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Why were the 20’s and 30’s a time of trouble and hopes?
v Continuing problems
¨ Nationalist tensions
¨ Countries needed eco and political readjustments
¨ Need for security à defensive alliances
¨ Tendency for expansion
v Problems and progress in many countries
¨ Poland
Ø Hadn’t been a country since 1795
Ø Included areas from Germany and Austria, but the Poles were still not happy because they lost territory to Russia that they did not get back à fights with Russians à Treaty of Riga 1921
Gave Poland back some of their land
Ø Problems
Lack of democracy (they had no experience). General Pilsudski gained more and more power and became a dictator
Minority tensions- Ukrainians, Germans, Lithuanians, and Jews in Poland all wanted to be represented
¨ Rumania
Ø Gained territory from Austria-Hungary
Ø Minority problems
Ø Monarchy tried to improve economic conditions by seizing estates from large landowners and sell them to farmers
Ø Depression in 1929 à problems everywhere
¨ Yugoslavia
Ø Included Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia… “Kingdom of the southern Slavs”
Ø Problems
Religious problems
¶ Serbs were Greek Orthodox and Croats were Roman Catholic
Minority problems
¶ Croats resented Serbian domination
¶ Minorities wanted autonomy
Italy
¶ Had been promised land in the Treaty of London, part of which was in Yugoslavia (Dalmatia and the Istrian Peninsula). This was against the 14 points, so the Serbs got the land. Gabriele d’Annunzio took over Fiume (a port along the Adriatic) by force à negotiations à Treaty of Rapallo 1920
Ø Agreed that Fiume would be a free city, but eventually a Fascist group took it over à Italian troops in 1921 took it over and a new treaty was made, which gave Italy Fiume and Yugoslavia a suburb with a port- Port Baros
Ø King Alexander 1921-1934 abolished the constitution and imposed a royal dictatorship
v Czechoslovakia
¨ Thomas Massaryk (most liberal, considerate person at this time) “friendly neighborhoods under a regime of freedom”- they should have friendly neighborhoods with self government and freedom (gave the minorities self government so they would not be upset)
¨ Only east European nation that stayed democratic, despite conflict between majority Slavs and minority Magyars and Germans (minorities got more self government)
¨ Czech economic advantages: substantial middle class and a liberal tradition, strong industry
¨ Nice to the Jews
¨ Eduard Benes later followed in Massaryk’s footsteps
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v Hungary
¨ Treaty of Trianon 1920
¨ Republic in 1918, revolution in 1919 led by Bela Kun (communist. Lasted 5 months)
¨ Created a “monarchy” but there was no king; “regent” was “Admiral” (but Hungary had no navy/seaport) Nicholas Horthy
¨ Appointment of Julius Gombos as PM 1932 à closer with Italy and Germany
¨ Economic decline
v Greece
¨ Was on the Allied side in WWI- fought Turkey for the city of Smyrna
¨ Treaty of Lausanne 1923
Ø Greece gave up all claims to Turkish territory
¨ End monarchy and became a republic in 1924 à conflict between the monarchists and republicans
¨ PM Venizelos tried to settle disputes between Greece and Italy and between Greece and Balkan states
v Turkey
¨ Nationalists signed the Treaty Lausanne
Ø Dardanelles (strait between Black Sea and Med Sea) under Turkish control but open to all ships
Ø Italy kept Dodecanese Islands
Ø Britain kept Cyprus
Ø Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia became mandates of France and Britain
¨ Ataturk
v Post war economic issues
¨ War guilt clause à responsibility to pay costs of war
¨ Amount was unspecified in 1919, but was spelled out in 1921 in a secure way
Ø Total payment of $33 billion to be paid $2.5 billion per year
¨ Germany did not pay up
Ø Made 1 payment and then said the bill was too high and they could not pay
Ø Problems that made it hard to pay
Unfavorable balance of trade (imported more than they exported)
Decline in credit
Inflation
*Low tax rate (on purpose so that they would not be able to pay)
Ø Jan 1923- French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr (major mining area) to create a “will to pay”
¨ Hyperinflation (currency is virtually useless) à problems, especially for hardworking middle class (poor didn’t suffer so much because they did not have any money saved up)
¨ Revisions of the reparations plan
Ø 1924 Dawes Plan
Let’s ask for less from the Germans
Let Germany start by paying $250 million, and gradually raise the price
Lent Germany foreign loans to help the economy recover (these loans were mostly from the US, and at first Germany was recovering, but once the depression hit, Germany couldn’t pay again)
Ø 1929 Young Plan
Germany owed $8 billion, payable in 60 installments
Payments were coordinated with the war debts that the Allies owed the US (ex- Germans paid France, and the French paid the US with that money)
Ø Hoover Moratorium 1931
1 year postponements of both German reparations and Br-Fr war debts to the US
Ø 1932 Lausanne Conference
Proposed cutting German reparations to $750 million
Suggested US cancel war debts, but US refused
Germany stopped paying à nearly all war debt payment stopped (except Finland who paid!)
