Transcript Interwar Period-WHII

Selected Countries during the
Interwar ERA
The League of Nations
Reasons for having the League
of Nations
• Wilson felt that the League of Nations
would be able to fix any injustice that were
created by unfair treaties, such as the
treaty of Versailles.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the League of
Nations
•
•
•
Strengths
42 countries joined at the start
and by 1930 over 60 countries
belonged
Methods of influence:
– The league could declare what
a country did as wrong and use
public opinion to prevent
injustice (Moral Condemnation)
– Referee between warring
nations.
– The league could apply trade
sanctions
– The League could use military
force, by asking member states
to provide soldiers
• Weaknesses
•
•
•
Three important countries did
not belong to the League at first
– United States
– Russians (1934)
– Germany was not allowed to
join until 1926
• Unable to force other
large nations to obey.
The League’s organization was
confusing and the Assembly
could only make decisions by
unanimous vote. The French,
English, and other permanent
members of the council had
veto powers
The last weakness came from
being part of the Treaty of
Versailles, which had many
flaws
The Mandate System
• The League of Nations dealt with colonies
of the defeated central powers.
• Until the people of these countries are ready to
become independent, the League would hold them
in trust and become responsible for them.
• The league set the colonies as mandates which
would be ruled by a “more advanced nation.”
The Middle East
• The Allies did not give the
Arabs their independence
• Palestine, Trans Jordan,
and Iraq became English
Mandates
• Syria and Lebanon
became French
Mandates
• This would lead to ill
feelings between the
Arabs and Western
Countries
African Mandates
• The German colonies
were given to France
and England
America Rejects the League of
Nations
• 1. The League was strongly promoted by
President Wilson, but the United States
Senate did not ratify the treaty.
– Some people were afraid of what a powerful
league would mean in politics and trade.
– Some Americans feared that we would be
dragged into peacekeeping duties which
would involve us in foreign wars.
The Interwar Years
Causes and Effects of the World
Wide Depression
America
The Cause’s and effects of the
Great Depression in America 1929
- 1940
The Consumer Economy of
the 1920’s
Buy now and Pay Later
• In the 1920’s consumerism in modern
America was born.
– The first shopping center was built in
Kansas City
– The first fast food chain A&W Root Beer
began selling burgers and soft drinks.
– Advertising became big business with
companies spending 3.2 billion on ads in
1927
– Henry Ford was creating an automobile
empire with his affordable cars for the
common man
• U.S. Economy after WWI
– Incomes began to rise
• Average wages rose by 28%
• The number of millionaires doubled
– The main reason for this growth was the
consumer economy
• This economy depended on large amounts of buying by
individual consumers
– Credit
• Until the 1920 Americans generally paid cash for
anything they bought. Borrowing was seen as immoral.
• In the 1920’s people adopted a new way to purchase
goods called The Installment Plan
– This allowed people to buy things they normally could not
afford
– Installment buying fueled the growth of the economy
Crash and Depression
The Economy of the Late 1920’s
• Economy appeared healthy
– In 1925, the market value of all stocks was
$27 billion.
– Over the next few years that value rose by
$11.4 billion.
• The stock market was viewed as the primary
indicator of the national economy, and people
assumed that the growth was permanent.
– By 1929, the stock market continued to rise
• Common people had unusually high confidence in
business
• Americans trusted the advice of corporate leaders
• The three Republican Presidents trusted businesses.
• Government had done little to discourage credit buying
and looked away from bad banking and investment
practices
• Wages had risen due to new policies called welfare
capitalism.
– To discourage workers from joining unions employers
provided benefits such as paid vacations, health plans, and
English classes for immigrants
Danger Signs in the Economy
• 200 large companies controlled 49% of
American Industry
• Rich getting richer and poor getting poorer.
• Nearly 80% of all families had no savings
• Entire families forced to work.
• Small investors put their life savings into the
stock market.
Over-production of Consumer
Goods
• People had built up large amounts of debt and
could not afford further credit purchases.
• The first industries to slump were the automobile
factories and other car related industries such as
rubber, steel, and glass.
• Then house construction fell by 25% between
1928 and 1929
Farm Troubles
• The late 1920’s had brought economic failure
to many farmers.
– After the war prices for farm goods decreased
– Farmers had developed large debts because of
tractor and machinery purchases made during
World War I.
• This equipment was needed during the war to increase
agricultural production
– The falling prices made it impossible to repay their
debts
– Rural banks suffered when loans were not repaid
and about 6,000 banks went out of business
• Farmers were in Depression even before
1929’s dramatic events
The Stock Market Crash of
1929
• On September 3, 1929 the stock market reached
an all time high
– The market was over valued exceeding the real
market value of many companies.
