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after WWI ended, the nations were faced with the task of rebuilding the core at the center of the world system

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tried to patch up the differences they had

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some envisioned a world that would put an end to the conflicts that had given rise to the First World War

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an idea put forth as the war ground down: this should be a war to end all wars

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this was the spirit, albeit not well proportioned, of the men who gathered in Versailles in France in 1919

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imagined and discussed &global& peace

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Woodrow Wilson was the hero of the day

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particularly in France

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treated the entrance of the United States in the war as one of the moments that would rescue France

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sought to design a new world system

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shared several principles:

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1. international trade system had to be restored

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the change for peace would be better the more there was a global economy

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restore the gold standard

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the center of that global economy in the 19th century was London and Britain, using the pound

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but Britain now had large debts to its dominions and to the United States now

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it was unclear how this gold standard would get its moorings

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inhibited by high inflation rates

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restore trade

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trade imbalances inhibited this

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there was no more center to the world economy

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no plagued by debts

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this was never completely resolved

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2. the central powers would be demilitarized

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3. begin the process of dismantling old empires

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Woodrow Wilson: inter-imperial rivalry had been the cause of conflict

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dismantle the empires because empires seek war

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democratic nation-states are the anchorage for peace

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self-determined nation-states should be rules by constitutional democracy

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create protectorates

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create nation-states out of the old

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Hapsburg Empire

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Ottoman Empire

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colonies were entrusted to become protectorates and mandates

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Palestine

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1917 Lord Balfour declared that new states would be created in this zone, and until then these states would become protectorates

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to govern all of this, there would be a new meta-institution for the world called the League of Nations

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to prevent future conflicts

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it was a Utopian architecture

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met resistance from the United States

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isolationists believed that the United States

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the United States Congress refused to ratify the treaty that would give rise to the league of nations

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this was quite different than the decision by the United States in 1945 at the end of WWII

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while the League of Nations was approved, the United States was not a member

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from the beginning, the league of nations was a hobbled organization

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there arose a spectre of violence and rising racialized genocide

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WWI was also an internal war among empires

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Gandhi and others in India became increasingly active again the suppression in India

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the English economy had become quite dependent on India and needed it to support the war effort

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the empire was 40% larger than Britain itself

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1915 Defense of India Act

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an emergency criminal law enacted by the Governor-General of India with the intention of curtailing the nationalist and revolutionary activities during and in the aftermath of the First World War.

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especially severe in the Punjab and Bengal

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by 1918, Britain had over 2 million Indian soldiers in combat and non-combat unions

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extermination was more sever in the Ottoman Empire

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mass killing of Armenian Christians

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Ottomans lived in fear

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the Dardanelle Straits had been blockaded

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the Russians had invaded the Ottoman Empire

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there was concern of non-Turkish people to the Ottoman effort

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Greeks, Jews, and especially Christian Armenias were targeted for oppression

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Turkey felt it had to purge itself of foreign elements

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foreigners inside Turkey was a problem for Turkey itself

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Yusuf Akçura: "Turkishness is a brotherhood born of race."

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started concentration camps

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soon billowed into an extermination campaign

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goal was to eradicate the Christian presense

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began in 1915

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Armenians gathered together in camps

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something more macabre and sinister

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how do you tell the story of the hanged and executioners

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how do you tell the story where the executioners pose for the photographer in front of those they hanged

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600,000 - 1,000,000 Armenians were slaughtered or died

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the world had not yet seen a mass killing of non-combatants on this scale before

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90% of the Armenian population was eliminated

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WWI was in a sense like a giant onion: conflicts within villages that would escalate outward into large conflicts and eventually a war among empires and brutality between states

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so a war of this constitution and magnitude was not a war to end all wars

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in some ways, we are still trying to cope with its aftermath