v Democracies between the wars
¨ France: economically down
Ø Political instability (27 different cabinets in 15 years)
Coalitions- group of parties got together to run the government
¶ 1919-1924 Bloc National (conservative middle class)
Ø Tried to rebuild damaged areas and get Germans to pay
Ø 1923 PM Raymond Poincare sent the troops to the Ruhr
Ø Failed to maintain value of the franc, raised taxes à lost to the leftists
¶ 1924-1926 Cartel of the Left (socialists and others)
Ø Anti-clerical
Ø Anti-militarist à pulled out of the Ruhr
Ø 1925 Alsace-Lorraine incorporated into France
Ø Promote education
Ø Couldn’t stabilize the franc à lost power
¶ 1926-1929 National Union (Poincare is back with right-centered coalition)
Ø Economic improvements
Ø Were able to stabilize France
Ø Restored land, rebuilt houses, fixed railroads, balanced economy
Ø Why were things getting better?
§ Got back Alsace-Lorraine
§ Rebuilding à most modern industrial plants that were more efficient
Ø Depression started in the US in 1929
France felt depression late in 1931
¶ Everything was going down, except for unemployment, which was going up
1932-1933- 6 cabinets
1936-1938 Popular Front (Left- Radical Socialists, Socialists, Communists. Leader was Socialist Leon Blum tried to stop the growth of fascism and the Depression)
¶ French New Deal
Ø 40 hour workweek
Ø Right to collective bargaining
Ø 2 week paid vacation per year
Ø Minimum wages
¶ Blum lost power
Ø Blum demanded more economic power to control finances
Ø Left the gold standard (no link in the value of the franc and the value of gold) à drop on value of the franc
1938 Eduard Daladier new premier
¶ “Conservative member of the Radical Socialist Party”
¶ Weren’t so radical- they wanted to keep private property. They weren’t leftists anymore, they were more in the center
France pre WWII different from pre WWI
¶ Maginot line- had a strong border between France and Germany. They felt more secure, and were more focused on defense than offensive attack
¶ Rebuilt economy
¨ Great Britain- “unsettled conditions”
Ø Social restlessness
Women (flappers) who wore short skirts, smoked in public, listened to jazz, etc, upset the conservatives
High divorce rate
Ø Economic
Boom followed by problems (less foreign trade, more competition, less ships, no new industries and old factories were obsolete, high labor costs)
Loss in foreign trade
Outdated industrial plants
Increasing unemployment
Economic inequality- 64% of national wealth was owned by top 2% of the population
Expected the government to do something to help the economy
Ø 1916-1922 Lloyd George Coalition government (Conservatives + Liberals)
Fischer Education Act of 1918- free compulsory public education
Unemployment insurance act of 1920- increased the benefits
Safeguarding of Industries Act- protective tariff
1918 all men over 21 and women over 30 can vote
Ø 1922-1924 Conservatives- even more protective about the tariffs
Ø Jan-Nov 1924 Ramsay MacDonald (first Labour Party PM- with help from the Liberals. Now there are 3 parties in government)
Labour party wanted peaceful socialism (not Marxist)
Recognized the Soviet Union as a legitimate government
No radical legislation- did not turn England into a socialist country
Ø Nov 1924-1929 Stanley Baldwin PM with a Conservative government
Foreign affairs
¶ Signed the Locarno
¶ Broke relations with the Soviets to protest Communist propaganda in Britain
General Strike 1926
¶ Caused by a reduction in pay for coal miners
¶ Strike failed and Parliament outlawed General Strikes
1928 suffragettes succeeded: 1928 all women over 21 may vote
Ø 1928-1931 2nd Labor ministry with Ramsay MacDonald
Tried to strengthen foreign ties, including reestablishing relations with Russia
Depression hit à government fell
Ø 1931-1935 depression à National Coalition (all parties with Ramsay MacDonald as PM)
Tried to stop the depression
¶ More foreign trade, went off the gold standard, ended free trade, created protective tariffs, increased unemployment compensation
¶ Very similar to French New Deal
Ø 1935-1937 Conservative National Government Baldwin is back in 35-37, 1937-1940 Neville Chamberlin
Economic
