Session 3 Flashcards
The Interwar Period
Geneva disarmament talks
- 1932-1934, failed - with Hitler’s chancellorship, the chances for general disarmament evaporated
- Article 8 of the League of Nations
anti-Semitism
- word appeared in Europe in 1860
- attack on Jews was based no longer on grounds of creed but on those of race
- Manifestations include pogroms in 19th century Eastern-Europe
- Systematic murder of ~6 million Jews by Nazi Germany (1939-45)
Spanish Civil War
- 18 July 1936 - Apr 1939
- Attempted right-wing military coup
- Franco’s Nationalists failed to take Madrid
- Nazi Germany & Fascist Italy intervened on the side of the Nationalists
- Soviet Union sent aid to the Republicans
- 3/4 of a million people died
Abyssinian War
- 3 Oct 1935, brutal conquest of Abyssinia by Italian troops
- Ended 5 May 1936
appeasement
- policy designed to remove the sources of conflict in international affairs through negotiation
Popular Front
- Comintern policy announced in 1935
- Encouraging communist parties to form coalitions with other socialist and non-socialist parties in order to provide a common front against fascism
Why was World War I so important?
a. Quasi-suicide of Europe & transformation global balance of power
b. Leninism vs. Liberal Wilsonianism: clash of internationalisms
c. Global War (Africa, dominions and Japan)
i. First of its kind
d. Total mobilization and involvement of civilians: precedent for World War II
i. Learning lesson for WWII, anticipation
ii. Victims of conflict
e. Violence, “Racialization” of the enemy, radicalization of politics
f. “War Scars”: democracy, minorities, demographics
i. Failing democracies
ii. Minorities – cannot draw clear lines when it comes to minorities and nationalities
g. Europe was “a laboratory atop a vast graveyard.” – Thomas Masaryk
Which were the main elements of the postwar settlement?
a. New international organization: League of Natinos
b. Germany
i. History shaped by the German question
c. Reorganization map of Europe: self-determination and spoils of war
i. Which could and could not self-determine themselves
d. Colonies and mandates
e. Woodrow Wilson:
i. The peace had to be a peace without victory
ii. “They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to say this. …”
f. League of nations
i. The US doesn’t join it
1. Born without possibly three of the main powers
ii. Different conceptions of its role
iii. Hierarchy of power & rights (council & assembly)
1. Britain, France, Italy, Japan
iv. Complex machinery
Germany
i. Punitive peace:
1. Territorial losses (to France, Belgium, Denmark, Poland)
a. Brings forth the question of minorities
b. Versailles Treaty – 1919
2. Loss of colonies (to Britain, France, and Japan)
3. Military limitations
4. Internationalization of Saar; de-militarization of Rhineland
a. Administered and governed by the league of nations
5. Reparations (to be decided)
a. Accepted responsibility, pay reparations to other countries
b. $10,000,000,000
i. J. M. Keynes – The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920
New Europe
a. Collapse of four empires & geopolitical fragmentation
i. Germany, Ottoman, Austria-Hungary, Russian
b. Poland
c. Czechoslovakia
d. Yugoslavia
e. Turkey
f. Territorial rewards/punishments to Greece, Romania, and
Colonies and Mandates
a. No universal self- determination
b. Spoils of German and Ottoman empires
c. Different kind of mandates (A, B, and C) according to “stages of development” and civilization
d. Alienation and radicalization of new national elites
i. Language of self-determination
ii. Economic development, political institutions, race
Main Problems in the 1920s
a. French security & re-integration/containment of Germany
b. ‘Chain of paper’: War debt Reparations
c. Nationalisms and minorities
d. Democracy and Soviet challenge
e. US involvement
France
a. Lack of an international/Anglo-American security guarantee
b. War debt and reparations
i. Paying down debt to the US
c. Unilateral search for security: alliances with Central Eastern European States + punishment of Germany
Solutions
a. US Involvement and financial contribution (loans and investments) + Dawes Plan (1924) & Young Plan (1929)
i. US $2.5 billions in loans to Germany
ii. Had the financial ability to contribute to the stability in Europe
b. Disarmament & Pacifism (Conferences of Washington, 1922 and London 1930)
c. Economic growth (US model of high productivity & high consumption)
d. Partial security architecture & Franco-German détente: Locarno
e. Minority rights + assimilation + population ‘transfer’ + ethnic cleansing & mass killing
Washington Treaty, 1922
a. Tonnage limits: strength ratio of approximately 5:5:3:1.75:1.75 between Britain, the USA, Japan, Italy, and France
b. Capital ships (battleships and battlecruisers): limited to 35,000 tons and guns of no longer than 16-inch caliber
c. Aircraft carriers: limited to 27,000 tons and could carry no more than 10 heavy guns, of a maximum caliber of 8 inches
d. US, GB, and Japan could not build new bases in the Pacific
e. Affirmation of territorial integrity of China and open door