1. An Uncertain Peace: Europe after World War I
Chapter 26, pp & 758

2. What does this cartoon say about the relationship between countries after World War I and the ability of the League of Nations to bring peace?
Cartoon Source:

3. France on the search for Allies
US and GB alienate France after WWI
Communist Russia is considered a hostile threat
France must find new allies to help protect them from Germany
Turn to Poland and Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia (Little Entente)
WHAT WAS THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM WITH THESE ALLIANCES?

4. Europe in the early 1920s
In the early 1920s all countries in Europe were suffering from inflation, unemployment and political instability as a result of WWI,
HOWEVER Germany suffered the most.

5. A post-WWI world Versailles---Too soft…? Too hard…?
Germany --- angry, humiliated
Versailles---Too soft…? Too hard…?
E. Europe---communist…spreading???
France---afraid, isolated – turns East!
1921 pact with Poland / Czech / Yugo…
England---undependable – but saw German’s healthy economy as key
John M. Keynes: Econ. Conse. Of the Peace
US---isolationist

6. Post-War England England: 1919 D.L.George –
Labour Party: revisionist socialism replaces liberal-Ramsay McDonald, 1924
IRELAND
Easter Rebellion 1916: Sinn Fein of Ireland prominent
1921 Free State – but Ulster revolts
1949 Republic of Ireland
Depression: 1920s-unemployment
India:
Mahatma Gandhi 1919 leads self-govt. movement (1948 assassinated because of his agreement to independent Pakistan)
Urges Indians to revive customs – spinning
Independent India in 1947

7. Post-War France 1919 Election: Premier Alexandre Millerand
1921 – replaced by Briand – then Poincare (1926), who stabilized France’s currency and secured prosperity
Financial problems: Debts of war
depend on German $ but Dec. ‘22 Germany default
Jan. ‘23-’25 Ruhr Occupation/Crisis - occupation by France / Belgium!!!
(try to gain money from industry there – resistance)
Briand – for reconciliation with Germany / USSR
1931 Depression --- recovery? fall again?
different political cabinets pre ‘34)
1935 Pierre Laval (conserv) – falls ‘36
1936 Coalition “Popular Front” (Blum) soc/com

8. French Policy of Coercion
b/c France does not feel protected from the German threat they find other ways to “deal” with the Germans
Economic sanctions and threats
War reparations = $33 billion – eventually Germany can’t pay SO
France and Belgium send troops to occupy the Ruhr Valley with 70,000 troops.
No! You can’t force me!

9. WHY THE RUHR?

10. French Policy of Coercion:
The French intended to use the produce of Germany’s industrial heartland as payment in kind for reparations. The German government began a policy of passive resistance and called a general strike. Some began a low level terrorist campaign. The French reacted brutally with aggressive house searches, hostage taking and shooting over a hundred Germans.

11. What is hyper-inflation?
The economic effects of the occupation were catastrophic. The loss of production in the Ruhr caused a fall in production elsewhere and unemployment rose from 2% to 23%.Prices rose out of control as tax revenues collapsed and the government financed its activities through the printing of money. By November prices were a billion times their pre-war levels.

12. Hyper-Inflation causes…
Increased unemployment

13. Hyper-Inflation causes…
Massive increases in the cost of living
Children playing with stacks of worthless German paper money,

14. Cost of Living Tables: Germany 1918-1923

15. Hyper-Inflation causes…
Communist uprising in Oct – attempt to take over Hamburg
Hitler’s Nazi party stages the Beer-Hall Putsch in Munich in Nov. 1923

16. The Hopeful Years, 1924-1929 Gustav Streseman
Ended passive resistance against France
Accepted Treaty of Versailles and renegotiated reparations payments
Dawes Plan lower required payments and lent Germany $200 million
Stabilized the currency = end of hyper-inflation
German and European economy begins to recover

17. The Spirit of Locarno = new spirit of international cooperation
Treaty of Locarno, 1925
Germany accepted its borders with France and Belgium as dictated in Treaty of Versailles…”Peace at Last”
What about the border with Poland?
Maybe not as permanent as the western border, we’ll see…
Germany enters League of Nations, March 1926
What does this new relationship signify?
Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928
63 nations pledge to “renounce war as an instrument of national policy”

18. European Gov’ts by 1939 Democratic Totalitarian Authoritarian
Great Britain
France
Low Countries
Scandinavian states
Switzerland
Czechoslovakia
(USA)
Italy (Mussolini)
Germany (Hitler)
Soviet Union (Stalin)
Bulgaria
Poland
Yugoslavia
Hungary
Greece
Romania
Spain
Portugal

19. What is an Authoritarian State?
A state that has a dictatorial government and some other trappings of a totalitarian state BUT does not demand that the masses be actively involved in the regime’s goals as a totalitarian state does.

20. What is a Totalitarian State?
A state characterized by government control over all aspects of economic, social, political, cultural and intellectual life, the subordination of the individual to the state, and insistence that the masses be actively involved in the regime’s goals
What is the role of propaganda in a totalitarian state?

21. What is fascism?
An ideology or movement that exalts the nation above the individual and calls for centralized government w/ a dictatorial leader, economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition; in particular, the ideology of Mussolini’s Fascist regime in Italy and Hitler’s in Germany