Exam II Terms and question outlines for Western Civilization II – April 3rd, 2008
Guilds – a small business association that fell out of favor after the French Revolution. Guild members owned their own tools and produced items by hand; shoes, clothing, hardware, etc. As mechanized production increased Guilds lobbied governments for protection. Guilds were criticized by Rousseau, Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Most people preferred laissez-faire economics and guilds lost favor. They opposed free trade and hindered technological development.
Revolutions of 1848–In 1848 revolutions spread across the continent of Europe. Times were difficult for many peasants and urban workers. Mechanization displaced traditional guilds and created 12-14 work days for the urban poor. There were several crop failures in 1846 including the potato blight which ravaged Ireland. Famine and disease were rampant, especially cholera caused by dirty water and crowded urban living conditions.
Disruptive ideas like democracy, liberalism, nationalism and even socialism gained wide popularity. The revolutions were based on these ideas and all were brutally put down. Only Greece achieved independence. The ideas did not die. Rather they continued to fester and eventually exploded in WW I.
Louis Philippe – was King of the French from 1830 to 1848. He was the first elected King, by the Chamber of Deputies, and rejected the idea of Divine Rule. He lead a simple life and was initially popular, even called the Citizen King. His rule was widely considered later to be monarchial and conservative. The economy started to slide in 1847 and he abdicated his throne in 1848 before fleeing to England.
National Workshops–Designed by Louis Blanc and voted in by the National Assembly of France in 1848. The idea was to fund the workshops from the government owned railway, put people to work and put the workers in charge of the system. Eventually it failed. Workers were given menial jobs at low pay or paid to sit idle. Blanc was blamed and went into exile in London.
SecondRepublic – lasted just 3 years from 1848 to 1851 when Louis Napoleon III staged a coup and France became an empire. The second republic adopted the motto Liberty, Equality and Fraternity
Crimean War–starts with Napoleon III in 1852 when he declares France the sovereign authority of Holy Lands in the Ottoman Empire. Russia was the previous authority and was offended. Russia also wanted a Black Sea fleet; a southern port and access to the Mediterranean Sea. France, England and Italy joined forces against Russia. War spread to the Baltic and the Pacific. Modern railroads, artillery and ships employed. Trench warfare was first used here. Civilians were target of some attacks. Prelude to atrocities of WW I.
Eventually a peace treaty was signed in Paris where the Italian Couver was present and noticed. Florence Nightingale, The Charge of the Light Brigade, civilian deaths, property damage and modern weapons were all a legacy of the Crimean war.
Carbonari –charcoal burners. A secret society that was divided into cells and spread throughout the Italian peninsula. Liberal, anti-clerical and desired Italian unification. Eventually crushed by the Papacy and Austrian forces. Many Carbonari joined the Young Italy movement led by Mazzini.
GiuseppeMazzini–the founder and avid promoter of the idea that Italy should be a nation state rather than a patchwork of city-states. Fomented many uprisings but was never successful. Influenced the thoughts of Victor Emmanuel II and his PM Cavour. Fought with Garibaldi too in the battle of Rome. A proponent of Italian Nationalism and Republicanism.
Giuseppe Garabaldi – a follower of Mazzini who believed in Italian independence. Born in Nice and bitter that his hometown was eventually traded away to France for help with Italian reunification. Fought in Uruguay where he met his first wife and had 4 children. Came back to Italy, invaded Sicily and then took over Naples. Handed his gains to Victor Emmanuel II who became King of Italy. Favored the Republican ideas of Mazzini but eventually accepted the monarchial aspirations of Emmanuel II.
Cavour – Prime Minister of Victor Emmanuel II. A believer in real politick. Pragmatic. Eventually unified Italy via outside help. A player since the Crimean war.
Meeting at Plomdieres – a secret meeting between Cavour and Napoleon III where both plot an invasion of Austria. The invasion proceeds, France and Italy win but Napoleon gets cold feet and signs a treaty with the Austrians who get to keep Venoto. However, Lombardy, Piedmont and Parma are freed from Austrian control.
Otto von Bismarck–Prime Minister of Prussia. Oversaw the unification of Germany with “Blood and Steel”. Won three wars, Denmark, Austria and finally the Franco-Prussian war to achieve German unification. Napoleon III defeated and Alsace-Lorraine part of France handed over to Germany. Skillfully used diplomacy to prevent Germany from being surrounded by enemies. 1888 Wilhelm II accepts power as emperor. 1890 Bismarck resigns. His foreign policy falls apart afterwards.
EMS Telegram – in 1870 a telegram that Bismarck edited in an attempt to “wave the red cape in the face of the Gallic bull”. Subject dealt with French insistence of no Prussian alliance with Spain and King Wilhelm’s rebuttal of that request. Six days later France declares war on Prussia. Eventually loses.
