Twentieth-Century Europe (eBook)

A Brief History, 1900 to the Present

Michael D. Richards, Paul R. Waibel (Ursprünglicher Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2014 | 3. Auflage
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-1-118-65138-4 (ISBN)

Infos

Twentieth-Century Europe: A Brief History presents readers with a concise and accessible survey of the most significant themes and political events that shaped European history in the 20th and 21st centuries.

• Features updates that include a new chapter that reviews major political and economic trends since 1989 and an extensively revised chapter that emphasizes the intellectual and cultural history of Europe since World War II
• Organized into brief chapters that are suitable for traditional courses or for classes in non-traditional courses that allow for additional material selected by the professor
• Includes the addition of a variety of supplemental materials such as chronological timelines, maps, and illustrations

Michael D. Richards is Professor Emeritus, Sweet Briar College. He is the author of Revolutions in World History (2003), and has published book chapters, articles, and reviews in scholarly journals, periodicals, and reference works.

Paul R. Waibel is Professor of History at Belhaven University. He is the author of Politics of Accommodation (1983), Quiknotes: Christian History (2000), Martin Luther: A Brief Introduction to His Life and Works (2005), and numerous articles and reviews in scholarly journals, periodicals, reference works, and anthologies.

Inhalt

Preface vii

Part 1 Overview: 1900-1919 1

1 Before the Deluge: Europe, 1900-1914 5

2 The Great War, 1914-1918 35

3 Revolution and Peacemaking, 1917-1919 65

Part 2 Overview: 1919-1939 91

4 Aftershocks of the Great War 95

5 Recovery and Prosperity, 1919-1929 117

6 From Depression to War, 1929-1939 145

Part 3 Overview: 1939-1967 171

7 Armageddon: Europe in World War II, 1939-1945 175

8 Cold War and Decolonization, 1945-1961 207

9 Out of the Ashes: From Stunde Null (zero hour) to a New Golden Age, 1945-1967 235

Part 4 Overview: 1968-Present 269

10 Metamorphosis: An Era of Revolutionary Change, 1968-1988 275

11 Searching for Meaning in a Multicultural World 313

12 Charting a New Course: Europe from 1989 to the Present 345

Appendix 379

Index 384

Textauszug

2

The Great War, 1914–1918

Chronology

1914	Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated

Italy defects from the Triple Alliance

Fighting begins with German invasion of Belgium

First Battle of the Marne and failure of the Schlieffen Plan

Battles of Tannenberg Forest and Masurian Lakes

Turkey enters war on the side of the Central Powers

Western Front established from English Channel to Switzerland

1915	Beginning of trench warfare along the Western Front

First use of poison gas at the Second Battle of Ypres

Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary

Ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign

1916	Battle of Verdun and the Somme

Sykes–Picot Agreement

Battle of Jutland

Woodrow Wilson reelected president of the United States

1917	Zimmerman Telegram

Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare

Russian (March) Revolution

United States enters the war against the Central Powers as an Associated Power

Balfour Declaration

Russian (November) Revolution

1918	Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; Russia leaves the war

Major German offensive on the Western Front fails

Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates

Germany asks for armistice

War ends on November 11

Otto von Bismarck once prophetically said that someday a general European war would result from some foolish incident in the Balkans. The war that Bismarck predicted did result from an event in the Balkans, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. It was known as the “Great War” until the beginning of World War II in 1939, after which it was called World War I. Indeed, some historians suggest that the Great War was only the first round of a truly great war that began in 1914 and did not end until 1945, with a ceasefire between 1918 and 1939.

Some of the very elements that had made Europe master of the world worked in the Great War to destroy it. Industrial productivity and the capacity to mobilize troops and money made possible the horrific carnage few people could have anticipated before 1914. The five years of war and revolution damaged the fabric of European life beyond repair. The contradictions of the prewar period, more or less successfully repressed at the time, emerged to challenge old certainties. It was the end of one era and the beginning of another, and darker, one.

The Coming of the Great War

The long-term causes of the war included the economic and imperial rivalry between the great powers and the armaments race, especially the naval race between Germany and Great Britain. The holding of two peace conferences at The Hague in 1899 and 1907 belied the fact that the participants were arming for war. Many of the tensions between the great powers resulted from the loss of a balance of power in Europe following the Franco-Prussian War and unification of Germany in 1871.

A system of defensive alliances substituted for the balance- of-power principle as the mechanism for maintenance of peace in Europe after 1871. The alliance system was largely the work of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck. According to Bismarck’s reasoning, France was the major threat to peace because of its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and its desire to avenge that affront to French national honor. It became Bismarck’s goal in foreign policy to isolate France. Referring to the traditional five great powers of Europe, Bismarck said: “The key was always to be in a majority of three in any dispute among the five great European powers.”

