Petrograd, e ncouraged by the Bolsheviks, demanding
 
"All Power to the Soviets".

July 19th            July 6th            German and  Austro-Hungarian  counter-attack.

Russians retreat in panic, sacking the town
 
ofTarnopol. Arrest of Bolshevik leaders ordered.

July 20th            July 7th            Lvov resigns and asks Kerensky to become
Prime Minister and form a new government.
Established July 25th.

August 4th         July 22nd         Trotsky and Lunacharskii arrested

September 8th    August 26th     Second coalition government ends

 

September8th–12th August 26th– "Kornilov mutiny". Begins when the commander-in-

30th chief of the Russian army, General Lavr Kornilov,
demands (or is believed by Kerensky to demand) that
the government give him all civil and military
authority and moves troops against Petrograd.

September 13th  August 31st     Majority of deputies of the Petrograd Soviet approve a
Bolshevik resolution for an all-socialist government
  excluding the bourgeoisie.

September 14th  September 1st  Russia declared a republic

September 17th September 4th Trotsky and others freed.

September 18th  September 5th Bolshevik resolution on the government wins majority
vote in Moscow Soviet.

October 2nd September Moscow Soviet elects executive committee and new
19th presidium, with Bolshevik majorities, and the
Bolshevik Viktor Nogin as chairman.

October 8th September Third coalition government formed. Bolshevik

25th majority in Petrograd Soviet elects Bolshevik
Presidium and Trotsky as chairman.

October 23rd October 10th Bolshevik Central Committee meeting approves armed
uprising.
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October 24th October 11th Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, until
October 13th.

November 2nd October 20th First meeting of the Military Revolutionary

Committee(MRC) of the Petrograd Soviet.

November 7th October 25th October Revolution is launched as MRC directs

armed workers and soldiers to capture key buildings in
Petrograd. Winter Palace attacked at 9:40pm and
captured at 2am. Kerensky flees Petrograd. Opening
of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

November 8th October 26th Second Congress of Soviets: Mensheviks and right SR
delegates walk out in protest against the previous
day's events. Congress approves transfer of state
authority into its own hands and local power into the
hands of local soviets of workers', soldiers', and
peasants' deputies, abolishes capital punishment,
issues Decree on Peace  and  Decree on Land, and
approves the formation of an all-Bolshevik
government, the  Council of People's
Commissars(Sovnarkom), with Lenin as chairman.

                                               
Impact of the Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the twentieth century. The
revolution and its consequences remains a living topic, attitudes towards it being
woven into the fabric of liberal capitalist self-justification and into socialist ideas of all
varieties, not least the shrill polemics of radical groups which trace their lineage back
to one form of Bolshevism or another. It has very much been a case of ‘tell me what
you think of the Russian revolution and I’ll tell you who you are.’[11] The revolution
that Lenin led marked one of the most radical turning points in Russia’s history: it
affected economics, social and political structure, international relations, and most any
other benchmark by which one might measure a revolution. Although the new
government would prove to be at least as repressive as the one it replaced, the
country’s new rulers were drawn largely from the intellectual and working classes
rather than from the aristocracy—which meant a considerable change in direction for
Russia.

Economic Impact

The Russian Revolution radically altered Russia’s economic structure. It meant an end of
private property, and the change to ownership of all property by the state. It also established
the control of workers over industries. There was an introduction of centralised economy
keeping in mind the needs of the whole country, especially the working people. Through a
centralised economy they sought to guarantee a much faster pace of economic development and
the fruits of that development to a vast majority of the people. Through it they sought to
prevent an anarchy in production, and also avoid wastage. The First Five Year Plan, however was
introduced much later but planning was an important contribution of Russian Revolution to the
world. The Decree of Land envisaged the immediate abolition of landed estates(including crown,
monastery, and churchn lands) and their transfer to the peasantry for hereditary use. Small
private farms however still existed there.
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Social Impact

The Russian Revolution also destroyed the roots of social inequality. It laid the foundations
of a classless society. The new social set-up was formed on the basis of equality, justice and
Communism. “Everyone according to his ability and everyone according to his work” was the
principle that was followed now. It narrowed the gap between the salaries of the workers and
the owners of the factories. A step of tremendous significance was the publication of the
Declaration of the Rights of the People of Russia by the constitution. These included, among
others, the right to self-determination, an eight-hour working day, and insurance against
unemployment. It also guaranteed certain social benefits to all citizens, such as free medical
care, free and equal education for all, equal access to culture and cultural advancement. All this
was gradually made available to the people as production and infrastructure for these provisions
were being simultaneously created.

