Europe After Versailles

Question 1

What is existentialism?

Answer 1

Existentialism arose during the late 19th century as a philosophical movement that emphasized man’s individuality.

To existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, the existence precedes essence; i.e. the most important consideration for an individual is the underlying belief that the individual is an individual. Thus, humanity was a subjective philosophical study, with each individual defined as to their individual actions.

Question 2

What German philosopher proposed the concept of “will to power”?

Answer 2

Existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche suggested that the “will to power” was mankind’s main driving force, and manifested itself in striving to reach the highest possible position in life.

To Nietzsche, the “will to power” and the fight against one’s surroundings leads to personal growth and strides towards self-perfection.

Question 3

What French writer gave rise to the concept of absurdism in the early 20th century?

Answer 3

Albert Camus gave rise to the concept of absurdism by arguing that man’s search for meaning was futile because the vast realm of the unknown was doomed to fail.

The “absurd” was the conflict between the search for meaning and the inability to find it.

Question 4

What Austrian psychiatrist undermined the Enlightenment belief that humans are, at their core, rational beings?

Answer 4

Sigmund Freud undermined the Enlightenment belief in man’s rationality by suggesting that the human psyche is made up of three parts: the id, from which sexual urges and aggressiveness derives; the ego, which provides the psyche’s organizing and rational functions; and the superego, which serves to suppress the id’s desires.

In Freud’s view, the superego drives the pleasure-seeking id’s desires into the subconscious, and cannot always stop the id’s irrational behavior.

Question 5

What French novelist wrote Remembrance of Things Past, a seven-volume novel published between 1917 and 1922?

Answer 5

Marcel Proust wrote Remembrance of Things Past. Proust employed a stream-of-consciousness style of writing and attempted to uncover the innermost meaning of his childhood memories. Proust’s work focused on the complex and irrational nature of the human mind.

Question 6

What French existentialist philosopher contended that man was alone without a divine creator?

Answer 6

Jean-Paul Sartre, who published Being and Nothingness in 1943, denied the existence of the divine. Sartre believed that human beings simply exist, that individuals must choose their own actions, and that man is ultimately responsible for his own behavior.

Question 7

_____, an artistic movement which gained popularity in the 1930s, sought to expose psychological truth by removing and bending physical attributes of objects.

Answer 7

Surrealism

Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí and René Magritte sought to challenge their viewers’ preconceived notions of reality itself.

Question 8

What Austrian writer mocked the idea of permanence in his work The Metamorphosis?

Answer 8

Franz Kafka published The Metamorphosis in 1915. In the short novel, the main character awakens to find himself transformed into a cockroach.

Kafka’s other works also dwell on dark themes as their characters struggle to make sense of surreal, nightmarish surroundings that are incomprehensibly complex or nonsensical.

Question 9

How did Einstein’s theory of relativity undermine established principles of physics?

Answer 9

Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity undermined the established principles such as the constancy of time and gravity that had held true since Isaac Newton.

Einstein’s theories contributed to the general feeling of uncertainty and upheaval that characterized European life after World War One.

Question 10

Which James Joyce novel described a single day in the life of an average man in Dublin?

Answer 10

Ulysses, completed by Joyce in 1920, employed a stream-of-consciousness style of writing, bending conventional grammar and vocabulary to present a bewildering demonstration of modern life as a mystery to be unraveled.

Question 11

What was the Sparticist Revolt?

Answer 11

At the end of World War One, Germany was torn asunder by revolutions, including one led by the Sparticist League, a German communist group.

The revolt failed when the leaders of Germany’s largest party, the Social Democratic Party, supported the conservative Army establishment rather than the communists.

Question 12

How did the German people react to the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles?

Answer 12

Germans were incensed at the Treaty of Versailles. They resented the clause which fastened the war’s guilt solely on Germany, and felt it unduly harsh, given that by the war’s end there was not a single Allied soldier in German territory.

Other sources of irritation included German territory that had been given to Poland, and the large reparations payments.

Question 13

What form of government replaced the Hohenzollern monarchy after World War One?