– On Thursday October 24 investors became worried
and began to sell and stock prices fell dramatically.
• The market lost $3 billion in one day
– Business and Government officials pretended that
everything was okay.
Oct 29,1929 “Black Tuesday”
• The Stock Market lost $30 billion between the
29th of Oct and 13th of November.
• About 4 million people had invested in the
market but soon the crash would affect many
more millions who had never owned a share.
– This crash signaled the start of the Great Depression,
a severe economic decline that lasted from 1929 until
late 1941 when the United States entered World War
II
The Crash Affects Millions
• As income and profits fell, American factories closed and
workers lost their jobs or saw large pay cuts.
– The United States had no government funded
unemployment insurance.
– By 1932 25% of the labor force were unemployed
• Restaurants and other small businesses closed.
• Banks were forced to close when loans went unpaid
• As banks closed depositors, lost their money.
Nine million people lost ALL their money
World-Wide Crisis
• By the end of the 1920’s international banking, trade and
manufacturing made the nations of the world interdependent.
• When the worlds leading economy fell, the global economic
system crumbled.
• One significant reason for the global collapse was The
Versailles Peace Treaty’ provision for Germany to pay war
reparations to the Allies.
– High American taxes on European imports made it hard for
France and England to sell goods in the United States
• This forced them to rely on the German reparations
payments for an income
• Germany’s ability to pay the money came from American
investment and loans
• With the crash and depression in America there was no
money to invest or loan to Germany and many German
banks failed.
• Germany stopped paying reparations and the rest of
Europe stopped buying American made goods.
– Soon the entire world entered a depression.
Summary of Causes of The
Great Depression
• Credit – in the 1920’s people bought stocks on credit
and used the stock as the collateral to get more loans
and buy more stock. Because the market boom was
based on credit and wishful thinking it soon was
overvalued and fell as soon as people started to fear
losses and called in the debt.
• Government– Government regulators had allowed
easy credit and permitted banks and business’s to
make poor investments and loans.
• An unstable economy –unequal distribution of wealth,
Overproduction of goods, and easy credit contributed
Social Effects of the Depression
• The hardest hit people in the depression were those
at the bottom of the economic ladder.
• Many people were unable to pay their rent.
– Some moved in with other family members
– Many became homeless and drifted around
the country
» Homeless people built towns of tar
paper, cardboard, and scrap lumber
» These communities were called
Hoovervilles to mock the president they
blamed for the depression
• Farmers suffered from low crop prices.
• Many farmers were unable to pay their
mortgages and lost their farms.
• Farmers upset by low prices dumped milk
and destroyed other crops. An action
which shocked a nation where millions
went hungry
• Thousands of people went hungry and some died.
• People weak from malnutrition became sick easier and
children suffered the most.
• Many children had to quit school to bring in an income for
the family’s survival
• People could not afford to heat their homes, if they had
one, and some people froze to death
• In the county people who had land planted relief gardens
to feed themselves
• In the cities people begged for money
• People lived in overcrowded houses and apartments
which led to more disease
• Men who could not support their families saw themselves
as failures and the word depression expressed the mental
stress as well as the economics.
• Economic hard times put Americans in completion with
each other for a small number of jobs.
– This increased hostility toward minorities
The Great Depression in
Europe
Discussion Question
• What are some problems that usually
follow a war?
– Need to rebuild
– pay war debts
– return soldiers to civilian life
– change wartime to peacetime economy
England
• After WWI the British found themselves in the
serious economic times just as the French had.
– There was not enough Capital for investment to
expand and update England’s outdated Factories.
– England found its could not compete with American
and Japanese technology.
– High protective tariffs, placed on imports by the
government, which were intended to help English
Factories compete actually destroyed British trade
with other countries.
England
• English Politics
– By 1921 almost 25% of
English workers were
unemployed and the Labor
Party (Socialist) created a
coalition government which
established the protective
tariffs, tightened budgets
by reducing the military.
This resulted in a
temporary recovery in
England.
– As in France the English
signed treaties to ensure
peaceful settlement of
disputes and became more
Pacifist in nature
• Ireland
– In the 1920’s the English
had to deal with rebellion in
Ireland. The Irish
Republican Army (IRA)
battled British troops in a
series of bitter and violent
battles.
– In 1922 England divided
Ireland and established the
Irish Free State ,which
became an independent
country in the 1930’s, and
Northern Ireland. Northern
Ireland was to remain part
of the United Kingdom
France
• France was victorious in WWI but found
itself weakened by the four years of
fighting on French land.
– Most of France’s Modern Agricultural areas
and principal industries had been destroyed.
