PEACE TO WAR 1919-1939



International relations since 1919

Were the peace treaties of 1919-23 fair?

The leaders of the great powers met at Versailles in 1919 to discuss the terms that were going to be imposed upon Germany. The aims of the leaders differed considerably.

What were the aims and motives of the Big Three at Versailles?

France

▪ The French Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau, believed that Germany must be punished and made to pay for the cost of the War and for the humiliation suffered by France in the past.

▪ Clemenceau also wanted guarantees that it could never happen again. He wanted the Rhineland to be handed over to France and Alsace-Lorraine to be returned.

▪ He wanted to make Germany pay for all the damage caused by the War.

▪ Large areas of France had been destroyed in the wart. Everyone knew who to blame, and some French politicians wanted Germany to be totally destroyed.

Great Britain

▪ Great Britain had not suffered the same degree of damage as France, but Britain had paid an enormous cost for victory however.

▪ In all the Great War cost £5.700,000 a day, some had been raised by increasing income tax from 6p to 30p, but most had been borrowed; now it all had to be paid back.

▪ The British people expected that Germany would be made to pay for the effects of the war.

▪ The Prime Minister David Lloyd George promised to, 'Squeeze Germany until the Pips Squeak'.

▪ But when Lloyd George got to Versailles he adopted a different approach. He did not want Germany to be punished too hard, but be allowed to recover.

The USA

▪ The USA had not suffered any damage during the war, apart from some fires started by German agents to destroy goods going to Britain and France.

▪ American soldiers only arrived in Europe in spring 1918, so Woodrow Wilson arrived in Europe in December 1918 without any scores to settle with Germany.

▪ Wilson's main concern was to try to ensure that war could never break out again. So he came with his ‘Fourteen Points’ one of which suggested the setting up of a League of Nations.

▪ Wilson believed in 'Self-Determination'. This meant he wanted peoples to be able to run their own affairs. He objected to Italy taking over the Adriatic Coast.

Italy

▪ The Italian Government did not join the war until 1915. Britain and France signed the secret Treaty of London, agreeing to Italy taking possession of the Adriatic coast of the Balkans as far south as Albania and also some the islands of the coast of Greece.

▪ Italy had suffered very badly during the War. 460,000 soldiers had been killed and the country was heavily in debt to the USA. To most Italians it seemed to have been a disaster.

▪ The Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando arrived at Versailles expecting the Allies to honour the promises that they had made in the Treaty of London.

Japan

▪ Japan had supported the Allies throughout the war and expected some sort of reward.

▪ The Japanese wanted Manchuria, which was part of Northern China.

The TREATY of VERSAILLES

▪ The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June. The German delegates had not been allowed to attend any of the meetings at Versailles, but had been shown the terms of the treaty in May.

▪ When they saw the terms, they were horrified. They had expected that the Treaty would be based upon Wilson's 'Fourteen Points', which recommended 'Self-Determination'.

▪ The German delegates considered restarting the war, but this was impossible.

▪ Land - Germany lost about 10% of her land.

▪ Alsace-Lorraine was given back to France.

▪ The Polish Corridor was created to give the new country of Poland a way out to the Baltic. This cut Germany into two.

▪ Germany also lost land to Belgium, Denmark and Czechoslovakia.

▪ Colonies - all German colonies were taken away and were handed to Britain and France to look after under League of Nations mandates until they were ready for independence.

▪ Armed forces - the German army was reduced to 100,000 men and conscription was banned, the navy was reduced to six ships and submarines were banned, the airforce was to be completely destroyed.

▪ The Rhineland - this was to be demilitarised, no soldiers or military equipment were to be kept within thirty miles of the east bank of the river. The Allies would occupy it for fifteen years.

▪ The Saar - this was to be occupied for fifteen years and France would be able to mine coal in it for those years.

▪ Reparations - Germany was to pay for the damage caused by the war, the full cost would be worked out by 1921; it eventually came to £6,600,000,000. This would be paid for the rest of the twentieth century.

▪ War Guilt - Germany was to accept the blame for the war, alone.

Why did the victors not get everything they wanted?

▪ France was not allowed to occupy the Rhineland. - Lloyd George believed that this would only antagonise the Germans.

▪ Woodrow Wilson was not able to achieve freedom of the seas. - Lloyd George wanted to maintain Britain’s naval supremacy.

▪ Lloyd George was unable to achieve a moderate settlement. – Public opinion in Britain and French aims forced him to accept harsher terms for Germany than he would have liked.

▪ Italy was not given the Adriatic coast that had been promised at the Secret Treaty of London in 1915. - Woodrow Wilson would not agree to the creation of an Italian Empire.

▪ Japan was not allowed to occupy Manchuria; it was given the former German territories in China.

The TREATY of SAINT-GERMAIN

The Treaty of Saint-Germain was signed between the Allies and Austria on September 10th 1919. The main terms were as follows.

▪ The Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken up, the Austrian Republic was regarded as representing the former empire.

▪ Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia were declared to be independent.

▪ Austria handed over Eastern Galicia, the Trentino, South Tirol, Trieste and Istria.

▪ The Austrian army was limited to 30,000 men and reparations were to be paid for thirty years.

▪ The Union of Austria and Germany was forbidden, except with the agreement of the Council of the League of Nations.

The TREATY of TRIANON

▪ The Treaty of Trianon was signed between the Allies and Hungary on 4 June 1920.

▪ It was delayed by more than a year by a war between Hungary and its neighbours, which led to an invasion by Romania. The main terms of the Treaty were as follows.

▪ Hungary lost ¾ of its territory and 2/3 of its population.

▪ Slovakia was given to Czechoslovakia and Western Hungary was given to Austria.

▪ Croatia and Slavonia were given to Yugoslavia and Transylvania was given to Romania.

▪ The Hungarian army was to be limited to 35,000 men.

▪ The Hungarians agreed to pay part of the Austrian reparations

▪ The Hungarian government agreed to hand over war criminals.

The TREATY of NEUILLY

▪ The Treaty of Neuilly was signed between the Allies and Bulgaria on November 27th 1919.

▪ Bulgaria lost some land to Yugoslavia and the Adriatic coast to Greece, but gained some from Turkey.

▪ Bulgaria had to pay reparations of £100,000,000.

▪ The Bulgarian army was limited to 20,000 men

The TREATY of SEVRES

▪ The Treaty of Sevres was signed between the Allies and the Sultan of Turkey on August 10th 1920.

▪ It had been delayed by war between Turkey and Greece and an invasion by Italy.

The main terms were as follows.

▪ Arabia and Armenia became independent.

▪ Syria became a French mandate and Mesopotamia and Palestine became British mandates.

▪ Smyrna was to be controlled by Greece for five years and then have a referendum to decide its future.

▪ Rhodes and the Dodecanese Islands were given to Italy.

▪ Thrace and all other Turkish islands in the Aegean were given to Greece

▪ Britain gained Cyprus.

▪ The Straits became international and the territory on either side was demilitarised.

▪ The Allies would be allowed to station troops in Turkey to ensure that the treaty was obeyed.

However, the Treaty was not recognised by the new Turkish government of Mustafa Kemal, which seized power after a revolution.

The TREATY of LAUSANNE

A new Treaty of Lausanne was signed on July 24th 1923.

▪ In the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey recovered some territory from Greece, but gave up all claims to non-Turkish territory lost at the end of the war.

▪ All claims for reparations from Turkey were dropped.

What was the immediate impact of the peace treaty on Germany?

▪ In November 1918 Germany had surrendered unconditionally. This meant that they had no right to take part in any of the discussions at the peace conference.

▪ They simply had to accept whatever the Allies decided.

▪ Germany had suffered worse than any of the other major countries, except possibly for Russia.

▪ Two million German soldiers had been killed and the German economy had been ruined by the blockade set up by the Allies.

Why was the Weimar Republic weak?

▪ Conditions in Germany in the winter of 1918/19 were very bad. In January 1919 there was an attempted revolution by the Spartacists, who were communist.

▪ This was only put down by the Frei Korps, gangs of ex-soldiers, who roamed the streets of Berlin in uniform.

▪ The politicians who had signed the Armistice were called the November Criminals by Hitler, who joined the German Workers Party, a small extreme group in Bavaria, in 1919.

▪ The government became very unpopular and from 1919 onwards there was increasing violence and large numbers of murders.

▪ Many soldiers did not believe that the army had actually been defeated, as Germany had surrendered before it had been invaded.

▪ Some wanted to fight on, but the odds against Germany had been very long indeed, with Britain, France and the USA all on the other side. When they returned home they were treated like heroes.

▪ Most people had expected that that the Treaty would not be too severe so that Germany would be able to recover.

▪ They believed that Germany would be treated according to the terms of the Fourteen Points. The terms of the Treaty were much harsher than anyone had anticipated.

▪ The Weimar Constitution was based upon proportional representation. This meant that it was very difficult for one party to gain an overall majority in the Reichstag, the lower house of the German parliament.

▪ The Allies hoped that this would prevent a strong government coming to power. In fact it meant that all German governments were weak and were unable to take decisions.

How did the reparations payments affect Germany?

▪ The final bill was presented on 1 May 1921 and was fixed at £6,600,000,000. To be paid over thirty years.

▪ Germany was also to pay for the cost of the armies of occupation and had to agree to the sale of German property in the Allied countries.

▪ Germany was to hand over all merchant ships of over 1600 tonnes, half of those between 800 and 1600 tonnes and one quarter of her fishing fleet.

▪ She was also to build 200,000 tonnes of shipping for the Allies in each of the next five years.

▪ Large quantities of coal were to be handed over to France, Belgium and Italy for the next ten years.

What was the reaction to the peace settlement in France?

▪ The French were unhappy with the terms of the Versailles Treaty and wanted Germany to be punished more severely.

▪ French politicians saw reparations as a way of increasing the severity of the treaty

▪ The new German government made its first reparations payment in 1922, but in December announced that it would not be able to make further payments.

▪ In January 1923, the Germans stopped coal shipments. The Allied Reparations Commission declared Germany in default and on January 11th.

▪ The French and Belgian governments retaliated by sending troops into the Ruhr. They intended to force the Germans to hand over coal and iron ore in place of the payments.

▪ The German workers in the Ruhr went on strike and the Weimar government called for passive resistance to the French and Belgians and paid strike pay to workers by printing paper currency. This led to hyperinflation in Germany.

▪ The French attempted to set up a separatist movement in then Rhineland, but then cut off the Ruhr from the rest of Germany and brought in their own workers to work in the coalmines.

▪ Violence broke out and a number of French soldiers were killed.

What were the results of the occupation of the Ruhr?

▪ Inflation in Germany reached ridiculous proportions as the government printed money to pay the strikers. Eventually 62 factories were working around the clock to keep up with demand.

▪ The Weimar government became more popular for the first time. Its support for the strikers swung popular opinion behind it.

▪ Gustav Stresemann came to power and immediately tackled hyperinflation.

▪ Hitler's attempt to seize power in Munich in November (the Beer Hall Putsch) came too late and was a complete flop.

▪ Stresemann managed to persuade the French to leave the Ruhr in 1925, after promising to restart Reparation payments.

In April 1924 the Dawes Plan was agreed. Why was the Dawes Plan introduced?

▪ Passive resistance was called off by Gustav Stresemann in September 1923.

▪ France was beginning to be affected by inflation and Stanley Baldwin the British prime minister asked US banks to support Germany.

▪ Reparation payments were set at 1,000,000,000 gold marks per year, increasing to 2,500,000,000.

▪ In return Germany received a loan of 800,000,000 gold marks.

What was the reaction to the peace settlement in the USA?

▪ Many people thought that the Versailles Treaty was too severe and blamed Woodrow Wilson for staying in Europe for too long.

▪ The Treaty of Versailles was never ratified by Congress and the USA adopted a policy of isolation.

To what extent was the League of Nations a success?

What were the aims of the League?

▪ The League of Nations was the Fourteenth Point of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

▪ The League was an attempt to create an international organisation that would be able to prevent wars in the future.

▪ The League adopted the principle of 'Collective Security'.

▪ This was an attempt to unite the nations of the world in a joint guarantee of peace.

Membership of the League

▪ Membership of the League was open to all countries, providing they signed the Covenant of the League; this was the set of rules that members had to agree to accept.

▪ However, some countries were not allowed to join. Germany was not allowed to join and nor was Russia. This immediately meant that two of the most important countries of the world were banned.

▪ In fact both of these countries did join later. Germany was admitted in 1926 and the USSR, as it became known in 1924, joined in 1934.

The Structure and Organisation of the League

▪ The Council met three times a year. There were four permanent members, Britain, France, Italy and Japan (Germany became the fifth in 1926). They took most of the important decisions.

▪ The Assembly had representatives of all the members and it meant once a year.

▪ Decisions in the Council and the Assembly had to be unanimous.

▪ The Permanent Court of Justice was set up in The Hague to settle disputes between countries, but both sides had to agree to take a dispute to the Court; so many issues never reached it.

▪ The Council of Ambassadors often took decisions, because the Council and Assembly only met occasionally.

▪ Covenant was the agreement which members had to sign. It was a set of rules, which included not using force to settle a disagreement with another country.

▪ The League could use two types of sanctions to punish a country, which broke the Covenant. Economic Sanctions banned trade; Military Sanctions meant a declaration of war by each member.

▪ However, there was no provision for a League army, so individual countries had to declare war on members that had broken the Covenant.

▪ The Secretary-General was in charge of the administration of the League. The first holder of the office was Sir Eric Drummond, who was British.

Strengths and weaknesses of the League

Successes of the League

▪ The League itself was a success, as nothing like it had ever existed before. After the First World War there was a genuine desire for peace.

▪ The League was successful in the 1920s in settling disputes between countries like Finland and Sweden over the Aaland Islands and Greece and Bulgaria over a border dispute.

▪ It also did very good work in an attempt to stamp out the slave trade and in tackling diseases.

▪ In the 1920s the League had the support of most major countries and was successful in settling a series of minor disputes.

▪ The League was also important in tackling a number of international problems. It took charge of the returning refugees and prisoners of war to their own countries after the Great War. About 400,000 were returned safely.

▪ The ILO (International Labour Organisation) set hours of work and tried to establish trade union rights on an international basis.

▪ The Mandates Commission was responsible for looking after former German colonies; these were mostly handed over to Britain and France to govern and prepare for independence.

▪ The League’s agencies also tackled the slave trade, which was still widespread in parts of Africa.

▪ The World Health Organisation (WHO) tried to prevent epidemic diseases such as cholera, typhoid and malaria. It is all too easy to overlook the successes of the League and only concentrate on its failings.

▪ The League kept disarmament at the forefront of the international agenda, but was unable to arrange a conference until 1932.

Problems faced by the League

▪ Russia was not allowed to join after the Communist Revolution in 1917. Germany was not allowed to join, but did become a member in 1926.

▪ The USA did not join, even though the League was Woodrow Wilson's idea. Congress voted against membership.

▪ In fact the USA would probably have made little difference. In the 1920s and 1930s US armed forces were very weak.

▪ Italy, a Permanent Member of the Council, broke the Covenant in 1923 when Mussolini occupied Corfu, which was owned by Greece.

▪ In August 1923 five Italian surveyors were mapping the Greek-Albanian border for the League of Nations. They were shot and killed on the Greek side of the border and

▪ Mussolini, the Italian Prime Minister, demanded compensation from the Greeks.

