Successor States

Yugoslavia

• Established 1918

• Made up of Serbia & Montenegro, Habsburg empire

• Home to various ethnic & Religious backgrounds

• Serbs, Croats, Germans, Albanians, Romanians

• Religious and ethnic disputes & violence

• Impossible to develop institutions of democracy

• Alexander I banned all political parties & proclaimed himself

• 1920: little entente with czechoslovakia, romania, and france

• 1924: yugoslavia joined an alliance with greece, romania, and turkey

• weak and vulnerable

• bad agricultural methods and industry

• heavily dependent on western loans

Poland

• re-emerged as an independent nation in november 1918

• paris peace conference confirmed their independence in june 1919

• 1926: josef pilsudski led a military coup and established himself dictator

• border disputes brought Poland into conflict with Germany, Czecholslovakia, Lituania, and Russia

• Polish leaders wanted to extend Poland’s territory beyond what was established during the PPC

• Gained control over Ukraine and Lithuania since the PPC

• Poland defeated Russia in the Battle of Warsaw and was ended with the Treaty of Riga in 1921, adding a strip of land to Poland’s eastern border

Czechoslovakia

• emerged from the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in October 1918

• maintained a democratic system of government

• developed protective alliances with Yugoslavia, Romania, Italy and France

Austria

• industrial areas were given to Poland and Czechoslovakia by the Treaty of Saint Germain

• experienced enormous economic problems

• increasingly reliant on foreign loans and inflation ran high leading to political instability

• austrians believed that the solution to their problems was union with germany, which was forbidden by the PPC

• foreign loans were only given in response to austrias commitment to not seek union with germany

Hungary

• the aftermath of the first world war led to political chaos in hungary

• the hungarian communist party seized control

• the hungarian soviet republic under the leadership of bela kun was announced on March 21, 1919

• hungarian troops invaded Czechoslovakia with the aim to extend hungary’s border. france intervened and hungary retreated

• hungarian troops to invade romania were quickly defeated

• kun’s government collapsed

• the hungarian military leaders formed a new, heavily anti-communist government that took violent reprisals