Eastern European History Since 1914 PDF

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Eastern European HistoryLecture 1Outline:● I. Introduction to Course ● II. First World War ● A. System ● B. Scenario (summer 1914) ● III. War and Austria-Hungary ● A. Habsburg Power ● B. National Questions ● C of the Old Austria ● IV. Wartime Nationalism ● A. Romania ● B. Poland ● C. Czechoslovakia ...

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Eastern European History Lecture 1 Outline: ● ● ●

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I. Introduction to Course II. First World War ● A. System ● B. Scenario (summer 1914) III. War and Austria-Hungary ● A. Habsburg Power ● B. National Questions ● C.Death of the Old Austria IV. Wartime Nationalism ● A. Romania ● B. Poland ● C. Czechoslovakia ● D. Ukraine V. End of Empires ● Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire ● Entente: Great Britain, France, Russian Empire

Notes: ● ● ●

In a notebook, write the source and take notes keyed to page numbers. Put a star beside important dates to keep the chronology up to date. Look for dates, names, arguments, events.

Chronology: ● ●

You can see causal links and connections. TAKE ABOUT FIVE DATES FROM THE READINGS ASSIGNED FOR EACH LECTURE.

Basic themes: ●

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Form of political regime. ● We start in a world empire. By the end of this week, most of Eastern Europe takes shape as nation states. 100 years ago, states were not normal. Most states that mattered were empires, and many others were encompassed by those empires. ● We’ll also get new kinds of empires: Nazi and Soviet empires. ● Post-WWII—semi-sovereign states, but ones which are functionally reliant on the USSR. ● Then you get sovereign states post Cold War, which join the EU (another type of political regime). Empire and the alternatives. What do you do after empire? Fluidity—of regimes, boundaries, and peoples (who they are and where they live). ● This will not be a linear history. ● Fluidity means you need to know the names and dates, because without them you won’t have a sense of how things are being changed.

WWI: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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First big thing that does the changing. World of empire. States that are confronting themselves in Europe are themselves imperial states—Russia, Germany, UK, etc. Larger race of empires to control the world. That was the goal in the late 1800s, early 1900s. When war breaks out, pretty much every part of the world is claimed by, controlled, or reliant on empires. These empires generally avoid major clashes with one another before WWI. In the century between Napoleon and WWI, European powers are mostly expanding but not clashing. Germany is the exception. ● Formed in 1871 as something of a national entity. ● Bismarck establishes it as a unified state. ● Changed European B-O-P. ● Sets off new alliances, rapprochement in Europe, etc. ● Britain, France, and Russia start to move together. ● France lost to Germany in 1870. Wants a powerful ally on the eastern German border. ● Germany grows close to A-H. Where things go wrong is in Europe itself. Key to WWI is that it happens in Europe. World’s great powers were on the continent at that time. ● These highly populated lands and technology are deployed by Europeans against Europeans. War starts in Europe because of the Ottoman Empire. ● By 19th century, Ottomans are growing weak—the “eastern question.” ● Nation states start to form on the Ottoman periphery for the first time, in the Balkans. ● Even France was still an empire at this time, not a nation state. ● Whose clients are these nation states? ● Imperial powers don’t think they are serious or the way of the future. ● Rivalry for control of the states. ● These states are thought to be puppets/clients of the empires going forward. ● Which power will they be aligned with? 1912-14 ● Everything changes. ● The Balkan states choose on their own to attack the Ottomans. ● They make this decision on their own (sovereignty) and do something the empires don’t want them to do. ● They drive the Ottomans out of Europe. ● In 1913, disagreement about territorial spoils. States fight among themselves. These new nation states provide the setup for the war. These Balkan states realize they cannot just fight among themselves, but also fight and win against empires. The shape of empires can be changed. National question behind the war: the Serbs and Bosnians. ● Serbia was one of the first nation states. ● About a century old in 1914. ● Serbian dynasty tends to regard Bosnia and Herzogovina as inhabited by Serbs, or by those who could become Serbs. ● B&H were territories of Ottomans, occupied by A-H. ● As Ottomans weaken, A-H now annexes BH. ● The Serbs, or enough of them, believe BH should belong to them. Logic of nationalism. ● There can always be an argument to expand at the expense of another when you claim the people who live there belong to you. ● That argument is also made against AH. ● Serbia is agitating among people on the Austrian side of the border, training terrorists, publishing propaganda. ● Lots of covert action by Serbia in AH. Trying to slowly change the political atmosphere. Brings us to WWI.

