We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR represented a major turning point in the history not only of the Jews, but also of Europe and the wider world. It brought to an end the ‘long nineteenth century’, which had started with the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, and initiated what has been described as the ‘short twentieth century’, an ‘age of extremes’, which lasted from the outbreak of war in 1914 to the collapse of communism in east central Europe and the USSR in the years 1989–91.
Characteristic of the ‘long nineteenth century’ was the domination of the principles underlying Karl Polanyi's ‘great transformation’: the market economy and constitutionalist and pluralist politics, together with a firm belief in progress. One should not over-romanticize the nineteenth century. There was considerable violence and political repression, not least in the tsarist monarchy, which, on the eve of the First World War, was on the brink of another revolutionary upheaval. In general, however, there was a widespread belief that society was evolving in a positive direction.
The ‘short twentieth century’ was to be very different. It was marked by the devastating impact of the First World War and by the emergence of rival totalitarian systems of the right and left. The ideological conflict between them came to a head during the Second World War, which involved brutality and loss of life on an even larger scale than the First World War. And ideological and geopolitical conflict did not end in 1945, but took a new form in the cold war.
The First World War saw the three powers that had partitioned Poland go to war with each other (see Map 10). German strategy was based on the Schlieffen Plan, an attempt to deal with the problem of fighting a war on two fronts by first defeating France and only then turning on Russia. Thus, the first stage of the war was marked by German advances in the west, which were halted by the first battle of the Marne in early September 1914, and by Russian advances in East Prussia and East Galicia.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
