Four empires – Russian, German, Austrian and Turkish – had completely disappeared because of the four-year bloodletting.  And what replaced them was hardly an immediate advance forward in peace and prosperity of the nations involved.  Chaos, not peace and prosperity under new progressive governments, was what greeted the people with the loss of their former autocratic governments. As for the League of Nations ... it had virtually no impact on the way any of these major crises played out.  As a protector of the international peace it proved itself to be completely useless.  Almost all of what developed did so as a matter of direct intervention by a number of national powers who conducted their diplomacy in accordance with their own respective national interests. This would be a sign of things to come.  Maybe it will always be this way, despite the dreams of those who still look for some kind of transcending principle or organization that they believe might finally act in service to a higher sense of international order. THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR The Russian Civil War (1917-1922) The worst case of post-war choas was that of Russia, which fell into a four-year civil war that destroyed more Russian life than had the European war itself.  Armies of Whites (a scattered coalition of supporters of Kerensky’s Provisional Government, tsarists, Cossacks and an array of various conservative groups) and Reds (Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolsheviks) ranged back and forth across Russia, pillaging, slaughtering, and burning farms and villages as they went, leaving behind pure desolation as they passed through to another battle with their enemies.  Also involved were a number of foreign armies (British, American, Czech, Japanese) sent to Russia to support the Whites in the hope of keeping Russia in the war ... but who stayed on even after the war was over to continue that support.  Sadly, this participation of the foreign troops on the side of the Whites gave the war the appearance among Russians of the Bolsheviks fighting for the national rights of Russia against the efforts of Whites to put Russia under foreign rule.  Adding to the confusion, a number of non-Russian national groups within the Russian Empire saws this as an opportunity to break free from Russian domination and establish national independence for themselves (opening up local political contests among themselves in the process).  Thus the Russian Empire collapsed into a state of bloody chaos. Lenin Trotsky Lenin addressing a crowd in newly renamed "Red Square" Moscow - 1919 William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Churchill, Visions of Glory, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1983), p. 678. Red troops advancing against the Whites in the Crimea - late 1919 Russian White soldiers standing over the bodies of dead Bolsheviks or Reds – 1919 American troops in Arkangelsk – aiding the resupply of the White army. American soldier ladling out soup to a Russian prisoner in Archangel American troops in Vladivostok on parade.  Japanese marines are standing to attention as they march by. Siberia, August 1918 17 U.S. dead being brought out of Romonofska, Siberia British troops arriving in Arkangelsk to replace the American troops who will be going home – early 1919. The Czech legion as it is about to embark across Siberia in the hope of getting home – by sea. Lenin's call to arms in Moscow against invading Poles – May 5, 1920 Anti-Bolshevik Japanese troops in Vladivostok during the Russian Civil War – 1921 National Archives Lenin's move to secure his Soviet social order In the meantime, Lenin set about immediately to put into force a social strategy he had worked out well beforehand.  He decreed the transfer of the large landholdings (including lands belonging to the church) to the peasants who actually worked the farms ... not only winning the hearts of the peasants, but stirring fear in their hearts that if the Whites were to win the civil war the peasants would lose title to their lands.  Lenin also moved quickly to put large industries under Bolshevik control, although workers’ committees were set up to give the industrial workers a sense of ownership of the production of these industries ... again, to win the loyalties of the Russian working classes.  Lenin also set up a bureaucracy of Bolshevik agents who were sent out in the country to monitor these changes.  And finally, Trotsky was assigned the task of professionalizing the Bolshevik army (the Red Army), reshaping it quickly as an effective fighting force designed to protect the rights of the common people against the former ruling classes ... a task in which Trotsky succeeded brilliantly. Lenin also moved quickly and ruthlessly to eliminate all members of the social classes (the nobility and the bourgeoisie or middle class that had not yet fled Russia) most likely to oppose his revolution.  Even peasants considered to be suspicious of anti-revolutionary loyalties were executed or exiled to Siberia.  All political parties other than the Bolsheviks were outlawed and the Russian press was brought into conformity with the Bolshevik revolution ... or shut down completely.  The Cheka, a secret police (modeled after the Tsarist secret police), was created to remove outspoken opponents of the new regime.1  And finally, on July 18, 1918, the Tsar and his family were executed out of fear that they might fall into the hands of an advancing White army. The Orthodox Church and the Christian faith also became objects of Lenin’s social revolution.  The church had long been supporters of the Russian autocracy and thus according to Lenin’s logic needed to be destroyed.  