– A large percentage of the young men required
to rebuild and supply the labor for industry
had been killed in the war.
• War debt and the interest on the debt would
limit the money available to France for
reconstruction
• Prices for goods were high because their
limited availability (this affected both the poor
and the middle class adversely)
• Having been invaded twice in fifty years by
the Germans, the French felt they had to
ensure the military security of their country, so
they committed great sums of money to
building a series of concrete forts (the
Magiont Line) between France and Germany.
France
• International Affairs
– France signed treaties
which pledge they would
seek peaceful ways to
settle future disputes
– France signed mutual
protection treaties with
Czechoslovakia and
Poland which were
weakened by the Pacifism
of post WWI Euro[e
• Internal Affairs
– The Great Depression
caused the French people
to become dissatisfied with
their government and
elected a socialist party
called the Popular Front
which enacted reforms and
nationalized some of the
industries and banks. After
only one year this
government collapsed and
the French people were
divided between socialist
and conservative parties
Discussion Question
• What are some choices that you make on a daily
basis
• How would you feel about a government that
decides which musicians you could hear or
movies you could watch?
These types of governments are called
totalitarian governments, which grew in Italy and
Germany in the years following WWI.
Italy
• In Italy as elsewhere the aftermath of WWI took
a toll on the people.
– Italy’s Constitutional Monarch under Victor Emanuel II
was unable to deal with the economic and social
issues.
• The only person in Italy that seemed to have
answers was a young Newspaperman named
Benito Mussolini who had organized a new
political party called the Fascist Party.
• Fascism
– A strongly nationalistic theory of
government that opposes both communism
and democracy.
– In Fascism the Country (State) is supreme
and the individual must sacrifice all for the
good of the Country.
– The leader of a Fascist country is a dictator
who uses totalitarianism (one man rule
over the very lives of the people) to ensure
the survival and progress of the country.
Italy
• How did Mussolini gain
power
– Convinced the land and
business owners he was
against communism.
– He swore to protect individual
property rights
– Promoted cooperation between
business and labor
– Made people regain national
pride of being Italian by
promising to return Italy to the
glory of Ancient Rome
• To achieve his goal of
returning Italy to the glory of
Rome Mussolini attacked
Libya and Ethiopia to
establish a new Italian
• What did he do when he
gained power
– Used his hired thugs called
Black Shirts to intimidate and
control people
– Had martial law declared
– Outlawed other political parties
– Suspended liberties such as
freedom of press and trial by
jury
– Outlawed labor strikes
– Used secret police to spy on
and eliminated opposition
leaders
These
invasions were debated
by the League of Nations which
proved powerless to prevent
them
Germany
• As discussed earlier Germany was a mess
after WWI economically and politically.
– In 1919 Germany became a republic with a
constitution.
– The German people disliked their new government
because it had signed the hated Treaty of
Versailles and accepted the blame for WWI.
– The German Republic (called the Weimer
Republic) had many of the same problems faced
by France, England and other nations, but had
one other huge problem that effected its ability to
solve things. Germany had no money with which
to rebuild or restart the economy.
• Germany was in fact a debtor nation of the first order
because of the 33 billion dollar war reparations payment.
Germany
• Inflation kills the
economy
– In order to pay off its debt
the Germans engaged in
hyperinflation of the
currency (money)
– The government simply
printed money until by
1923 it had become
worthless.
– This also destroyed the
personal savings of
individuals and meant
their was little Capital
for economic growth.
– Unemployment rose and
the Great Depression set
in
• Democratic government
is weakened
– In response to the
political problems many
new political parties were
formed in Germany after
WWI.
– One of the political
parties was the National
Socialist Party (Nazi's)
– As the Depression and
Inflation caused
economic and social
issues many of these
new political parties tried
to overthrow the Weimer
Republic.
Hitler
• Modeled his party on the ideas of Mussolini and
Fascism (Extreme Nationalism)
• Promised to protect Germany form the
Communist
• Identified the Jewish people as the reason that
Germany had lost WWI
• Was popular with the Wealthy and middle class
people because of his anti-communist pro
private property rights stand.
Hitler’s Game plan
• Provide the Jews as
the scape-goat for
German failure in WWI
– This is called AntiSemitism
• Hitler planned to create
a pure race of German
by eliminating the Jews
from the Gene Pool.
(Genocide)
• Hitler would, when he
came to power, remove
the right of citizenship
from Jews, create new
marriage laws for Jews,
and establish a system
of discrimination and
segregation for Jews
• Take power through
the election process.
– After failing in a
attempted overthrow of
the government in 1922,
Hitler decided to use the
election process to take
power.