▪ When the Greek government ignored the demand, Mussolini ordered the Italian navy to bombard and then occupy the Greek island of Corfu.

▪ Italy was a Permanent Member of the Council of the League. Eventually the League backed Mussolini and forced the Greeks to pay compensation to the League. Then Mussolini had to withdraw his forces from the island.

▪ Britain and France then decided that compensation should be paid by Greece to Italy, rather than to the League as was originally decided.

▪ The Corfu incident suggested that major powers could afford to ignore the Covenant when it suited them.

▪ The Corfu incident suggested that major powers could afford to ignore the Covenant when it suited them.

▪ The League came to be seen as a club for the victors of the First World War and was mostly European. Its headquarters were in Geneva. It appeared to give even more influence to Europe.

▪ It was a mistake to appoint Sir Eric Drummond as the Secretary-General. He was a representative of one of the Permanent Members of the Council and this made countries outside Europe believe that the League was pro-European.

▪ The League had no army; it had to rely on member countries declaring war on countries which broke the Covenant.

▪ Often the great powers acted without the consent of the League. The Locarno Pacts and the Kellog-Briand Pact were both arranged without the League’s involvement.

▪ The Council and the Assembly met very rarely, consequently, decisions were often taken by the Council of Ambassadors; this allowed Britain and France to dominate the League.

▪ Support for the League in terms of membership varied considerable. Many countries came and went and in some areas of the world, such as South America, it had little impact.

How far did weaknesses in the League make failure inevitable?

▪ The Corfu incident showed that major powers would break the Covenant when it suited them.

▪ It also suggested that Britain and France were prepared to compromise when their interests were involved.

▪ The lack of an army meant that military sanctions were virtually impossible.

▪ Disputes could be settled if they were in Europe and members were prepared to refer them to the League, but what if disputes were in remote areas of the world?

▪ Most of the major powers in the League were in Europe.

▪ The absence of major powers such as the USA and the Soviet Union undoubtedly weakened the League.

▪ However, the real reason for the weakness of the League was the depression from 1929.

▪ The delay in organising the Disarmament Conference made the League look indecisive.

How far did the Depression make the work of the League more difficult?

▪ In October 1929 the Wall Street Crash plunged the world into crisis and then Depression.

How did it affect the work of the League of Nations?

▪ It destroyed the relative prosperity of the 1920s. In Germany it wiped out the recovery that had taken place since 1924.

▪ This created massive unemployment and poverty, which in turn led to desperation and despair.

▪ This led to increased support for extremist parties, who used violence and adopted aggressive policies.

▪ In Japan, Italy and Germany, militarism became more influential.

Japanese expansion into Manchuria and China

Why did Japan invade Manchuria and China?

In the 1920s, however, there was a revival of traditional Japanese ideas.

Why did Japan become more militarist in the 1920s and 1930s?

▪ Japan failed to gain the land that she was expecting at the Treaty of Versailles.

▪ The Washington Naval Agreement of 1922 made Japan an inferior partner.

▪ The population began to grow rapidly and Japan needed more land and raw materials.

▪ The price of rice fell and exports of silk were affected by the Depression.

▪ Manchuria had vast resources of coal and iron that Japan lacked.

▪ In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, which was a province of China, claiming that they were acting in self-defence.

▪ It claimed that a railway had been blown up at Mukden on 18 September.

▪ In 1932 the Japanese set up the puppet state of Manchukuo, with the last emperor of China, P’u-i as its head.

How did the League of Nations react to the Japanese actions?

▪ The League of Nations set up a Commission of Inquiry under the Earl of Lytton to investigate.

▪ In October the Lytton Commission reported that there was no evidence that the Japanese had acted in self-defence and recommended that Manchuria should be an autonomous region under Chinese control.

▪ The Japanese ignored the report and the condemnation from the League and resigned in 1933.

▪ The Japanese action was a major blow to the League of Nations, not only because it failed to act effectively, but also because Japan was a Permanent Member of the Council.

Why was the League unable to do anything about Manchuria?

▪ The lack of an army meant that countries had to be persuaded to declare war on Japan.

▪ Manchuria was remote and military action would be very difficult.

▪ There was very little sympathy for China and some support for Japan, which seemed to be trying to restore law and order.

▪ In reality there was very little that the League could have done.

What effects did the League's actions have upon Japan?

▪ The failure to condemn Japan led to the government falling under the control of the army.

▪ Politicians who stood up to the armed forces were sometimes murdered. The country began a period of territorial expansion on the mainland.

▪ From 1932, more of China was occupied by the Japanese army.

▪ In July 1937 the Japanese army invaded northern China. The following month, two Japanese sailors were killed at a Chinese aerodrome in Shanghai.

▪ This led to the landing of an army, which captured and then forced its way inland. The Japanese airforce was used to bomb Chinese cities into submission.

▪ Within a year Nanking, the capital, Tsingtao, Canton and Hankow had all been taken. Britain and the USA gave large loans to the Guomingdang government of China.

▪ The Japanese government began to demand that Britain and the other western Countries should give up supporting China and co-operate with Japan in establishing a ‘new order’ in the Far East.

▪ The Japanese government intended to set up a ‘Greater South East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere’.

▪ In fact this was to be nothing more than a Japanese Empire, intended to provide living space for Japan’s growing population and to enable Japan to acquire the raw materials which she desperately needed, the most crucial of which was oil.

Events in Italy

▪ In October 1922 Benito Mussolini became prime minister of Italy. From 1925 he ruled as a virtual dictator.

▪ Mussolini began a series of 'battles' to try and tackle Italy's economic problems, autostrade (motorways) were built, land reclaimed and public buildings constructed.

▪ From 1929 many of Mussolini's plans began to go wrong. He rarely followed ideas through and lacked determination.

▪ His policy of increasing the value of the lira, the Italian currency, meant that Italian exports became more expensive.

▪ By the mid-1930s Italy was suffering very badly from the effects of the Depression and Mussolini was becoming very unpopular. His solution was to begin an aggressive foreign policy.

▪ Italy had been denied territory in the Balkans in 1919; Mussolini’s solution was to extend the Italian Empire in East Africa.

The Italian conquest of Abyssinia

▪ On 3 October 1935, the Italian armed forces invaded the African state of Abyssinia (now called Ethiopia).

▪ At first the Italians faced considerable opposition, as the Abyssinians avoided a pitched battle and retreated slowly.

▪ In early 1936, however, the Italians began to use poison gas and, along with their air power, this led to the collapse of the Abyssinian forces.

▪ In May 1936 the capital Addis Ababa was occupied and the Emperor Haile Selassie fled to Britain.

▪ Abyssinia was annexed to Italy and the King of Italy became Emperor of Abyssinia.

Why did Italy invade Abyssinia?

▪ Italy had invaded Abyssinia in 1895, but had been humiliatingly defeated by the Abyssinian army at the battle of Aduwa (Adowa). The 1935 invasion was revenge.

▪ Mussolini wanted an African empire to fulfil his aims to revive the Ancient Roman Empire.

▪ Mussolini also wanted to divert public opinion in Italy away from the failures of his domestic policies, which were making him increasingly unpopular.

Why was the invasion of Abyssinia important?

▪ Italy was a Permanent Member of the Council of the League of Nations. The invasion deliberately broke the Covenant and severely weakened the authority of the League.

How did the League react to the invasion of Abyssinia?

▪ Sanctions were applied to Italy, including an arms embargo, banning Italian imports and all financial dealings, but oil was not included.

▪ Mussolini later admitted that that was the one thing that would have forced him to withdraw.

▪ In June 1936 Haile Selassie addressed the Assembly of the League of Nations.

▪ Throughout he was heckled by Italian journalists, who whistled to try to stop him being heard. His speech had no effect.

Why did the League not take effective action?

▪ In 1935 Britain and France tried to arrange a compromise solution to the crisis, the Hoare-Laval Pact. This would have allowed Mussolini to retain control of most of Abyssinia.

▪ The Pact had to be dropped as a result of hostile public opinion. This and the refusal to add oil to the sanctions made Britain and France, and the League of Nations, appear to be weak.

▪ Both Britain and France were alarmed at events in Germany and wanted to keep Mussolini on their side against Hitler.

▪ The three nations had already formed the Stresa Front in 1934. Britain and France did not want Mussolini to resign from the League of Nations.

▪ The actions of Britain and France over Abyssinia did great harm to the League's reputation.

Why did the League fail over Manchuria and Abyssinia?

▪ Both countries were invaded by major powers who were Permanent Members of the Council; there was very little appetite for military action against either.

▪ If Permanent Members broke the Covenant, there seemed to be little point in the League.

▪ Both invasions were in remote areas; it would have been very difficult to mount military campaigns.

▪ In Manchuria, the League acted very slowly, the Lytton Commission took nine months to produce a report.

▪ In the case of Abyssinia, Britain and France tried to do a deal with Mussolini in the Hoare-Laval pact; when this became public, the moral authority of the League disappeared.

▪ Britain and France attempted to keep Mussolini ‘onside’ by preventing oil being added to the economic sanctions.

▪ Britain also refused to close the Suez Canal; that would have paralyzed Mussolini

Why had international peace collapsed by 1939?

What were the long-term consequences of the peace treaties of 1919-1923?

▪ Germans resented the loss of territory and the demilitarisation of the Rhineland.

▪ Extremists, like Hitler, were able to play on people's fears and humiliation.

▪ It created weak coalition governments in the Weimar Republic, which were unable to cope with the Depression.

▪ It created a feeling that Germany had been treated too harshly, leading to appeasement.

▪ Japan resented the failure to gain land in Manchuria.

▪ Italy was denied the territory promised in the secret Treaty of London.

▪ Both Japan and Italy retaliated by seizing land in 1931 and 1935.

What were the consequences of the failures of the League in the 1930s?

▪ The failure of the League to act in 1931 and 1935 led to the creation of the Axis.

▪ The dictators of Germany, Italy and Japan gradually formed an alliance that the League was unable to act against.

How far was Hitler’s foreign policy to blame for the outbreak of war in 1939?

▪ In 1933, Adolf Hitler ordered the German delegates to walk out of a Disarmament Conference organised by the League of Nations.

▪ He stated that Germany was prepared to disarm if other nations did so as well. He then left the League immediately afterwards.

▪ In January 1935, the people of the Saar, an area that had been administered by the League of Nations since 1920, voted by 477,000 to 48,000 to rejoin Germany.

▪ This was a massive propaganda victory for Hitler and a reversal of the Treaty of Versailles.

Rearmament

▪ In 1935, Hitler began rearmament. Conscription was reintroduced and the army, navy and airforce were all built up.

▪ All members of the German armed forces had to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler personally.

The Anglo-German Naval Treaty

▪ This was an agreement that allowed Germany to build a navy up to 35% the size of Britain's.

▪ This broke the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and encouraged Hitler to go even further.

The Rhineland

▪ The Rhineland had been demilitarised under the Treaty of Versailles. The Allies were to occupy the area for fifteen years, or for longer if necessary.

▪ Allied troops were withdrawn from the Rhineland in 1935. The following year, Hitler reoccupied it.

▪ On 7 March 1936, Germany denounced the Locarno Pacts and reoccupied the Rhineland. The crisis over the Italian invasion of Abyssinia influenced Britain not to interfere.

▪ Hitler later commented:

'The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking of my life. If the French had opposed us we would have had to withdraw. Our forces were not strong enough even to put up a moderate resistance.’

▪ The reoccupation of the Rhineland convinced Hitler that Britain and France were unlikely to act against further aggression

Why was Hitler able to get away with the reoccupation of the Rhineland?

▪ Britain and France were concentrating on the Italian invasion of Abyssinia.

▪ Britain refused to act; one politician said that it was only Hitler going into his own backyard.

The Anschluss

▪ Anschluss meant the union of Germany and Austria, which had been specifically banned by the Treaty of Versailles.

Why did Hitler want to unite Germany and Austria?

▪ Hitler had been born in the town of Braunau-am-Inn in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.

▪ He was not technically a German citizen, even though he had lived in Germany since 1913.

▪ Hitler wanted to destroy the Treaty of Versailles, which he regarded as a humiliation for Germany. This would be one way of achieving his aim.

▪ Hitler wanted to create a Greater Germany, which would include all German-speaking peoples. Austria was an obvious step.

The first attempt at Anschluss took place in July 1934

▪ After Hitler became chancellor there was increasing Nazi agitation in Austria, until the Nazi Party was dissolved in June.

▪ In February 1934, the chancellor of Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss, ordered attacks on the Austrian Socialist Party, which was then dissolved.

▪ From April 1934 Dollfuss began to rule as a dictator.

▪ On 25 July Nazis entered the radio station in Vienna and forced the staff to announce that Dollfuss had resigned. They then entered the chancellery and shot and killed Dollfuss.

▪ The murderers were quickly arrested by the Austrian armed forces, and Italy and Yugoslavia moved forces to the Austrian border to prevent German intervention.

▪ Between 1934 and 1938 relations between Austria and Germany deteriorated. In 1937, Mussolini also informed the new Austrian chancellor, Kurt Schussnigg, that Italy would not help Austria in the future.

A second crisis over Anschluss developed in 1938

▪ February 12 - Schussnigg met Hitler and agreed to appoint some Nazi ministers to the Austrian Cabinet. Arthur Seyss-Inquart became Minister for the Interior.

▪ March 1 - Unrest broke out in parts of Austria caused by Nazis. Soon the whole country was in chaos.

▪ March 11 - Hitler sent an ultimatum demanding the resignation of Schussnigg. German troops were massed on the border. Schussnigg gave in and Seyss-Inquart became chancellor.

▪ March 13 - Austria and Germany were united.

▪ April 10 - A Plebiscite was held which gave a 99.75 % majority in favour of Anschluss. Austria was immediately incorporated into the German Reich.

▪ The speed at which these events took place made reactions by Britain and France difficult.

▪ The two countries protested, but did little more, especially as Mussolini refused to join in the protests or any possible actions.

▪ The Anschluss meant that Germany now surrounded Czechoslovakia on three sides.

Czechoslovakia 1938

▪ On September 12 1938 Hitler demanded self-government for the German speaking Czechs in the Sudetenland.

▪ The British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, had been expecting Hitler to try to seize the Sudetenland for some time.

▪ He had already decided that, as soon as it happened, he would go to meet Hitler face to face and settle the matter. Chamberlain called this Plan Z.

▪ On September 15 Neville Chamberlain flew to meet Hitler at Berchtesgaden and agreed to his demands.

▪ He returned to Britain and persuaded Edouard Daladier the French prime minister of the need to support him.

▪ The Czech government was informed of Chamberlain's decision, but was not invited to the discussions.

▪ On 22 September Chamberlain returned to meet Hitler at Bad Godesberg. But Hitler now had new demands.

▪ Hitler told Chamberlain that the Sudetenland must be handed over to Germany immediately and that Polish and Hungarian claims for Czech territory must also be met.

▪ Chamberlain returned to London. He believed that war was inevitable. Evacuation began in London and 1,000,000 volunteers were called for by the government.

▪ But at the last moment war was avoided, the Italian dictator Mussolini suggested a four power conference.

▪ The four powers, Germany, Italy, Britain and France, met at Munich on 28 September 1938.

