Dear Student,
It had been an honoring teaching you this year!
Please find below the notes you should be referring to when studying.
Please also note that the book and trusted resources from the internet can also serve as good references for your notes.
I. Chp. 12 - WWI
Section 4. THE WAR ENDS
• Germany warned that all ships approaching GB shores were subject to attacks.
• Passenger ship, Lusitania sailing from the US to GB, was attacked carrying 2000 civilians including 120 US citizens.
• Germany attacked all ships believing GB hid weapons in passengers’ belongings.
• Germany’s boat attacks were part of a policy called Submarine Warfare, under-which any ship traveling in British waters was subject to attacks by German U-Boats. They attacked marine vessels, then merchant ships and then passenger ships.
The US Enters The War
• During the early years of war, the US was neutral.
• Woodrow Wilson, president at the time, used the slogan “he kept us out of war” to win the re-elections in 1916 as he did not want to get involved overseas.
• After Lusitania’s attack, a few more ships with Americans were attacked which angered the US.
The Zimmerman Note
• A secret message from German Diplomat Arthur Zimmerman proposed that Mexico attack the US with German support and promised state of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico back to the Mexicans.
• Germany’s plan was to involve the US in a war of its own in order for it to stay out of war in Europe.
• The US also had strong financial ties to the allies worth millions of war goods to great Britain weekly.
• All of which pushed the US to enter the war in April 1917.
The End of Fighting
• With Russia’s withdrawal from war in 1917, due to revolution and civil war, Germany could have one if the US hadn’t joined.
• Germany was progressing into French Capital until many American troops arrived in June 1918 which discouraged Germans and gave the allies hopes.
• As allied powers stopped Germany and gained power and territory many Germans gave up without a fight.
• As the Allies finally broke through the heavily fortified Hidenburg Line, German officials approached the allies seeking armistice or truce.
• By November 1918 other Central Powers had admitted defeat and peace talks had started. WWI was over.
A Difficult Peace
• although peace was achieved on the battlefield, leaders of war’s major countries still had to workout a formal peace agreement.
Goals for Peace (Post-War)
1 US - Woodrow Wilson
Before the war ended, Wilson proposed a plan for world peace called the Fourteen Points which included reductions of weapons, populations’ right to choose their own governments, and forming a league in which world nation’s would join to protect each other from aggression
2 France - Clemenceau
Wanted Germany to pay the costs of war and damage it had caused and to limit its army to only have protective functions.
3 GB - David Lloyd
Stood between wanting Germany to pay the costs of war but not get its army weakened.
4 Italy - Vittorio Orlando
Wanted territory for his nation and was disappointed that Italy was marginalized in the peace talks.
II. The Interwar Years: The Great Depression
US Economy in the 1920s
• During the war, US factories and farms supplied most of the goods needed to fight WWI. After the war, there was a slight downturn but by the economy boomed again by 1921.
• The value of stocks increases and people wanted to invest in the stock market which increased prices of products.
• However, the economy did not continue to prosper for long because 1) some investors bought stocks using the credit system and 2) the income of the stock market was distributed unevenly (1% of the wealthy class took 20% of the nation's income)
• When people abused the credit system, spending slowed which worried the stockholders and led them to start selling their shares in the stock market.
• Black Tuesday (October 29th, 1929) investors sold of 16 million stocks and only a few were buying which had the stock market collapse. People were selling shares at prices lower than what they bought it for in hopes of paying back loans and still couldnt; banks and industries crashed.
The Depression Spreads
• The economic downturn that followed 1929's stock market crash is known as the Great Depression.
• Factors Contributing to the Crisis:
1. Production Slowed due to reduced purchasing
2. workers lost jobs
3. banks failed because loans weren't paid
4. people withdrew their money from banks
5. thousands of banks went out of business
• Government (and President Herbert Hoover) believed that they should limit its role in economic/business affairs. "Economy would correct itself and the depression is a healthy adjustment to the prices"
• in the 1920s the US produced much of the world's industrial output, leading importer and money lender therefore its crash spread to Europe.
• European nations faced an economic crisis as well to recover form WWI and because of the US' Great Depression.
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 (Herbert Hoover)
• Decided to place heavy tax on goods imported to US to encourage Americans to buy local-made products at cheaper prices
• This plan backfired
• European nations adopted Hoovers same plan in hopes of recovering from WWI; they, in return, raised their tariffs on American Products.
• This resulted in a worldwide trade stand-still
• Without foreign trade and foreign currencies to fuel industries, nations suffered an economic crisis which made them unable to recover from WWI. This economic crisis in Europe led to political unrest.
The New Deal
• Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in 1932 and decided to involve the federal government in helping people
• introduced the New Deal: a government program designed to fight the Great Depression through increased government spendings
• The New Deal was centered on the idea that massive government spending could help limit or even prevent economic downturns through:
1. Public work programs to create jobs for the unemployed
2. New Regulations for stock market and banking systems (esp. credit)
3. government spending on welfare and other relief programs
• The New Deal was supported by British Economists overseas (Example John Keynes)
• Despite Roosevelt's plan, the Great Depression did not end immediately and lasted through the 1930s.
III. Interwar Years: Europe
Italy:
- Benito Mussolini promoted new ideas about government power in Italy.
- Hoping to build and empire, he founded the Nationalist Fascist Party of 1919.
- Fascism is an authoritarian form of government led by a dictator where the good of the nation is more important than the rights and needs of individuals.
- His followers were able to replace the king with him.
- Mussolini tried to influence all aspect of life (Totalitarianism) using propaganda.
- In 1935, he conquered Ethiopia and the country’s recovering from WWI didnt stop him. Economic sanctions were placed on Italy by the league of nations.
Stalin’s Soviet Union:
- Lenin (formed the SU) died in 1924 and Joseph Staling became the new leader after a struggle for power
- Stalin believed totalitarianism was needed so that communism would grow.
- He introduced the First Five Year plan, in hopes of modernizing communist Soviet economy, where factories were goals by the government as part of its central planning system.
- He brought collectivization to soviet farms ie small farms were recombined together to be more productive and monitored by the government.
- Land given to peasants by Lenin were taken back from them. Those who protested were killed or sent to Sibera (coldest region) to work on camps called the Gulag.
- Stalin cut off food supplies to Ukraine which resulted in the death of many people.
- By mid 1930s any one who opposed the Communist Party were killed or sent to Gulag.
Hitler’s Germany:
- Adolf Hitler rose to power during the time where Germany was still unstable.
- Hitler joined the Socialist Party, or Nazi Party, after WWI and emerged as a leader.
- Wanting more power he lead a failed attempt to overthrow he German government and was sent to prison.
- The Great Depression’s effect made Hitler promise to restore German glory and rebuild its military (which defied the Treaty of Versailles)
- Germans, desperate for life to get better, elected Hitler.
- A key part of the Nazi system was anti-semitism or prejudice against Jews whom Hitler blamed for German problems.
- He passed the Nuremberg Laws which excluded Jews entirely from German Life.
- Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) Nazis attacked Jews, their properties and places of worship which resulted in the death of hundreds of Jews.
IV. WWII
- STUDY PAGES 163 and 164 from the notes packet posted last week until Germany broke the non-aggression pact and attempted to attack Russia.
- KEY TERMS: appeasement, Axis Powers (definition and countries), Allies (definition and countries), nonaggression pact, blitzkreig, isolationism.
Good luck!
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