But he was also opposed to the Christian faith itself, held dearly in the hearts of most Russians, for he feared that it harbored conservative attitudes that would stand in the way of the cultivation of a revolutionary conscience among the new class of proletarian comrades foundational to Lenin’s rising social order. Ultimately, little by little Trotsky’s Red Army was able to gain ground against the less well-organized White Armies.  Kolchak’s White army, at first successful in Siberia, was finally defeated by the Reds, as was a coalition of Whites in Ukraine (1919-1920).  Remnants held out in the south until finally driven out of Crimea in late 1920.  In October of 1922 the Reds were able to secure all of Siberia when the Japanese pulled out of the far eastern region and the last White army in Siberia at Vladivostok surrendered.   From that point on only small scattered groups of Whites continued the struggle. Thus Lenin had finally secured his Soviet state. But things were not going quite as well for Lenin as he had hoped for in those first years of the establishment of the Soviet state.  The economic disruption of the civil war was immense.  Industrial production dropped to one-fifth the level it had stood at in 1913 before the European war.  Towns were deserted as workers fled to the countryside in the search for food.  Even production on the farms was less than half what it had been before the war.  There was no stable currency the farmers could count on or even manufactured good they might want to buy, so most farmers reduced their food production to levels sufficient merely to feed their own families.  By 1920 widespread malnourishment and disease was rampant in the country, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. 1Since opponents of Lenin’s regime were arrested secretly (usually in the middle of the night) no numbers were kept of the people "liquidated" (usually killed directly) by the Cheka.  Estimates vary from 50 thousand to hundreds of thousands.  So bad was its reputation that in 1921 its name was changed to the Government Political Office (GPU) ... as if a name change might improve the reputation of the Leninist regime. Leon Trotsky in 1921 A Red Army recruiting poster Starving children in Russia In the five years of the Russian civil war 15 million people lost their lives - most of them hapless civilians. Starving Russians during the drought of 1921 Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) By 1921 Lenin was ready to try another approach to industrial and agricultural production.  He came up with a plan termed the New Economic Policy (NEP) which opened up the economy to the development of small private enterprises and private trading beyond the official state program.  He put the rouble back into operation in order to facilitate that trade.  He established a standard agricultural tax rather than the state requisitions of food products as payment to the state.  He did maintain the state monopoly on the major industries however.  Yet slowly the economy started signs of growth under the NEP, especially in the realm of agriculture where the revival was fairly quick.  Even in the industrial sector, Russia was back up to 1913 production levels by 1927. However, Lenin would not live to see the fruit of his labors.  His work took its toll on his health, which began to show signs of decline toward the end of 1921 ... and in May of 1922 he suffered a stroke which partially paralyzed him.  He largely recovered ... though now he had to look to others to carry much of the work.  Then in early 1924 he died.  Now would begin a struggle for power among the party elite that would have a highly determinative effect on the further development of the Russian Soviet Union.   Funeral of V.I. Lenin - 1924 THE GERMAN WEIMAR REPUBLIC The Germans themselves had not asked for a democracy or republican form of government.  It had been pushed on to them as a pre-condition imposed by their enemies as the price required to secure the peace the Germans so eagerly sought.  To be sure there would be those (mostly intellectuals of the Socialist variety) who supported the idea of a German republic.  But for most of the Germans this mattered little.  Eventually (the early 1930s) the Republic would be considered even a bit treasonous because of its birth in what increasingly came to be understood as a wartime betrayal of Germany. Actually, very little changed about German society because of this changeover to a republican government.  Although the heads of the various states making up the German union were gone, their bureaucracies remained, conducting political business as usual in Germany.   The street violence that sent Wilhelm into exile continued to mount, giving opportunity (November 1918 to January 1919) to a group of leftist radicals (the Sparticists, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg) to attempt to spark a German revolution similar to Lenin’s.  But they ran into the stiff resistance of returning soldiers who formed themselves into anti-socialist units (the Freikorps or Free Corps) who went about gunning down radicals whenever they gathered.  A similar attempt to establish a Soviet Republic in Bavaria (April-May 1919) was also taken out by the Freikorps.  Thus the only events resembling something of a real revolution in Germany were quickly snuffed out. Less radical Socialists quickly moved to fill the political void created by the departure of Wilhelm.  A Provisional Government was quickly established and Friedrich Ebert, a Social Democrat, was made its head.  Elections were soon held (January 1919), in which a number of parties (many makeovers of the parties of the days of Imperial Germany) took their seats in the Reichstag, although the Social Democrats were by far the largest.  