▪ They agreed to let Hitler have the Sudetenland. Hitler and Chamberlain signed an agreement that Britain and Germany would never go to war again. This was Appeasement.

Was the policy of appeasement justified?

▪ Appeasement was the belief that the Dictators could be pacified if their demands were met.

▪ With the benefit of hindsight, Appeasement was a serious mistake. It failed completely, and, in fact, merely encouraged the Dictators to make even more demands.

Changing Attitudes towards Hitler

▪ With hindsight it is obvious that Hitler was very dangerous indeed, but in the 1930s some people saw things differently.

▪ There was a strong view that the Treaty of Versailles had been too harsh and that, therefore, it was not unreasonable to allow Hitler to break some of the terms.

▪ Britain had already allowed Germany to build more warships because the reduction of the German forces in 1919 was thought to be too severe.

▪ Hitler was also admired by some people for the way that he had rebuilt Germany after 1933.

▪ Unemployment was cut from 6,000,000 to 500,000 and industrial production rose dramatically. This was in comparison to events in Britain where the government seemed to be doing very little.

▪ Until the late 1930s the worst aspects of the Nazi rule were not made public.

▪ The Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 were used as giant propaganda exercise.

▪ Visits to Germany were organised for groups of ex-servicemen from Britain where they were introduced to Hitler. He explained how reasonable his demands were.

Fears of War

▪ In the 1930s more and more attention was paid to what future war would be like. People became more and more convinced that bombing would be highly dangerous.

▪ Added to this was the fear of poison gas, which had been used for the first time during the First World War.

▪ Bombers, high explosive and poison gas meant that the war would affect people in Britain far more than ever before.

Rearmament

▪ Many people saw the RAF as Britain’s main defence and by the mid-1930s the RAF had few modern planes.

▪ This was seen by many people as a strong argument for avoiding war at all costs. Britain needed time to build up her defences against Germany.

Memories of the First World War

▪ Probably the most important reasons for Appeasement were the British people’s memories of the Great War, as it was known until the Second World War.

▪ What had made these memories all the more vivid was the fact that in 1914 the war had been greeted with great enthusiasm.

▪ By 1918, however, there were very few people who did not view the war with horror.

Why did French governments support Appeasement?

▪ French governments were more inclined to oppose Hitler in 1936-38, but were afraid to do so without support from Britain.

▪ France was dominated by the Popular Front, a left wing coalition, until 1938. This supported the policy of non-aggression.

▪ Most French governments were coalitions, which made firm action difficult.

Events in 1939

In March 1939, Hitler occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. This was a clear violation of the Munich Agreement and showed that Hitler was not just aiming to unite all German speakers in a Greater Germany.

April 1939 Britain made defensive alliances with Romania and Poland. These meant that if either country was attacked Britain would go to war to defend them

June –

August 1939 France, Britain and the Soviet Union discussed an alliance against Hitler.

August 1939 Germany and the USSR signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

How important was the Nazi-Soviet Pact?

▪ On the face of it the Nazi-Soviet Pact was a simple non-aggression pact between the two countries. They both agreed not to attack the other.

▪ But the Hitler and Stalin had been bitter enemies and the agreement astounded politicians throughout Europe. It was clearly the prelude to something dramatic.

▪ In fact there were a number of secret clauses that were not public. The Soviet Union agreed not to interfere when Germany attacked Poland and also would allow Hitler a free hand in Western Europe.

▪ In return, Germany would allow the Soviet Union to occupy eastern Poland and would not interfere if Stalin occupied the Baltic States and Finland.

• It was, therefore, a cold-blooded and calculated agreement to interfere in the lives of helpless and innocent people.

25 August 1939 Britain responded by signing a formal alliance with Poland.

1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland.

2 September 1939 The British Government sent an ultimatum to Germany demanding that all forces should be withdrawn from Poland or war would be declared. This was ignored.

3 September 1939 Britain declared war on Germany.

Who was to blame for the Cold War?

Why did the USA-USSR alliance begin to breakdown in 1945?

Joseph Stalin

▪ Stalin became the ruler of the Soviet Union in 1928. He was also very suspicious of Britain and the USA.

▪ He remembered that they had intervened in the Russian Civil War in 1918-9 and he suspected that they had encouraged Hitler in the 1930s.

▪ In 1938, at the time of the Munich Crisis, Stalin had offered to form an alliance with Britain and France, but they had not taken him up.

▪ Since the 1920s Stalin's basic policy had been 'Socialism in One Country'. This meant building up the Soviet Union defences so that it was as strong as possible.

▪ After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Stalin believed that the West had hoped that Germany and the USSR would destroy each other.

▪ He had urged Roosevelt and Churchill to invade France to take pressure off of the Soviet army, but they refused. The invasion, D Day, only took place in 1944.

▪ In 1945, Stalin did not trust the West and was determined to build a buffer zone against further German attacks, particularly as Germany had invaded Russia twice during the twentieth century.

▪ During the Second World War the Soviet people suffered terribly, 26,000,000 died altogether.

▪ This made Stalin determined that this should never happen again. He wanted to ensure that there was a barrier in Eastern Europe to stop any possibility of another attack.

▪ When the three leaders met at Yalta, Stalin's main aim was to ensure that the Soviet Union was safe from another attack by Germany. He wanted Germany to be as weak as possible.

Roosevelt

▪ By the time of Yalta, Roosevelt was a very sick man (he died on 12th April 1945) and he probably did not take a very tough line with Stalin.

▪ He needed Soviet help in the war against Japan and wanted to persuade Stalin to declare war on Japan as soon as possible.

▪ Roosevelt did not enquire too closely about Stalin’s intentions in Eastern Europe.

▪ He persuaded Stain to issue the Yalta Declaration which promised free elections in the countries occupied by the Red Army.

▪ He may have allowed Stalin to think that Eastern Europe was his sphere of influence and that he could therefore act as he liked.

Churchill

▪ Churchill did not want Stalin to be allowed to take control of Eastern Europe.

▪ He did not want to replace one dictator with another.

▪ He had urged Roosevelt to order US forces to advance across Europe and occupy Berlin.

▪ Roosevelt had refused because it would have cost too many casualties.

▪ Churchill believed that more should be done to force Stalin to hold free elections and wanted Roosevelt to be tougher at Yalta.

Harry S Truman

▪ Truman had served in the US army during the First World War and had seen the effects that warfare could have.

▪ He visited Europe in 1945 in order to attend the Potsdam Conference and was horrified by what he saw.

▪ He was also determined to 'get tough with the Russians' and force them to keep the promises that they had made at Yalta.

▪ Truman convinced the US people that the USA could not afford to adopt an isolationist policy after the Second World War.

▪ It was the duty of the USA, he stated repeatedly, to take a leading role in the United Nations and accept its responsibilities in a new world order.

▪ Truman believed that a stand had to be made against the growing influence of the Soviet Union.

▪ He was afraid that otherwise there would a repetition of the situation in the 1930s, when Hitler had been allowed to get away with a series of aggressive moves.

▪ Truman believed that Germany must be allowed to recover from the effects of the war; this would help to prevent a recreation of the situation in the 1930s.

▪ In 1947, Truman approved aid to Greece and then announced the Truman Doctrine.

▪ Months later his Secretary of State, George C Marshall announced the Marshall Plan.

▪ In 1948 Truman approved the Berlin Airlift and the plans to set up NATO.

The Yalta Conference

▪ In February 1945 Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at Yalta in the southern Soviet Union to plan the end of the Second World War.

What happened at Yalta?

▪ They agreed to divide Germany into four zones; each one would be occupied by one of the four allies.

▪ Stalin agreed to accept France as one of the powers. Berlin would also be divided into four sectors.

▪ Poland would be given land in the west, which would be taken from Germany and would lose land to the USSR.

▪ Stalin agreed that some members of the Polish government in exile (the London Poles) would be allowed to join the Polish government that he had set up (the Lublin Poles).

▪ The USSR would declare war on Japan three months after the end of the war with Germany.

▪ Stalin promised to allow free elections in the countries of Eastern Europe which had been occupied by the Soviet army.

Why did the West not take a firmer line at Yalta?

▪ Roosevelt believed that Stalin would keep his promises. He also believed that the Soviet army would be needed in the final attack on Japan, so he was prepared to leave the Soviet Union in control of Eastern Europe.

▪ Churchill did not think that this was a good idea. By the time of the Potsdam conference in July, it was clear that Churchill had been right.

▪ The new president, Harry Truman, who took over when Roosevelt died on 12 April, took a much tougher line with Stalin.

The Potsdam Conference

▪ The Potsdam conference was the last of the conferences between the leaders of the allies during the Second World War.

▪ It was held in Potsdam, outside Berlin, in July 1945, after the defeat of Germany.

▪ Germany was divided into four zones. Each zone would be occupied by one of the four Allies, Great Britain, France, the USA and the USSR.

▪ Berlin was divided into four sectors.

▪ The Nazi Party would be dissolved. War criminals would be tried and punished.

▪ There would be free elections in Germany, freedom of speech and a free press.

▪ Germany would pay reparations for the damage caused by the war. Most of this would go to the USSR.

▪ All the Allies agreed to take part in the United Nations.

But there were also disagreements at Potsdam.

▪ The new US president, Harry Truman tried to force the USSR to allow free elections in the countries of Eastern Europe which had been occupied after the end of the war.

▪ Stalin was angry that the USA had not told him about the atomic bomb which he knew that the USA had developed.

▪ This was the beginning of the ‘Cold War’. In the next year Stalin set up the Iron Curtain

How had the USSR gained control of Eastern Europe by 1948

What was the Iron Curtain?

▪ The Iron Curtain was the name given to the border between east and west in Europe that was set up by Joseph Stalin, the ruler of the USSR in the years after the Second World War.

▪ The name came from a speech made by Winston Churchill in 1946.

▪ The Iron Curtain became a thousand mile fence cutting off the Communist countries of Eastern Europe form the non-communist west.

Why did Stalin build the Iron Curtain?

▪ He wanted to set up a buffer zone of countries in Eastern Europe to protect the USSR against another invasion by Germany.

▪ He did not trust Germany – there had been two invasions in his own lifetime - 1914 and 1941.

▪ Stalin was determined to prevent this happening a third time. He wanted to make sure that Germany was kept weak, whereas the western Allies wanted Germany to be allowed to recover from the effects of the war.

▪ During the years 1945 –48, all the countries which had been occupied by the Red Army at the end of the war were brought under Soviet control (Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary).

▪ The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had been absorbed in 1940 and then kept as part of the Soviet Union). In Czechoslovakia the leaders were simply murdered.

▪ He did not trust the west, Britain and the USA, because they had invaded Russia in 1919 and he believed they had delayed the invasion of France until 1944.

▪ Stalin was trying to prevent western influence reaching the west and refugees leaving the east for Western Europe.

How did Stalin secure control of Eastern Europe?

▪ When countries were liberated from the Nazis, Stalin ensured that Soviet troops remained there.

▪ In Hungary and Romania, two countries which had fought on the Nazis’ side, Stalin felt justified in keeping Soviet troops there as occupying forces.

▪ Stalin ensured that any new governments were coalitions which meant that the Communist Party would have a say in the running of the country.

▪ Gradually the Communist Party would infiltrate the key areas of government and security organisations.

▪ When elections took place, the Communist Party used any means necessary to discredit and frighten opponents.

▪ Such tactics enabled the Communist Party to take over the government of the country and then began to establish a one-party country – a communist state.

Czechoslovakia

▪ The Communist Party was the largest party in the coalition government by 1947. Stalin ordered Gottwald, the Communist leader to remove the non-communists in the government.

▪ In 1948, all communist opponents were removed. Masaryk, a leading opponent of Gottwald was found dead.

Poland

▪ Having been a member of the coalition for two years, the Communist Party fixed the elections of January 1947.

▪ The Polish Communist Party set up a government which took its orders from Stalin in Moscow.

Bulgaria

▪ The November elections of 1945 were fixed and the Communists won a majority of seats and in 1946, a one-party sate was established

Hungary

▪ The Communist Party secured a large share of the vote and took over the government following the general election of August 1947.

▪ All other parties were then banned and the Communist leader, Rakosi, established a Stalinist regime.

Romania

▪ By the November election of 1946, the Romanian Communist Party had won a huge majority and set up a government which then forced King Michael to abdicate in 1947.

▪ Soviet domination was thus complete.

How was Germany governed after the war?

▪ When the Allies met at Potsdam to decide how to govern Germany at the end of the Second World War, they agreed to divide the country into four zones, one each for the USA, the USSR, Britain and France.

▪ Each of the four allies was to be responsible for its own sector. Decisions affecting Germany as a whole would be taken jointly and it was intended that Germany would be reunited in the future.

▪ Berlin the capital of Germany was inside the Soviet zone, so this was also divided into four sectors.

▪ It was governed by the Joint Kommandatura, which contained the military leaders of the four allies.

West Berlin

▪ West Berlin was formed by the US, French and British sectors in Berlin from 1945 to 1991.

▪ West Berlin was very awkward for the Soviet Union and East Germany. It allowed people behind the Iron Curtain an opportunity to see what life was like in the West.

▪ West Berlin benefited from Marshall Aid, which began after the Truman Doctrine was published in March 1947, but East Berlin and East Germany did not.

How did the USA react to Soviet expansionism?

▪ In February 1947 the British government informed the USA that it could no longer afford to support the Greek government against Communist rebels.

▪ The US government stepped in with an offer of $400,000,000. Harry Truman also took the opportunity to extend the offer of aid to Turkey.

▪ The Truman Doctrine was announced by Harry Truman, the president of the USA, in March 1947.

▪ He offered to help any country that was being threatened either from within or from without its own borders.

▪ He did not name any country, nor did he specify what sort of aid would be given.

Why was the Truman Doctrine published?

▪ Truman wanted to help the countries of Europe recover from the effects of the Second World War.

▪ He had seen the devastation, which the war had caused and he wanted the USA to play a part in recovery. Marshall Aid was announced at the same time.

▪ Truman was trying to stop any other countries in Europe becoming Communist. Already the Iron Curtain had cut Europe in two; he did not want that to go any further.

▪ Truman also hoped that he might be able to persuade some of the countries of Eastern Europe to break away from Communism. Marshall Aid was also intended to help here.

▪ While the Truman Doctrine did not actually mention the Soviet Union, it was obvious that it was intended as a warning to Stalin that Truman was not going to let him get away with any more attempts to take control of Europe.

▪ Truman had said that he was going to ‘get tough with Russia’; this was one example of his policy.

How did Marshall Aid work?

▪ Marshall Aid was an attempt to rebuild Europe after the Second World War. It put the ideas of the Truman Doctrine into effect.

▪ In March 1947 President Harry Truman offered grants of American money to all European countries. The plan was named after his secretary of state George C Marshall.

▪ Truman intended that Marshall Aid would be made available to all countries in Europe, but in fact only countries in the west accepted it.

▪ The USSR and other eastern countries attended the first meetings in 1948, but withdrew when they discovered that they would have to join the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation.

▪ The Marshall Plan would control how Marshall Aid would be spent. Individual countries would not be able to decide for themselves

▪ This would mean that the USA would be able to influence the countries of the east and undermine communism. This was what Truman had hoped would happen.

▪ When the Soviet Union realised what Truman was up to, other Eastern Bloc countries, Czechoslovakia and Poland in particular, were forced to withdraw applications for Marshall Aid.

