International relations in the beginning of 20th century.

ANSWERS

Change was fast and intense at the turn of the Twentieth Century. The world was being transformed by a flood of new inventions and new concepts - movies and radio, assembly lines and suburbs, comic strips and the Theory of Relativity all appeared for the first time, along with much, much more. Suddenly, people could fly, travel by automobile, control disease. Anything seemed possible.

But these great waves of change were colliding with social, political, and economic systems that were outmoded and unresponsive. Everywhere there were calls for radical reform, and everywhere the old order resisted fiercely. Around the planet, there were riots, political turmoil, and labor unrest; in Russia, Mexico, and China there were full-scale revolutions. Traditional beliefs seemed to be in decay, and newer, more extreme ideas began to germinate: embryonic versions of communism and fascism were beginning to emerge.

Instability spilled over into international relations. It was an age when everything seemed to be up for grabs, and the Great Powers became ever more aggressive in the pursuit of supremacy, while ambitious smaller nations opportunistically played for advantage. Crisis followed crisis until statesmen lost the will to avoid a complete breakdown. In the end, this promising era collapsed into the immense catastrophe of the First World War.

International politics in the Balkans at the start of the Twentieth Century was too tangled and volatile to easily summarize, but it basically consisted of small, ambitious states playing increasingly dangerous games of power politics.

As the Ottoman Empire weakened in the Nineteenth Century, the long-submerged Balkan nations began to reappear, though their independence was compromised as they became pawns for competing European powers. But by about the turn of the century, the local kingdoms began to assert themselves; most importantly, from 1903 Serbia became increasingly defiant of its former protector Austria-Hungary. When the Young Turks seized power in Constantinople in 1908, Austria took advantage of the confusion and annexed Bosnia, hoping to get a firmer grip on the Balkans. Instead, the annexation brought on a grave European crisis and provoked Serbian nationalists into launching a terror campaign against Austria that further destabilized the area. In early 1912, Russia tried to form a Balkan alliance against Austria, but the Balkan states had other ideas: they redirected the alliance against the Ottoman Empire, launched the First Balkan War in October, and within a few months had almost completely driven the Turks out of Europe. The victors soon squabbled over how to carve up the conquests. During the summer of 1913 disgruntled Bulgaria attacked its former allies in the Second Balkan War - and was promptly trounced.

The Balkan Wars left the region dangerously unstable. The loosers were eager for revenge, the winners were recklessly overconfident, and the great powers were actively interfering in the area. The tensions soon came to a head. In June 1914, the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a young Bosnian Serb with ties to a nationalist faction in the Belgrade government. Within a few weeks the Balkans slid into war, and drew the rest of Europe along with it.

Balkan internal affairs, and the July Crisis that was brought about by Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, are listed in separate chronologies.

In the late Nineteenth Century, the expanding Russian and Japanese spheres of influence began to collide in Korea and Manchuria - the Russian occupation of Manchuria in 1900 led to war by February 1904. At the outset, the Russians were supremely confident, but it was the far better prepared Japanese who won victory after victory in a series of immense land and naval battles. Both nations were exhausted by the summer of 1905, and peace was concluded in September in a conference hosted by Theodore Roosevelt.

The war was a disaster for Russia. The humiliating defeats weakened the Czar's authority and set off a revolution that contributed to the eventual triumph of the Bolsheviks a dozen years later. Indirectly, the war’s effects on Japan were equally unfortunate, as its ambitions - especially in China - began to grow uncontrollably.

Germany felt threatened by the loose alignment between France and Britain. Twice, Berlin came up with the scheme of deliberately provoking a crisis by challenging the growing French influence in Morocco, hoping to humiliate France and force it to break off its association with Britain. Both times, the plan backfired - ties between France and Britain were strengthened, and Germany was left more isolated than ever. Although war was narrowly avoided in 1905-1906 and in 1911, both of the Moroccan Crises sharply ratcheted up European tensions and helped bring on the First World War.

Germany felt threatened by the loose alignment between France and Britain. Twice, Berlin came up with the scheme of deliberately provoking a crisis by challenging the growing French influence in Morocco, hoping to humiliate France and force it to break off its association with Britain. Both times, the plan backfired - ties between France and Britain were strengthened, and Germany was left more isolated than ever. Although war was narrowly avoided in 1905-1906 and in 1911, both of the Moroccan Crises sharply ratcheted up European tensions and helped bring on the First World War.