Ebert was elected as the republic’s new President.  Being concerned about how easily urban mobs (Paris, Petrograd and now Berlin) were able to dominate their nation’s politics he decided move the task of writing a new constitution to the town of Weimar.   German troops marching home from the war through the Brandenburg Gate victory arch Smashed grocery store windows in hungry Berlin - 1919 The "Sparticists" attempt a Communist capture of post-war Germany Leftist soldiers during Christmas fights in the Berlin City Palace - December 1918 Deutsches Bundesarchiv German Sparticists crowding the streets of Berlin - January 1919 Sparticist militia in the streets of Berlin Karl Liebknecht addressing a crowd of pro-Soviet or Communist Sparticists in Berlin (January 1919) Karl Liebknecht at a funeral of of followers killed by the Freikorps  - January 1919 (he himself was assassinated a few days later) German Free Corpsman (member of one of the Freikorps) at a Berlin street barricade during the March 1919 Sparticist uprising Nurses tending wounded German Free Corpsmen - 1919 German Free Corpsman resting - 1919 Foreign Records Seized, 1941, National Archives A converted British tank put to German service in Berlin helping to crush the Communist uprising there - January 1919 Library of Congress Berlin - Executed Sparticists - March 1919 Deutsches Bundesarchiv THE POST-WAR TREATIES Meanwhile Germany was waiting to see what were going to be the exact terms required of it in order to secure formally a new post-war peace.  They were harsh. Wilson's (and Americas') grand disappointment.  Wilson had himself traveled to Paris to ensure personally that his promised Fourteen Points would be the terms by which the final peace settlement with Germany was shaped.  Upon his arrival in Europe he was celebrated so wildly by the cheering crowds that he certainly expected to be supervising the treaty negotiations from a position of great strength.  But his own idealism blinded him to the actual social dynamic taking place.  The Europeans were cheering him because his American troops had seemingly tipped the balance of military power in Europe so as to finally give the Allies their long-sought victory.  They saw in him their national victory ... not some abstract idea of a new world of international peace and understanding.  Their sense of victory over a hated enemy was what excited them.  Years of slaughter, of destruction of homes and villages, of wounded family and friends returning from the front, was what filled their minds. The European leaders responsible for negotiating a peace with Germany understood what was expected of them.  Their people wanted revenge ... not reconciliation and equity. Sadly, Wilson at that point had nothing more to bring to the negotiating table.  America had played its part ... and had departed, back to homes and towns unaffected by the war.  America had not suffered as the Europeans had.  It was thus easy for the Americans to be high-minded about a future peace.  After all, that had been the motif of the American entry into the war from the beginning. But that American high-mindedness was soon to turn to bitterness, not just by Wilson but by the American people who were shocked when they heard of the political deals being worked out among the British, French and Italians. Nothing had seemed to change in the behavior of the cynical Europeans.  Americans had asked for nothing in its participation in the war except for the Europeans to join them in building a new and safer world.  But the Old World seemed to have betrayed the Americans: glad to get American help but only to advance their own greedy national interests.  Americans now grew bitter, ready to wash their hands of any further dealings with the cynical Old World. Germany.  Indeed, the terms imposed on the Central Powers were harsh.  In the Versailles Treaty, Germany was forced to acknowledge total responsibility in having started the war (remembering the Germans as bullying ‘Huns,’ Americans were as insistent as the Allies on this point).  This then justified the subsequent punishment imposed on Germany (here the Americans differed): the loss of lands to the newly reconstituted state of Poland, of Alsace and Lorraine (plus for all practical purposes the coal rich Saar) to France, and small sections of Germany to Belgium (and in the future to Denmark).  All the German colonies in Africa and Asia would be given over to one or another of the Allies (even the Japanese and Portuguese).  The German army and navy were to be reduced in size to a point of uselessness.  And massive reparations payments were to be made to the Allies for war damages inflicted by Germany (the precise amount to be determined by a special commission) ... and the heartland of German industry, the Rhineland, to be occupied for the next 15 years to ensure compliance with the reparations requirement. In May of 1919 the German delegation received the terms prepared by the Allies, expecting to be part of a discussion of those terms ... and shocked when it was made clear that these were largely not negotiable.  The German cabinet resigned rather than agree to these terms.  President Ebert also wanted to resign but was persuaded not to do so because refusal to agree to these terms meant the resumption of the war.  The French were ready at the border ... and the German army at this point was largely demobilized.  The Germans were given until June 22nd to accept these terms, or the war would be resumed the next day.  Thus very grudgingly did the Germans accept these terms on the 22nd, the Assembly voting 227 to 138 to accept. Austria-Hungary.  