▪ Altogether seventeen countries received a total of $13,750,000,000, which allowed them to recover from the war much more quickly than the countries of the east.

▪ Italy, which had been an ally of Germany during the war, received $600,000,000. Britain got more money than any other country, receiving $2,600,000,000 in total.

▪ Marshall Aid was one of the reasons why Stalin tried to force the west out of West Berlin in 1948.

COMECON

▪ Stalin set up a Soviet Version of Marshall Aid, COMECON: the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance on January 25 1949. It was intended to be the Soviet Union's response to Marshall Aid.

▪ Stalin offered aid to communist countries to help them recover from the effects of the Second World War.

▪ But COMECON was only a pale shadow of the economic institutions of the West.

▪ The Soviet Union lacked the financial strength of the USA and the attempt to set up a communist rival led to bankruptcy and ruin.

▪ COMECON was a major drain on the resources of the Soviet Union and helped to bring about its economic downfall in the 1980s.

The Berlin Blockade

▪ At first travel between the four sectors in Berlin had been easy; people could live in one sector and work in another. Then in June 1948 Stalin blockaded West Berlin.

▪ From June 1948 until May 1949, Joseph Stalin ordered that all traffic between West Germany and West Berlin should be stopped.

▪ He was able to close the road, canal and rail routes, but was not able to prevent the western allies, Great Britain, France and the USA from bringing supplies into West Berlin by air.

▪ The Berlin airlift lasted ten and a half months and one plane landed in West Berlin every ninety seconds.

Why did Stalin blockade Berlin?

▪ The main reason for the blockade was that Great Britain and the USA had made it clear that they intended to rebuild the economy in their zones of Germany.

▪ In 1947 the British and US zones were joined together in ‘Bizonia’ and the French zone was added in 1948 (Trizonia).

▪ Stalin believed that Germany should be kept weak to prevent any risk of further trouble. He also wanted to get reparations from Germany to help rebuild the Soviet Union.

▪ In 1948 the western allies announced that they were going to introduce a new currency in the west to help the economy get going again.

▪ This would mean that east and west would be separate economically.

▪ The West was in fact breaking agreements made at Yalta and Potsdam. All changes to Germany had to be agreed by all four occupying powers.

▪ West Berlin was also a temptation to East Berliners. In the west the Marshall Plan was beginning to make life much better.

▪ Already East Berliners and East Germans were leaving for the west.

How did the Allies react?

▪ They were determined that Stalin should not succeed. General Lucius Clay the US commander in Berlin said, ‘If West Berlin falls, West Germany will be next’.

▪ Clay offered to fight his way out of West Berlin, but was ordered not to by Truman.

▪ The Allies believed that if they gave in Stalin would behave as Hitler had in the 1930s. More and more countries would be taken over.

▪ The Allies began to bring supplies into West Berlin by air. 4,000 tonnes were needed every day.

▪ Eventually they were bringing in 8,000 tonnes; even coal was brought in by plane.

▪ More than 320,000 flights were made altogether and 79 pilots died.

▪ In May 1949 Stalin gave up. It was obvious that the West was not going to give in so he ended the blockade.

What were the immediate consequences of the Berlin Blockade?

▪ Many East Germans began to try to leave the Soviet zone for the other three.

▪ NATO was set up in 1949.

▪ The Federal Republic of Germany was set up in 1949.

What is NATO?

▪ NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which was set up in 1949 after the Berlin Blockade.

▪ The West believed that they were now under threat from Stalin and needed to protect themselves from a possible invasion.

▪ It was a sign that relations between the Superpowers were now so bad that some form of military alliance was necessary.

▪ Thirteen countries joined in 1949, including Britain and the USA.

▪ It led to US troops and aircraft being stationed in European countries to protect them against a possible attack by the countries of Eastern Europe.

▪ The most important aspect of the alliance was that if anyone of the member countries was to be attacked, all the others would immediately protect it.

▪ Since 1949, most countries of Western Europe have joined NATO and in recent years some of the former communist countries, such as Poland and Hungary have joined. Since the alliance was set up, none of the members has been attacked.

West Germany

▪ After the Berlin Blockade the Allies decided to create the Federal Republic of Germany, with its capital at Bonn in the Rhineland. This became known as West Germany.

▪ West Germany existed as a separate country from 1949 to 1990. It became a member of the UN and was admitted to NATO in 1955, although it was never allowed to have nuclear weapons.

▪ The Allies continued to occupy it and there are still British forces in Germany today.

▪ In 1949 the Soviet Union also exploded its first atomic bomb. This led to an Arms Race between the superpowers.

The two Superpowers had now given up any pretence of co-operation. The Cold war had begun in earnest.

How effectively did the USA contain the spread of Communism?

Background to the Korean War

▪ Korea had been under Japanese occupation since 1910.

▪ With the defeat of Japan in 1945 the USA and USSR agreed to divide the country into two zones along the 38th Parallel.

▪ The United Nations demanded free elections for the whole country and was supported by the USA which did not see this as a permanent division.

▪ The USA believed that since their zone contained two-thirds of the population, the communist north would be outvoted.

▪ Korea became part of the general post war Cold War rivalry and no agreement could be reached.

▪ Elections were held in the south, supervised by the UN, and the independent Republic of Korea, or South Korea, was set up, in 1948, with Syngman Rhee as President.

▪ Within a month the Soviet Union had created the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) under the communist government of Kim II Sung.

▪ In 1949, Russian and US troops were withdrawn but in June 1950 North Korean troops invaded South Korea

Which side started the war?

▪ The North claimed it was started by South Korea which shelled an area on the Ongjin Peninsula on 23 June 1950 and then sent their 17th Regiment to seize the town of Haeju.

▪ The 17th Regiment was a crack unit of soldiers formerly from the North who hated communism.

▪ The more likely explanation is that the 17th Regiment was acting in retaliation to an invasion from the North.

Why did Kim II Sung invade South Korea?

There are two possible explanations.

▪ One is that he was encouraged by Stalin as a means of spreading communism and putting pressure on the USA and President Truman’s policy of containment.

▪ Kim visited Moscow just before the outbreak of war

▪ The Soviet Union supplied the North Koreans with tanks and other equipment.

▪ A communist takeover would strengthen The Soviet Union’s position in the Pacific and make up for Stalin’s failure in the Berlin Blockade.

▪ Another possible explanation is that Stalin was too cautious to risk an escalation of the conflict into a possible war with the USA and looked for other reasons.

▪ It was, therefore, Kim IL Sung’s own idea. Kim II Sung may also have been encouraged by the new Chinese Communist government.

▪ In October 1949, Mao Zedong and the People’s Liberation Army had taken control of China.

▪ Mao wanted to spread communism in South-east Asia.

▪ The USA had backed the Nationalists under Chiang Kaishek in the Chinese Civil war with Mao.

Why did the USA intervene?

The deterring of aggression

▪ The entry of the USA was a response to the aggression of North Korea in invading the South.

▪ The United States viewed the attack on the South as evidence that communism would actively challenge the free world

▪ The US claimed that it was acting to uphold democracy and peace against aggression.

▪ Truman insisted he was determined to avoid the mistakes of the League of Nations in the 1930s in the face of aggression and uphold the principles of the UN.

▪ By using the UN, the USA gained the support of its allies for armed intervention.

▪ Truman would have preferred indirect intervention but the South Korean army was too weak to hold back the communist forces.

Why was the USA able to get UN backing for intervention?

▪ The USA needed to get the approval of the UN Security Council for military intervention.

▪ Any member of the Security Council could have vetoed military action.

▪ The five Permanent Members of the Security Council were the USA, Britain, France, the Soviet Union and Nationalist China.

▪ Four of the Permanent Members voted in favour, along with all the other temporary members.

▪ The Soviet ambassador did not vote because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Council over the issue of Chinese representation.

▪ The USA was able to force a resolution through the UN Security Council, taking advantage of the absence of the Soviet Union, on the invasion to justify their intervention.

▪ ‘The armed attack upon the Republic of Korea by forces from North Korea constitutes a breach of the peace’.

Context of the Cold War

▪ The communist invasion of the South came at a time when the USA felt increasingly under threat in its rivalry with the Soviet Union and attempts to contain the spread of communism.

▪ In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atom bomb.

▪ The USA had believed this was unlikely to occur until late 1950 and had lost its lead in the development of atomic technology.

▪ The success of Mao and communism in China was another blow to the US policy of containment.

▪ The Soviet Union now had a powerful communist ally in Asia and also a base for future communist expansion throughout the region, and especially in Indochina and Korea.

▪ This seemed to confirm the idea that once one Asian state became communist, the rest would follow. As Truman said:

▪ ‘If we let Korea down, the Soviets will keep right on going and swallow up one piece of Asia after another’.

▪ From 1954, this came to be known as the ‘Domino Theory’.

Domestic pressures

▪ Truman faced pressure at home to take a strong line over Korea.

▪ Republicans accused him to being too ‘soft’ on communism and he was blamed for the loss of China.

The UN force

▪ The UN approval for intervention meant that the force was not solely US.

▪ Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and the United Kingdom also sent troops.

▪ US officials emphasised that this joint military action was necessary to prevent the conflict from spreading outside Korea.

The development of the Korean War

▪ US forces were sent to Korea in June, but could do little to slow down the advance of the North Korean army.

▪ They were forced to retreat to the outskirts of Pusan along with the South Korean forces.

▪ By the time that UN forces reached South Korea in September 1950, most of the country had been lost.

▪ South Korean forces had been forced back into the ‘Pusan pocket’ in the far south.

▪ The capital, Seoul, and the rest of the country had been overrun by the North Korean forces.

▪ UN forces led by US General Douglas A. MacArthur managed to regain lost ground in South Korea and push north.

▪ MacArthur decided to try to cut the lines of communication of the North Korean forces and ordered a landing at Inchon near Seoul on 15 September.

▪ Although there were only a few days preparation, the landing was a complete success.

▪ US marines took control of the area and Seoul fell on 26 September. Armoured units advanced from the south and heavy losses were inflicted on the North Korean forces.

▪ The North Korean army virtually collapsed and survivors fled northwards.

▪ By the end of the month, UN forces were approaching the 38th parallel, had liberated Seoul, and had restored the status quo that existed before the war.

▪ The leadership of the U.S. and UN forces believed that an attempt unite the country under non-communist rule was possible.

▪ On 27 September, MacArthur was allowed to advance north of the 38th parallel.

▪ He was ordered to limit operations in the event of Russian or Chinese intervention.

▪ Chinese leaders had warned the international community that they would intervene in the conflict if UN forces pushed north of the 38th parallel

▪ MacArthur ignored intelligence that showed that there were 260,000 frontline Chinese troops massed in Manchuria.

▪ He sent the UN forces northward. The mission now was to occupy all of North Korea and destroy the North Korean army.

▪ By October 1950, the UN forces had nearly reached the Yalu River, which marked the border between China and North Korea.

▪ The Chinese government viewed the UN forces approaching the Chinese border as a genuine threat to its security.

▪ The US and UN had seriously underestimated the size, strength, and determination of the Chinese forces.

Chinese intervention

▪ On 25 November, two Chinese army groups attacked the UN forces the UNC and forced them back into South Korea.

▪ By the end of 1950, the Chinese Army was across the 38th Parallel and had captured Seoul.

▪ Eventually their offensive ran out of steam and the front line was stabilised, largely thanks to the new commander, US Lieutenant-General Matthew Ridgway, who revived his command’s flagging morale.

▪ In March 1951 a UN counter-offensive pushed the Chinese back and recaptured Seoul. This was the city's fourth conquest in a year, leaving it in ruins.

▪ As winter cleared, the UN dug in close to the 38th Parallel and in early spring advanced north to create a buffer in front of Seoul.

▪ In April the Chinese counter-attacked, aiming to break through to the city.

▪ They met Un forces at Imjin River on 22 April. The Gloucestershire regiment held up the advance of the Chinese, while other units escaped.

▪ The spring offensive was stopped and the Chinese were unable to capture Seoul.

The sacking of MacArthur

▪ MacArthur had increasingly criticised President Truman and demanded that US forces blockade China and bomb Chinese cities.

▪ Truman was worried that this would lead to a world war and the use of atomic weapons.

▪ In April 1951, MacArthur was sacked on the charge of insubordination and replaced by General Matthew Ridgeway.

Stalemate

▪ By July 1951, the war had reached a stalemate. Neither side in a position to force the other’s surrender.

▪ The United States and China had, at this point, achieved the short-term goal of maintaining the demarcation line at the 38th parallel.

▪ The North and South Koreans had failed in the larger goal of uniting the country.

▪ For the next two years, small-scale skirmishes continued to break out, while the two sides argued over the peace terms at Panmunjom.

▪ They agreed on the demarcation line and the settlement of airfields, the main issue blocking progress in the talks was the repatriation of prisoners of war.

▪ Eventually, in July 1953, North Korea, South Korea and the UN signed an armistice agreeing to a new border near the 38th parallel.

▪ Both sides would maintain and patrol a demilitarised zone surrounding the boundary line.

▪ The armistice also established a commission of neutral nations to oversee the voluntary repatriation of POWs.

▪ Each side would have to repatriate willing POWs within sixty days and send unwilling repatriates to the commission to oversee their departure.

▪ 14,227 Chinese and 7,582 North Koreas opted against repatriation; the Chinese were sent to Taiwan rather than the Chinese mainland.

▪ A handful of US and British POWs in North Korea opted against repatriation as well, choosing instead to live in Communist China or North Korea.

▪ The armistice was only a ceasefire agreement, not a formal peace treaty ending the war.

▪ A final peace treaty was supposed to be on the agenda at the Geneva Conference of 1954.

▪ By the time that conference began, the French colonial war in Indochina took precedence.

▪ The United States and South Korea signed a mutual defence treaty, and US troops were stationed in the demilitarised zone.

▪ The Korean War failed to unify the country, but the United States achieved its aims, including preserving and promoting NATO interests and defending Japan.

▪ The war also resulted in a divided Korea and complicated any possibility for agreements between the United States and China.

▪ The Korean War encouraged the US Cold War policy of containment. This policy would eventually lead the United States to intervene in Vietnam.

The impact on East-West relations

▪ Until Korea, the USA had shown little sympathy for the French struggle to defeat the communists in Indochina led by Ho Chi Minh.

▪ They preferred to distance themselves from this example of European imperialism.

▪ From 1950, Indochina was seen as crucial in the fight to contain communism.

▪ This led to $1 billion a year aid to the French and the early stages of US involvement in the war in Vietnam.

▪ The USA also developed defensive alliances, on the lines of NATO, to contain communism in Asia.

▪ In 1951 they signed ANZUS, an anti-communist alliance with Australia and New Zealand.

▪ In 1954 they set up SEATO, the South East Asia Treaty Organisation, with states in this area as a bulwark to communism.

▪ The Korean War escalated the Cold War from Europe to Asia and was the first ‘hot war’. Yet, at the same time, it also established the principle of limited war.

▪ The USA avoided the use of nuclear weapons but now had to develop tactics involving conventional weapons to contain the spread of communism.

▪ This had important implications for later involvement in Vietnam.

The Cuban Missiles Crisis

▪ In 1959, Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba and deposed Fulgencia Batista.

▪ Batista had been a particularly unpleasant dictator with a habit of murdering people, but he had been pro-American.

