Monday, April 23, 2012

23rd/ April/ 2012



Today in Social Sciences we have done a review about the Conference of Paris. In this conference, only the winners could attend, the defeated countries weren´t allowed to attend.
The president of the U.S.A, Woodrow Wilson, presented a Fourteen- Point Plan, based on the right of self- determination, but this right wasn´t given to all the peoples which wanted to create their own nations. The winners obliged the losers to sign separated peace treaties. There were five peace treaties in total:
-Sevres, with the Ottoman Empire.
-Trianon, with Hungary.
-St. Germain in Austria.
-Nevilly in Bulgaria.
-Versailles with Germany. It was the most important treaty because led to the Creation of the League of Nations.  The League of Nations was a precedent of the United Nations and the main objectives were: preserving peace and solving international problems un a peaceful way. But it was weak since it was created because the U.S.A didn´t join it, all the countries had the same power and decisions had to be unanimous, there wasn´t army to impose their sanctions.
In this Treaty, there were some territorial sanctions, Germany lost 1/8 of its territory and its empire was distributed between the U.K(1/3 of Togoland and Cameroon and Tangonyka and New Guinea in Asia), France( 2/3 of Togoland and Cameroon),Belgium(Rwanda and Burundi) and South Africa Union which was under U.K control at the same time,(German Western Africa, present Namibia). Like South Africa continued to be a colony, Paqui has explained us that after World War 2, many of the colonial empires started to become independent.
Other sanctions were, the military sanctions like, demilitarization of the West bank of River Rhine.
Afterwards, we have been seeing some pictures about the stab in the back in which the German government had treasoned the German people by accepting Versailles Treaty.
Paqui has explained us how was Europe after the war: the disintegration of the Austro- Hungarian Empire gave birth to two new States: Austria and Hungary and the Slaves of the south created Yugoslavia. Another disintegration was the Ottoman Empire. Paqui has told us that many present problems in Iraq came from this war, for example one of the main problems is the Kurds.
We have continued with the unit and we have started to read the consequences of War, but the bell has rung, so we have to do an exercise for homework about it.
Paqui has explained the meaning of Spanish flu. The flu was introduced by U.S.A soldiers in Europe, but it received the name of Spanish flu because the main cases studied were in Spain. We have been talking about John Maynard Keynes, who was a British economist that wrote a book warned about the economic consequences of an unfair peace.
We have learn some new words like:
To attend: asistir.
Guidelines: orientaciones.
Diktat: humillación
Buffer area: cordon sanitario. It was an area created to stop the spread of revolutionary ideas in 1919, coming from Russia.
Casualties: víctimas.
Disabled/ handicapped: discapacitados, mutilados.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello Rebeca!!
I haven't seen any mistakes, good work!
I think that if the sanctions given to the losers of the WWI had been less, the revenge of these countries had been less. All the countries that participated in the WWI have a part of blame.

Bye!

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Well done, Rebeca.

Javi, as you have said, peace conferences should serve to build peace and the Conference of Paris was not an example of this kind. All the sanctions to Germany were related to the UK and French fear for the economic development of Germany. They tried to stop it with the hard sanctions they imposed, but when the economic crisis started in 1929, Germany went through a big depression (6 million unemployed) and this was the context for the rise of Nazism. Hard times are a fertile ground for extremism, as we can see in Europe now (rise of extreme-right parties in different countries: Finland, Netherlands, France...).

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Hello again, Rebeca,

I´ve been checking older posts and you´ve used the same image Dani included on his post some days ago. Could you change it for a different one? You could include a map with the new countries appeared in Europe after the war.

Good night