In the early years of the twentieth century, Libya was an obscure and underdeveloped corner of the Ottoman Empire. Italy had ambitions in northern and eastern Africa and had long been interested in Libya as a convenient base. Worried that France or Germany might grab it first and pressured by business interests and by the nationalist right, the Italian government suddenly invaded in the fall of 1911. It was a mistake. The Turks organized the tough local tribesmen into an effective partisan force and the unprepared Italians soon found themselves bogged down, though they eventually secured most of the coastal area and seized Turkish-ruled islands in the Aegean. The onset of the Balkan Wars in the fall of 1912 induced the Turks to make peace, but the Italians had to contend with a guerilla conflict in Libya for many years. The war helped to destabilize Italian politics, weakening the center and the left, strengthening the strident nationalists, and contributing to the later rise of fascism.

79) Second Industrial Revolution in the US and Labor movement.

The Second Industrial Revolution that swept across the United States in the later part of

the 19 century was carried along by the development of a national communications system in

the form of the telegraph system, and the advent of a railroad network that created a national

transportation system. This in turn led to the growth of larger and larger businesses toward the

end of the century. This would soon lead to the formation of growing corporations as states

moved to attract.

Before the growth of corporations, the average business was generally a local operation

with some operating on a regional level, or within a given state at best. Businesses usually

operated close to their suppliers and local markets, being constrained by the need to

communicate quickly between factories and the ability to transport their products. The

development of the telegraph (and later the telephone) and the national railroad system rapidly

changed this in the 19 century. Now, business could be operated at ever increasing distances as

the opportunity to expand became a profitable reality.

The larger businesses soon took advantage of this opportunity to expand their markets and

grew into corporations as their access to capital allowed them to do so. This expansion

immediately gave rise to the need for larger work forces in the form of labor. As businesses

grew, so did their demand for larger manufacturing facilities and therefore their need for larger

work forces. Beyond expanding their markets, manufacturing facilities and labor would become

the largest expenditures of businesses, and would be where they would look to cut costs. This

would quickly begin to create problems for both the corporations and their employees.

Labor movement. Some have said that the violent nature of labor relations was inevitable. If this is so, what brought this about? As labor unions formed and their numbers increased, the response of

corporations and big business was calculated and exacting. Unions and their members were seen

as a direct threat to the control and profits that corporate owners and investors were determined

to protect. Labor labeled the owners and their banker cronies as “robber barons”. The term

referred to the massive fortunes these men had amassed at the expense of smaller businesses, and

on the backs of their workers. As socialist ideals of shared wealth increased in the ranks of labor,

the capitalist principles of corporate owners and their investors became entrenched.

Big business quickly moved to safeguard its assets by hiring private police forces in the

face of what it perceived to be a threat to industry, revenues, and the “American way”. Private

security companies saw this as an opportunity to expand, and were ready to aid big business for a

price. Before long, growing numbers of company policemen and spies could be found in

factories and industries wherever unions were known to exist. An immediate animosity

developed between the corporate police and union employees and workers.

This animosity erupted into violence in more than a few instances. One of the first areas of

business to see labor agitation turn violent was the railroad industry. After the Civil War,

railroads began to rapidly expand in the United States. Combined, the nation’s railroads soon

became the second largest employers in the country next to agriculture. The industry also

became one of the first to unionize, even before the founding of the NLU.

The Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886 would see some of the first violence between

labor and big business. When an employee of the Union Pacific Railroad attended a meeting of

the Knights of Labor on company time, he was fired. The union called a general strike and some

200,000 members walked out on strike in five states. Other than the firing, the strikers were

motivated by low wages, long hours, and unsafe working conditions. Pinkerton detectives were

hired to break up union meetings and attack union leaders to break the strike. The violence

quickly escalated on both sides. Jay Gould, owner of the Union Pacific was heard to remark, “I

can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half”. This would become the typical

attitude that big business would hold toward organized labor. When state militias were sent in to

restore order, this combined with Pinkerton attacks on strikers to force most of the strikers back

to work, ending the strike. The failure of this strike would have a crippling effect on the Knights

of Labor.

In 1877, the Great Railroad Strike of that year began in West Virginia, as workers went out

on strike when they suffered a second reduction in wages in the same year. When the strikers

began to destroy railroad property, the state militia was sent in to restore order. The strike spread

into surrounding states, including Maryland where state militia units fired on and killed striking

workers who had attacked them with clubs. In Pennsylvania, some twenty strikers were killed in

a shootout with state militia. After state governors appealed to Washington for help, President

Hayes ordered federal troops into the states to stop the violence. Rail lines were shut down for

nearly forty-five days before state militia and federal troops finally crushed the strike. Once

again a strike had ended in violence, destruction, and failure.