As for Austria-Hungary, two separate treaties (Saint-Germain and Trianon) divided the empire into a number of independent states, including Austria and Hungary – which now existed as separate nations, each greatly reduced in size.  Two new states were created from this dismemberment: "Czechoslovakia," combining Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia and "Yugoslavia," combining Serbia with Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia. Other provisions.  Romania, as promised previously, was awarded the Hungarian lands of Transylvania.  And Italy was given land along the southern slope of the Alps and along the Adriatic Sea at Fiume – also as previously promised.  And Poland was brought back into being – having disappeared as a separate nation a century earlier (the late 1700s) – made up of lands taken from Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Bulgaria was also reshaped by the Treaty of Neuilly, with the new Yugoslavia receiving a section.  But more importantly, Greece received a key portion of Bulgarian Thrace which had formerly given Bulgaria a position along the Aegean coast and thus also direct access to the Mediterranean.  Consequently, Bulgaria had access only to the Black Sea and so now (like Russia) had to pass through Turkish waters to reach the Mediterranean and the high seas. Although the Russians were not part of the post-war negotiations, the lands Russia had given up to Germany in its agreement ending its war with Germany came up for redistribution.  Out of this land were carved the newly independent states of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ... and what would become the eastern portion of the newly recreated Poland. In accordance with the Treaty of Sèvres, The Ottoman Empire was also dismembered, with the setting up of "independent" Arab kingdoms  ... under French and British supervision (principally Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Transjordan).  And Greece was awarded huge sections of Western Asia Minor ... so that what was left for a Republic of Turkey was a greatly reduced territory comprising the interior Anatolian plateau of Asia Minor.  But this treaty was never ratified by the Sultan, was rejected subsequently by the new Turkish Republic, and after a major Greek-Turkish war was finally redrawn as a less harsh 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Serious problems.  Overall, the final treaties had left large groups of nationals in foreign territory, especially Germans, but also Bulgarians and Magyars (Hungarians).  In rebirthing Poland (a result of France hoping to secure an ally to the east of Germany to help keep Germany in check), huge sections of German territory – the entire province of Posen and most of West Prussia, including the "Polish corridor" of the Danzig region, and of upper Silesia – were given over to Poland. The vast majority of Germans would then flee Poland over the next years, straining even more the relations between the new German Republic and the new Republic of Poland.   Austria was reduced to a third-rate power with the huge capital of Vienna, once the cultural and political center of a vast empire, now reduced to supervising a German-speaking hinterland only two times greater in population than the capital itself.   Economically (and culturally) this was unsustainable.  Also a huge German-speaking population living in the Sudetenland had been incorporated into the new Slavic-speaking state of Czechoslovakia ... another sore point for the German world.  Hungary too was badly sliced up in losing two-thirds of her land and population ... and like Austria, its capital Budapest greatly overshadowed the tiny country to which Hungary had been reduced.  Also Bulgaria had not only lost its position on the Aegean it had lost 1.7 million Bulgarians to foreign rule.  And Turkey would find itself in such a sour mood over the loss of its vast empire that it was a powder keg ready to explode ... which it did in 1922 – with devastating results for the Greeks who thought that victory in the Great War had set them up as the new major power in the Aegean. All of this redrawing of Europe’s political map meant one thing:  in an age of nationalism these geographic revisions would serve to stir a bitter revanchist mood among those cut off from the nationalist heartland ... and an opportunity for demagogues to use such nationalist hurts to reopen wounds left behind by the Great War and its not-so-great peace treaties.  Hitler in fact would depend on this revanchist spirit to get his political career up and running.   As he heads to Europe, Wilson has no idea of the difficulties he will be facing to get a 'fair' post-war agreement between the Allies and the Central Powers at the Paris peace negotiations Woodrow Wilson leaving for the Peace Conference in France Wilson being hailed upon his arrival in England National Archives The Paris crowds waiting for President Wilson National Archives Paris - Wilson and Poincaré The Paris Big Four:  David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson National Archives Orlando, Lloyd-George, Clemenceau and Wilson The German delegation at Versailles - 1919 National Archives Wilson and the American Delegation at Versailles - 1919 The signing of the peace treaty at the Palace of Versailles – June 28, 1919 National Archives The Signing of the Treaty of Versailles Spectators craning to see the German signing of the Versailles Treaty - June 28, 1919 The territorial changes resulting from the post-war treaties Europe after World War One - 1923 German colonial territory in Africa and the Pacific and Turkish imperial holdings in the Middle East lost after World War One THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS Wilson himself was extremely unhappy at how the ‘peace’ went ... but held fiercely to one hope: the Allies’ acceptance of (or covenant with) his new League of Nations, an international organization that would bring the nations together in diplomatic discussion before problems should evolve to the point of disaster such as had been the case in the startup of this recent war. Wilson was convinced that had there been such an organization in 1914 the world would have been spared the horror of this war. Most importantly he hoped that once nationalist passions settled down, cool headed diplomats could use the League to revisit these treaties foisted on the war-wearied Central Powers and amend them in order to produce a more just outcome, one that would remove the temptation of the losers in this war to seek revenge in another war.  