EUROPE IN THE Roaring Twenties

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EUROPE IN THE Roaring Twenties

• Failed Politics
• Flourishing Culture

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Introduction Virginia Woolfs Orlando

• Experimental style
• Time-travel
• Crossing genders
• Deep dismay at the way things are
• Intense yearning for the way things might be

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Europes 20s

• FAILED POLITICS

• FASCINATING CULTURE

Virginia WOOLF
Britains Stanley BALDWIN
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I. THE SEARCH FOR STABILITY 1918-1924
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a. Versailles Treaty (1919)

• One of several treaties
• Versailles deals with Germany
• Punish Germany
• Disarmament
• Reparations
• War Guilt

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GERMANY LOSES SIGNIFICANT LAND, ESPECIALLY IN EAST
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Defending Versailles?

• Self-Determination
• Promotion of Democracy
• League of Nations

PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE (1919) Plenary session
in Versailles Hall of Mirrors
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b. Never-ending War (1918-1924)

• Civil War in Russia
• Russo-Polish War
• Civil War in former Habsburg states Hungary,
  Yugoslavia
• Greek-Turkish War
• Civil War in Germany
• 1926 General Strike in Britain

BERLIN, 1919
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A Dual Political Problem because of World War I
?

• State v. State disputes over borders
• Paris Peace Treaties created host of new borders
  ? violent disputes over borders
• Greek-Turkish War
• Polish-Russian War

• FAILED STATES States collapse ? gunmen,
  assassination, civil war
• Russian Civil War
• German Civil War

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II. STABILITY AT LAST (1924-1929)
Movie Star Betty Compson
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a. EXHAUSTION

• Germany
• Civil War
• Economic collapse
• 1923 HYPER-INFLATION

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b. Winners Consolidate Power

• Russia
• Communists win Civil War
• Create their own Dictatorship

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c. Economic Recovery
TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE FUELS THE ROARING
TWENTIES Cars Movies Airplanes Telephone
Electric Lights In the 20s, the earlier
technological boom transforms everyday life
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d. Remembering the Great War
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e. Britain France Boring but Stable
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU
STANLEY BALDWIN
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f. Germany the Weimar Republic fragile but
alive

• Germanys first Democracy

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g. Dramatic Social Change
FLAPPERS
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h. MODERNISM dramatic cultural experiments
FRANZ KAFKA JAMES JOYCE
VIRGINIA WOOLF
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III. OMENS Unrest in the Empire

• IRELAND

• INDIA

BOTH IRISH INDIANS REBEL AGAINST BRITISH
EMPIRE VIETNAMESE, AFRICANS, REBEL AGAINST
FRENCH OTHER EUROPEAN EMPIRES
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IV. OMENS Radically new sorts of dictatorships

• COMMUNISM (the radical Left)

• FASCISM (the radical Right)

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COMMUNISM

• 1917 Bolshevik Revolution
• 1918-21 Reds v. Whites
• 1921-24 Lenin
• 1924? STALIN
• PARTY DICTATORSHIP PUSHES RADICAL CHANGE

STALIN
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FASCISM

• 1919 Benito Mussolini organizes Fascists
• 1921 Mussolini Fascists in power
• PARTY DICTATORSHIP VOWS TO DEFEND ITALIAN
  NATIONAL TRADITION!

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CONCLUSION

• 1919-1924 Chaos
• 1924-1929 Stability
• Dazzling culture
• On the road to Peace Prosperity?