Chapter 26 - The Futile Search for Stability: Europe Between the Wars, 1919-1939
After 14 years of war, the people of Europe were left devastated and in despair and disillusion.
The enormous suffering and the deaths of almost 10 million people shook traditional society to its foundations and undermined the whole idea of progress.
The immediate response was the construction of war memorials with ceremonies to honor the dead.
Battlefields also became significant commemorative sites with memorial parks, large monuments, and massive cemeteries, including ossuaries or vaults where the bones of thousands of unidentified soldiers were interred.
Businesses, schools, universities, and other corporate bodies all set up their own war memorials.
The peace treaties at the end of the war had tried to fill the 19th-century with nationalism by redrawing boundaries and creating new states.
This created conflicts over disputed border regions and poisoned mutual relations in eastern Europe for years, and many Germans viewed the Peace of Versailles as a dictated peace and vowed to seek its revision.
Although the League of Nations had some success in guaranteeing protection for the rights of the many ethnic and religious minorities, the League was not particularly effective at maintaining that peace.
France's new alliance with Russia was threatening to Germany with the possibility of a two-front war.
Unable to secure military support through the League of Nations, France sought security between 1919 and 1924 by relying primarily on strict enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles.
This policy toward Germany began with the issue of reparations as the treaty asserted.
The formation of new governments in Great Britain and France ended the policy of passive resistance and committed Germany to carry out the acts of the treaty of Versailles while seeking a new settlement.
After World War I, most European states hoped to return to the liberal ideal of a market economy based on private enterprise and largely free of state intervention.
The causes for this were an international financial crisis caused by the collapse of the American stock market in 1929.
Much of Europe's prosperity between 1924 and 1929 had been built on American bank loans to Germany.
The crash of the American stock market in October 1929 led panicky American investors to withdraw even more of their funds from Germany and other European markets.
The withdrawal of funds seriously weakened the banks of Germany and other central European states.
This came with a loss of jobs and many social and political repercussions.
Women were often able to secure low-paying jobs as servants, house cleaners, or laundresses while many men remained unemployed, either begging on the streets or staying at home to do household tasks.
High unemployment rates among young males often led them to join gangs that gathered in parks or other public places, arousing fear among local residents.
Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that WWI had been fought to make the world safer.
But four major European states and a host of minor ones had functioning political democracies.
In a number of nations, universal male suffrage had even been replaced by universal suffrage as male politicians rewarded women for their contributions to World War I by granting them the right to vote except in Italy, France, and Spain, where women had to wait until the end of World War II.
After World War I, Great Britain went through a period of painful readjustment and serious economic difficulties.
During the war, Britain had lost many of the markets for its industrial products, especially to the United States and Japan.
The postwar decline of such staple industries as coal, steel, and textiles led to a rise in unemployment, which reached the 2 million mark in 1921.
After the defeat of Germany, France had become the strongest power on the European continent.
Its greatest need was to rebuild the devastated areas of northern and eastern France, but no French government seemed capable of solving France’s financial problems between 1921 and 1926.
The Scandinavian states were particularly successful in coping with the Great Depression.
These Social Democratic governments encouraged the development of rural and industrial cooperative enterprises.
Ninety percent of the Danish milk industry, for example, was organized on a cooperative basis by 1933. Privately owned and managed, Scandinavian cooperatives seemed to avoid the pitfalls of either Communist or purely capitalist economic systems.
After Germany, no Western nation was more affected by the Great Depression than the United States.
By the end of 1932, industrial production was down almost 50 percent. By 1933, there were 15 million unemployed.
Under these circumstances, the Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the 1932 presidential election by a landslide.
World War I had the exact opposite effect that Woodrow Wilson had proclaimed.
Many post societies were horribly divided, especially classes. Gender divisions also weakened social cohesion.
After soldiers returned home women were forced out of jobs they had gotten the opportunity to take during the war.
The Great Depression also deepened the social conflict.
Larger and larger numbers of people felt victimized, first by the war, and now by socioeconomic conditions that seemed beyond their control.
In 2923 a small party, known as the Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler tried to seize power in southern Germany on the march of Rome in 1922. Although the attempt failed, Hitler and the Nazis achieved sudden national prominence. Within ten years, they had taken over complete power.
Born in 1889, Adolf Hitler was the son of an Austrian customs official. He was a total failure in secondary school and eventually made his way to Vienna to become an artist.
Hitler joined the obscure German Workers’ Party, one of a number of right-wing extreme nationalist parties in Munich. By the summer of 1921, Hitler had assumed total control of the party, which he renamed the Nazi.
The Beer Hall Putsch proved to be a major turning point in Hitler’s career. It was the first time he had faith in himself and in his mission.
If the Nazis could not overthrow the Weimar Republic by force, they would have to use constitutional means to gain power.
After his release from prison, Hitler set about organizing the Nazi Party for the lawful takeover of power. His position on leadership in the party was clear.
The party soon grew from 27,000 members to 178,000 between 1925 and 1929, and 800,00 by September 1930. Soon Hitler had a complete state.
The 1920s were known as the roaring 20s for their exuberance of pop culture.
Berlin, the capital of Germany, became the entertainment center of Europe with its theaters, cabarets, cinemas, and jazz clubs
Especially important was Guglielmo Marconi’s discovery of ‘‘wireless’’ radio waves. There were now many sports, tourism was a big thing, and dancing was huge.