Not being able to back off the vengeful Allies in terms of the treaties, he relied at least on their acceptance of the League to give him something to bring home to America to show that its effort in the war had not been wasted. But in fact he came home to an America so burned by the behavior at Versailles that it viewed with deep suspicion any kind of further involvement in international affairs, much less European affairs ... especially when it looked as if Wilson’s proposed League of Nations might possibly take away from Congress and the nation the sovereign right to decide for itself the nation’s particular stand on matters  of war and peace.  Thus when the treaty was put before the Senate for ratification it was defeated by a vote of 55 to 39.2  Further efforts to get it passed failed ... and eventually the matter was dropped.  Thus not only did the US not formally recognize peace between itself and Germany3 ... it would not be joining Wilson’s League of Nations (also part of the rejected Versailles treaty). But forty-four nations did sign the League's Covenant in June of 1919 and then set up an international organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.  It included a League Assembly – where all the members had a voice.  But it also included a League Council – where four "Permanent Members, Britain, France, Italy and Japan (America was originally expected to be its fifth Permanent Member) were joined by four (ultimately ten) other members rotated among the rest of the League membership … this smaller body to take on the more sticky diplomatic matters as the "enforcers" of League policy.  As matters brought to the Council for action were considered to be of a much more critical concern, decisions of the Council had to be fully unanimous ... except in cases where one of the members of the Council was involved.  That nation was not entitled to vote on the matter. Besides these representative bodies, there existed in Geneva a full-time staff or Permanent Secretariat to oversee the League’s business on a daily basis.   These were bureaucracies authorized to act on a number of particular issues – such as health, education, labor, women's rights, the drug trade, slavery and other such social questions ... all very much in keeping with the rising spirit of Socialism in Europe (and Progressivism in America) in the early 1900s. The League was also empowered to supervise a Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) located in the Hague (the Netherlands) – a world court designed to try cases involving international law.  Bringing cases before the PCIJ occurred frequently during the 1920s ... most concerning boundary questions raised by the treaties ending the Great War.  But as matters became darker and more bitter in the 1930s, the PCIJ was involved less and less in the developing political dynamics.4 As long as these issues did not involve directly any of the major powers, they were settled more or less peacefully and equitably ... because it was in the interests of the major powers to see these issues resolved in this manner.  But when the major powers were themselves involved, things did not work out so well ... often with one or another of the major powers resigning from the League in protest.5 Thus the Wilsonian dream (and the dream of others like him) that a realm of reason could override narrower social interests proved to be exactly that:  just a dream.  Nationalist power considerations still prevailed in the international realm. 2The vote fell eight short of the required two-thirds vote needed for the Senate's approval of any U.S. treaty. 3It would do so in a separate treaty with Germany in 1921. 4The PCIJ was nonetheless highly respected and was one of the several League organizations that was carried over as part of the new United Nations when it was set up in 1945. 5The PCIJ was nonetheless highly respected and was one of the several League organizations that was carried over as part of the new United Nations when it was set up in 1945. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) Library of Congress LC-USZ62-96172 President Woodrow Wilson, seated at desk with his 2nd wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, standing at his side.  He was paralyzed on his left side, so Edith holds a document steady while he signs - June 1920. Library of Congress The League's Palace of Nations - Geneva The September 10, 1926 meeting of the League of Nations on the occasion of Germany's entry into the League.  Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann of Germany is addressing the Assembly with his initial speech. THE POLISH-SOVIET WAR (1919-1921) Poland was restored as a nation by taking sections from defeated Germany and Austria-Hungary ... and also a huge section of the former Russian empire that had been given over to Germany as the price of Russia’s armistice with Germany and which now, despite Germany’s defeat, could not be recovered by Russia because Russia was so completely distracted by its intense civil war.  