Week One Slides: European Society before the War

1. HIST A390: Themes in World History
World War I: One Hundred
Years’ Later
Tower of London: “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.”

2. Introductions
• Syllabus (of course)
• Introductions: Pair up, introduce yourselves
and discuss these following questions
• What’s the predominant image that stands
out in your mind about World War I? Why is
this image significant? What is your favorite
movie or book about war and why?
• What is your favorite World War I moment
and why?

3. Before the War:
Modern Ideas and Challenges
MAX LINDER, PATHÉ FRÈRES, Max Has a Date, 1913, Black &
White. Cinematek, Brussels — © Cinematek, Brussel

4. Domestic Issues
Before 1914 domestic Issues center stage--Did
politicians seek war as way to distract public,
rally public, or diffuse situation? Why?
Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), On War
War the continuation or instrument of politics
The Scream (1893),
Edvard Munch

5. Society Before the War:
Prosperity, Progress, and Confidence?
Georges Seurat (French, 1859–1891),
Study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884

6. “Two Nations” (at least!)
• Between workers and middle class
• Between urban and rural
• Between generations
• Between dominant power and ethnic
minorities
• Between women and men
• Between pacifism and militarism
1900 Clement

7. 19th century European Industrialization: Create new social/economic classes and systems
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848). Proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
Industrial urban centers. Peasants?

8. The Pyramid of Capitalism
As Class Struggle 1911)

9. The Working-Class and Industrialization
• Gulf between the mc factory owners and wc.
• Main issues: social reform, including
minimum wage, pensions, slum clearance.
• New militancy in trade unions scare states.
Want to co-opt workers.
• Rise of socialism, syndicalism, unionism,
anarchism, communism. “Class Struggle”
international movement in Age of
Nationalism.

10. Cultural and Social Rebellion
Bourgeois Family Hiking in the Harz Mountains
(c. 1900)
Nineteenth-century working-class family

11. The Youth: Generation of 1914
Self-conscious. Modern, technological society
that is theirs not parents. Inventions, progress
and energy. Pace of life quickened; speed of the
essence. Motorcars, telephones, telegraph,
cinema.
1905

12. MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM
(Marinetti, 1909), (edited)
• We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
• We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new
beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned
with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car
which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the
Victory of Samothrace.
• We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses
the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.
• Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an
aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the
unknown, to force them to bow before man.
• We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism,
patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas
which kill, and contempt for woman.
• We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism
and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.

13. 1913 Stutz Bearcat Series B
1913 Sunbeam Indianapolis 500 Car
1913. Peugeot Bébé
Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, 1913, #2260E
Speed and militant masculinity

14. Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova, Cyclist, 1913

15. Giacomo Balla, Abstract Speed + Sound, 1913–1914

16. Dominant power, ethnic minorities
• “Irish Question” (Home Rule for Ireland)—
Conservatives oppose Home Rule for Ireland; by
1914 civil war possibility between Protestant Ulster
Unionists and Roman Catholic Majority. Revolt in
Ireland dominated headlines. Both sides buying up
arms, mostly from private German interests.
• Balkans another hot spot.

17. Nationalism: Languages of Nineteenth-Century Europe

18. Jewish Migrations in the Late Nineteenth Century
In Europe,
growing
anti-Semitism,
also in France
with the Dreyfus
Affair (1894-9)

19. Women and Men: The “Woman Question”
Domesticity and suffragettes: Pankhurst and others an
ongoing “problem” and increasingly militant. What to
do with unruly women?
The Women's Social and
Political Union
E. Pankhurst :
"[T]he condition of our sex
is so deplorable that it is our
duty to break the law in order
to call attention to the
reasons why we do."

20. The reality: Sarah Grand (1854-1943)
Popularizer of term New Woman. The Fear: "New Woman—Wash Day".
Knickerbocker- wearing woman smoking a
cigarette supervised domesticated man.
1901 satirical photo

21. Before the War:
Modern Ideas and Challenges
HMS Dreadnought launched in 1906

22. MAIN Steps that lead to war:
Militarism
Alliances,
Imperialism
Nationalism
Long term
“causes”
but
why July 1914?
HMS Dreadnought launched in 1906

23. The Growth in Armaments, 1890–1914
Militarism and Technologies: The Factory System gears up for
Battle: Industrialization and machine guns create a new “face of
war”: Brose’s “revolution in military affairs” (RMA)

24. Naval Race by 1913: Militarism:
Build Me a Bigger Ship!

25. Alliances: Europe at the Outbreak of World War I,
August 1914
The Three Emperors League:
Germany, Russia and
Austria-Hungary alliance,
1873 to 1887. Lapsed.
Kaiser William II (r. 1888-1918)
“new course” aggressive
imperialist policy.
Ties together militarism,
imperialism, and
nationalism

26. 1909 cartoon in Puck shows US, Germany, Britain, France and
Japan engaged in naval race in a "no limit" game.
1907 Anglo-Russian Entente:
Puck Cartoon: Persian kitty!
1904 Entente Cordiale Between France and Britain

27. 1914 Russian poster
depicting Triple Entente
France
Russia
United Kingdom
as allies?!?!

28. Leaders of the Central Powers (left to right):
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany; Franz Joseph of
Austria-Hungary; Sultan Mehmed V of the
Ottoman Empire; Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria.

29. Imperialism

30. Tipu's Tiger: life-size tiger in the act of devouring European
in 1790s dress. First displayed in the East India Company's
museum (1808). Now at the V & A. Carved and painted
wood.

31. Africa, c. 1890: “Scramble for Africa”
“Scramble for Africa”
Imperialism, Nationalism,
Militarism converge
Great Power status
on the line!

32. Africa in 1914

33. Europeans Unabashedly Imperialist
Cecil Rhodes and
the Cape-Cairo railway project.
Founder of the
De Beers Mining Company,
Owner of the British South Africa
Company, state of Rhodesia
named after him.
“All of these stars ... these vast
worlds that remain out of reach.
If I could, I would annex
other planets.“ (Rhodes)
Such enthusiastic domination pitted Europeans
against each other; and conquered peoples.
More guns, more ships, more naval bases,
Just More!

34. The West and the World:
Protect Investments and
Conquer markets!

35. European Emigration, 1870–1890
Industrialization, economic competition, need for markets and resources, and
investment of capital “Conquest of markets” with immigration?

36. Imperialism and Nationalism: Conquer
market, package it up as national interest and
supply desired consumer goods (tea!)

37. Queen Victorian (1837-1901) posing as
virtuous middle-class. (1860)
Justifications used to take over the world:
“most fit to rule”: Have the ideas and the means
(machine guns and vast industrial might)
Science and Christianity join forces to bring
Christian virtue and bloody competition
“Conquest of markets”: Global markets/resources; and
means to control them (military/naval bases).

38. English cartoon: Irish as a Frankenstein's
monster. 1882 issue of Punch
Social Darwinism and Racism
Social Darwinism: fake “science” used to
legitimize racist ideologies, use of force, and
reinforce nationalism
And a form of distraction—working poor and
wealthy elites can share fears of the “other”
And be proud that they are “British” (by jove!)
and not something else.

39. 1911 Michelin