– Hitler was a powerful
speaker and he used his
ideas about the Jews and
the Greatness of the
German people to
promote his party in
elections
– In 1932 the NAZI party
won 230 seats in the
German Parliament and
controlled the legislature.
– Hitler was made
Hitler becomes Aggressive
• In 1933 the Reichstag (Legislature Burned
down and Hitler blamed the Communist.
– He asked for powers to deal with the Communist
and they were granted by the legislature. He later
used them to make himself dictator for life (Furher)
– He began rearming the German military and
building an Air force even though the Versailles
Treaty forbade these things.
– In 1936 He marched his troops into the Rhineland
and retook the land in violation of the Versailles
Treaty
– In late 1936 Hitler and Mussolini signed a treaty
which created the Rome-Berlin Axis (Axis Powers)
The League of Nations did nothing to prevent German
re-armament or the violations of the Treaty of Versailles
which it was created to enforce
German Aggression
• Annexation of Austria
• Annexation of Sudetenland in
Czechoslovakia (Munich Conference)
– British and French Appeasement of Hitler to
try to prevent another war only makes Hitler
more bold and arrogant.
• Invasion of Poland
• England and France declare war on Germany
(Sept 1939)
Japan
• Japan was the victim of its own success in
the 1920’s
– Economic development, universal education, and
new ideas from the west changes Japanese
attitudes
• Some young Japanese began to question the traditional
values of their country
– When the Depression came in 1929 many older
Japanese felt the decline in tradition had corrupted
the country economically and morally.
– In the late 1920’s and early 1930’s the economic
problems drove the military to become involved in
the government.
• The military leaders insisted that the country return to the
traditional values and called for a larger Army and Navy.
• The military leaders supported a Japanese Monroe
Doctrine that gave Japan powers over Asia as America
Japan’s Imperialism
• The Growing power of the military would
bring Japan into conflict with America over
the country’s of Korea, Manchuria and China
• General Hideki Tojo becomes the Military
leader of Japan
– Japan felt it needed to invade these countries in
order to gain access to raw materials it needed to
ensure economic growth
– The United States though Isolationist in policy
could not allow Japan to become the strongest
power in Asia.
– America would impose trade sanctions on the sale
of oil and scrap metal to Japan and the Japanese
began to see America as a enemy in Asia
Russia During the Interwar Era
• In 1922 The Communist renamed Russia
as The UNION OF SOVIET SOICIALIST
REPUBLICS (USSR).
• Between 1918 and 1921 Lenin followed a
policy of Nationalizing the Industries and
doing away with private ownership.
– In 1920 the Russian farmers produced less
grain than they grew before WWI and Factory
production was 1/6th that of the pre-war
years.
The New Economic Policy
(NEP)
• Under the NEP the
factories and major
industries remained
under the control of the
government.
• A new class of small
businessmen called
Nepman traded domestic
goods and helped
manufacturers secure
needed materials
• Some free enterprise
was allowed in
farming and small
business.
• Soviet Agriculture was
collectivized (land
pooled into large
farms on which
people shared the
scarce modern
machinery)
USSR under Stalin
• In 1924 Lenin died and Joseph Stalin arose as the leader of the
Soviet Union.
• Stalin believed that the economy was not growing enough so he
ended the New Economic Plan and replaced it with a set of five year
plans which would give the government control of the entire
economy
– The Five Year Plans set goals for Industry, Agriculture, and society in
five year periods
– Stalin hoped to double or triple the industrial out put of Russia with the
Five Year Plans.
– The Five year Plans caused hardship for the common people as the
government force the farmers to collectivize under threat of punishment.
– The Five Year Plan actually resulted in a decrease in food production
and people died from famine.
– The Government continued to set Five Year Plans and the people
faced even harder times as consumer goods and food became scare.
Government under Stalin
• In 1936 Stalin proclaimed a new Soviet
Constitution which made him a more powerful
dictator.
– To ensure his power Stalin conducted Purges
(large scale elimination) of party members who
were disloyal to him
– It is estimated that by 1939 more than 5 million
people had been arrested, deported, imprisoned in
forced labor camps, or executed.
– Stalin's policy toward other countries was
confusing
• Stalin wanted other countries to accept the Soviet Union
as the true government of Russia
• He also wanted to spread Communism to other parts of
the world by overthrowing democracies
Other important actions of Stalin
which affected the lives of Russians
• Atheism – No belief in
God and the end of
the Eastern Orthodox
Church in Russia
• The Secret Police
Stalin creates a Totalitarian Communist State in the USSR
(This is not Communism as Marx wrote about it but rather a
Communist form of the type of Totalitarian States created by Mussolini and Hitler
under Fascism)