A DECADE OF RECOVERY EUROPE IN THE 1920S

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A DECADE OF RECOVERYEUROPE IN THE 1920S

• The Wars End
• 11 November 1918
• Monuments to the dead
• Yearly commemorations

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FAILED REVOLUTIONS

• In Germany
• Spartakists vs. Free-corps
• Liebknecht executed, Luxemburg lynched
• In Hungary
• Bela-Kuns nationalizations vs. Romanian army
  repression

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Who will foot the bill ?

• Britain and France owed gigantic sums by Russia
• Britain and France owe still greater sums,
  principally to the USA
• The Soviets refuse to recognize the debts of the
  Tsar
• The US refuse to reschedule..
• So, let Germany pay

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THE VERSAILLES TREATY

• Signed on 28 June 1919 in Versailles
• 440 articles in 15 parts Art. 231 war guilt
  clause -- 132 billion gold marks
• Three main areas
• Territorial losses Alsace-Lorraine and colonies
• Financial losses heavy fines/war reparations
• Military losses Military abolished. No big
  standing army

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ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE

• Maynard Keynes Versailles Treaty is wrong.
  Price is too high for
• Moral reasons -- Germany was conned
• Political reasons -- G. necessary to European
  equilibrium.
• Financial reasons -- Debt burden overvalued
• Economic reasons -- Allies overestimate G.s
  capacity to pay back

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PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE LEGACY

• Covenant of the League of Nations
• Wilsons Idealism
• No U.S. ratification
• Weimar Germany and USSR not permitted to join

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CONSEQUENCES

• Central Europe
• The National Question
• Territorial claims vs. disgruntled national
  minorities

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CONSEQUENCES

• Eastern Europe liberal democracies fall prey to
  authoritarian regimes
• Bulgaria 1923 Military coup detat
• Poland 1926 coup by Joseph Pilsudski
• Lithuania 1929 one-party state
• Romania 1930 royal dictatorship
• Estonia 1934 state of emergency
• Latvia 1934 parliament dissolved

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CONSEQUENCES

• The Colonies
• Despite fears of declining prestige in Britain
  and France, high tide of Western Imperialism

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WEIMAR REPUBLIC

• Constitution
• Reichsrat delegates of Laender
• Reichstag universal suffrage
• President 7 years
• Armed with unlimited powers with art. 48
• to dissolve Parliament in exceptional
  circumstances

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WEIMAR REPUBLICCHRONOLOGY

• 1923 hyper-inflation
• 1924 Dawes Plan refinancing scheme
• 1925 Spirit of Locarno on West. borders
• 1926 Germany enters League of Nations
• 1929 Young Plan 59 year plan
• 1930 2 million unemployed

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WEIMAR REPUBLICCULTURAL LIFE

• Expressionism in the arts
• Satirical newspapers
• Bertolt Brecht Theater
• Berlin nightlife
• Cabaret
• Functional Bauhaus architecture and interior
  design

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THE CRAZY YEARS PARIS IN THE TWENTIES

• The circle of Montparnasse bars and cafes such
  as Le Dome, La Coupole and Le Select
• English-speaking artists from the West
• Dos Passos,Hemingway,the Fitzgeralds, Ezra
  Pound, E.E. Cummins, Sylvia Beach, Gertrude
  Stein, Josephine Baker, James Joyce, Samuel
  Beckett
• Diaspora refugees from the East Diaghilev,
  Lipchitz, Zadkine, Soutine, Chagall

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PARIS IN THE TWENTIES

• Coco Chanel
• Her clothes appealed to the modern, independent,
  career-woman
• Hair clipped short
• Marketing inexpensive costume jewelry
• The first of grands couturiers to make perfume an
  adjunct to fashion line
• 1927 Charles Lindbergh solo flight across
  Atlantic
• 33 hour ordeal. 45,000 ecstatic people at Le
  Bourget airport.

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