The new Polish Republic’s Head of State, Józef Piłsudski, a Polish Socialist and Poland’s leading wartime military commander, sensed the fragility of the new Polish state, especially with respect to the Russian lands it had acquired ... and pushed for the expansion of its borders eastward into Russia to increase its security.  Lenin, on the other hand saw Poland as directly in his path as he planned to spread or at least link up with the communist revolutions to the west in Germany, Hungary and other places in Europe where revolution seemed imminent.  Sensing that the Russians were about to invade Poland, Poland decided to strike first. Initially the Polish were largely successful, especially as they headed their expansion toward Ukraine to the southeast (the April 1920 ‘Kiev Offensive’).  But as the Bolsheviks began to secure more control in Russia (the Polish attack actually generated a new sense of Russian patriotism supportive of the Bolsheviks) the Russians were able more effectively to counter the Polish expansion ... and even by late May begin to reverse course.    By July the Polish troops were in full retreat.  And by August Lenin’s Russian troops were just outside the Polish capital Warsaw. With Poland seeming about to collapse, political disorder begins to infect all parties involved, domestically and internationally.  Piłsudski’s opponents at home made their move against him adding to the Polish panic.  The Poles turned on the large Jewish community, seeing it as an ally of Russian Bolshevism.  British Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s reluctant effort to send military aid to Poland by was met by the threat of a general strike by the pro-Soviet Trades Union Congress which succeeded in blocking any arms shipments.  Instead a threat was issued to Russia that Britain would intervene on Poland’s side if the Russians did not pull back to the Curzon Line (outlined in December 1919 by Lord Curzon who attempted to define actual ethnic boundaries between the Polish and the Russians).  The Russians ignored the threat.  And the British Labour Party, which was also blocking shipments to British troops still in Russia trying to help the Whites, announced that they would do so as well for any attempt to help Poland.  The French, for their part, sent a small military party as advisers to the Polish army ... and tried also to send an army of mostly Polish expatriates to France – which the Czechs refused to let pass through their country. But at this point a dispute erupted between Soviet Generals Tukhachevsky and Yegorov, and Soviet General Budyonny (and seemingly also Soviet Commissar Joseph Stalin) decided to fight the Poles at Lwów, rather than join their fellow generals at Warsaw ... and the Russian effort at Lwów failed miserably.  Now things began to turn against the Soviets.  Polish General Sikorski now took to the offensive (August) and with Piłsudski joining him the Russian army was thrown into disarray, with the Russians retreating deep into Russian territory.  At this point the Russians were ready to negotiate ... with the Poles holding the decided advantage. But the Poles themselves were exhausted and ready to end hostilities ... and the League of Nations was pressuring Poland to settle.  But it was Polish domestic politics that settled the matter when Piłsudski’s enemies forced him to give up territory (leaving a million Poles within the Soviet Union ... to face subsequent persecution from the Bolshevik authorities).  Likewise, Piłsudski’s Ukrainian allies were also left in Bolshevik hands ... with sad results.  Thus in March of 1921 the Peace of Riga was signed between Poland and Russia, officially ending the war. Nevertheless the Polish-Soviet War did the West a great favor in shutting down Lenin’s plans for a grand Soviet revolution throughout Europe (industrial workers across Europe supported strongly just such a revolution).  It would inadvertently play also a role in the contest for control of the Soviet Union between Trotsky and Stalin ... fought over the issue of whether the Russian revolution was merely a starting point for an even greater European revolution (Trotsky) or whether the Bolsheviks should now simply look after “socialism in one country,” Russia (Stalin).  The war with Poland greatly strengthened Stalin’s argument!  But it also helped the newly established countries of central Europe secure their independence ... especially Lithuania which Lenin was planning to absorb – before Russia lost its war with Poland.  And the war brought forward Piłsudski as Poland’s national hero and once again future leader ... and also French military advisor Charles de Gaulle and Polish General Władysław Sikorski, both of whom would lead their national armies during World War Two. THE GRECO-TURKISH WAR (1919-1922) Meanwhile, further to the south, the carve-up of the defeated Ottoman Empire created a range of social dynamics that disrupted, confused and nearly collapsed any semblance of a post-war social order within what was left of the Ottoman Empire.  In the Turkish political heart of the empire a deep split occurred between Ottoman authority (the autocratic rule of the Ottoman Sultan/Caliph and his conservative supporters) and a rising breed of Turkish revolutionaries descended from the Young Turk mentality.   In many ways what broke out in Turkey resembled closely what had broken out in Russia.  Indeed, Lenin and his Bolsheviks would be key supporters to the Turkish Nationalist Movement ... ultimately led by the hero of Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal ... soon to be given the title Atatürk, roughly equivalent to "Father of the Turks." A big part of what inspired the Turkish Nationalist Movement was the humiliating way the Sultan bowed to the dictates of the victorious allies ... and how he allowed the near total takeover of Ottoman lands by their wartime enemies.  