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Starts in summer 1914 after incident in Sarajevo. ● Franz Ferdinand is assassinated by the Black Hand (June 28, 1914), a group of students trained by a conspiratorial organization in Serbia. ● Leads to diplomacy of WWI. AH blames Serbia. Serbia denies involvement. Serbs agree to AH ultimatum, but won’t allow an AH court in Serbia that will have some sovereignty. ● AH declares war on Serbia, with backing of Germany. ● Things start to accumulate. ● What AH means to be a local war quickly becomes continental. ● AH wants to go on the offensive to contain nation states. Those states really challenge a multinational empire like AH. ● At onset of WWI, thought was that going on the offensive was the best strategic military move (this was wrong). ● Alliances line up disastrously. ● AH can’t defeat Serbia quickly. ● Russia enters on Serb side. AH faces Russia now, too. ● Italy, meant to be AH’s ally, switches sides, hoping to gain territory. ● Germany comes in. But it now faces Russia in the East, and France/UK on the west. ● Enormous devastation. Does a lot to change structure in eastern and Central Europe. ● Brings about the end of AH. ● AH had existed for 500 years. ● Habsburgs had ruled much of Europe for centuries. At their peak, they were the empire on which the sun never set. ● After Napoleon, AH becomes a central and east Euro state. ● AH faces national question. With literacy, industrialization, press, and democracy, more and more people come to think of themselves in a national way. ● The nation was a huge concept at this time. The idea that people who share a language/ethnicity should share a national identity. ● AH was a huge miix of languages—Slovenian, German, Hungarian, Polish, Italian, etc. ● AH couldn’t exist if every language had a state. ● AH made a compromise in 1867 where Hungary essentially became a sovereign state within Austria. ● On Austrian side, various other national compromises made with the Poles, Czechs, etc. ● A little bit like EU, idea was to avoid violence and solve questions through endless negotiations. ● As we have already seen, the problem with national questions is that they typically cross borders. ● Even if you do a good job in your states, there are transnational forces pushing for nation states. ● In AH, this began with Italian unification, in which AH lost territory. ● AH was shut out of parts of Central Europe in 1871 w/ German unification. ● Bites mean that soon there will be nothing left of AH. ● AH dealt with the national question from within and from outside. ● AH was a relatively liberal entity in late 1800s. Liberal constitution w/ human rights. Parliament all male, but all national minorities were represented. Representative proportions, too. American Congress at the time had only white men, but listened when Wilson said that AH had to be broken up for ethnic oppression. ● NATION STATES WERE NOT INEVITABLE. ● The officer class and bureaucracy of AH were loyal. ● Many people willingly gave up their lives for AH in WWI. ● AH buckles with national pressure from USA + Bolsheviks. ● Romania is already a nation state. Enters war bc UK + France promise it that it will get Transylvania from AH. It is crushed by Germany. ● Poland. Most Polish territories are in Russia. AH and Germany hope to quickly win the eastern front and establish some kind of Poland to help settle the national questions. These two later agree to found a nominally independent of Ukraine on the same ground.

