9.1 - Interwar: The West

Postwar Politics

  • 3 Powerful Democracies are France, Great Britain, and United States
  • Most pressing issues following war:
    • Finding jobs for the veterans
    • when the veterans leave, industries hired minorities, immigrants, women
    • they needed people to fill the spots, and when they come back they cannot get their old job back right away
    • Rebuilding countries from war (excluding US)
    • France had to physically rebuild the trench warfare, since most fighting happened there
    • Great Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy.
    • Rise in communism and socialism
    • very minimal before world war I
    • Difficult international situation with Germany
    • Do not want to cause another conflict
    • Germany was stripped away from their army, their infrastructure, and the reparation costs. ALL BLAME WAS ON GERMANY

Postwar Economics

  • Europe’s economic is extremely shaky

    • Rebuilding from war
    • Dealing with money (especially Britain)

  • BRITAIN

    • General Strike in 1926 and the 3 million participants do not work because they are not happy
    • Deep in debt, high unemployment

  • FRANCE

    • recovers rapidly (reparation payments)

  • UNITED STATES

    • Economic boom in 1920s (Roaring 20s)
    • Loans and investments in Europe
    • Dawns Plan - European economy relied on the US because the US is giving out loans so that they can rebuild and pay for reparations

The Great Depression

  • Longest, most severe economic downturn in West
    • 13 to 15 million are unemployed
    • Half of the banks are closed
  • CAUSES:
    • Overproduction of goods and financial management
  • This also affected Europe because of the Dawns Plan
  • This led to countries moving away from laissez-faire economic as well as loss of faith in democracy.
    • Laissez-faire - Less government interference
    • The government did not do anything to help, so people lost faith
    • this causes communism to start to become more prevalent
  • US Stock Market crashes in October 1929
    • People are rushing to banks and expecting to get all the money out of their account, but it not there
    • Everyone is going in debt because they are buying everything with credit

Social Changes

  • WWI shatters global sense of optimism and led to split reactions
    • Return to normalcy (way life was before the war)
    • Hopelessness or #YOLO, which caused the Lost Generation
    • Lost Generation - writers who write about things like how there is no hope in life and seem like they are lost
    • Influenza Pandemic (1918), which caused 50 million died
    • this also caused people to have split reactions

Roaring Twenties

  • New technologies, which allowed people to connect with people around the world (shared mass culture)
    • Cars, telephones, movies, radios, etc
  • Change in culture
    • Younger generation rejects moral values - flappers
    • they believed in the YOLO beliefs
    • Jazz music became popular
    • Prohibition and Speakeasies
    • Older generations want to go back to the old times and do not like how people are going out and spending their on alcohol
    • Prohibition - the banning of the buying, selling, and consumption of alcohol
    • Speakeasies - secret underground clubs
    • Women gain the right to vote