Chapter 1 · The First World War

1. Ideological Roots of the War

The First World War did not erupt out of nowhere. By 1914, Europe had spent more than six decades accumulating ideological, economic, and military tensions. At the deepest level, three powerful ideologies had converged to make a continental war almost inevitable.

🧠 Nationalism

The dominant belief of 19th-century Europe held that every nation had the right to form its own sovereign state. Language, culture, and history were treated as the natural basis for political borders.

• 🇩🇪 The German people built the German Empire in 1871 after unifying the German states.
• 🇮🇹 Italian nationalists created the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
• 🇷🇸 In the Balkans, smaller peoples such as the Serbs and Croats longed to break free from multi-ethnic empires.

🦎 Social Darwinism

In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, introducing the idea of "survival of the fittest". European statesmen and thinkers later misapplied this biological idea to human society and international politics.

⚔️ Militarism

Many powers came to believe that military strength equalled national prestige. The result was an arms race that pushed Europe closer to war.

• Germany drafted the Schlieffen Plan (1905) for a two-front war.
• Britain launched the all-big-gun HMS Dreadnought (1906), triggering a battleship race.
• Every great power was preparing for the day the guns would go off.

2. Economic Roots: Shifts in National Strength

After the Second Industrial Revolution took hold in the 1870s, the map of European power was redrawn.

📊 Industrial Output of the Great Powers in 1900

🌍 Scramble for the World

The late 19th century is often called the Age of Imperialism.

• 🇬🇧🇫🇷 The British and French empires divided most of Africa.
• 🇩🇪 Germany arrived late and demanded a redivision.
• 🇯🇵 Japan joined the race and invaded China after the 1895 Sino-Japanese War.

3. The Alliance System: Two Armed Camps

📜 Formation of the Central Powers

📜 Formation of the Allied Powers

4. The Spark: The Sarajevo Incident (28 June 1914)

📍 The Balkan Powder Keg

The Balkan Peninsula was a tangle of competing peoples — Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and others — many of whom wanted independence from the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. The area earned the reputation as the "Powder Keg of Europe".

💥 The Assassination at Sarajevo

• Date: 28 June 1914
• Place: Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina (then ruled by Austria-Hungary)
• Victims: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie
• Assassin: Gavrilo Princip, a young Bosnian Serb nationalist supplied by a Serbian nationalist network

⛓️ Chain Reaction

5. Course of the War

🪖 The Two Camps

⚙️ The Schlieffen Plan

German Chief of Staff Alfred von Schlieffen devised the plan in 1905.

• Phase 1: Knock France out of the war in six weeks by sweeping through Belgium.
• Phase 2: Turn east and defeat Russia, whose army was assumed to mobilise slowly.

🕳️ Trench Warfare on the Western Front

From late 1914 the Western Front in France and Belgium became a continuous line of opposing trenches.

• Soldiers lived, fought and died in muddy ditches; whoever showed up was shot.
• The Battle of Verdun (1916) cost the French 540,000 casualties and the Germans 430,000.
• The Battle of the Somme (1916) saw British forces suffer 57,000 casualties on the first day alone — the bloodiest day in British military history.

💀 New Weapons of Mass Destruction

🇺🇸 Turning Point: American Entry

🏳 End of the War

• 11 November 1918: Germany signed an armistice and surrendered unconditionally.
• Total deaths: about 17 million (military and civilian combined).
• It had been called "the war to end all wars" — an optimism that would be shattered within a generation.

6. Aftermath: The Treaty of Versailles (1919)

📜 From the Paris Peace Conference to Versailles

• Date: 28 June 1919 — signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles
• Big Three: Britain (Lloyd George), France (Clemenceau), United States (Wilson)
• Russia was not invited; the defeated powers had no to negotiate.

⚖️ The Harsh Terms Imposed on Germany

1️⃣ Territorial Losses

• 🇫🇷 Alsace-Lorraine returned to France.
• 🇵🇱 Poland was reconstituted; Germany ceded Poznań and the Polish Corridor, which cut off East Prussia from the rest of Germany.
• 🇧🇪🇩🇰 Eupen-Malmedy went to Belgium; North Schleswig to Denmark.
• 🌍 All overseas colonies were confiscated and redistributed as League of Nations mandates.

2️⃣ Military Restrictions

• The army was capped at 100,000 men.
• No new warships could be built.
• Germany was forbidden to possess heavy artillery, tanks, poison gas or military aircraft.
• The Rhineland was demilitarised.

3️⃣ War Reparations

The burden drove Germany into hyperinflation — by late 1923 one US dollar was worth 4.2 trillion marks.

7. Impact on China: The Shandong Question and the May Fourth Movement

🇨🇳 The Shandong Question

At the Paris Peace Conference China expected the German concessions in Shandong to be returned to Chinese sovereignty. Instead, Britain, France and the United States — eager to keep Japan on side — secretly agreed to transfer those privileges to Japan.

📢 The May Fourth Movement (4 May 1919)

• Outbreak: On 4 May 1919 about 3,000 students rallied in Beijing to protest the Shandong decision.
• Slogans: "Recover Qingdao!" "Oppose foreign powers, punish domestic traitors!"
• Aftermath: A wave of strikes by workers and boycotts by merchants forced the Chinese delegation to refuse to sign the Treaty of Versailles.
• Legacy: It marked the political awakening of modern Chinese intellectuals and helped launch the New Culture Movement.

8. Seeds of the Second: The Rise of Fascism

🔥 Why Did Fascism Rise?

1️⃣ Resentment over Versailles

Many Germans felt the treaty was a dictate of revenge. The "war guilt" clause (Article 231) became a national humiliation.

2️⃣ The Great Depression (1929–1933)

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered a global slump. German unemployment climbed to roughly 30%.

3️⃣ Political Instability

The Weimar Republic (1919–1933) suffered from weak coalitions and frequent changes of government, leaving democracy vulnerable.

🎯 Defining Features of Fascism

9. International Organisations: From the League of Nations to the United Nations

🌐 The League of Nations (1919–1946)

• Founding members: Britain, France, Japan, Italy — and China was among the original members.
• Aim: To maintain world peace through collective security.
• Reasons for Failure:
  • ❌ It had no armed forces of its own, so sanctions were hollow.
  • ❌ Decisions required unanimous agreement, which let any member veto action.
  • ❌ The United States never joined — the US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles.
  • ❌ Soviet Russia and Germany were excluded, leaving major powers outside.
  • ❌ It proved powerless against Japan's seizure of Manchuria (1931) and Italy's invasion of Ethiopia (1935).

🌐 The United Nations (founded 1945)

• Established: 24 October 1945
• Headquarters: New York City, USA
• Six Principal Organs:
  1. General Assembly
  2. Security Council — five permanent members: USA, UK, France, Russia, China
  3. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
  4. Trusteeship Council (now suspended)
  5. International Court of Justice (ICJ)
  6. Secretariat
• Purposes: Maintain international peace and security; promote international cooperation; develop international law.