Answer 13

In 1919, Germany became a republic. The new government was a semi-presidential system, in which power was divided between a popularly elected president, the cabinet headed by a chancellor and responsible to the parliament, and a two-chambered parliament.

This republic is known as the Weimar Republic from the town in which the new government first sat.

Question 14

What were the two branches of the German legislative branch in the Weimar Republic?

Answer 14

The German legislative branch consisted of the Reichsrat, elected by the German states, and the Reichstag, elected by the people generally.

In comparison with the United States Congress, the Reichsrat can be considered an upper house like the Senate, and the Reichstag a lower house like the House of Representatives.

Question 15

In March 1920, German conservatives, supported by segments of the German military, attempted to overthrow the Weimar Republic in an event known as the _____ _____.

Answer 15

Kapp Putsch

The Putsch (a German word for a sudden attempt to overthrow the government) took place in Berlin. The Weimar Republic called upon workers to strike in opposition to the Putsch, and the coup collapsed in the face of popular opposition.

Question 16

What was the Stab in the Back myth?

Answer 16

The Stab in the Back myth was popularized by German conservatives in the 1920s and 1930s, and contended that it was not battlefield defeat which led to Germany losing World War One, but the actions of German liberals on the Home Front.

German politicians such as Hitler also tied the Stab in the Back myth to the activities of purportedly disloyal German Jews during the war.

Question 17

In 1923, the leader of Germany’s National Socialist Party, _____ _____, attempted to seize power in Munich in an event known as the Beer Hall Putsch.

Answer 17

Adolf Hitler

The National Socialist Party, better known as the Nazi Party, had the support of popular German hero Erich Ludendorff.

The Putsch failed and Hitler was arrested and charged with high treason. During the trial, the German newspapers reported Hitler’s testimony, enabling him to reach a wide audience with his ideas. Given a short sentence in comfortable quarters at Landsberg Prison, Hitler used his time to compose his book Mein Kampf.

Question 18

In 1921, the Allies presented their first reparations demand to Germany, totaling some 132 billion gold marks. How did Germany respond?

Answer 18

The reparations demand required payment in gold or non-German currency, and was far more than the entirety of Germany’s gold and non-currency holdings.

To meet the demand, Germany began printing vast sums of money with which to purchase foreign currency. Hyperinflation set in, and the German mark (the form of German currency before the euro) fell from 8.4 marks to the dollar in 1921 to 4.2 trillion marks to the dollar in 1924.

Question 19

How did the French and Belgian governments react to Germany’s inability to make its reparations payment in 1922?

Answer 19

When Germany proved unable to make its 1922 reparations payment, French and Belgian forces occupied Germany’s Ruhr Valley, where much of Germany’s heavy industry took place.

The German government suggested that German workers stop working and many of the factories ground to a halt. The Franco-Belgian force had hoped that the occupation would offset the missed reparation payments, but instead the costs of the occupation were higher than any funds received from the output of the German factories.

The occupation of the Ruhr also worsened the German hyperinflation crisis.

Question 20

Proposed in 1924, the Dawes Plan was an attempt to resolve what international crisis?

Answer 20

The Dawes Plan was an attempt to solve the continuing German reparation crisis. In exchange for Franco-Belgian forces leaving the Ruhr Valley, Germany agreed to resume reparations payments in staggered amounts increasing over time.

Germany in turn borrowed the funds from U.S. investors, allowing the German government to spread the reparations amount over an extended period. In the wake of the Dawes Plan, the Germany economy began to improve.

Question 21

Who was Gustav Stresemann?

Answer 21

Gustav Stresemann was Germany’s foreign minister during much of the 1920s. On Germany’s behalf he negotiated the Dawes Plan, introduced a stabilized German currency which ended hyperinflation, and participated in the Locarno Pact, normalizing Germany’s relations with the other countries of Europe.

Question 22

Which 1925 diplomatic arrangement guaranteed the borders of the Western European states?

Answer 22

In 1925, the leaders of many European countries met at Locarno in Switzerland to discuss lingering territorial disagreements from the Treaty of Versailles.

While the Locarno treaties guaranteed Western European borders, they effectively ignored Eastern European borders which were viewed by the countries of Germany and Eastern Europe as being subject to potential revision.