▪ Under Batista, Cuba had been under US influence and many companies had invested heavily in the country.

▪ Castro appealed to the USA for aid, but was turned down by President Eisenhower.

▪ Eisenhower ordered a reduction in imports of Cuban sugar by 95%; this was potentially disastrous for the Cuban economy.

▪ The USA also cut off all aid to Cuba and Castro nationalised all businesses. He was not at first a Communist, but US actions forced him to accept aid from the Soviet Union.

▪ In 1960, the Soviet Union signed an agreement to buy 1,000,000 tonnes of Cuban sugar every year for five years.

▪ This tied the two countries closely together. There was now a Communist country in the western hemisphere.

▪ In April 1961, the CIA backed an invasion of Cuba by 1,400 Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. They were faced by 20,000 Cubans.

▪ All of the ammunition was loaded on one ship, which sank. Within three days, all of the invaders had either been killed or captured.

▪ It was a fiasco. Kennedy, the new US president had not been behind the invasion, but he had not stopped it. It made him look foolish.

▪ In December 1961 Castro announced that he was setting up a communist government in Cuba.

▪ There was now a communist country within 70 miles of American soil.

Why did Khrushchev put missiles on Cuba?

▪ Since becoming the Prime Minster of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev had followed a policy of Peaceful Co-existence.

▪ He accepted that the West had a right to exist, but wanted to prove that the Soviet system was better than capitalism.

▪ He tried to compete with the West in sport and the space race and made every effort to hit the headlines across the world.

▪ He tried to build up support for the Soviet Union by offering aid to countries in Africa, Asia and South America.

▪ By 1962, he had managed to make the USA look foolish on a number of occasions.

▪ In the U2 incident (May 1960), Eisenhower had tried to claim that the spy plane was in fact a weather plane

▪ In the Bay of Pigs (April 1961), Kennedy made appeared to be inexperienced and foolish.

▪ At the Vienna Summit in June 1961, Khrushchev came to the conclusion that he could push Kennedy around.

▪ In August 1961, he ordered the building of the Berlin Wall to prevent refugees leaving the East.

▪ Cuba now offered the biggest coup of all, if he could put missiles on the island, all the US defences would be worthless.

Why did Kennedy react as he did?

▪ Kennedy was well aware that the Soviet Union had gained the upper hand in recent years.

▪ He knew that the USA had been made to look foolish on more than one occasion.

▪ He felt that Khrushchev had pushed him around at Vienna in June 1961.

▪ He was embarrassed at the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, but had been able to do nothing about it.

▪ He had ordered three increases in the US defence budget since 1961.

▪ He had made up his mind that, whatever happened next, he had to stand up to Khrushchev.

The Crisis

▪ In the summer of 1962 the CIA reported that there were rumours that missile bases were being built in Cuba.

▪ On October 14 1962, a US spy plane took photographs which showed Soviet missile bases being built on Cuba.

▪ This meant that all US missile defence systems were now useless.

▪ From 16 October Kennedy spent one week asking his defence chiefs for possible reactions and considering alternatives.

▪ He decided on a blockade because they could not promise that an air strike would destroy the sites but not hit anywhere else.

▪ He did not want Soviet personnel to be killed for fear of the consequences.

▪ In fact, all present with the exception of the President and his brother Robert Kennedy, favoured some sort of military action against Cuba.

▪ The blockade came into effect on 24 October after Kennedy had given Khrushchev a warning. 180 ships were used including a fleet of nuclear submarines.

▪ Khrushchev replied with a statement accusing the USA of interfering in Cuba’s internal affairs.

▪ But the Soviet ships sailing to Cuba slowed down and even began to sail in circles.

▪ Khrushchev now sent two letters. One in public was defiant, the second offered a compromise. The missile sites would be destroyed if the USA guaranteed to leave Cuba alone.

▪ Kennedy agreed to Khrushchev’s offer. The blockade was removed, the sites were destroyed and Cuba was left alone.

▪ In a secret meeting between Robert Kennedy and the Soviet ambassador, the US government agreed that US missiles would be removed from Italy and Turkey.

▪ However as these were in a NATO force it could not be announced immediately. They were removed three months later.

▪ Kennedy also suggested that the two leaders should begin talks on arms reduction.

Why did the Cuban Missiles Crisis end like this?

▪ Kennedy realised that he had to make a stand.

▪ Khrushchev realised that he had gone too far.

▪ Neither of them was prepared for nuclear war.

▪ The crisis focused the minds of the leaders of the Superpowers on their responsibilities.

Who won the Cuban Missiles crisis?

▪ On the face of it, Kennedy won because the missiles were withdrawn.

▪ However, Kennedy realised that Khrushchev would lose face if he withdrew the missiles and so agreed that the USA would never interfere in Cuban affairs in the future.

▪ Kennedy also agreed to remove missiles from Turkey and Italy, which had been a complaint of Khrushchev’s.

▪ He had pointed out that the USA had missiles on the Soviet border in Turkey.

▪ Khrushchev was also able to claim victory because Cuba would be left alone in the future. In his memoirs, he stated that this had been the reason for his actions.

▪ He could also point to the removal of NATO missiles from Turkey.

▪ However, in the USA, Kennedy’s promise to leave Cuba alone was very unpopular in some quarters. It may have been a factor in his assassination.

▪ Khrushchev’s withdrawal of the missiles was unpopular in the Soviet Union because it was seen as a humiliation for Soviet foreign policy. He was dismissed in 1964.

▪ Neither side won the Cuban Missiles crisis; it was a victory for common sense.

▪ Both leaders may have paid for letting each other be able to claim a victory, but in different ways.

Vietnam

Introduction

▪ Indo-China was occupied by France in the nineteenth century and became part of the French Empire.

▪ The area occupied covered the modern countries of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

▪ France was defeated by Germany in 1940 and occupied. This encouraged opposition groups in Indo-China. In 1941 the Vietminh was set up by the Communists.

▪ The French colonies in Indo-China were occupied by the Japanese in 1942. They encouraged anti-colonialism.

▪ In August 1945, as the war came to an end, the Vietminh occupied Hanoi and set up the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

▪ At the end of the war it was agreed that the Chinese would occupy Vietnam north of the 16th parallel and the British would occupy the south.

▪ The Chinese armed the Vietminh, but the British handed power back to the French. In 1946 the French reoccupied Saigon with 30,000 troops.

▪ The French plan was to set up a federation in Indo-China and they reached an agreement with Ho Chi Minh.

▪ The French were only prepared to allow Ho Chi Minh to control a small area in the north.

▪ The French once again began to treat Indo-China as an extension of France. During the next nine years, they tried to regain control of the whole area.

▪ War soon broke out between the French and the Vietminh.

▪ The new Chinese Communist government began to supply help to the Vietminh from 1949.

▪ The French appealed to the USA for help. At first President Truman was unwilling to send any aid to the French.

▪ After the outbreak of the Korean War, Truman changed his mind. In all he sent $3,000,000,000, but no US forces.

▪ By 1953 the US government was paying 70% of the cost of the war.

The end of French colonial rule

Dien Bien Phu and its consequences

▪ Eventually the French had 600,000 men in Vietnam, but were unable to defeat the Vietminh, because the Vietnamese refused to fight a set-piece battle.

▪ In 1954 the French commander decided to try to defeat the Vietminh by drawing them into a major battle.

▪ The Vietminh attacked with 70,000 troops and soon overran the airfields. The French inside Dien Bien Phu were outnumbered six to one.

▪ The Vietminh had found ways to manhandle heavy artillery over mountains and through the jungle.

▪ The Vietminh captured the airstrips and the garrison had to be supplied by air.

▪ In two months the French were forced to surrender and evacuate all of Vietnam.

▪ The main reason for the French defeat was that they had underestimated the Vietminh.

The Geneva Agreement, 1954

▪ The principal decision was for a cease-fire line along the17th parallel (effectively dividing Vietnam in two).

▪ Each side would have to withdraw its troops to its side of the line.

▪ Communist troops and guerrillas were to evacuate Laos and Cambodia, where free elections would be held in 1955.

▪ It was stipulated explicitly that the partition line ‘should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary’.

 

▪ In the north, Ho Chi Minh wanted to unite all of Vietnam under communist rule.

▪ Vietnam came to be a clash between Superpowers and different ideologies.

▪ General elections were to be held in 1956 to decide who should govern a united Vietnam.

▪ Ho Chi Minh knew that the Communists would win any free elections because they offered the only solutions to the poverty of the peasants.

▪ US president, Dwight D. Eisenhower reached the same conclusion that if free elections took place, 80% of the Vietnamese would vote Communist.

Civil war in the South

▪ In 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem seized power in South Vietnam and made himself president and then ruled as a dictator.

▪ Diem was a Catholic in a country where 70% of the population was Buddhist.

▪ The elections were not held in 1956 and Diem became increasingly corrupt and violent. Trade unionists, religious leaders and journalists were thrown into jail.

▪ As many as 100,000 people from various political and religious groups protested. They were imprisoned or killed and Diem became increasingly unpopular.

▪ Opposition groups formed the National Liberation Front and began a guerrilla war against the government of South Vietnam.

▪ In 1959, it was backed by North Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh sent supplies.

US involvement

▪ The USA wanted to prevent areas of the world falling under Communist influence.

▪ The Cold War was at its height in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the French appealed to the USA for aid. The US government saw Vietnam as another Korea.

▪ Once the US became involved, it sent more and more aid in an effort to prevent all its investment being lost.

▪ After the French left in 1954, the USA continued to support the south, even after Diem seized power.

▪ US politicians came to believe in the 'Domino Theory'. This was the belief that if on country fell to communism, its neighbours would follow.

▪ President Eisenhower sent advisers to train the South Vietnamese Army in 1955.

▪ He backed Diem and started a campaign of ‘nation-building’.

President Kennedy

▪ In 1956, John Kennedy wrote in a book that he was convinced the South Vietnam was essential to the freedom of the entire region of South East Asia.

▪ This was despite the fact the under Diem, South Vietnam was anything but free.

▪ US military advisers were sent to help the South Vietnamese army, but did not actually take part in the fighting.

▪ When he became president in 1961, Kennedy increased the number of military advisors from 700 to 15,000.

▪ John Kennedy was a strong believer in the Truman Doctrine and the Domino theory.

▪ He saw Indo-China as the lynch pin of South-East Asia and a vital American interest.

▪ In November 1961, Kennedy sent 7,000 troops into Vietnam – they were the first to be sent.

▪ In the same year, he sent money to the South Vietnamese to increase their army from 150,000 to 170,000 soldiers plus another 100 advisers to train them.

▪ This decision was concealed from the American public because it broke The Geneva Agreement.

▪ Kennedy had been embarrassed by the failure of the Bay of Pigs and wanted to retaliate for the building of the Berlin Wall.

Strategic Hamlets

▪ Kennedy ordered the building of ‘strategic hamlets’. These were heavily defended villages that South Vietnamese people were moved to.

▪ The idea was to get them away from the Vietcong and protect by the ARVN.

▪ By September 1962, about a quarter of the South Vietnamese population was said to have been moved into safe villages.

▪ The policy failed. The removal of entire villages was often done very cruelly and caused great distress to the peasants.

▪ The graves of their ancestors, which formed an important part of their religious worship, were located near the village and could not be taken from them.

▪ The strategic hamlets were very unpopular and alienated entire villages of peasants, many of whom went over to the Vietcong.

▪ A ‘Hearts and Minds’ campaign tried to win the Vietnamese peasants over by attempting to persuade them that the peasants were on their side – the policy failed.

▪ In 1962, Kennedy approved ‘Operation Ranch Hand’. This involved spraying Agent Orange which destroyed thousands of trees.

▪ It was later found to have caused birth deformities in children and cancers in soldiers fighting the war.

The overthrow of Diem

▪ By 1963, Diem’s rule in South Vietnam was so corrupt that he was facing continuous opposition.

▪ Several Buddhist monks burned themselves to death in protest.

▪ Kennedy threatened to with draw military aid and then backed a plot by South Vietnamese generals to arrest Diem.

▪ He was murdered just three weeks before Kennedy’s own assassination.

Johnson’s war

▪ Kennedy’s successor, Johnson, visited South Vietnam and went much further. He increased US support to 23,000 men.

▪ Johnson became determined to send combat troops to Vietnam.

▪ In August 1964, the USA claimed that US warships had been attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. In January 1965 the CIA staged a landing of North Vietnamese troops.

▪ Johnson was able to use this as an excuse to start ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’. This was the beginning of heavy aerial bombing of North Vietnam.

▪ Johnson hoped that saturation bombing would force the North Vietnamese to give up.

▪ Three weeks later Johnson sent the first US combat troops to Vietnam. Over the next few years the numbers of Americans in South Vietnam increased to more than 50,000.

▪ It is now believed that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was probably invented by the US government to justify US intervention in Vietnam.

▪ The Gulf of Tonkin resolution gave the president freedom of action in Vietnam.

▪ The first US troops to arrive in Vietnam, apart from advisers, were 3,500 marines who landed on 8 March 1965.

▪ By the end of the year, the number of US ground troops had reached 184,310; by 1966, the figure had risen to 385,300. In 1967, it reached 485,600 and 536,000 in 1968.

▪ In 1965, General Westmoreland began a more direct ‘search and destroy’ approach.

▪ It was impossible for the Americans to tell the difference between guerrillas and peasants and often innocent citizens were killed by mistake.

The nature of the conflict in Vietnam, 1964-68

▪ Guerrilla warfare is fought by soldiers operating in units behind enemy lines. They try to avoid pitched battles and instead try to ambush the enemy.

▪ It was perfect for the North Vietnamese because they were not strong enough to take on the US army and could use their knowledge of the jungle in Vietnam.

▪ They could also easily hide in villages and because they did not wear uniform it was impossible to decide if peasants were guerrilla fighters or just villagers.

▪ Guerrilla warfare meant that the US forces could not use their big advantage in fire power and their heavy weapons.

The guerrilla tactics used by the Vietcong

▪ In December 1965, Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese leadership ordered a change in the way in which the war in the South was to be fought.

▪ From now on, the Vietcong would avoid pitched battles with the Americans unless the odds were clearly in their favour.

▪ They organised the guerrilla army into small groups of between three and ten soldiers, called cells.

▪ The Vietcong, following the example of Chinese guerrillas, always gave the highest priority to creating safe base areas.

▪ Mao, like Ho the leader of millions of peasants, believed that ‘without the constant and active support of the peasants, failure is inevitable’ and stressed the importance of treating them with respect.

▪ Ho Ci Minh’s NLF guerrillas had to follow a strict code of conduct.

▪ The NLF won the support of the peasants because they promised to take land from large landowners and give it to the peasants.

▪ In some cases, they actually became guerrillas and joined the war. The vast majority of peasants backed the guerrillas but those who refused, despite the code of conduct, were often threatened and beaten.

▪ Using the peasant villages as their base, the guerrillas went out into the jungle.

▪ They attacked units of the South Vietnamese army, the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), and ambushed patrols of American soldiers.

▪ American soldiers often tortured the villagers to get information and sometimes burnt their houses and crops.

▪ This angered the peasants even more and made them support the NLF.

▪ Out in the jungle, the guerrillas never chose to fight unless they were certain of winning.

▪ The American soldiers suffered a terrible ordeal. The jungle they had to patrol was dense and the rice fields wet.