In part it was also motivated by the idea that if Turkey did not modernize in every social respect possible (economy, education, even world view, as well as politics and military) Turkey would remain a victim to the whims of their occupiers.  Thus soon after the war ended Turkey found itself in a state of domestic turmoil as the traditionalists and the modernizers fought each other for control of Turkish society.   The conflict between the two Turkish parties actually broke out in the summer of 1919 when a conference was called by the revolutionaries to begin the process of modernizing Turkish society from top to bottom.  They also created a negotiating team to meet in Paris with the Allies in order to give stronger representation to Turkey, hoping to counter the weak representation the Sultan’s emissaries had given the Turkish empire.  That fall they moved to set up a new government at the city of Ankara in the Turkish heartland ... in opposition to the Sultan and his weakened government in Constantinople.  In short, Turkey now had two governments. At the same time similar activities were going on among the Greeks, who had joined the Allies under the promise by British Prime Minister Lloyd-George of the further expansion of Greek territory as a reward for Greek participation.  The Greeks were led to believe that their country would be expanded against Ottoman holdings not only in the Balkans but also in coastal Asia Minor and the Anatolian interior as well.  The coastal regions of Asia Minor had anciently been quite Greek – but over the more recent centuries had been heavily re-cultured along Turkish-Muslim lines.  Nonetheless, almost 20% of the population of Asia Minor/Anatolia was still Greek Christian in language and religion.  A Greek community of some size existed along the coastal regions of Asia Minor around the city of Smyrna – and the Greeks probably rightly feared for their safety against Turkish ethnic hostilities encouraged by the strongly Turkish nationalist Young Turks (Christian Armenians had suffered horribly during the war at the hands of the Young Turks and their Turkish nationalist supporters).  Also the spirit of Greek nationalism ran strong – with the hope that even the ancient center of Greek or Byzantine culture at Constantinople (Istanbul) might be restored to the Greeks.   Unfortunately, as was frequently the case, the Allies had made offers to other national groups (such as the Italians) that were destined to conflict with the post-war picture that had been presented the Greeks.  Within Greece itself the question of getting involved in the war at all also had badly split Greek politics.  The liberal political leader Venizelos was much in favor of joining the Allies whereas King Constantine was fearful of the consequences of such involvement and stood firm in his intention to keep Greece a neutral nation.  In the end Venizelos won out, King Constantine was deposed (his son Alexander taking the throne, but being basically a puppet to Venizelos), the Greeks joined the Allies, and at war’s end Greece was looking forward to building a greater Greece that resembled the territorial reach of Greece thousands of years ago. But the Italians, who partially as descendants of the once great Empire of Venice, were also looking forward to seeing Italian power extended deep into the Eastern Mediterranean ... and into the Asia Minor peninsula (roughly today’s Turkey) as well, a matter which now required the negotiators in Paris to handle matters very carefully (the Italians were already upset that they were not getting what they expected on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea ... and had even left Paris in a huff for a while!).  Also Britain and France had their own plans for the Ottoman Empire, not just in setting up puppet Arab Kingdoms but even in the occupation of the Asia Minor peninsula and even the capital Constantinople itself.  The Turks consequently were left to rule on their own only a tiny portion of what had once been a great empire. This is what decided Venizelos to push from the Smyrna region of western Asia Minor that had finally been allocated to the Greeks eastward, deeper into Asia Minor.  He was counting on the support of the Allies ... or at least the British, which he did get, though not greatly.  In May of 1919 the Greeks made their move by landing twenty thousand Greek soldiers at the port city of Smyrna.  From there the Greek troops, encountering only rather light or disorganized Turkish resistance, began spreading their zone of control towards the east, into the Anatolian interior.  By August of 1920 the government of the Turkish Sultan was ready to agree to terms of a full treaty (the Treaty of Sèvres) ending for them their part in the Great War.  The treaty was extremely generous to Greece – and very humiliating to Turkey. At first the Greeks were greatly victorious in their encounters with the Turks, who seemed unable to get a strong defense organized.  Deeper and deeper into Turkish territory the Greeks went, with the Turks giving up position after position.  All through 1920 the Greeks registered success after success.  But then King Alexander died (bit by a monkey), Venizelos called a national election ... which he then lost (most of the Greeks were very tired of all the warring that had been going on under Venizelos).  The opposition (strongly Royalist in nature) called Constantine back to the throne ... throwing into confusion the matter of the Greek expansion in Asia Minor.  