Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties. The United States never ratified the Versailles treaty and made a separate peace treaty with Germany. Although the armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiations—it was forced to sign the final result.
The Alabama Claims were a series of demands for damages sought by the government of the United States from the United Kingdom in 1869, for the attacks upon Union merchant ships by Confederate Navy commerce raiders built in British shipyards during the American Civil War. The claims focused chiefly on the most famous of these raiders, the CSS Alabama, which took more than sixty prizes before she was sunk off the French coast in 1864.
The Treaty of London of 1839, was signed on 19 April 1839 between the Concert of Europe, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium. It was a direct follow-up to the 1831 Treaty of the XVIII Articles, which the Netherlands had refused to sign, and the result of negotiations at the London Conference of 1838–1839.
Henry Noel Brailsford was a British journalist and writer, considered one of the most prolific left-wing journalists of the first half of the 20th century. A founding member of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage in 1907, he resigned from his job at The Daily News in 1909 when it supported the force-feeding of suffragettes on hunger strike.
Article 231, often known as the War Guilt Clause, was the opening article of the reparations section of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War between the German Empire and the Allied and Associated Powers. The article did not use the word "guilt" but it served as a legal basis to compel Germany to pay reparations for the war.
Jacqueline Louise Livingston was an American photographer known for her work exploring woman's role as artist and person and investigating the boundaries of intimacy and propriety.
Jennie McGraw, also Jennie McGraw Fiske, was a millionaire philanthropist to Cornell University along with her parents John McGraw and Rhoda Charlotte Southworth. In 1868, she gave the university a set of chimes. The first tune played at any Cornell Chimes concert is the "Cornell Changes", also known as the "Jennie McGraw Rag". They continue to be played every day from McGraw Tower on the campus. She was also the founder of the Southworth Library in Dryden, New York. Upon her death, she left a significant bequest to Cornell University. Her will designated monies for a library, McGraw Hall, a student health center, and additional monies to be used as the university wished. She was married when she was 39 to professor and librarian Willard Fiske, but lived less than two years following the wedding ceremony.
The Rape of Belgium was a series of systematic war crimes, especially mass murder and deportation, by German troops against Belgian civilians during the invasion and occupation of Belgium in World War I.
During World War I, the German Empire was one of the Central Powers. It began participation in the conflict after the declaration of war against Serbia by its ally, Austria-Hungary. German forces fought the Allies on both the eastern and western fronts, although German territory itself remained relatively safe from widespread invasion for most of the war, except for a brief period in 1914 when East Prussia was invaded. A tight blockade imposed by the Royal Navy caused severe food shortages in the cities, especially in the winter of 1916–17, known as the Turnip Winter. At the end of the war, Germany's defeat and widespread popular discontent triggered the German Revolution of 1918–1919 which overthrew the monarchy and established the Weimar Republic.
The Battle of Waterberg took place on August 11, 1904 at the Waterberg, German South West Africa, and was the decisive battle in the German campaign against the Herero.
Paul W. Schroeder was an American historian who was professor emeritus at the University of Illinois. He specialized in European international politics from the late 16th to the 20th centuries, Central Europe, and the theory of history. He is known for his contributions to diplomatic history and international relations.
The Blockade of Germany, or the Blockade of Europe, occurred from 1914 to 1919. The prolonged naval blockade was conducted by the Allies during and after World War I in an effort to restrict the maritime supply of goods to the Central Powers, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The blockade is considered one of the key elements in the eventual Allied victory in the war. The German Board of Public Health in December 1918 claimed that 763,000 German civilians had already died from starvation and disease, caused by the blockade. An academic study done in 1928 put the death toll at 424,000. An additional 100,000 people may have died during the post-armistice continuation of the blockade in 1919.
Mario Einaudi was an Italian scholar of political theory and European comparative politics.
MacGregor Knox is an American historian of 20th-century Europe, and was from 1994 to 2010 the Stevenson Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. He is the son of the British-born classical scholar and historian Bernard Knox and the novelist Bianca VanOrden.
The Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 was a naval blockade imposed against Venezuela by Great Britain, Germany, and Italy from December 1902 to February 1903, after President Cipriano Castro refused to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European citizens in recent Venezuelan civil wars. Castro assumed that the American Monroe Doctrine would see Washington intervene to prevent European military intervention. However, at the time, United States president Theodore Roosevelt and his Department of State saw the doctrine as applying only to European seizure of territory, rather than intervention per se. With prior promises that no such seizure would occur, the U.S. was officially neutral and allowed the action to go ahead without objection. The blockade saw Venezuela's small navy quickly disabled, but Castro refused to give in, and instead agreed in principle to submit some of the claims to international arbitration, which he had previously rejected. Germany initially objected to this, arguing that some claims should be accepted by Venezuela without arbitration.
The Great Famine of Mount Lebanon (1915–1918) was a period of mass starvation during World War I that resulted in the deaths of 200,000 people, whom are largely Christian inhabitants.
The United Kingdom declaration of war upon Germany occurred on 4 August 1914. The declaration was a result of German refusal to remove troops from neutral Belgium. In 1839, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, France, and Prussia had signed the Treaty of London which guaranteed Belgium's sovereignty.
The United Kingdom entered World War I on 4 August 1914, when King George V declared war after the expiry of an ultimatum to the German Empire. The official explanation focused on protecting Belgium as a neutral country; the main reason, however, was to prevent a French defeat that would have left Germany in control of Western Europe. The Liberal Party was in power with prime minister H. H. Asquith and foreign minister Edward Grey leading the way. The Liberal cabinet made the decision, although the party had been strongly anti-war until the last minute. The Conservative Party was pro-war. The Liberals knew that if they split on the war issue, they would lose control of the government to the Conservatives.
Jennifer V. Evans is a professor of history at Carleton University and a competitive athlete. Her research and teaching focuses on the history of sexuality, right-wing populism and authoritarianism, especially in the context of its evolution on social media and visual culture. In 2016, she was elected a Member of the College of New Scholars, Royal Society of Canada. Her writing on fascism, authoritarianism, memory, and sexuality has appeared in major newspapers, including The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, the National Post, and the Washington Post.