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The key national question is Czechoslovakia. Czech lands are extremely wealthy (most prosperous part of cent. Europe) and in the middle of AH. An independent Czech would make the monarchy and AH impossible. ● The Czechs had a lot of loyalty to the Habsburgs. They strongly preferred this liberal monarchy to Germany. Czechs thought that if AH fell, they would become a minority within a strong Germany. ● Thinking changes in WWI when Germany allies with AH. If AH loses war along with Germany, Czechs need a way to stand up on their own. If AH wins, they might be enveloped by Germany. ● Solution is Czechoslovakia. Americans and British get behind this plan. This is essentially a plot to break up the Habsburg monarchy. ● The Bolsheviks ● Also heavily influenced by national self-determination. ● Americans enter the war on this principle. Empires shouldn’t exist. ● Bolsheviks enter the conversation in 1917. ● Bolsheviks are Marxists in the Russian Empire. Have faced much harsher political conditions than Marxists elsewhere. Founded under Lenin. Wants to conspiratorially push society forward. During WWI, Lenin says imperialism is the last stage in capitalism. WWI would exhaust empire. He thought that a revolution in Russia would be legitimate because it would spark a worldwide revolution. Legitimacy is important because Marxism is fundamentally about class struggle. Capitalism builds the tools needed for happiness, and creates a conflict that the proletariates will win. They will then use the tools created by capitalism for the good of all. ● But small working class in Russia. Big nomadic peasant society. Lenin and the Bolsheviks said that they were the spark that would ignite the powder keg. ● War exhausts Russian empire. German foreign ministry organizes trip by an exiled Lenin into Russia. Pushes towards revolution. ● Under Lenin and Trotsky, Bolsheviks overthrow Russian government and promise revolution. ● They talk about self-determination and about the peasants. ● They don’t really believe the former. It is just a political move to appease other states. ● Latter is big. They talk about bread and peace. ● Russia concedes a ton of territory at end of WWI. ● Germany and AH seem to have won the war in the east by 1918. Germany is master of Eastern Europe ● Revolutionary entity now consumes a ton of territory. ● Everyone is now talking about self-determination. Americans (Wilson’s 14 points include independent parts of AH and an independent Poland), Bolsheviks. This is how WWI leads to regime change. ● Brings about the collapse of the Russian Empire. Russia does not become a nation state, it becomes a revolution and ultimately a new kind of state (USSR). Ironically, Russian Empire was on the winning side. Germans win on the east in early 1918. Lose on the western front by fall 1918, as and because the Americans enter the war. ● German empire is defeated, AH is defeated and coming apart. ● In these conditions, empires cease to exist. ● Germany loses east European territories and African and Asian territories. ● National movements at end of war in AH split the empire apart. There becomes a Czechoslovakia and Poland. Dates: ● Turning point: Battle of Amiens. ● For Germany. ● Armistice: November 11. The idea of all of this is national self-identification and how it can work in principle. The problems of how it will work in progress are what we will tackle in the next lecture.

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Takeaway: ● WWI begins with a national question. ● Expands into a world war because all the countries fighting it are empires. ● At the end of the war, land empires are all defeated. ● Russian empire collapses. ● German, Ottoman, and AH empires lose and are taken apart. ● In what form they will be taken apart is a much more open question than it seems.

Lecture 2 Meaning of the postwar settlements. Self-determination is a really tough concept to implement. Important dates: ●

Dates of treaties / postwar settlements.

Outline: ● ● ●

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I. Dilemmas II. Prewar commitments ● A. Creation of Yugoslavia ● B. Promises of self-determination III. Postwar Settlement by Victors ● A. Versailles/Germany ● B. St. Germain/Austria ● C. Trianon/Hungary IV. Greece and Turkey V. Soviet Ukraine/Treaty of Riga ● A. Provisional Governments -- 1917 ● B. Occupation 1918 ● C. Anarchy 1919 ● D. Defeat and Division 1920-1921 ● E. The Soviet System ● 1. Marxism ● 2. Leninism ● 3. Soviet Practice ● 4. The National Question ● 5. The Soviet National Compromise

Terms: ● ● ● ● ● ●

Istria Triest Corfu Declaration Posen=Poznań Weimar Germany Vix Note

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Bela Kun Miklós Horthy Venizelos Kemal Lenin Hrushevs'kyi Treaty of Brest Max Weber Galicia Kiev/Kyiv Borot'bists

Inherent problems in self-determination: 1.

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The issue of self. ● Notion comes from the liberal notion of individualism. Enfranchisement of human beings is self evident as a human goal. ● Enfranchising a nation is far more difficult than an individual. It is a ton of people with a ton of working parts. And definitions of who belongs to a nation are not very clear. Practically defining where one nation starts and another ends. ● This is impossible in 1918. ● In any given border region (which includes almost every territory we talk about), there is a huge mishmash of people. Different ethnic groups blend into one another. It is not very clear who is who, especially in the cities. All the important cities in Europe are multinational. Pre-existing commitments to self-determination. ● Americans had an explicit one. ● Secret commitments, too. For instance, the Treaty of London promises territory to Italy so that it joins the Allies, not the Central Powers. Clash between principle of national self-determination and other things that victorious powers want to see happen. ● Self-determination suggests that if Austrians and Germans want to be one state, they should be able to. ● From the French perspective, this is perverse. They had suffered immense losses and been partially occupied by Germany. France does not want Germany to be in any way rewarded by being allowed to merge with Austria. Dilemma of implementation. ● The further west you go, the more the Brits and French have power over outcomes. The further east, they less have power.

These problems in practice: 1.