Falloux Law – 1850. A French law that allowed clergy to teach in the primary and secondary schools without getting a university degree. Gave a boost to religious education.
Napoleon III – won French election in 1849 and became the last Republican President. In 1851 Napoleon stages a coup and overthrows the National Assembly. One year later the SecondRepublic ends and the Second Empire begins. That empire ends in 1870 when Napoleon is captured during the Franco-Prussian war. The ThirdRepublic begins in September, 1870.
Paris Commune – 1871. For 60 days Parisians took over their city and ruled with a socialist and even radical, left wing ideology. Eventually the revolt was brutally crushed and over 20,000 people died. Karl Marx and others drew inspiration from the commune for their ideas of government and social order.
ThirdRepublic – Began in 1870 with Napoleon III defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. Lasted until the Germans invaded in 1940. Unloved by most but showed that France could govern itself effectively.
Dreyfus Case - political scandal with anti-Semitic overtones which divided France from the 1890s to the early 1900s. It involved the wrongful conviction for treason, in 1894, and the degradation and imprisonment on Devil's Island of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young and promising French artillery officer who was in advanced training with the Army's General Staff. Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935) was the youngest son born to a wealthy Jewish family who owned a textile manufacture in Alsace, before that province became a part of Germany in 1871. The intense political and judicial scandal that followed lasted until Alfred Dreyfus was fully vindicated and reinstated as a Major in the French Army in 1906. Zionism grew out of the Dreyfus affair and eventually lead to the formation of Israel in 1948. The Dreyfus affair became one of the gravest crises to rock the FrenchThirdRepublic. "The Affair" deeply divided the country into Dreyfusards (supporters of Dreyfus) and anti-Dreyfusards. Generally speaking, royalists, conservatives and the Catholic Church (the "right wing") were anti-Dreyfusards, while Dreyfusards were socialists, republicans and anticlericalists. It laid bare deep divisions in French society that are still present today.
Constitution of 1871 – The Constitution that united north and south German states into the German Empire in 1871.Bismarck was responsible for the constitution and uniting of the German states.
Kulturkampf – literally culture struggle. It describes Bismarcks policy toward the political power of the Catholic Church and specifically Pope Pious IX. The Kulturkampf had won Bismarck a new supporter in the secular National Liberal Party, which had become Bismarck's chief ally in the Reichstag. Laws were enacted that threatened priests with prison for discussing politics from the pulpit, that required a civil marriage and the Jesuits were banned from Germany. Catholic pressures came from the Pope, Austria, occupied Poland and the south of Germany. Liberals agreed with it while conservatives quietly disagreed. Eventually the policy was deemed a failure and lifted by Bismarck.
Socialist Party of Germany (SPD)–founded in 1863 to represent the working class and trade unions. Through the Anti-Socialist Laws, Otto von Bismarck had the party outlawed for its pro-revolution, anti-monarchy sentiments in 1878; but in 1890 it was legalized again when Bismarck retired.
3 Emperors League – In 1872, Bismarck offered friendship to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia, whose rulers joined Wilhelm I in the League of the Three Emperors, also known as the Dreikaiserbund.There were too many differences between Russia and Austria so the league fell apart in the 1880’s.
Dual/Triple Alliance - The League of the Three Emperors having fallen apart, Bismarck negotiated the Dual Alliance (1879) with Austria-Hungary. This became the Triple Alliance in 1882 with the addition of Italy. Attempts to reconcile Germany and Russia did not have lasting effect: the Three Emperors' League was re-established in 1881, but quickly fell apart, and the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887 was allowed to expire in 1890.
Reinsurance Treaty - (June 18, 1887) was an attempt by Bismarck to continue to ally with Russia after the League of the Three Emperors broke down.
Bismarck felt that this was essential to continue the diplomatic isolation of France so ensuring German security.
The secret treaty was split in two parts:
1. Germany and Russia both agreed to observe neutrality should the other be involved in a war with the third. Neutrality would not apply should Germany attack France or Russia attack Austria-Hungary.
2. In the most secret completion protocol Germany declared herself neutral in the event of a Russian intervention in the Bosporus and the Dardanelles.
As part of Bismarck's system of "periphere diversion" the treaty was highly dependent on his personal reputation. After the dismissal of Bismarck, the German office of foreign affairs felt unable to obtain success in keeping this policy.
Kaiser Wilhelm II - was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia (German: Deutscher Kaiser und König von Preußen), ruling both the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He fired Bismarck, alienated Russia, France and Britain and expanded the hostilities at the beginning of WW I. He wanted Germany to have a place in the sun but ended up bringing disaster to its citizens with a loss in WW I.