After 14 years of war, the people of Europe were left devastated and in despair and disillusion.
The enormous suffering and the deaths of almost 10 million people shook traditional society to its foundations and undermined the whole idea of progress.
The immediate response was the construction of war memorials with ceremonies to honor the dead.
Battlefields also became significant commemorative sites with memorial parks, large monuments, and massive cemeteries, including ossuaries or vaults where the bones of thousands of unidentified soldiers were interred.
Businesses, schools, universities, and other corporate bodies all set up their own war memorials.
The peace treaties at the end of the war had tried to fill the 19th-century with nationalism by redrawing boundaries and creating new states.
This created conflicts over disputed border regions and poisoned mutual relations in eastern Europe for years, and many Germans viewed the Peace of Versailles as a dictated peace and vowed to seek its revision.
Although the League of Nations had some success in guaranteeing protection for the rights of the many ethnic and religious minorities, the League was not particularly effective at maintaining that peace.
France's new alliance with Russia was threatening to Germany with the possibility of a two-front war.
Unable to secure military support through the League of Nations, France sought security between 1919 and 1924 by relying primarily on strict enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles.
This policy toward Germany began with the issue of reparations as the treaty asserted.
The formation of new governments in Great Britain and France ended the policy of passive resistance and committed Germany to carry out the acts of the treaty of Versailles while seeking a new settlement.
After World War I, most European states hoped to return to the liberal ideal of a market economy based on private enterprise and largely free of state intervention.
The causes for this were an international financial crisis caused by the collapse of the American stock market in 1929.
Much of Europe's prosperity between 1924 and 1929 had been built on American bank loans to Germany.
The crash of the American stock market in October 1929 led panicky American investors to withdraw even more of their funds from Germany and other European markets.
The withdrawal of funds seriously weakened the banks of Germany and other central European states.
This came with a loss of jobs and many social and political repercussions.
Women were often able to secure low-paying jobs as servants, house cleaners, or laundresses while many men remained unemployed, either begging on the streets or staying at home to do household tasks.
High unemployment rates among young males often led them to join gangs that gathered in parks or other public places, arousing fear among local residents.
Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that WWI had been fought to make the world safer.
But four major European states and a host of minor ones had functioning political democracies.
In a number of nations, universal male suffrage had even been replaced by universal suffrage as male politicians rewarded women for their contributions to World War I by granting them the right to vote except in Italy, France, and Spain, where women had to wait until the end of World War II.
After World War I, Great Britain went through a period of painful readjustment and serious economic difficulties.
During the war, Britain had lost many of the markets for its industrial products, especially to the United States and Japan.
The postwar decline of such staple industries as coal, steel, and textiles led to a rise in unemployment, which reached the 2 million mark in 1921.
After the defeat of Germany, France had become the strongest power on the European continent.
Its greatest need was to rebuild the devastated areas of northern and eastern France, but no French government seemed capable of solving France’s financial problems between 1921 and 1926.
The Scandinavian states were particularly successful in coping with the Great Depression.
These Social Democratic governments encouraged the development of rural and industrial cooperative enterprises.
Ninety percent of the Danish milk industry, for example, was organized on a cooperative basis by 1933. Privately owned and managed, Scandinavian cooperatives seemed to avoid the pitfalls of either Communist or purely capitalist economic systems.
After Germany, no Western nation was more affected by the Great Depression than the United States.
By the end of 1932, industrial production was down almost 50 percent. By 1933, there were 15 million unemployed.
Under these circumstances, the Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the 1932 presidential election by a landslide.
World War I had the exact opposite effect that Woodrow Wilson had proclaimed.
Many post societies were horribly divided, especially classes. Gender divisions also weakened social cohesion.
After soldiers returned home women were forced out of jobs they had gotten the opportunity to take during the war.
The Great Depression also deepened the social conflict.
Larger and larger numbers of people felt victimized, first by the war, and now by socioeconomic conditions that seemed beyond their control.
In 2923 a small party, known as the Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler tried to seize power in southern Germany on the march of Rome in 1922. Although the attempt failed, Hitler and the Nazis achieved sudden national prominence. Within ten years, they had taken over complete power.
Born in 1889, Adolf Hitler was the son of an Austrian customs official. He was a total failure in secondary school and eventually made his way to Vienna to become an artist.
Hitler joined the obscure German Workers’ Party, one of a number of right-wing extreme nationalist parties in Munich. By the summer of 1921, Hitler had assumed total control of the party, which he renamed the Nazi.
The Beer Hall Putsch proved to be a major turning point in Hitler’s career. It was the first time he had faith in himself and in his mission.
If the Nazis could not overthrow the Weimar Republic by force, they would have to use constitutional means to gain power.
After his release from prison, Hitler set about organizing the Nazi Party for the lawful takeover of power. His position on leadership in the party was clear.
The party soon grew from 27,000 members to 178,000 between 1925 and 1929, and 800,00 by September 1930. Soon Hitler had a complete state.
The 1920s were known as the roaring 20s for their exuberance of pop culture.
Berlin, the capital of Germany, became the entertainment center of Europe with its theaters, cabarets, cinemas, and jazz clubs
Especially important was Guglielmo Marconi’s discovery of ‘‘wireless’’ radio waves. There were now many sports, tourism was a big thing, and dancing was huge.
