A DECADE OF RECOVERY
EUROPE IN THE 1920S
• The War’s End:
11 November 1918
Monuments to the dead
Yearly commemorations
FAILED REVOLUTIONS
• In Germany:
“Spartakists” vs. “Free-corps”
Liebknecht executed,
Luxemburg lynched
• In Hungary:
Bela-Kun’s nationalizations vs.
Romanian army repression
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…
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
ECONOMIC
CONSEQUENCES OF THE
PEACE
• Maynard Keynes: Versailles Treaty is wrong. Price
is too high for
• Moral reasons
• Political reasons
---
• Financial reasons -• Economic reasons --
Germany was conned
G. necessary to European
equilibrium.
Debt burden overvalued
Allies overestimate G.’s
capacity to pay back
PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE
LEGACY
• Covenant of the League of Nations
• Wilson’s Idealism
• No U.S. ratification
• Weimar Germany and USSR not permitted
to join
CONSEQUENCES…
• Central Europe
• The National Question:
• Territorial claims vs. disgruntled national
minorities
CONSEQUENCES…
• Eastern Europe: liberal democracies fall prey to
authoritarian regimes
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Bulgaria: 1923 Military coup d’etat
Poland: 1926 coup by Joseph Pilsudski
Lithuania: 1929 one-party state
Romania: 1930 royal dictatorship
Estonia: 1934 state of emergency
Latvia: 1934 parliament dissolved
CONSEQUENCES…
• The Colonies
• Despite fears of declining prestige in
Britain and France, high tide of Western
Imperialism
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
WEIMAR REPUBLIC
CHRONOLOGY
• 1923: hyper-inflation
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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
WEIMAR REPUBLIC
CULTURAL LIFE
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Expressionism in the arts
Satirical newspapers
Bertolt Brecht Theater
Berlin nightlife
Cabaret
Functional Bauhaus architecture and
interior design
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
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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