As a further consequence of Locarno, international relations with Germany were normalized, and she was invited to join the League of Nations.

Question 23

What was the Young Plan?

Answer 23

Although the Dawes Plan had mitigated the effects of reparations on Germany, the total amount Germany owed was still enormous at 269 billion gold marks, the equivalent of 100,000 tons of pure gold (roughly 50% of all gold mined in all of history).

By the late 1920s, it was apparent that Germany would not be able to indefinitely meet the annual reparation payments. In 1929, the Allies and Germany agreed in the Young Plan to reduce the amount of reparations to a more reasonable amount.

Question 24

What is fascism?

Answer 24

Fascism escapes easy definition, but it generally refers to a nationalist authoritarian regime, opposed to both Marxism and capitalism. Instead of either, fascism advocates an economic policy of corporatism, where employers and employees form syndicates which are joined together and guided by the government to advance national economic policies and production.

Question 25

What Italian proved to be fascism’s most effective proponent?

Answer 25

Benito Mussolini rose to power in the early 1920s by promoting fascist solutions for Italy’s problems. Mussolini appealed to Italian nationalism, promised to restructure the Italian army, and to revitalize the Italian economy by promoting syndicates between workers and capitalists guided by the Italian government.

Mussolini proved popular on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1920s and early 1930s; several of his ideas were adopted by members of the Roosevelt Administration.

Question 26

In 1922, Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party seized power by marching on what Italian city?

Answer 26

In October 1922, Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party marched on Rome, led by Mussolini’s band of enforcers, the Blackshirts.

As the march approached Rome, Prime Minister Luigi Facta had resigned and King Vittorio Emanuele III named Mussolini as the head of government.

The move was exceptionally popular among Italy’s business class, despite Mussolini’s promise to exercise state control over businesses.

Question 27

In 1929, the Lateran Accord resolved what Italian problem?

Answer 27

Since the reunification of Italy in the 19th century, no Papal authority had recognized the Italian government’s authority to govern the former Papal States.

The Lateran Accord between Mussolini’s Italian government and the Papacy recognized Italian control over the former Papal States, while Italy recognized papal sovereignty over the Vatican City.

Question 28

Which two sides fought the Russian Civil War, which lasted from 1917 to 1922?

Answer 28

The Russian Civil War was fought between the Russian Communists, known as the Reds, and a conglomeration of forces with little in common except being anti-Bolshevik, known as the White Movement.

The White Army was victorious in the former Russian territories of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland, where republics were established, but the White Movement was decisively defeated in the rest of Russia. By 1922, the Soviet Union was established.

Question 29

In 1921, Lenin announced that the Soviet Union would follow a New Economic Policy. What did Lenin mean?

Answer 29

Soviet agriculture had yet to return to pre-World War standards, and starvation was rampant. Lenin’s New Economic Policy allowed for some small-level capitalism, but still mandated government control over all high-level economic production.

The New Economic Policy was largely successful, and agricultural production returned to its 1913 level within a few years.

Question 30

Who succeeded Lenin as head of the Soviet Union in 1924?

Answer 30

Following Lenin’s death in 1924, there was a brief jockeying for power before Joseph Stalin emerged as the de facto head of the Soviet Union. Over the next few years, many of Stalin’s potential rivals were executed or exiled.

Question 31

How did Stalin’s economic policies differ from Lenin’s?

Answer 31

Stalin favored rapid industrialization and scrapped Lenin’s New Economic Policy for “5-Year Plans” that established a command and control economy with well-defined goals for the Soviet industry.

The policy was successful and by the late 1930s Russia trailed only the United States and Germany in industrial capacity. It was also disastrous in that millions died of the famines brought about by the Plans.

Question 32

During the 1930s, Stalin launched the ____ _____, designed to rid the country of any undesirable elements.

Answer 32

Great Purge

The purge resulted in large-scale organized killings of anyone deemed a potential threat to Stalin and the Soviet Union. The Soviet archives detail that 681,292 people were shot, but the figure may be closer to 2 million.

Critically, many high-ranking army officials were purged, leaving the Soviet military unprepared for World War Two.

