Slide5:
The First Genocide of the 20th Century:
“The Turks have embarked upon the "total extermination of the Armenians in Transcaucasia… The aim of Turkish policy is, as I have reiterated, the taking of possession of Armenian districts and the extermination of the Armenians. Talaat's government wants to destroy all Armenians, not just in Turkey but also outside Turkey. On the basis of all the reports and news coming to me here in Tiflis there hardly can be any doubt that the Turks systematically are aiming at the extermination of the few hundred thousand Armenians whom they left alive until now.”
-General Otto von Lossow
Between 1915 and 1918, between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians died through massacres or forced marches into the desert intended to exterminate them.
Slide7:
Other instances of genocide during and after World War I:
The Assyrian Genocide: Between 500,000 and 750,000 (mostly Christian) Assyrians were killed by the Ottoman Turkish government.
The Pontic Genocide: Over 300,000 Greeks were killed during deportations and massacres both during and after World War I.
After war between Greece and Turkey ended in 1922, a “population exchange of some 2 million people occurred between the two countries.”
Slide9:
Decolonization:
During World War I, both sides stirred up colonized peoples as a tool to attack their enemies. This, in many ways, sparked anti-colonial movements in all Empires engaged during World War I.
At the end of the World War I, both the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires were dismantled. In their stead, new countries were created: Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and Austria are created from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
In the British Empire, a number of territories became independent—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, while others began to seriously agitate toward independence: India most of all, whose soldiers had fought for Britain during World War I.
The Ottoman Empire is dissolved and in its place a new nation—Turkey is created, while the rest of the Empire is placed under British and French rule.
Slide12:
The Balfour Declaration:
Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917. Dear Lord Rothschild, I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet: "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country". I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation. Yours sincerely Arthur James Balfour
Slide14:
Women and World War I:
During World War I, women, for the first time, were actively recruited to fight in the armed forces of a number of nations while tens of thousands found work in factory jobs which had previously been reserved for men and many more worked as nurses in the hospitals on both sides of World War I.
This experience translated into change after the war where, in a number of countries, women gained the right to vote.
Women in Britain gained abridged voting rights in 1918 and full voting rights in 1926.
In the United States, women gained the right to vote with passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1919.
Slide15:
During World War I, women, for the first time, were actively recruited to fight in the armed forces of a number of nations while tens of thousands found work in factory jobs which had previously been reserved for men and many more worked as nurses in the hospitals on both sides of World War I.