The roles of Russian women have changed drastically because of the revolution.
The women were given more freedom and therefore were successful in achieving
independence followed by a higher standing in society. Before the 1917 revolution,
women were treated to be beneath men in almost every aspect in life. However, due
to active women’s right movements, and more opportunities the war gave them,
women were finally able to declare their independence and be appreciated as
individuals. The Bolsheviks came to power with the idea of liberation of women and
transformation of the family. They were able to equalize women’s legal status with
men’s by reforming certain laws such as the Code on Marriage, the Family, and
Guardianship ratified in October 1918 which allows both spouses were to retain the
right to their own property and earnings, grant children born outside wedlock the
same rights as those born within, and made divorce available upon request. Equality
for women was also envisaged in the constitution. There was a provision for six-month
maternity leave, crèches and public canteens at places of work. All this was aimed at
making possible greater participation of women in public life. These measures had a
great impact on capitalist societies. In order to meet the challenges of the socialist
society, they were also forced to grant certain welfare schemes. In fact the concept of
a welfare state in the west was a direct response to the Russian Revolution.

The Revolution also separated religion from politics. Religion was made a purely private
affair. No religious education was imparted in the educational institutions and no public utility
was given in the name of religion.

Political Impact

The Russian Revolution resulted in the establishment of a state of the working people
embodied in the notion of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. It was recognized that the opponents
of the revolution could still harm the interests of the people. The Russian Revolution was infact
immediately followed by the intervention of many other countries on the side of Russian nobility
and bourgeoisie against the revolution and workers of Russia. Therefore, it was essential, for
sometime, to have a political system dominated by the working class. 

But this state was much more democratic than the states of bourgeois countries because
it guaranteed the rule of the majority (i.e. workers) over a minority which held civil liberties in
the pre-revolutionary Russia. Thus bourgeois democracy was thus to be transformed into socialist
democracy.
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Impact of the Revolution on World

The Bolshevik revolution was by no means a specifically "Russian" phenomenon. As Lenin
was later to put it, Bolshevism had become "World Bolshevism" by virtue of its revolutionary
tactics, theory and program. By indicating the "right road of escape from the horrors of war and
imperialism…Bolshevism can serve as a model of tactics for all." The "proletariat, the
soldiers and peasants lined up against the bourgeoisie." This was the essence of the Russian
Revolution. October was not a coup conducted by a secretive and elitist band. Above all, the
revolution was about the mobilization of the mass of ordinary Russians—workers, soldiers and
peasants—in a struggle to change their world. That is to this day the most important legacy of
the Russian revolution. The greatest historian of the revolution, and one of its most
important participants, Leon Trotsky, described the significance of revolution: “The
most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in
historic events. In ordinary times the state, be it monarchical or democratic, elevates
itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business—
kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial
moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break
over the barriers excluding them from the political arena, sweep aside their traditional
representatives, and create by their own interference the initial groundwork for a new
regime. Whether this is good or bad we leave to the judgment of moralists. We
ourselves will take the facts as they are given by the objective course of development.
The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the
masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.” Passivity gave way to self
activity. As historian Marc Ferro put it, "the citizens of the new Russia, having
overthrown Tsardom, were in a state of permanent mobilization." "All Russia," wrote
Sukhanov, "was constantly demonstrating in those days."

The Russian Revolution represented an important landmark in international

relations. The Bolsheviks abolished all the old secret treaties signed by the autocracy
and the Provisional Government with different countries. It was increasingly being felt
that the people should have the right to know what their rulers are doing and the
people of any country should have the right to influence the foreign policy of their
country through debate and intervention.