▪ The heat was often intense, the climate unfamiliar, and they were attacked by insects and leeches.

▪ There was also a threat of Vietcong booby traps, sharpened bamboo staves, mines, grenades and artillery shells, waiting to be stepped on and set off.

▪ Hiding guerrilla bases was always a high priority for the Vietcong. With American spotter planes everywhere, it became more vital than ever to protect them.

▪ The orders coming from NLF headquarters were very clear. Tunnels were not to be treated as mere shelters.

▪ They were fighting bases capable of providing continuous support for troops.

▪ There were complexes big and small scattered across the country. Each villager in an NLF area had to dig three feet of tunnel a day.

▪ The biggest tunnel systems were in the Iron Triangle and the Cu Chi District, only 20 miles from Saigon.

▪ The guerrilla base at Cu Chi was a vast network with nearly 200 miles of tunnels.

▪ At regular intervals, branches led back to the surface and other secret entrances. Some openings were even concealed beneath the waters or streams or canals.

▪ At the deeper levels, there were chambers carved out for arms factories and a well for the base’s water supply.

▪ This meant that US soldiers could never relax. Even in the centre of Saigon it was possible for the US forces to be attacked.

▪ The Vietcong were supplied from the north by the Ho Chi Minh trail, which ran through Laos and Cambodia.

▪ The Soviet Union and China sent up to 6,000 tonnes of supplies a day.

▪ Many South Vietnamese peasants supported the Vietcong, because the South Vietnamese government was very unpopular.

▪ Vietcong could hide in villages, towns or even the capital Saigon, and attack without warning.

▪ This meant that there was nowhere safe. At any moment US forces could be attacked without warning, sometimes by children.

The methods used by the USA

▪ Operation Rolling Thunder led to heavy bombing of North Vietnam that was far worse than anything that had been seen during the Second World War.

▪ The aim was to destroy military bases and equipment in North Vietnam and to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

▪ About 2 million tonnes of high explosive was dropped on North Vietnam during the War.

▪ The US forces also attempted to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the South Vietnamese by special projects. But these were usually resented as foreign interference

▪ ‘Search and Destroy’ missions were sent into the jungle. Their success depended on the body count.

▪ The number of dead Vietnamese brought back. It was usually impossible to tell which side they had been on.

▪ Jungle fighting proved very difficult, especially as US forces increasingly were made up of inexperienced draftees, whose average age was nineteen.

▪ The US troops inexperienced and increasingly unwilling to fight. They spent a year in Vietnam and then returned home.

▪ 3 million US soldiers fought in Vietnam and they lacked the experience that was necessary to defeat the enemy.

▪ They were replaced by the next draft and training had to start all over again.

▪ Much of Vietnam was forest; this made finding the Vietcong very difficult they could move about virtually undetected.

▪ The US Air Force began to use defoliants like ‘Agent Orange’ and Napalm. These stripped leaves from trees.

▪ Napalm was also used to burn villages to force Vietcong out into the open. Both of these could be dropped from planes.

▪ ‘Agent Blue’ was used to destroy crops. Bombs were used that also contained petrol and chemicals.

Opposition to the war

▪ The Vietnam War was the first ‘television war’ because it was possible to show the fighting live on television screens in the USA.

▪ By the late 1960s, cameras were small enough to be carried onto the battlefield.

▪ Live colour television began in the late 1960s and satellites enabled pictures to be beamed back to the USA from Vietnam.

▪ At first, television coverage was limited to special reports, but as the fighting grew worse, reporters began to cover in depth.

▪ By 1968, the majority of television viewers were being turned against the war.

▪ In 1965, viewers saw a GI set fire to a peasant’s hut with his cigarette lighter.

▪ In 1968, they watched as a Vietcong prisoner was shot dead.

▪ In 1969, the truth about the My Lai massacre was revealed along with the army film which showed South Vietnamese women and children being stripped and murdered by GIs.

▪ Television also showed GIs being torn apart and shot to pieces. Altogether 58,000 US troops were killed

▪ People in the USA were also turned against the war because 3 million soldiers served in Vietnam and they all wrote letters home.

▪ Even if they did not always give accurate accounts of the War while they were in Vietnam, they could spread the word when they got back.

▪ Some soldiers set up the ‘Vietnam Veterans against the War’ organisation and campaigned for the War to end.

▪ The numbers of US casualties rose. By 1967, 160 soldiers were being killed each week. These returned to the USA in body bags.

▪ Amongst the troops in Vietnam, drug taking became increasingly common.

▪ ‘Fragging’, killing or wounding officers with fragmentation grenades began in 1969.

▪ More than half a million US soldiers deserted out of 10,000,000 drafted.

▪ There was increasing opposition in the USA by Civil Rights’ leaders, because the war led to money being withdrawn from the ‘Great Society’.

▪ From 1968 there was a wave of protests across the USA, particularly at universities.

▪ Some students were shot when the National Guard was called in to end the unrest.

▪ Draft-dodging became common as students tried to avoid being sent to Vietnam.

▪ News filtered back to the USA of the fighting in Vietnam, each soldier served for one year and more than 3,000,000 Americans altogether served in Vietnam.

▪ But by far and away the most important factor was television. This was the first war to be shown live on television and in colour.

Protest movements in the USA

▪ There were widespread protests against the draft by thousands of young Americans and their supporters.

▪ In 1965, David Miller publicly burnt his draft card and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

▪ In late 1966, anti-draft protests increased after a student at Cornell University, destroyed his draft card and mailed the remains to the draft board.

▪ Cornell students formed the first ‘We Won’t Go’ group, followed by two dozen such groups on college campuses.

▪ By the end of 1969, 34,000 draft dodgers were wanted by the police.

▪ Between 1963 and 1973, 9118 men were prosecuted for avoiding it.

▪ 40,000 young Americans left the country to avoid the draft, 30,000 going to Canada.

▪ Protests were widespread in the years from 1968.

▪ Martin Luther King opposed the war because casualty rates were higher for African Americans.

Public reaction to the My Lai Massacre

▪ The My Lai massacre took place on 16 March 1968. My Lai was a village of about 700 inhabitants some 100 miles to the southeast of the US airbase at Danang.

▪ Three platoons of US troops arrived in the area having been dropped off by helicopters.

▪ 1 Platoon was commanded by Lieutenant William Calley and was ordered to My Lai village.

▪ They had been told to expect to find members of the NLF in the village, which was in an area where the NLF had been very active.

▪ When the troops from 1 Platoon moved through the village they began firing at the villagers.

▪ These were women, children and the elderly as the young men had gone to the paddy fields to work.

▪ An army photographer witnessed a US soldier shoot two young boys who he believed were no more than five years of age.

▪ Other photos taken at the scene of the massacre show bodies of what can only be very young children.

▪ What happened at My Lai only came to public light in November 1969 when a US soldier, Paul Meadlo, was interviewed on television and admitted killing ‘ten or fifteen men, women and children’ at My Lai.

▪ The US military was already aware of the allegations and had launched an investigation in April 1969, some six months before the public was made aware of what had gone on.

▪ It soon became clear that many hundreds of villagers had been killed. The actual number killed was never established. An official US army investigation came out with a figure of 347.

The trial of Lt. Calley

▪ Although a number of US soldiers were charged, all, with the exception of William Calley, were acquitted.

▪ Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour. He served three years before he was released.

▪ However, Calley had his supporters and many believed he was simply following orders.

▪ His defence was that he was there in My Lai to hunt out Communists and to destroy Communism.

▪ He was carrying out his orders that were to hunt out the NLF.

The Tet Offensive

▪ This was a massive attack by the Vietcong upon South Vietnam, which began on 30 January 1968.

▪ All the major cities of South Vietnam were attacked, including Saigon.

▪ In Saigon the US embassy was seized by a suicide squad, which was only driven out by paratroops. It took 11,000 troops a week to drive the Vietcong out of Saigon.

▪ The Vietcong lost 3000 men in the attack and it was a disastrous defeat, but it was a turning-point in the War.

▪ Eventually the US forces managed to beat off the Vietcong and killed 80,000.

▪ Many Americans decided that South Vietnam was not worth fighting for after all.

Why was the Tet Offensive important?

▪ It showed that the Vietcong could strike anywhere and at any time and that there was nothing that the Americans could do about it.

▪ It made it clear that the war in Vietnam could not be won.

▪ It persuaded Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate in the 1968 presidential election that US forces must be withdrawn from Vietnam.

The strengths of Vietnam

▪ North Vietnam received large quantities of materials from China and the Soviet Union. China was more important.

▪ China also supplied air transport units and built new airports near the border of Vietnam.

▪ China agreed that it would intervene militarily if the USA invaded North Vietnam.

▪ Vietcong guerrilla tactics meant that the much heavier fire-power of the US forces was less effective.

US forces

▪ The US armed forces were mainly draftees. They served 12 months in Vietnam and then returned home.

▪ Much time and effort was wasted in training new recruits.

Why were US tactics unsuccessful?

▪ US tactics were often unsuccessful because they did more harm than good. Using chemicals destroyed the forest but also damaged crops.

▪ Search and destroy missions were often judged to be successful on the body count.

▪ That meant the number of dead bodies that the US forces were able to collect.

▪ They did little to win over the South Vietnamese people in the countryside to the US cause.

▪ Vietcong guerrillas were ordered to behave properly when they were in villagers’ homes and not to steal anything.

▪ Opposition to the war was crucial in the 1968 presidential election. It was possibly the deciding factor in Nixon’s victory.

▪ He announced that he would withdraw troops from Vietnam if elected.

Nixon’s War

▪ In 1969, he began peace talks, and started the withdrawal of US forces, but at the same time stepped up attacks on North Vietnam.

Vietnamisation

▪ Nixon also announced the policy of Vietnamisation; which involved making sure that the ARVN could defend the country on its own.

▪ American troops would slowly be brought home and a policy of ‘Vietnamisation’ would be followed.

▪ The Americans would train and equip the South Vietnamese to fight the Vietcong but eventually pull out.

▪ The US Air Force would continue to support South Vietnam and would bomb the North and other targets, if necessary.

▪ Nixon began to withdraw US forces in 1969, but he did not want to reveal that to the North.

▪ To cover the withdrawal he stepped up Operation Rolling Thunder, one air-raid on Hanoi lasted for seven days and killed 2,000 people.

The Nixon Doctrine

▪ The Doctrine restated the policy of Vietnamisation on a wider scale.

▪ It stated that the USA would supply weapons and aid to allies in Asia, but would not send troops to fight

Attacks on Cambodia and Laos

▪ US forces also invaded Laos and Cambodia and bombed both countries and increased the use of defoliants to uncover Vietcong supply lines.

▪ These were all attempts to try to stop the Vietcong infiltrating the South.

▪ In military terms, the invasion of Cambodia achieved little and US troops withdrew after two months.

▪ In February 1971, Nixon approved a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail. ARVN forces were supported by US planes.

▪ After six weeks, the South Vietnamese troops withdrew, losing nearly 50% killed or wounded.

▪ The failure of the ARVN proved that the South Vietnamese, on their own, could not stand up to the North Vietnamese.

▪ This was despite the ARVN being extremely well equipped with weapons by the USA.

Opposition to the war

The Kent State University shootings, 1970

▪ On 4 May 1970, in a protest at Kent State University, Ohio, four students were killed and nine injured by National Guard soldiers.

▪ The killings sparked off over 400 protests and strikes.

▪ A week after the shootings, 100,000 anti-war demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C. to protest at the shooting of the students in Ohio.

▪ Although the demonstration was quickly put together, protesters were still able to bring out thousands to march in Washington.

Importance of the media

▪ The Vietnam War was the first ‘television war’ because it was possible to show the fighting live on television screens in the USA.

▪ By the late 1960s, cameras were small enough to be carried onto the battlefield.

▪ Live colour television began in the late 1960s and satellites enabled pictures to be beamed back to the USA from Vietnam.

▪ At first, television coverage was limited to special reports, but as the fighting grew worse, reporters began to cover in depth.

▪ By 1968, the majority of television viewers were being turned against the war.

▪ In 1965, viewers saw a GI set fire to a peasant’s hut with his cigarette lighter.

▪ In 1968, they watched as a Viet Cong prisoner was shot dead.

▪ In 1969, the truth about the My Lai massacre was revealed along with the army film which showed South Vietnamese women and children being stripped and murdered by GIs.

▪ Television also showed GIs being torn apart and shot to pieces. Altogether 58,000 US troops were killed

▪ People in the USA were also turned against the war because 3 million soldiers served in Vietnam and they all wrote letters home.

▪ Even if they did not always give accurate accounts of the War while they were in Vietnam, they could spread the word when they got back.

▪ Some soldiers set up the ‘Vietnam Veterans against the War’ organisation and campaigned for the War to end.

Other effects of the war

▪ The numbers of US casualties rose. By 1967, 160 soldiers were being killed each week. These returned to the USA in body bags.

▪ Amongst the troops in Vietnam, drug taking became increasingly common.

▪ ‘Fragging’, killing or wounding officers with fragmentation grenades began in 1969.

▪ More than half a million US soldiers deserted out of 10,000,000 drafted.

▪ There was increasing opposition in the USA by Civil Rights’ leaders, because the war led to money being withdrawn from the ‘Great Society’.

▪ From 1968 there was a wave of protests across the USA, particularly at universities.

▪ Some students were shot when the National Guard was called in to end the unrest.

▪ Draft-dodging became common as students tried to avoid being sent to Vietnam.

▪ News filtered back to the USA of the fighting in Vietnam, each soldier served for one year and more than 3,000,000 Americans altogether served in Vietnam.

▪ But by far and away the most important factor was television. This was the first war to be shown live on television and in colour.

Protest movements in the USA

▪ There were widespread protests against the draft by thousands of young Americans and their supporters.

▪ In 1965, David Miller publicly burnt his draft card and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

▪ In late 1966, anti-draft protests increased after a student at Cornell University, destroyed his draft card and mailed the remains to the draft board.

▪ Cornell students formed the first ‘We Won’t Go’ group, followed by two dozen such groups on college campuses.

▪ By the end of 1969, 34,000 draft dodgers were wanted by the police.

▪ Between 1963 and 1973, 9118 men were prosecuted for avoiding it.

▪ 40,000 young Americans left the country to avoid the draft, 30,000 going to Canada.

▪ Protests were widespread in the years from 1968

The Fulbright Hearings

▪ Senator James Fulbright was Chairman of the Senate Foreign relations Committee.

▪ He began a series of hearings in front of his committee to examine evidence about the war.

▪ The hearings began in 1966 and lasted until 1971. Most of the evidence opposed the war and exposed the way that the US forces had acted in Vietnam.

▪ This played an important role in swaying US public opinion against US involvement in Vietnam and in persuading President Nixon to begin the withdrawal of US troops.

The end of the war

The Paris Peace talks

▪ Richard Nixon was elected President in 1968 mainly because he promised to ‘de-Americanise’ the war.

▪ In May 1968, peace talks between the US and North Vietnam began in Paris. After one year, no progress had been made.

▪ The North Vietnamese wanted the whole of Vietnam to be reunited but the Americans wanted North and South to remain separate.

▪ The Americans wanted North Vietnamese and American troops to leave South Vietnam, followed by free elections.

▪ Nixon believed that bombing the North would make them accept peace. He was wrong. The Hanoi government realised that all it had to do was hang on.