Now things began to go wrong for the Greeks. Twice in early 1921 the Greeks were thrown back by the fierce Turkish resistance organized by their leader Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk).  The Italians, who had been jealous of the Greeks, and the French, who considered the Greeks now merely British clients, began to throw their support to Kemal’s Turkish forces.  Also Russia was supplying the Turks with important weapons in exchange for some territory it received from the Turks. Atatürk had taken over the Turkish defenses and pulled his troops back across a river to heights overlooking the river. On came the Greeks ... and found themselves up against a Turkish army determined to give no more ground to the Greeks.  The battle raged on and soon became one of resupply.  Finally the Greeks felt it was time to pull back.  But once the retreat got underway it never seemed to find a point to dig in and halt.  Now it was Atatürk’s troops doing the pushing ... rapidly advancing against retreating Greeks.  At this point Greek civilians in the west of Asia Minor began to panic.  On came the Turks even finally to the last Greek stronghold at Smyrna ... and there crushed the last of the Greek resistance (and burned out the Greek and Armenian sections of this huge city).  By mid-September (1922) the Greeks had lost everything. The war was over – and a new treaty (Treaty of Lausanne) had to be drawn up between Turkey, Greece, Britain, France and Italy.  It provided for the transfer of populations: 500 thousand Muslims to be relocated from Thrace to Asia Minor and over a million Greeks from Asia Minor to Thrace, Macedonia and Attica (Eastern Greece).  Considering the scale of the ethnic cleansing that had occurred on both sides during this war (whole communities of Turks on the one hand and Greeks and Armenians on the other were completely obliterated) this transfer of populations, though cruel in execution, was preferable to remaining behind and being slaughtered in the heat of the intense Greek-Turkish hatred that now existed between these two people. This definition of "Turk" comes largely at the expense of what it means to be "Armenian (during the Great War) or "Greek" (during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922) Ottoman Emperor Abdul Hamid II (reigned 1876-1909).  He was deposed by the Young Turks in 1909 because they hated his weakness - but lived until 1918 just as the once-great Ottoman Empire was being carved up by the World War I peace treaties The Turks, both during and after the War brutally refashion a sense of what it means to be a "Turk."  In particular they vent their powerful national feelings on a helpless Christian people - the Armenians Armenians slaughtered by the Turks - 1915 A starving child in Yerevan, where the Armenians attempted to set up an independent republic after the War to avoid further massacre by the Turks The Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 The Greeks, sensing Turkish weakness, decide to expand Greek territory from the Western coastline (inhabited heavily by Greeks) into the Anatolian interior of Asia Minor.  This will prove to be a huge error. Greek artillery supporting an infantry assault into Anatolia - August 1921 National Archives Mustafa Kemal (Turkish “hero of Galipoli” during World War One) reviews Turkish troops at the outbreak of the Greco-Turkish War.  He will lead the Turks to a huge victory over the Greeks ... and will earn for himself the title "Ataturk :  "Father of the Turks"! The Greek army's two-pronged advance on the Sakarya River - August 1921. Ataturk drew his troops back to a more compact line of Turkish defense across the river -- which would be the further line of retreat before he began the Turkish advance against the Greeks Joan Pennington  - Military History, September 2006, p. 53 Greek troops stop before a body of a Turk killed during their march to the Sakarya River  Greek cavalry trying to hold back a Turkish advance toward the port of Smyrna - Sept. 16, 1922 Greeks fleeing Turkey - 1922 Atatürk then moves on to modernize Turkey.  So completely taken was Turkey by Atatürk’s success, that the Turks seemed most willing to follow whatever path he seemed to want to take the country down at this point.  And for Atatürk, that meant modernization … deep modernization. There was no real opposition to his ending the Ottoman sultanate and replacing it with a new Turkish Republic (1922-1923), with himself as the Republic’s new president (1923-1938), voted there through universal male adult suffrage … adding women’s suffrage to the dynamic in 1930. He also understood that if Turkey were to be able to protect itself fully from Western intrusions, it was itself going to have to take on Western ways – economically and culturally as well as politically.  That was not going to please Muslim traditionalists.  But at this point they had nothing to offer in opposition to Atatürk’s reforms. Thus Atatürk redesigned the Turkish written language … taking it from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin-based alphabet.  He took on Western attire (the military had actually already done this) as a civilian political leader … and extended this same updating in attire to women, no longer forced to wear Islamic attire.  Education would now be conducted by public educators … rather than by the traditional Muslim mullahs.  And so it went with the "Kemalizing" of Turkey.  Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) and his wife Latife Hanm.  Now the undisputed leader, Ataturk leads the country in a massive secular program of modernizing Turkish society … something only he could have achieved because of his huge popularity Go on to the next section:  The European Powers Try to Rebuild   Miles H. Hodges