The first and most enduring of Bismarck’s coalitions was the Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary concluded in 1879. The Dual Alliance provided that one partner would aid the other in the event that either was attacked by Russia. The Triple Alliance, concluded in 1882 between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, bound the three to act together in the event that either Germany or Italy was attacked by France. To allay Russian fears of a hostile Austro-German alliance, Bismarck signed the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1887. It provided for one partner assuming a policy of benevolent neutrality was the other partner attacked. Thus, France was left isolated, while Germany was neatly allied with the other great powers on the continent. Peace was maintained, that is, until Bismarck’s retirement in 1890, when his alliance system began to unravel.

Now, Wilhelm II’s “new course” in foreign policy, which aimed at elevating Germany to world-power status, stood as a direct challenge to Great Britain’s position as the world’s leading power. The threat of a great German navy that would rival Britain for control of the seas irked the British. This, coupled with a growing feeling of diplomatic isolation resulting from international criticism of the British for their atrocious treatment of Dutch settlers (including women and children) during the Boer War in South Africa (1899–1902), led the British to abandon its “splendid isolation” and begin to seek allies of its own. In 1902, Britain concluded the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, followed in 1904 and 1907 by two informal “understandings,” or “ententes,” that resolved outstanding imperial disputes with France and Russia, respectively. Autocratic Russia was already in a formal defensive alliance with democratic France, one concluded in December 1894. Russia, one might justly say, had been pushed into the waiting arms of France by Wilhelm’s decision in 1890 not to renew the Reinsurance Treaty. The new alliances between France, Russia, and Britain, when considered together, comprised what became known as the Triple Entente. By 1907, Europe was divided into two increasingly hostile camps, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente.

The existence of a potentially dangerous new power alignment in Europe was evident to all parties gathered at the Algeciras Conference in January 1906. The conference had been called after Wilhelm II of Germany provoked a crisis over Morocco in North Africa. He had done so to drive a wedge between France and Britain, by declaring his support of the Sultan of Morocco in the latter’s bid to resist French imperialism, and make a public demonstration of Germany’s claim to world-power status. In the conference, however, Germany found itself outmaneuvered. In the end, Britain and France stood together against Germany and even were joined by Germany’s ally in the Triple Alliance, Italy. With this, Bismarck’s alliance system unraveled. Germany, now supported only by Austria-Hungary, was isolated, much as France had been in 1890. Rather than demonstrating Germany’s world-power status, the move had exposed its vulnerability. For the last time, the European great powers would meet together in congress before the outbreak of the Great War.

Just as the continent was polarizing into two hostile camps, the Balkans emerged as the new “hot spot” in Europe. In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it had been administering since 1878 on behalf of Turkey. Austria’s action, supported by Germany, inflamed Serbian nationalism. The Serbs had hoped to create a Great Serbia in the Balkans, and they regarded Bosnia, with its large Serbian population, as a necessary part of such an independent state. Serbian nationalism was encouraged by the Russians, who, following their defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), turned their attention once again to their opportunity in the Balkans, over which region Turkish power and influence was disintegrating. The Balkans was fast becoming the focus of European great-power diplomacy.

As predicted decades before by Otto von Bismarck, the Great War started over an incident in the Balkans, the whole of which, he had contended, was not worth “the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian musketeer.” The event that served as the impetus for war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863–1914), heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by a 19-year-old Serb named Gavrilo Princip (1894–1918). But it was not for the Archduke that the “Guns of August” were unleashed.

Upon hearing of the death of his nephew, of whose marriage he disapproved, the aging emperor Franz Joseph expressed relief—it was, he believed, divine judgment. He did not even bother to attend the funeral. Nonetheless, the British monarch, King George V (1865–1936), expressed his concern for what a terrible shock the news must have been “for the dear old Emperor.” Wilhelm II was entertaining a visiting squadron of British battle cruisers at the Kiel naval base when he received the news. “This cowardly, detestable crime,” he...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.2.2014
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Schlagworte: 20th Century & Contemporary European History • Europa /Geschichte • Geschichte • History • World War, Nazi, Prussia, European Union, USSR, Berlin Wall, Yugoslavia • Zeitgeschichte Europas im 20./21. Jhd.
• ISBN-10: 1-118-65138-3 / 1118651383
• ISBN-13: 978-1-118-65138-4 / 9781118651384