The role of Kissinger

▪ Henry Kissinger was Nixon’s National security Adviser. He began secret talks with the North Vietnamese, without informing either Saigon or the US’ military allies in Vietnam.

▪ In August 1969, Kissinger began meetings with Le Duc Tho. For three years these secret negotiations also failed to produce any significant result.

▪ The situation changed in October 1972, after a failed Easter Offensive by the Vietcong.

▪ Le Duc Tho suggested to Kissinger that North Vietnam was willing to consider an agreement recognising the government of South Vietnam, if it included free elections and political reform.

▪ The two men drafted a treaty, which was completed in late October 1972 and unveiled by Kissinger at a White House press conference.

▪ Kissinger and Le Duc Tho’s treaty was enthusiastically received around the world.

▪ After almost five years of impasse, it appeared as if a workable peace for Vietnam was in sight.

▪ Vietnam would be divided into North and South and the US forces would withdraw in 1973.

The economic and human costs of the war for the USA

▪ The war cost $120,000,000,000 and was a tremendous blow to American prestige.

▪ 700,000 veterans have suffered from psychological disorders since returning to the USA.

▪ More veterans have committed suicide than were killed in the fighting.

What happened after the US forces withdrew?

▪ The US forces withdrew leaving the ARVN to fight on against the Vietcong

▪ The ARVN faced the same problems as the US forces but lacked the will to fight. They held out until the end of April 1975.

▪ When South Vietnam fell it was united with the North. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Problems of Vietnam in 1975

▪ A communist government was set up in the South. Industries were taken over and remnants of US influence were destroyed.

▪ At first a wave of anti-US feeling swept through Vietnam. South Vietnamese who had collaborated with the US forces were hunted down.

▪ Refugees began to try to escape from Vietnam by boat. These ‘boat people’ attempted to sail to Malaysia or even Hong Kong in order to escape.

▪ Much of the Vietnamese economy had been destroyed during the war. This was slowly rebuilt in the 1980s and 1990s.

▪ Vietnam became once again a major producer of rice.

How secure was the USSR’s control over Eastern Europe, 1948-1989?

Events in Hungary

▪ In 1956, there was a serious threat to Soviet control of one of its satellite states – Hungary. The threat was only removed only after Soviet troops invaded Hungary.

▪ Problems began for the Soviet Union in Poland in 1956 after Khrushchev had made his ‘Secret Speech’, in which he criticised Stalin.

▪ Rioting, which led to more than 100 deaths, broke out in June 1956, but the real trouble began in October when the rioters were put on trial.

▪ On 21 October Wladislaw Gomulka became the new leader of the Polish Communist Party. He had only recently been released from prison after serving a five year sentence.

▪ Khrushchev had to decide between allowing Gomulka to remain in power, or to use force, as the Polish Defence Minister demanded.

▪ He decided to allow Gomulka to take power and removed some unpopular Stalinists from the government, but Gomulka had to promise that Poland would remain a loyal member of the Warsaw Pact, and the Communist Party remained firmly in control.

▪ The Defence Minister, Marshal Rokossvky, was summoned to Moscow and accused of talking part in a conspiracy to overthrow Gomulka.

▪ Much more serious were events in HUNGARY later in the year.

The impact of Soviet rule on Hungary

▪ Hungary had been an ally of Germany in the war and had fought against the Soviet Union.

▪ In 1945, Hungary’s Provisional Government agreed to pay the Soviet Union reparations of $300 million.

▪ Soviet forces occupied Hungary

▪ Following the November 1945 elections, the leader of the Soviet forces, Voroshilov, ensured that the Hungarian Communist Party became part of the coalition government.

▪ Laszlo Rajk, of the Hungarian Communist Party, was in charge of the security police.

▪ After elections in 1947, the Hungarian Communist Party took complete control and established a one-party state. The new leader was Matyas Rakosi.

▪ Rakosi followed Stalin’s ideas and set up a communist dictatorship and joined COMINFORM (see above).

Hungary under Rakosi

▪ Hungary joined COMECON (see above) and the Soviet Union interfered in its economy.

▪ Hungary – as with all other Soviet satellite states - was not allowed to receive any Marshall Aid.

▪ Trade was never on a fair basis and exports to the Soviet Union were always below the market price.

▪ There was forced collectivisation which was hated by the bulk of the Hungarian population. Agricultural output fell.

▪ Progress in industry was slow and brought little prosperity.

▪ Rakosi followed Stalin’s methods of imposing control on the people.

▪ More than 2,000 opponents were murdered during his purges.

▪ An estimated 200,000 opponents were imprisoned and it is calculated that a further 150,000 were removed from their jobs.

▪ Rakosi controlled communications and the media.

▪ The secret police – AVH (Allamvedelmi Hatosag) – was Rakosi’s main means of control.

▪ Religious education was not permitted in schools

▪ Cardinal Mindszenty, the leader of the Hungarian Catholic Church, was imprisoned for life in 1949.

Hungary under Nagy

▪ Rakosi had difficulty managing the economy and the people of Hungary saw living standards fall.

▪ His government became increasingly unpopular, and when Joseph Stalin died in 1953, Rakosi was replaced by Imre Nagy.

▪ Nagy put forward his ideas called the ‘New Course’.

▪ Nagy brought in a more liberal regime.

▪ He promised to improve the economy and increase the production of consumer goods.

▪ The Soviet Union disliked his policies and he was sacked in April 1955.

The Uprising

▪ In October 1956 fighting broke out in Budapest between Hungarians and Soviet troops. On 24 October, Imre Nagy became prime minister of Hungary once again.

▪ This led to fighting between Hungarian and Soviet troops. Khrushchev tried to deal with the situation by withdrawing the Soviet troops from Hungary.

▪ Nagy set up a new government, which included non-communists. .John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State, told Nagy - ‘You can count on us’. Nagy saw this as a firm commitment from the USA.

▪ On 30 October, Nagy announced there would be free elections in Hungary. Cardinal Mindszenty and other leading political prisoners were released.

▪ On 2 November, Nagy said that Hungary would withdraw from the Warsaw Pact.

▪ Khrushchev looked on in horror and saw one of his satellite states about to create a hole in the Warsaw Pact and Eastern Europe.

▪ On 4 November Khrushchev ordered the Soviet army to invade Hungary and crush the uprising. 200,000 Soviet troops and 6000 tanks returned to Hungary.

▪ There was bitter street fighting; 7,000 Soviet troops and 4,000 Hungarians were killed.

▪ At the time, it was stated by Western observers that about 30,000 Hungarians had been killed.

▪ Britain and France did not become involved because they were distracted by their involvement in the Suez Crisis.

▪ A ceasefire was agreed for 10 November but some fighting continued into the next year.

▪ Nagy was arrested and executed in 1958.

▪ The West protested, but did nothing because they were afraid that military action would lead to war.

▪ The West was involved with the Suez Crisis and its attention was diverted.

▪ The new leader of Hungary was Janos Kadar.

What were the results of the uprising?

▪ Khrushchev was able to keep control and a new Soviet-backed leader, Kadar, was installed. Kadar remained leader until 1965.

▪ About 200,000 Hungarians escaped to Austria during the uprising.

▪ Khrushchev showed that Soviet satellite states had to comply with the wishes of Moscow or suffer the consequences.

▪ The Warsaw Pact remained intact.

▪ The next attempt to move away from Soviet control was Czechoslovakia in 1968.

▪ The Uprising showed the uncompromising nature of the Soviet Union; Western leaders became more determined to prevent any further spread of communism.

▪ President Eisenhower and the USA had shown that they were not prepared to go to war.

▪ The United Nations was unable to become involved because the Soviet Union used its veto in the Security Council.

Berlin

Why did Khrushchev order the building of the Berlin Wall?

▪ After 1945, the British, French and American zones of Germany and Berlin were given economic assistance.

▪ Stalin wanted to push the Allies from their Berlin occupation zones because they were situated in the Soviet occupation of Germany.

▪ As prosperity returned to the city, Stalin did not want a visible example of economic recovery when those citizens of East Berlin and the Soviet zone were still experiencing hardships.

▪ The situation over Berlin came to a head in 1948 when Stalin blocked all land and water communication between the Allied zones in Germany and their zones on Berlin.

▪ The result was the Berlin Airlift. For almost one year the Western Allies flew in supplies to feed the 2 million citizens of their Berlin zones.

▪ In May 1949, Stalin called a halt to the Blockade.

▪ Many East Germans did not like life under communist rule and fled to the west through Berlin.

▪ About 4 million East Germans moved to West Germany. Stalin did not want this gap in the iron curtain and sought to block this, even after the Airlift.

▪ The Soviet Union became convinced that the USA and Britain used West Berlin as a base for spying.

What was life like in East Germany and East Berlin?

▪ Life in the East was dominated by the Communist Party.

▪ East Germany was the only Communist country that had, in effect, been created from nothing and it became the model which the other Soviet satellite states were expected to follow.

▪ No other political parties were permitted and elections involved a selection from a list of candidates supplied by the communists.

▪ The Communist Party controlled the media, which meant that there was no legal means of finding out about what was happening in the world on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

▪ Newspapers and the radio and television could only report the official version of the news.

▪ People were subject to the secret police. The Secret Police of East Germany (STASI – Staatssicherheit translated - State Security) was established with Soviet help. It was responsible for both domestic political surveillance and espionage.

▪ Consumer goods were limited and often of poor quality. Sales of foreign goods were restricted.

▪ Foreign travel was difficult and currency sales were strictly controlled in an effort to obtain foreign exchange.

What were the benefits of life in the East?

▪ All citizens of the countries of Eastern Europe had a job. Prices were controlled at a low level.

▪ Rent, electricity, gas and telephone charges were minimal by western standards. Public transport was very cheap and very reliable.

The refugee problem

▪ East Germans fled to the West because they were dissatisfied with the economic and political conditions of a communist society.

▪ There were shortages of consumer goods, which could be easily bought at low prices in West Berlin.

▪ The people of East Berlin and East Germany could readily see the prosperity of the West.

▪ It had always been possible for Berliners to travel from one part of the city to another. Many worked in one sector and lived in another.

▪ Wages were much higher in the West and there was a much higher standard of living. In the West there were no secret police and no censorship.

▪ Eventually defectors (the word defector eventually replaced the term refugee) were well-educated engineers, scientists, teachers, doctors and lecturers.

▪ Defectors also made it very difficult for Khrushchev (Stalin’s successor) to prove that the Soviet system was better than the West.

▪ He needed to stop the brain drain (the term given to the loss of highly educated professional people) if East Germany was to catch up with the West.

▪ By the summer of 1961, the number of defectors rose to 10,000 per week and Khrushchev knew that he would have to step in and prevent such a continued exodus of skilled people.

▪ In November 1958, Khrushchev demanded that the three Western powers should leave West Berlin. It was agreed that he would meet Khrushchev in May 1960.

The Berlin Wall

▪ In 1960, the number of defectors rose to 199,000 and in the first seven months of 1961, about 207,000 left East Germany.

▪ In September 1960, East Germany forced West Berliners who wanted to travel to East Berlin to obtain a police pass.

▪ The only way to plug the gap in the Iron Curtain was to cut off West Berlin from East Germany.

▪ At the Vienna summit in June 1961, Khrushchev told the new President Kennedy that the Soviet Union was considering signing a peace treaty with East Germany. This would break the wartime agreements.

▪ By the early summer of 1961, East German President, Walter Ulbricht, told the Soviet Union that an immediate solution was necessary and that the only way to stop the exodus was to use force.

▪ East Germans, seeing the crisis worsen, fled to West Berlin in even greater numbers than ever. In July 1961, alone there were some 30,000.

▪ The construction of the Berlin Wall started at 2:00 A.M. on August 13, 1961 when access routes were blocked by barbed wire.

▪ Two days later, the first concrete blocks being put in place and the barrier separating the two parts of the city was constructed in earnest.

▪ After its construction, the number of refugees entering West Berlin and West Germany fell drastically

Why did Khrushchev believe that he could get away building the Wall?

▪ John F Kennedy, the US president, had been made to look foolish over the Bay of Pigs (see Cuba).

▪ Following the Vienna meeting, Khrushchev decided that Kennedy was inexperienced and could be easily pushed around.

What were the consequences of building the Berlin Wall?

▪ Khrushchev did not have to worry about defectors and there was also a clear dividing line between East and West. There was less confrontation between the two sides in Berlin.

▪ Many Berliners were caught on the wrong side of the Wall and were cut off from their families.

▪ Although visits across the Wall began in 1964, it was impossible to reunite families until 1989.

▪ Many people tried to escape from the East and 300 people were killed trying to cross the Wall

The Brezhnev Doctrine and the re-establishment of Soviet control in Czechoslovakia

▪ Life in Czechoslovakia was very similar to life in any country of the Eastern Bloc.

▪ The Czech Communist Party had complete control of public life, the armed forces, the media and education. There was extremely strict censorship.

▪ There was a low standard of living, as a very high proportion of government spending went on the armed forces.

▪ President Novotny had been leader since 1957 and he rigidly followed Stalinist policies so that there was little hope of change in the light of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation speech.

▪ When he did introduce change, it was rather slow and did less than some of the other Soviet satellite states.

▪ Czechoslovakia began to experience economic stagnation and this added to the climate of disappointment within the country.

What was the Prague Spring of 1968?

The growth of opposition to Novotny

▪ In 1965, Novotny tried to improve the situation by restructuring the economy when he introduced the New Economic Model.

▪ This failed to bring any visible improvements. At the same time there were calls from some writers for greater freedom and for the first time, Novotny experienced widespread opposition.

▪ Alexander Dubcek, leader of the Slovakian Communist Party openly challenged Novotny and then invited Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, to visit Prague.

▪ Novotny was replaced as First Secretary of the Czech Communist Party by Dubcek on 5 January 1968.

▪ Novotny then gave up his role as President being replaced by Ludvik Svoboda.

Socialism with a human face

▪ In early February 1968, one of Dubcek’s closest supporters published an article in the Communist party paper, Rude Pravo (Red Justice).

▪ It called for the removal of obstacles which were preventing the introduction of economic and social reforms.

▪ By March 1968, the Czechoslovak leadership was criticised by five Iron Curtain party leaders i.e. Brezhnev (Soviet Union), Gomulka (Poland), Kadar (Hungary), Ulbricht (East Germany) and Zhivkov (Bulgaria).

▪ Ulbricht and Gomulka demanded that Dubcek launch an attack on those who sought to reform communist life in Czechoslovakia.

Dubcek put forward his ideas more clearly in his Action Programme in April. It also came to be known as ‘socialism with a human face’.

Dubcek was committed to socialism but wanted to remove the worst aspects of communist rule.

He was careful to explain how any reforms would take place under the rule of the Czech Communist Party.

▪ Dubcek announced a series of reforms. These included:

▪ Political reform which would result in a multi-party state and a new form of democratic socialism.

▪ the abolition of censorship and the right of citizens to criticize the government. Newspapers began publishing revelations about corruption in high places.

▪ free speech - it was the duty of party members to act according to his conscience. It criticized the traditional view of members being forced to provide unconditional obedience to party policy.

