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late 19th century colonial world

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colonial authorities found themselves as occupiers rather than liberators

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engaged in unconventional wars

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not what the military authorities had been trained to practice

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led to total wars in the colonies with three features

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1. armies become occupying armies

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struggling to control territories, as well as people rising up against them

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2. to justify these practices, the colonial peoples were increasingly dehumanized

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the increasingly became the other

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cast in a role as the other

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necessarily inferior

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irremediably hopeless

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deserving of the fate being meted out on them

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3. the sheer asymmetry of power

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what General von Trotha wielded in complete superiority over the Hereros was staggering

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the Hereros had little to use to wage a confrontation

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paradox: once colonial armies were drawn into these conflicts, it was very hard to extricate themselves

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dynasties were increasingly in trouble

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Russia

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a new cycle of revolutions

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an echo of the revolutions around the turn of the 19th century, e.g. the American and French revolutions

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culminated in Russia in 1917

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pre-WWI, 20th century

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other rivalries

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with Japan in the Pacific

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with the British in central Asia

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increasingly with German in Europe

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Russo-Japanese War 1904-05

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Japan humiliates Russia

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Czarist regime was faced with

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rising fiscal troubles

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growing domestic inequities

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demands for reforms

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calls to put constraints on the power of the Czar himself

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1905 St. Petersburg, Bloody Sunday

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Czarist troops responded to calls for reform with repression

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the Czar did agree to some reforms

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Duma was created

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party system

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1906 new constitution

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reforms issued in the wake of protests

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Pyotr Stolypin (1862-1911)

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managed reforms

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but the reforms was too little, too late

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Turkey

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late 19th century had reformers

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the Young Turks

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wanted to transform the decrepit, stagnant Ottoman empire into a modern nation-state

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1908 new constitution

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provoked a round of tension and reprisals

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Armenian minorities began to demand new rights

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Christian Armenians were secessionists, and anti-Turkish

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Young Turks accused of allowing these upstart minorities to get too many freedoms

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atrocities

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1909 civilians accused of treason against the sultan were hanged

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Armenian massacres were widespread

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pogroms with 30,000 people dead in some areas

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led to genocide during WWI

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this specter of atrocity was picked up in European news

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evoked opinion against Ottoman Empire as world learns of genocide

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the first Holocaust

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a new humanitarian crusade

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the first human rights movement

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photo journalist

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investigators

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tapped into peoples being able to identify with other peoples