Pre-existing commitments to self-determination ● Most people forget why the war started: it was for Serbia to gain territory and power, for Austria to punish Serbia and stabilize the Balkans in a favourable way for them, the Germans wanted to shake up the status quo in Europe, and the Brits, French, and Americans wanted to keep the Germans from doing that. ● But since the war was more costly, there were psychological reasons why a lot of people tried to give the war more meaning. ● For Americans, national revolution. ● For Bolsheviks, global revolution. ● You can’t fight a war without traditional diplomacy. You need allies. ● Italy. ● Italy is promised to be given Istria, Triest, and much of Albania.

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Formation of Yugoslavia. ● Serbia wants to grow, Habsburgs want to destroy Serbia, Italy wants territory. ● The end result is Yugoslavia. How does this happen? ● During the war, the Serbs, although they do well at the beginning, are under pressure the entire time. ● The Croats, on the other hand, are on the stronger side in Austria-Hungary. ● Serbs and Croats speak a very similar language, have similar religion. ● Croatia briefly seemed to want to declare independence at the end of the war. ● Why do you get Yugoslavia? ● Italians have been promised territory. ● Italian troops arrive at the end of the war. The presence of Italy forces the Croats to compromise with the Serbs. This leads to a state that is more along the lines of what the Serbs wanted: a centralized state called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Serbs have an army, the Croats don’t. The latter were just a minority in A/H. ● Desire of Italy to get something in the war forces the Croats towards the Serbs. ● This means the Serbs are able to, in effect, extend their state. ● This is settled in 1920, where the Italians get part of what they were promised in Triest. This helps lead to the rise of fascism in Italy, where the fascists promised to claim what Italy was promised. Clash between principle of national self-determination and other things that victorious powers want to see happen. ● Territories of the victors’ allies are more respected than the losers’. National self-determination doesnt really apply to the latter. ● Germany declares itself a republic. ● Austria and Hungary split, declare themselves also republics in support of national selfdetermination. ● The other category are the new states thought to be on the side of the Allies: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania. These states don’t exercise a ton of power, but they were on the right side. Exercising their right to self-determination weakens Germany, Austria, and Hungary. Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania are created without consulting the losers. ● Brings us to the actual treaties: ● Versailles, June 1919. ● Deals with Germany. ● Germany loses Alsace-Lorraine to France. Loses a lot of territory to other countries, too. ● This is galling for many Germans. ● Germany never lost on the Eastern Front. It is confusing for this reason to German troops and civilians that Germany is losing territory in Eastern Europe. ● Saint Germain, September 1919. ● Deals with Austria. ● Violates principles of self-determination. Austria was treated as a defeated power. ● Austria declared itself a republic called “German Austria.” It declared itself part of the German republic. It constituted itself so that it could be absorbed into Germany. ● This wasn’t a crazy or super nationalist idea—it was supported by the Social Democrats. Austria had lost much of its empire and had lost its capacity for economics. In order for Austria to survive, it needed to join with Germany. Since Germany was being re-established anyways, this made a ton of sense to think up a new state. Socialists were also in power in both Austria and Germany. ● Austria wrote to Wilson saying that they wanted to use their self-determination to join with Germany. ● But the French were, naturally, totally opposed to this. France hadn’t fought Germany for four years to have Germany expand southward.

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Versailles includes a ban on Anschluss. In this context, the word means the merger of Germany and Austria. Saint Germain includes this same ban. ● From the point of view of Vienna, Austria loses three quarters of its territory and population. Must recognize new states. ● The failure at the beginning delegitimized the socialists, who could not bring back from the negotiations the thing they had pledged to pursue for their people. ● Trianon, June 1920 ● Deals with Hungary. ● Complication is that you have a multi-sided civil war in Hungary before anything significant can be declared by treaty. ● 31 October, 1918, so-called Red Chrysanthemum Revolution. Goal was to create a republic. ● However, during this time of regime change, Romania takes Transylvannia. Romania sees it as Romanian territory. Whole reason Romania entered the war was to take that territory. ● Puts Hungary in a really difficult position. It wants to make nice with the Allies. But the Allies are now invading part of it. ● The fact that the Romanians invaded, and that the Allies were in support of Hungary losing territory, creates mass hysteria. Leads to the end of the Allies’ credibility. ● Government hands power to the socialists. Man named Bela Kun, former soldier and PoW, declares Hungarian Soviet Republic. Bela Kun and his fo...