▪ the creation of works councils in industry, increased rights for trade unions to bargain on behalf of its members and the right of farmers to form independent co-operatives

▪ the rehabilitation of victims of the purges of 1950s

▪ freedom of movement was to be guaranteed

▪ freedom of assembly and religion

▪ a reduction in the powers of the secret police

The re-establishment of Soviet control

One problem for Dubcek was that there were many now in Czechoslovakia who demanded further and more rapid change. This alarmed the Soviet Union just as much as Dubcek’s reforms did.

In July 1968, Dubcek was summoned to attend conferences in Warsaw and Moscow, but refused to go.

The whole Soviet Politburo then visited Prague to try to persuade Dubcek to reverse the reforms.

Brezhnev feared any reforms in Czechoslovakia because he could see a potential break from the Warsaw Pact.

Czechoslovakia was geographically strategic and if it left the Warsaw Pact would leave a wedge which NATO would be more than ready to fill.

▪ He did not want Czechoslovakia to act as an example to other Warsaw Pact members.

▪ On the other hand, he was being pushed by East Germany and Poland to step in to prevent the reforms.

Finally, the economic links that Czechoslovakia was trying to establish with West Germany added to the Soviet Union’s concerns.

The fear was that West Germany and then other capitalist countries might come initially to dominate the economy of Czechoslovakia and then the remaining satellite states.

Brezhnev took the decision to invade Czechoslovakia.

On 20-21 August 1968, about 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and several thousand tanks poured into Czechoslovakia.

The Czech army did not resist, but many ordinary citizens did. About 100 civilians died.

▪ Dubcek disappeared but reappeared in Prague on 27 August and announced that the reforms had been stopped.

▪ In October 1968, all reforms were reversed and a temporary Soviet military occupation was announced.

▪ The following year, Dubcek was dismissed from the Central Committee of the Czech Communist Party and was sent as Czech ambassador to Turkey.

▪ Gradually, all Czech leaders were purged and the new leader, Gustav Husak, re-established a strong communist state.

What were the consequences of the Soviet invasion?

▪ The Soviet invasion had important consequences for the Soviet Union and its satellite states.

▪ In November 1968, the Soviet Union issued what became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.

▪ This stated that the Soviet Union had the right to intervene in friendly states when socialism was threatened.

▪ However, there was some opposition to the Soviet Union, President Ceaucescu of Rumania refused to send troops to Czechoslovakia and began to forge his own independent policies.

▪ There were some protests from the USA but 1968 was the height of the Vietnam War and there were many domestic upheavals which diverted President Johnson’s attention.

Solidarity

▪ Solidarity was an independent labour union founded in September 1980 at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk.

▪ In July 1980, the Polish government - facing economic crisis - was forced to raise the price of goods while curbing the growth of wages.

▪ This was essentially the ‘last straw’ for much of Poland's labour force, with strikes spreading almost at once across the country.

▪ A strike began on 14 August, led by Lech Walesa in the Gdansk shipyards.

▪ On 16 August several other strike committees joined the Gdansk shipyard workers and the following day 21 demands of the unified strike committee were put forward.

▪ The movement's news-sheet, Solidarnosc, began being printed on the shipyard printing press at a run of 30,000 copies.

▪ On 18 August, the Szczecin shipyard joined the Gdansk shipyard in protest, igniting a wave of strikes along the Polish coast.

▪ Within days, most of Poland was affected by factory shutdowns, with more and more unions forming and joining the Gdansk-based federation.

▪ Poland's Soviet government capitulated, sending a Governmental Commission to Gdansk, which on September 3rd signed an agreement ratifying many of the workers' demands.

▪ This agreement, known as the Gdansk Agreement, became recognised as the first step in dismantling Soviet power.

▪ Workers' concerns would now receive representation; ordinary people were now able to introduce democratic changes into the communist political structure.

After the Gdansk Agreement, the Soviet Union stepped up pressure on the Polish government, which continued to lose its control over Polish society.

▪ On 13 December, 1981, General Jaruzelski declared martial law and arrested some 5,000 Solidarity members in the middle of the night.

▪ Hundreds of strikes were put down harshly by riot police; there were several deaths during demonstrations in Gdansk and at the Wujek Coal Mine.

▪ By the end of 1981 strikes had ceased and Solidarity seemed crippled. In October of 1982, Solidarity was banned.

▪

In November 1982, Walesa was released from prison; however, less than a month later, the government arrested 10,000 activists.

▪ On 22 July 1983, martial law was lifted, yet many restrictions on civil liberties and political life remained, as well as food rationing which would continue until the late 80s.

▪ On 5 October, Lech Walesa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, despite the Polish government's attempts to defame him and their refusal to allow him to leave the country and accept the award.

By 1988, Poland's economic situation was worse than ever due to foreign sanctions and the government's refusal to introduce more reforms.

▪ A new wave of strikes swept the country after food costs were increased by 40%.

▪ On 26 August, the government announced it was ready to negotiate with Solidarity. Talks took place, in Warsaw from February to April 1989.

▪

On 17 April, 1989, Solidarity was again legalised and the party was allowed to field candidates in upcoming elections.

▪ Solidarity managed to mount a campaign that surprised everyone, including themselves. The party won every contested seat in the Assembly and 99 of 100 Senatorial seats.

The role of Mikhail Gorbachev

▪ Gorbachev came to power with two slogans PERESTROIKA and GLASNOST.

▪ Perestroika referred to ‘economic restructuring’ in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev believed that the Soviet Union could only survive if the economy was completely rebuilt, doing away with the command economy which had existed since Stalin.

▪ Glasnost referred to new sense of ‘openness’, both within the Soviet Union and also with the West. T

▪ he powers of the KGB were restricted and criticism of the government was allowed. Free elections were held in 1990.

▪ Gorbachev realised that the Soviet Union’s survival depended upon the West. He needed investment, new technology, but most of all arms agreements which would allow him to reduce the Soviet Union’s massive defence spending.

▪ When he became leader, Gorbachev indicated that the Soviet Union would no longer follow the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Gorbachev knew that the Soviet Union was bankrupt. Why was it bankrupt?

▪ For forty years it had supported Communist regimes around the world through COMECON. In 1977 Cuba had joined. Cuba depended almost totally on the Soviet Union for aid.

▪ Prices in the Soviet Union were controlled and subsidised. This was a heavy drain on the government.

▪ The Space programme had been very ambitious and very expensive. In 1975 Soviet and US astronauts had met in Space. It would become almost the last symbol of Superpower status.

▪ Military expenditure had gone on rising. This stopped spending on consumer goods. No leader dared offend the military in case he was overthrown by a coup.

▪ The Afghan War was merely the final straw. Soviet troops were withdrawn in 1989.

▪ The Soviet Union had increasingly come to rely on imports of food and technology from the West. This had to be paid for in foreign currency.

▪ The Soviet Union was desperate for foreign currency. Sales of roubles were strictly controlled and foreign visitors were allowed to buy in ‘Beriozka’ shops which contained goods which were not available to Soviet citizens.

▪ Soviet exports were usually of poor quality; ‘Ladas’, cheap ‘Qualiton’ records, for example.

▪ There was little incentive to workers to raise standards as everyone was guaranteed a job, cheap housing and public services.

▪ Officially the last person to be unemployed in the Soviet Union had found a job in 1932.

▪ There was immense ‘black market’ in western goods and currency. Tourists would be offered roubles at three or five times the official exchange rate.

▪ Gorbachev knew that if the Soviet Union was to survive, he had to reduce expenditure. But he also needed foreign aid and new technology.

▪ The only way of getting it was by making agreements to reduce arms with the West.

Reagan and Gorbachev: the changing relationship between the Superpowers

▪ Gorbachev knew that if the Soviet Union was to survive, he had to reduce expenditure. But he also needed foreign aid and new technology.

▪ The only way of getting it was by making agreements to reduce arms with the West.

▪ Reagan also wanted to cut military expenditure. In 1983 the USA spent $300,000,000,000 on defence. More than the entire British budget.

The summit conferences and the end of the Cold War

▪ During the period of the summits Gorbachev made several visits to European countries. Wherever he went he was greeted by huge crowds.

▪ The term ‘Gorbymania was coined and he was mobbed every where he went - it was as if he was a pop star. The world came to expect a great deal from him.

▪ The wives of the two presidents also played important roles. Raisa Gorbachev was lively and outgoing and liked to dress fashionably. She was quite different from the wives of previous leaders.

▪ Nancy Reagan persuaded her husband to moderate his opposition to the Soviet Union. The two women got on well and their friendship wore off on their husbands.

Geneva, 1985

▪ Gorbachev and Reagan held their first summit meeting in Geneva in November 1985.

▪ Reagan still insisted that the USA would develop ‘Star Wars’.

▪ Few firm decisions were made, but it seemed that the two leaders liked each other and they met without advisers and aides.

▪ The Geneva Accords were published which indicated that arms limitation talks and human rights were key concerns of the two Superpowers.

Reykjavik, 1986

▪ There were initial agreements but the fundamental differences over SDI caused the talks to break down.

▪ Despite the failure, the summit paved the way for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987.

Washington DC, 1987

▪ The Intermediate–Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty was signed in 1987. For the first time, the Superpowers were to destroy nuclear weapons.

▪ By 1991, as a result of INF, the Soviet Union destroyed 889 of its intermediate-range missiles and 957 shorter-range missiles, and the U.S. destroyed 677 and 169 respectively. 

▪ The Treaty included remarkably extensive and intrusive verification inspection and monitoring arrangements to check that weapons were being destroyed.

▪ It was this acceptance by the Soviet Union that convinced the USA that the two countries could trust each other.

Moscow, 1988

▪ The INF Treaty was formally ratified.

▪ Reagan indicated that the Soviet Union could improve its stance on human rights.

▪ Gorbachev promised to withdraw Soviet forces from Afghanistan.

▪ Further talks were held to discuss the reductions in armaments and also conventional forces. The talks were known as Strategic Arms Reduction Talks – (START).

New York, 1988

▪ This was the last summit between Reagan and Gorbachev and it was also attended by President-elect George Bush Snr.

▪ Gorbachev indicated he was going to speed up arms reduction wanted to complete the START Treaty before Bush became president.

▪ President-elect Bush and his own advisers were less trusting of Gorbachev than Reagan.

Malta, 1989

▪ This was between the new President – George Bush Snr. and Gorbachev.

▪ Gorbachev assured Bush that he would never start a ‘hot war’ against the USA.

▪ Observers were quick to point out that if Yalta (1945) was the beginning of the Cold War, then Malta (1989) was the end of it.

Washington, 1990

▪ Bush Snr. and Gorbachev discussed Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START).

▪ The Treaty for the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I) was signed on 31 July 1991.

▪ This meant reducing 25 to 35 per cent of all their strategic warheads.

▪ Following the work of the previous summits, the representatives of NATO and the Warsaw Pact signed the Conventional Armed Forces Treaty (CFE) which led to the reduction of weapons based in Europe.

Gorbachev’s new thinking on Eastern Europe

▪ By the late 1980s, Gorbachev was not prepared to use force to try to keep the countries of Eastern Europe under control, and in any case the Soviet Army was unwilling to act.

▪ Its morale had been destroyed in Afghanistan and many soldiers did not always receive regular payments.

▪ Gorbachev rejected the Brezhnev Doctrine. The satellite states of Eastern Europe knew that there would not be the kind of response seen in 1956 and 1968 if there were challenges to Soviet authority.

▪ Gorbachev openly accepted that the countries of the Warsaw Pact could make changes to their own country independently.

▪ This became known as the Sinatra Doctrine – from the song ‘My Way’. Each state was eventually permitted to follow its own political path.

▪ Communist rule collapsed in Poland during 1989, and Lech Walesa became President in 1990 after the first free elections since the end of the Second World War.

▪ In September 1989, Hungary opened its borders with Austria and East Germany opened its borders with Austria. Massive numbers of refugees began to flood west.

▪ This was the signal for change, because it now seemed that the ‘iron curtain’ could no longer hold back those who opposed Soviet domination.

The significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989

▪ When Gorbachev visited East Germany in October 1989 he indicated that he would no longer interfere in events within that country.

▪ Unrest began to grow in East Germany and at the beginning of November 1989. The demonstrators demanded changes to the system of government.

▪ Demonstrations increased in intensity and one meeting had more than one million protestors.

▪ The East German government tried to defuse the situation by opening the border with West Germany. This served only to allow hundreds of thousands of East Germans to swarm into the West to visit relatives.

▪ East Germans then began attacking the Berlin Wall and the world saw startling images of the Wall being dismantled. The date was 9 November 1989.

▪ In preparation for reunification, East Germany left the Warsaw Pact in 1990.

▪ On 3 October 1990, East and West Germany were reunited.

The loosening Soviet grip

▪ The Communist governments of Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria both resigned in 1989.

▪ Soviet troops were withdrawn from the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which had been occupied since 1940. The Soviet Union accepted their independence in 1991independent again.

▪ In December 1989 the numbers increased dramatically when Nicolai Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator was overthrown and shot.

▪ In December, Gorbachev met George Bush, the new US president and they declared that the Cold War was over.

▪ In 1990, the first free elections since November 1918 were held in the Soviet Union.

The end of the Warsaw Pact

▪ In January 1991, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland announced they would leave the Warsaw Pact.

▪ Bulgaria also announced its intention to withdraw from the Pact in the following month.

▪ One again, the Soviet Union did not challenge these decisions. It stated that the military structure of the Pact would be dismantled at the end of March 1991.

▪ The Warsaw Pact was formally ended on 1 July 1991.

Why did Gorbachev do nothing to stop the collapse of the Soviet bloc?

▪ He was not prepared to use force and risk bloodshed.

▪ The Red Army was not paid regularly and its morale had been destroyed in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union was on the verge of financial collapse.

▪ Gorbachev needed aid from the West; he knew that he would not get it if he ordered a clampdown on the East.

▪ Events in Eastern Europe influenced different national and ethnic groups inside the Soviet Union. The Baltic States began to press for independence in 1989 and were granted freedom by 1991.

▪ In May 1991, the new president of the Russian state, Boris Yeltsin began to encourage the socialist republics of the Soviet Union to break away.

There was one last attempt to save the Soviet Union.

▪ In August 1991, Communist hard-liners tried to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev while he was on holiday in the Crimea.

▪ Within three days the coup had failed. The Soviet army refused to back the coup.

▪ The leading figure in the defeat of the Communists was Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president.

▪ For the first time in seventy-two years the White, Blue and Red flag of Russia, outlawed under Communism, flew over the Kremlin. The Soviet Union no longer existed.

▪ On December 8, 1991 the Soviet Union was officially declared dissolved and it was replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

▪ On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR.

The impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union on world affairs

▪ The collapse of the Soviet Union not only brought an end to the Cold War, but it also produced much greater co-operation between the countries of East and West.

▪ Within a matter of years, former members of the communist bloc were seeking admission to NATO and the European Union.

▪ The United Nations Security Council began to work with much greater unity.

▪ Communist regimes around the world collapsed for lack of support. Only Cuba and China managed to survive, but both were forced to look for economic support from the West, either industrial or financial, or through increased tourism.

▪ In Africa and South America, Soviet support for rebel groups disappeared overnight.

▪ The division of the Soviet Union into separate republics led to an increased threat of nuclear accidents, as nuclear weapons fell into the hands of the Ukraine and Belarus.

▪ Inside the Russian federation, separatist movements developed in autonomous regions such as Chechnya. This led to increased instability in Russia itself.

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