The first labor action to gain international attention occurred in 1886 with the “Haymarket

Riot, or Affair” as it became known. In May of that year, a rally was organized in Chicago by

anarchists in support of a local strike for the eight hour work day and in protest of police

shootings of strikers along a picket line the day before. Held in the public setting of Haymarket Square, police were called in to preserve the peace. The rally was at first peaceful, but when

police moved to disperse the gathering, a bomb was tossed into the line of advancing officers.

The explosion killed at least one police officer, and gunfire between the two groups resulted in

the combines deaths and injury of some twenty or more policemen and civilians.

The consequent trials saw the conviction of eight anarchists and/or union activists. Four of

these men were sentenced to death and executed, while another committed suicide awaiting

execution. The event had the affect of polarizing the city and its working and immigrant

population, as several of those convicted were of European origin. The result was a public and

international outcry against the verdict. At the same time, a ground swell of immigrant

resentment was started by the local and national press in the country, which characterized the riot

and the defendants as the acts of assassins, ruffians, cutthroats, and radical immigrants. To this

day, the trial and executions are seen as one of the most grievous “miscarriages of justice” in

United States history. Only the Sacco and Vanzetti trials and convictions, and the later trial and

acquittal of O.J. Simpson are considered to be on par by many historians. In each case the

evidence was either significantly inconclusive and/or none-existent, or it was overwhelmingly

decisive, and nearly irrefutable. In both instances, racial perceptions dictated the outcomes of the

cases more than the evidence that was presented.

In 1892, the Homestead Strike outside of Pittsburg became another example of the growing

violence between labor and big business. The Carnegie Steel Company, which had its iron works

in Homestead, would go head to head against the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel

Workers (A.A.) union. The owner of the steel works at Homestead, Andrew Carnegie, had

employed Henry Flick as head of operations. While Carnegie was publicly in favor of labor

unions, he agreed with Frick that the A.A. had to be broken. The union practically ran the town,

had great support from the citizenry, and held collective bargaining powers for the steel workers.

When the annual contract was due to expire, the company and the union moved into

negotiations. Frick planned to use the new contract to break the power of the union by calling for

a 20% reduction in wages and a reduction of the work force. When the union asked for a wage

increase, Frick moved to lock workers out of several mills, and stated that if an agreement could

not be reached by the end of the present contract, the company would no longer recognize the

union as the voice of the workers.

Frick then moved to erect wire fencing around the steel mills. Guard towers were also

constructed with pressure cannons at the entrances. The Carnegie mills at Homestead became

armed camps in the face of the impending strike. The union rejected the last offer by the

company, and a general strike was called. The Knights of Labor agreed to support the strike, and

together the two unions determined to keep the plant closed to strike breakers.

When the company then tried to introduce the first strike breakers, the replacement

workers were driven off by A.A. strikers with the threat of bodily harm. Under a request from

Frick, the county sheriff sent deputies into Homestead to order the strikers to stop their

obstruction of plant operations. The deputies were peacefully escorted from the town by the

strikers and told not to return. Frick responded by hiring the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

In July of 1892, three hundred Pinkerton men were armed with rifles, load onto barges,

and towed up the river to Homestead. Hundreds of strikers and townspeople turned out to

confront the Pinkerton men. The battle that resulted lasted all day and saw the deaths of nearly

two dozen people combined. Other workers arrived from Pittsburg and the surrounding towns,

swelling the striker’s numbers into the thousands. The Pinkerton men were forced to surrender,

and were beaten as they were escorted to a train and carried out of Homestead. Initially, the governor of Pennsylvania was reluctant to act. As the strikers controlled the

city and were supported by the citizens of the town, he feared that a massacre might take place if

state militia units were sent in to soon. A week after the initial confrontation, the Pennsylvania

Militia arrived and secured the Carnegie mills. With several thousand militia men on hand, the

company was able to bring in replacement workers and reopen its plants. However, the strike

continued even after the town was placed under martial law.

When Frick turned to take legal action against the strike leaders, an attempt was made on

his life. He was shot and stabbed twice in his office by an anarchist, but he survived. The attack

had the effect of ending the strike. With the plants now operating, and the union nearly bankrupt

from paying the strikers, many began to cross the remaining picket lines. The strike had been

broken, strike leaders were jailed, and the state militia withdrew from the town in October.

The A.A. was shattered as a labor union as a result of the strike, and the Knights of Labor

had been involved in another bloody and unsuccessful labor strike. For its part, big business had

developed a new method of breaking unions and strikes with the use of private police forces and

violence. By instigating violence with strikers, they could then count of the intervention of state

and federal agencies to restore order in their favor. The term “labor violence” entered the

American vocabulary, with no mention of business, which was generally the instigator.

80) Significance of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

11. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

12. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

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