William Ewart Gladstone (29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British Liberal Party statesman and Prime Minister (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886 and 1892–94).
Gladstone is famous for his intense rivalry with the Conservative Party Leader Benjamin Disraeli. He favored enfranchising the working class and believed in eliminating taxes, especially the income tax. In the 1860s and 1870s, Gladstonian Liberalism was characterised by a number of policies intended to improve individual liberty and loosen political and economic restraints. First was the minimization of public expenditure on the premise that the economy and society were best helped by allowing people to spend as they saw fit. Secondly, his foreign policy aimed at promoting peace to help reduce expenditures and taxation and enhance trade. Thirdly, laws that prevented people from acting freely to improve themselves were reformed.
Benjamin Disraeli, was a British Conservative statesman and literary figure. He served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister—the first and thus far only person of Jewish parentage to do so (although Disraeli was baptized in the Anglican Church at 13). Disraeli's most lasting achievement was the creation of the modern Conservative Party after the Corn Laws schism of 1846.From 1852 onwards, Disraeli's career would also be marked by his often intense rivalry with William Gladstone, who eventually rose to become leader of the Liberal Party. In this duel, Disraeli was aided by his warm friendship with Queen Victoria, who came to detest Gladstone during the latter's first premiership in the 1870s.
The Reform Act of 1867, pushed through by Disraeli after Gladstone’s bill was defeated in 1866, extended the franchise by 938,427 — an increase of 88% — by giving the vote to male householders and male lodgers paying at least 10 pounds for rooms and eliminating rotten boroughs with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, and granting constituencies to fifteen unrepresented towns, and extra representation in parliament to larger towns such as Liverpool and Manchester, which had previously been under-represented in Parliament.
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish Protestant landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, Home Rule MP in the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. He was one of the most important figures in 19th century Ireland and Great Britain and described by Prime Minister William Gladstone as the most remarkable person he had ever met.
Charles Stewart Parnell possessed the remarkable attribute of charisma, was an enigmatic personality, politically gifted and is regarded as one of the most extraordinary figures in Irish and British politics. He began the process that undermined his own Anglo-Irish caste and destroyed landlordism. He created single-handedly in the Irish Party the first modern disciplined political party machine with its whip, holding together all strands of Irish nationalism and harnessing Irish-America into the Irish cause. He had the power to make and unmake governments in the United Kingdom and converted the British Prime Minister Gladstone to Irish Home Rule.
The entente cordiale is a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and France. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial expansion addressed by the agreement, the signing of the Entente cordiale marked the end of centuries of intermittent conflict between the two nations, and the start of the peaceful co-existence that has continued to the early years of the 21st century. The Entente cordiale, along with the Anglo-Russian Entente and the Franco-Russian Alliance, later became part of the Triple Entente among the UK, France, and Russia. It paved the way for the diplomatic and military cooperation that preceded World War I.
The Schlieffen Plan was the German General Staff's early 20th century overall strategic plan for victory both on the Western Front against France and against Russia in the east, taking advantage of expected differences in the three countries' speed in preparing for war. In modified form, it was executed to near victory in the first month of World War I; however, a French counterattack on the outskirts of Paris, the Battle of the Marne, combined with surprisingly speedy Russian offensives, ended the German offensive and resulted in years of trench warfare.
The immediate cause of WW I was the June 28, 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb citizen of Austria-Hungary and member of the Black Hand. The retaliation by Austria-Hungary against Serbia activated a series of alliances that set off a chain reaction of war declarations. Within a month, much of Europe was in a state of open warfare.
The Battle of Gallipoli took place at Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey from April 1915 to January 1916, during the First World War. A joint British Empire and French operation was mounted to capture the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, and secure a sea route to Russia. The attempt failed, with heavy casualties on both sides. Churchill executed the battle and fell from power because of its failure.
By late 1914, the Western Front, in France and Belgium, had effectively become fixed.
The Allies were keen to open an effective supply route to Russia: efforts on the Eastern Front relieved pressure on the Western Front. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary blocked Russia's land trade routes to Europe, while no easy sea route existed. The White Sea in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk in the Far East were distant from the Eastern Front and often icebound. The Baltic Sea was blocked by Germany's formidable Kaiserliche Marine. The Black Sea's only entrance was through the Bosporus, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. When the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October 1914, Russia could no longer be supplied from the Mediterranean Sea.
The Battle of Gallipoli resonated profoundly among all nations involved. In Turkey, the battle is perceived as a defining moment in the history of the Turkish people—a final surge in the defense of the motherland as the centuries-old Ottoman Empire was crumbling. The struggle laid the grounds for the Turkish War of Independence and the foundation of the TurkishRepublic eight years later under Atatürk, himself a commander at Gallipoli.