the road to WWII

Paris peace conference 1919

• meeting of victors

  • main decisions by council of Four (UK, USA, Fr, It)

  • Germany, Austria-Hungary not there, not victors

  • Russia ostracized (banned) so not there

• context

  • by 1919, late ally Russia in hands bolsheviks; excluded

  • new republics already existed along Baltic coast, Poland,… but without effective governments or acknowledged frontiers

  • central Europe in chaos, with Russian-style revolution threatening to break out

  • allied blockade of Germany continued, Western Europe devastated

  • Europeans looked with awe to US president ilson; American intervention decided conflict; Wilson eminence for views on international relations and peace

• Wilson → 14 points

  • proposal, outlining Wildon’s vision for end WWI in way to prevent war from happening again

  • also intended to keep Russia an ally, boost allied morale adn undermine central powers

  • content: ½ addressed territorial issues between countries at war and ½ is vision for peace

• peace negotiations not peace without victory mentality

• Great European powers different objectives

  • France: wants certainty against German invasions

  • British: freedom of seas (preserve British command of the sea)

  • Italy: wanted territories, wanted to be one of great European powers

treaty of Versailles (1919): harsh punishment germany

• symbolic importance Versailles location

• guilt clause: Germany accepted responsibility for causing WWI; accepting to pay reparations; in return for relative territorial integrity

  • german disarmament: no airforce/tanks, small army, naval fleet only coastal defense

  • enormous war reparations

  • German territorial losses: Rhineland, Alsace and Lorraine and Saar, transfer small territories (Belgium, Denmark, Poland)

• Germany lost all colonies

significance Paris Peace settlement

• triumph (Western) nationalism

  • yet, failure to fully solve all minority problems and irredentism (particularly Eastern Europe)

  • Germans in Sudetenland complained being cut off from Germany

  • German punishment leads to German nationalism

• failure of treaty of Versailles (with germany)

  • too severe to prevent German revanchism; too lenient to destroy German power; remained economically dominant power

  • conflicts of interests Great powers remained

  • USA never ratified treaty nor entered League of Nations (return to isolationism)

• creation league of nations

  • council, assembly and a secretariat + court international justice

  • couldn’t prevent WWII

    • lacked own army; dependent on allied forces to enforce peace resolutions

    • weakened credibility

interbellum (interwar period)

2.1 economic crisis

• great depression 1930s: global economic recession, started in USA (1929 crash Wall Street)

  • war economy: massive export goods and munitions to Europe; rise employment in urban centress, increase purchasing power

  • roaring twenties and powt-war optimism: speculation, easy credit to customers

  • meanwhile: export to Europe dropped, steel production declined, utomobile sales dropped, high debt individual consumers and (agricultural) over-production threatened farmers’ incomes

  • vicious cycle: over-production, price deflation, bankruptcies, rise unemployment, weakend purchasing power

  • 1929: panic on stock market, no limitations on trading or measures to prevent panic sales; massive devaluation of stock bonds

• in Europe, germany affected the most

  • poor economic recovery (guilt clause, war debt prevented investments to boost economy and restore purchasing power)

  • following crash Wall Street, USA called in their international loans to Germany + applied high tarifs to keep out foreign import

  • German cuts on public spending only increased scale of depression

2.2 class polarisation

• WWI war effort intensified social question

  • vacuum pol. power (= collapse monarchies)

  • heightened inequality: radicalisation and working-class militancy

  • labour shortages enhanced negotiation power labour unions

  • yet, lack unified left (communists vs. social-democrats; participate WWI or not)

  • 1917 Russian revolution: public fear new destabilization; this fear provided opportunities ultra-right, nationalist groupings (fascism)

• communist threat

  • russian revolution can be compared in its historical magnitude with French revolution

  • impact Russian revolution

    • as result position in globl politics and economics, repercussions felt across the globe

    • Soviet union came to occupy intermediate position between Europe and colonial world

    • creation Comintern

• WWI as victory nationalism over international socialism

  • despite calls for international workers’ revolution, most socialist parties supported their national government into going to war

  • 1914: collapse of the international (socialist movement)

  • assassination Jean Jaurès; loss crucial figure international solidarity; destabilization of France

  • across Europe: growing tensions between moderate social-democrats (social reform via parliamentary way) and communists (socialist transformation via revolution)

    • communists turned attention away from right-wing groupings to ‘social fascists’ (social-democrats)

    • communists parties’ unwillingness to participate in government weakened governing power of left

• italy:

  • socialist party popularity after WWI but no governemnt participation, then fascist go wild (March on Rome)

• Germany:

  • first Weimar republic (weak parliamentary model with extrele form proportional representation, lacked efficiency)

  • weimar republic collapses, followed by Hitler’s democratic rise to power

  • stab-in-the-back-myth: social-democrats and liberals signed guilt clause, Jews were scapegoats

• Spain: civil war

  • first coalitions middle-class liberal republicans and moderate socialists

  • then next elections socialist gambles and runs alone to try to stop growth right-wing, results in right-wing victory

  • uprising socialists/anarchists/communists meets harsh repression by military

  • civil war with international support of Hitler/Mussolini on side Franco and Societ support republicans

  • victory Franco = authoritarian fascist-type rule

2.3 appeasement politics

(European powers want to keep peace as long as possible, so Hitler is like can I invade this? and the European powers are like can you invade a little less? We kinda want peace and all so hitler just kinda does what he wants and European powers are like oh no, please don’t! and then Hitler asks for more and the same thing happens)

• Anschluss: declaration of annexation Austria by Germany

• Munich crisis, climax appeasement politics (Czechoslavakia)

  • sudeten crisis: Hitler calls Germans in Sudetenland to press for autonomy and by doing this he weakens main ally Western Europe

• Munich conference

  • conference follows rumors of German invasion

  • Hitler invites prime ministers Britain and France to meeting; results in Hitler annexing only a part of Czechoslovakia and offers its sovereign integrity

  • Guess what? Hitler does invade Czechoslovakia and invades Poland, starting WWII

• appeasement politics, why?

  • general public disillusioned by WWI: strong pacifist movement and anti-war public opinion

  • economic crisis: growing class polarization and break-down international system co-operation; growing isolation in attempt to protect domestic markets

  • countries lagged behind Germany in military preparedness → don’t poke the bear

  • fear of communism/russia

conclusion

• legacy 19th c only into full effect after WWII

• following WWII: wlefare state + international cooperation

  • growing economic, financial and military cooperation

  • liberal internationalism: economic interdependence (open markets, free trade) and international organizations as road towards peace: states locked into system of mutual benefits and assurances

  • development welfare state: post-war recovery schemes and public investments (full employment) as means to prevent new economic crisis

  • democratization: extension suffrage rights

  • international conflict resolution