Question 33

Define:

Gulag

Answer 33

The Gulag was a Soviet government agency that administered detention camps where political dissidents and criminals were worked to death in a brutal system of oppression.

The Gulag camps existed from 1930 to 1961, and few who were sentenced to the labor camps returned alive.

Question 34

In 1920 and 1921, Britain passed the _____ _____ _____, which provided some safety net to workers who’d been terminated.

Answer 34

Unemployment Insurance Acts

The Acts extended unemployment benefits to lower-paid workers such as manual labors.

Question 35

What caused a general strike in Britain in 1926?

Answer 35

In 1926, the cost of coal had plummeted, and in response British coal mining companies announced a reduction in workers’ wages.

In response, the Trades Unions Conference, a collection of workers’ unions, announced a general strike of all union employees nationwide in an attempt to induce the British government to intervene. The government had been advised of the strike and had already been prepared to replace workers in essential industries, so the strike collapsed.

Question 36

The 1926 General Strike induced the British government to pass what law in 1927?

Answer 36

In 1927, Parliament passed the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, which made illegal any and all secondary strikes (strikes by unionists in unrelated industries) whose goal was to coerce the government to act.

Question 37

How did the British political parties react to the onset of the Great Depression in the early 1930s?

Answer 37

British political parties formed a National Government, with the Cabinet composed of Conservatives, Liberals, and members of the Labor Party.

The National Government abandoned the gold standard, hiked tariffs on imports, and provided some unemployment relief. The National Government was largely successful; by 1934 unemployment fell to one million from a high of three million.

Question 38

In 1922, Great Britain granted Ireland _____ status, making the island the equivalent of Canada, New Zealand, or Australia.

Answer 38

dominion

Dominion status provided the Irish with home rule and nearly complete control over their internal affairs. Northern Ireland opted to stay within Great Britain proper.

Question 39

What form of economic stimulus did France rely upon to rebuild her economy, which had been shattered by World War One?

Answer 39

Much of the fighting during World War One had taken place in France’s industrial heartland, and France relied upon German reparation payments to rebuild the economy.

Germany proved unable to meet the requirements of the Versailles Treaty, and Franco-Belgian forces occupied Germany’s Ruhr Valley, which proved more expensive to do than any financial benefit received by the French. By 1923, the French government was heavily in debt.

Question 40

What was the Cartel des Gauches?

Answer 40

The Cartel des Gauches was a radical social coalition that governed France from 1924-1926, elected to solve France’s worsening monetary crisis.

The Cartel failed to prevent capital from fleeing the country and the monetary crisis continued to worsen. By 1926, the Cartel des Gauches was replaced by a right-wing coalition led by Raymond Poincaré, who stabilized the fiscal situation.

Question 41

In 1924, France and England recognized the _____ _____, normalizing relations with the country.

Answer 41

Soviet Union

Even after recognition ended the U.S.S.R.’s position as an international pariah, things did not go well. Soviets attached to the embassy in Paris were caught spying on their government’s behalf.

Question 42

What diplomatic efforts did French politician Aristide Briand pursue in the 1920s?

Answer 42

Briand sought to better relations with the U.S.S.R., and sought to advance a reconciliation with Germany.

He represented France at the Washington Naval Conference and signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact on France’s behalf.

Question 43

Which 1922 treaty restricted the size of naval forces which European countries could build?

Answer 43

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 placed limits on the size of naval forces that the European countries, the United States, and Japan could construct.

As an arms control agreement, the Treaty was moderately successful, although it failed to anticipate the development of the aircraft carrier, which countries could build without violating the Treaty.

Question 44

The signatories of the _____-____ Pact of 1928 pledged not to use military force as an aggressive means.

Answer 44

Kellogg-Briand

The signatories of the Pact, including the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and dozens of other nations, pledged not to use war to resolve disputes with other nations, and pledged collective action to intervene against aggressor nations.

Question 45

Describe the French government between 1929 and 1935.

Answer 45

Since no party had the requisite majority in Parliament to establish a unified Cabinet, the French government from 1929 through 1935 was made up of ever-shifting coalitions comprised of members of several small parties.

The system was unstable and a national policy proved difficult to establish.