220 i PERIOD 6 Accelerating Global Change and Realignments (c. 1900 to the present)
Revolutions in Mexico and China
Revolution in Mexico
In 1876, Porfi rio Díaz was elected president of Mexico. For the next 35 years, he continued
the economic growth of the rule of his predecessor, Benito Juárez. Díaz encouraged foreign
investment, industries, and exports. In contrast to other Latin American countries such as
Argentina and Brazil, Mexico was not the destination of many immigrants; its population,
therefore, was largely native. Often economic growth did not benefi t the peasants and work-
ing classes. Opponents of Díaz were arrested or exiled and election fraud was common.
In 1910, the middle class began a movement for election reform. Soon joined by work-
ers and peasants, the reform movement escalated into a 10-year-long rebellion known as
the Mexican Revolution. The revolution ended in a new constitution that guaranteed land
reform, limited foreign investments, restricted church ownership of property, and reformed
education.Revolution in China
The leaders of the movement that brought down the Qing dynasty were Western-educated
reformers who wanted to model China’s government along Western lines. Sun Yat-sen,
one of the movement’s chief leaders, also intended to carry out reforms to benefi t peasants
and workers. Although they admired some aspects of Western society, the revolutionaries
envisioned a China free of foreign imperialists. In 1911, opposition to Qing reliance on
Western loans for railway improvements led to a fi nal rebellion that toppled the Qing in- Centuries of Chinese dynastic rule had come to an end.
The Background of World War I
Three forces interacted to set the scene for World War I:- Nationalism––an intense pride in one’s nation and its people
- Imperialism––the acquisition of colonies
- Militarism––the maintenance of standing armies
Added to these three forces was a system of entangling alliances that complicated interna-
tional relations in the event of war.
The immediate cause of World War I was the assassination of Archduke Francis Fer-
dinand and his wife in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by a Serbian nationalist protesting against the
Austrian annexation of Bosnia. In the aftermath of the assassinations, Germany supported
Austria in a declaration of war against Serbia. Serbia, a Slavic nation, was in turn linked
to Russia’s ethnic policies. By the early twentieth century, Russia’s policy of Russifi ca-
tion, or insistence on the acceptance of Russian culture by its various ethnic groups, had
broadened into a Pan-Slavic movement that was designed to bring all Slavic nations into
a commonwealth with Russia as its head. Russia, therefore, began to mobilize its troops in
defense of Serbia.
Within a few weeks after the assassination at Sarajevo, the system of European alliances
had brought the world into war. Two alliances faced off against each other: the Central
Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria; and the Allied
Powers of Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, and later, the United States. Brit-
ish Commonwealth members Canada, Australia, and New Zealand took an active part
fi ghting on the Allied side. In 1917, China also declared war on Germany. Subject peoples