The Revolution marked the beginning of the decline of imperialism and the rise
of socialism. As the first successful socialist revolution the Russian Revolution was
bound to have repercussions for the future. The world as a whole was sure to feel the
onset of the completely new type of social and economic system. The Communist
International or Comintern, organized on the lines of First and Second International,
was the means of promoting revolutions on an international scale. The revolution
ended the domination and exploitation of the peasants by the landlords. It made
possible to uplift the material and cultural standards of life of the working people. It
helped to destroy the old exploitative and oppressive state machine dominated by the
minority of capitalists and landlords and replaced it by a new type of state-dictatorship
of the proletariat.Lenin  and  Trotsky  said that the goal of  socialism  in Russia would not be
realized without the success of the world proletariat in other countries, e.g. without  German
Revolution. The Bolsheviks recognized the right to self-determination including the
right to succession of all the oppressed nationalities inhabiting the boundaries of the
Tsarist Empire and made them equal partners in socialist construction and overcoming
social and economic backwardness

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people and nations for independence from the Western imperialist countries. The
Indian National Movement, for example, was profoundly affected by the November
Revolution. It gathered momentum and a certain direction from the Russian
Revolution. The revolution acted as a catalytic agent who transformed the national
movements all over the world to assume a definite shape and thus facilitated the early
shattering of the stranglehold of the Western imperial power over Asia and Africa, the
two continents, where their imperial supremacy was most widespread and most
oppressive. By rendering active material and political assistance in anti-imperialist
struggles, the revolution had greatly contributed in bringing the downfall of
imperialism.

Conclusion

In conclusion we can say that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a movement that
endorsed equality, though more economically than politically. This revolution was in part a ripple
caused by the Industrial Revolution. Industrialization sharply divided society into the owners and
the workers, with the latter comprising the majority of the population. This division influenced
Marx's principles of socialism, which in turn inspired the Russian Revolution. In its effort to reject
economic despotism, the revolution set hopes of equality for all those in the world who felt
disempowered by capitalism. Today, the Western economy remains heavily capitalist; the
fundamental ideas of the Russian Revolution are still followed by those who believe that a
redistribution of economic power is necessary for the well-being of the working people. The 1917
Russian revolution was powerful in spreading socialist ideas and astonishing in its scope of
immediate impact, but ultimately it was a failed attempt at a political and economic reform.
The socialist ideals could not be achieved in practice and the communist Soviet government was
dissolved in less than a century. Furthermore, in spite of the reactionary wave created by the
1917 revolution that extended until 1923, no other Marxist movement was successful in achieving
or keeping real power.
 

[1] Being a socialist, Lenin adopted an antiwar policy during the First World War. He advocated
that the First World War was a fight among the capitalistic government for influence and power.
The workers should not assist them. As a proponent of withdrawing Russia from the Great
War, the Germans were willing to facilitate Lenin's passage back via a 'sealed train'.
 
[2] Other demands of Lenin included the speedy conclusion of the war without annexation, the
renunciation of all secret diplomatic agreements, the control of factories by workers and the
immediate seizure of land by peasants.)
 
[3]  Soon after the Revolution, the soviets of the masses came under the control of the Social
Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.
 
[4] Trotsky was a Marxist and for a long time worked as an independent revolutionary in Russia.
Before 1914 he had attempted to bring about great cooperation between the Mensheviks and the
Bolsheviks, but he failed. In 1917, after the March Revolution, he returned from exile in
America. In July, he decided to join the Bolsheviks.
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 [5]  The
9/27/2018 right-wing politicians believed that a left-wing
SM-1 revolution was imminent. So Kornilov
decided to move his troops towards Petrograd. He wanted to set up a military dictatorship to
forestall a left-wing revolution.
 

[6] Stalin arrived from Siberia after the March Revolution and took a leading role in carrying out
the coup d'etat.
 
[7] The Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks joined the Provisional Government
only after July 1917.
[8] The Bolsheviks had 200,000 members in August.
 

[9] The other socialist parties (the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries) had a wrong belief
that their historical hours had not yet arrived. They allowed the bourgeois government to stay in
power. They still thought a socialist revolution would only take place after a period of bourgeois
rule.
 
[10] Dates are correct for the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia until 1918. It
was twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar during the 19th century and thirteen
days behind it during the 20th century. 
 
[11] Dr. Christopher Read, Review Article, Writing the History of the Russian
Revolution

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