17. The Elusive Search for Stability in the 1920s

Thomas Mann

• german novelist

• published the Magic Mountain

• the book as a metaphor of the world that was lost due to WWI

• parallel between a Swiss sanatorium and European civilisation: rationality (= Enlightenment thought, democracy) against irrationality (the aggressive nationalism of the dictatorships)

The elusive search for stability

• the Great War had swept away 4 empires (Austro-Hungary, Russia, Ottoman, Germany)

• the Interbellum (the period of time between wars) → characterised by political and economic instability

• brief return to relative prosperity between 1924- 1929

• long lasting economic crisis from 1929 onward

The war had ended in chaos

• Revolution in Russia: February and Oct/ Nov 1917

• Revolution in Germany: downfall of the Empire in Autumn 1918; Spartacist uprising in January 1919; shaky foundations on which the Weimar Republic was built

• Hungary: Declaration of independence un Autumn 1918; Communist coup by Bela Kun in March 1919; seizure of power by Admiral Miklos Horthy in 1920

The Versailles Treaty

→ From January 1919 onwards, delegates from 27 nations and 4 British dominions (Canada, South-Africa, Australia and New Zealand) gathered in Versailles

VERSAILLES Treaty

France had suffered most: 1.3 million men had been killed, large parts of its industry and infrastructure = destroyed: Clemenceau requested revenge and security

Great Britain: More flexible as it had not suffered physical devastation but horrific loss of life and had heavy financial burden

=> Both convicted that Germany had to be held accountable for unleashing the war it should be punished

Italy: looking for natural boundaries, port of Triest and Istria and northern Dalmatia

Idealism of the American President Woodrow Wilson: Manifesto of Fourteen points: making the world safe for democracy, self determination of nations, collective security would prevent future wars = Henceforth the League of Nations (founded in 1920) should arbitrate international disputes

The conditions for Germany

→ social- democratic government signed the treaty under duress and only after the Allies had threatened to invade the country

• loss of Alsace- Lorraine; French occupation of left bank of the Rhine + a strip of land along the east bank,

  • administration of Saarland by the League of Nations for 15 years

  • loss of Eupen- Malmedy to Belgium

  • in the east => loss of territory to Poland (which was created as an independent state)

• army reduced to 100 000 men, reduction of military and commercial navy

• payment of 132 billion gold marks in war reparations + ¼ of all coal mined to be handed over to the Allies

opposition against the treaty

• John Maynard Keynes (English economist and philosopher) left the negotiation

• Marshal Ferdinand Foch (French general) exclaimed: ‘ This is not a peace, it is a twenty year truce’ (примириее)

=> soon it would become clear that Germany could and would not meet the condition imposed upon it at Versailles

Settlements in Central and Eastern Europe

• Treaty of Neuilly: Bulgaria lost territory to Greece and Romania

• Treaty of Saint Germain: Creation of Austria

• Treaty of Trianon: Hungary lost 2/3 of its territory, 60% of its total population and 25% of ethnic Hungarians

• Treaty of Sevres: dismantlement of the former Ottoman Empire

  - > 1923 Turkey’s independence was recognised and Smyrna returned, population exchange with Greece, modernisation under Attaturk

National and ethnic challenges

For the first time since 1500 (or 1648) the number of European states increased instead of decreasing

• Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in Northern Europe

• Poland and Czechoslovakia in Central Europe

• Yugoslavia in the Balkans

=> Notwithstanding the Wilsonian principle, all Central European states
and those on the Balkans were multi-ethnic. For their external security
they depended upon an ever more reluctant France

=> most of these newly created states, with exception of Finland and Czechoslovakia would evolve in the 1930s into dictatorship

Europe during Interbellum

Wilsonian principles!

Nationalist movements requesting independence

→ Creation of the Irish free state in 1922 which became the Irish Republic in 1948, whereas

→ Northern Ireland/Ulster remained within the UK

Contrasting promise in the Middle east

• British declared support for an independent Arab state in 1915

• Sykes- Picot agreement out of 1916 whereby Britain and France divided the Middle East in zones of influence

• Balfour declaration out of 1917 whereby Britain declared support for a ‘national home’ for the Jews

  + Riots in India 1919 actions of Muhatma Gandhi in India

Economic and Social Instability

• roaring twenties versus social and political turmoil

• at the end of the war => all participating countries were seriously indebted, moreover manufacturing and agricultural production had fallen as a consequence of conflict

  => massive inflation. in 1920 prices in Britain were three times as high as in 1914, five times higher in Germany, 14 000 times higher in Australia and 23 000 times higher in hUNGARY

• Returning soldiers → contributed to massive unemployment

Economic and Social Instability pt2

• in exchange for participation in the war effort (and looking after the example of the USSR) => people requested improvement of the living conditions and a greater political say

• Women’s emancipation and more jobs available to them on the labour market after WWI

• FEAR of Social UNREST after the war contributed to victories for conservative parties in Britain and France; general strikes = failed

• The war had been a devastating experience for socialist parties; in 1920 these same parties had to confront the split of the communists

• In Britain, France and Germany = socialists opted for reformism and participated in governments

The Frail Weimar Republic

• Weimar as a centrally located, provincial city

• Threats to the Republic from the left and from right, e.g. general strike in Berlin in early March 1919 ended by intervention of Free Corps who gunned several thousands of workers; brief Soviet- style Republic in Munich in Apr 1919

• Rapprochement to the Soviet Union by foreign affair minister Walther Ratchenau (1867 - 1922): Rapallo Treaty

After Germany had suspended war reparation payments..

French and Belgian troops occupied Ruhr- area; the consequences proved to be disastrous for all those involved, as the German government continued to pay salaries to the ministers that had gone on strike in protest against the occupation

=> led to hyperinflation in Germany

The Frail Weimar Republic pt2

→ the crisis would be solved thanks to the Dawes- plan (named after the American banker Charles D. Dawes)

→ the german debt was reduced and then spread over a longer period

→ France and Britain would grand loans to Germany to enable these payments

→ The new chancellor → Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929) succeeded to half inflation. Gradually = the economy recovered

→ in 1925, the ensuing détene led to the Treaty of Locarno→ the signatories pledged to settle future disputes peacefully and Germany would be admitted to the League of Nations

Difficult recoveries in Britain

• in Jan 1924, Ramsay Mac Donalds (1866-1936) became the first prime minister for the Labour Party → his government lasted only a few months

• the next conservative government was forced to relinquish the gold standard

• In 1926, Mac Donald refused to support the general strike, which
  in the end was broken.

• In 1929 Labour won the elections and Mac Donald returned as
  prime minister.

Difficult recoveries in France

• in January 1924 also the French Franc = collapsed as consequence of the financial panic

• the centre-left government could not agree on measures to recover the trust in the currency

• in 1926 → the conservative Raymonf Poincarre (1860-1934) succeeded to restore confidence in the Franc by raising taxes on consumption

• trust in democracy → decreased ☹