¶ US economist John Maynard Keynes suggested the government should spend money and hire people during depression and tax more during prosperity (“counter cyclical” economic policy- fight the ups and downs of the regular business cycle)
¶ English Conservatives did the opposite- cut government spending, devalued the pound, subsidized the shipping business, relocated unemployed people… it was all very bad
Ø King George V died à Edward VIII abdicated to “marry the women I love” à George VI
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¨ Peace efforts
Ø Every country had their own ideas of how they could be safe
Ø Security is the goal, but sometimes dangerous ideas about what will lead to security
League of Nations
¶ Stabilize international finances
¶ Suppress drug trade
¶ Helped reconstruction of Austria and Hungary
¶ Resettle war refugees
¶ World international labor organization
¶ Supervised mandates
¶ World Court
¶ Limited effectiveness because it could not enforce decisions
¨ New alliances
Ø 1920-21 Little Entente: Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania
Ø 12921-27 France allied with each of the Little Entente and Poland separately (against Germany)
Ø 1922 Treaty of Rapallo
Germany and the Soviet Union both felt ostracized, so they made a treaty together
Germany recognized the Soviet Union
Cancelled prewar debts
Secret clause: Germany can train troops and develop weapons in Russia- enabled Germany to rebuild and rearm without anyone knowing
Ø Later more Soviet-German treaties of trade and friendship
Ø Soviets were gradually recognized by others
Ø Germany was also gradually accepted- joined the League of Nations in 1926
v Peace Pacts
¨ 1925 Locarno Pact
Ø Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia all met
Guaranteed the borders as set by the Versailles Treaty for Germany on the West (Belgium and France) but no promise about the east
Gustav Stresemann- compared to Bismarck
¶ Wanted to get territory on the east
¶ Got Germany agreements with both Russia and the West
Ø 1928 Kellogg-Briand (Briand-Kellogg, Pact of Paris)
15 nations- “war is condemned” and pledged not to use it in relations with each other
60 nations eventually joined
Shows that words and treaties can be completely useless
Ø 1933 Four Power Pact
Britain, France, Germany, and Italy said they would respect all the pacts and treaties (Versailles, Locarno, and Kellogg-Briand)
¨ Efforts to disarm
Ø 1921-1922 Washington Naval Conference à 9 Power Pact
Ratio of large warships that each country can have
No limit on small ships
Everyone will recognize the independence of China
Ø 1930 London Naval Conference
US, Britain, and Japan agreed to limit even their small ships, but France and Italy refused
Reaffirms everything but “if national security is threatened” à countries can increase their ships (this basically ruined the deal)
¨ FAILURE
Ø No way to compel nations to do as they pledged
Ø Japan and Germany quit the League in 1933 and built up their arms like crazy
Ø 1931 Japan attacked China
Ø 1935 Italy attacked Ethiopia
The emperor of Ethiopia appealed the League of Nations for them to do something, but the League could not do anything affective
Ø Germany repudiated the arms limits (of the Treaty of Versailles) à all countries made war preparations because they were afraid of attack
Why did Europeans become disillusioned?
v 1914 most people still believed in principles of the Enlightenment, Scientific Revolution. The lives of people were getting better- cleaner cities, increased standard of living, new inventions for leisure, etc. However, after the war, people became very pessimistic and had a lot of uncertainty
¨ Sherman- Wohl The Generation of 1914: Disillusionment
v Challenges
¨ Science: new physics that challenged Newton
Ø Curies discovered radiation from radium- atom is more complex and subatomic particles seem to behave inexplicably and randomly
Ø Max Planck- quantum theory of energy
Energy comes in random bursts
Ø Einstein- relativity
Space and time are relative to the observer and are reflected in matter and energy
E=mcsquared
Nothing is stable, everything is changing
This made people feel discombobulated- they didn’t really know what was going on and nothing really seemed solid
Ø Heisenberg- “uncertainty principle”
The path of an electron is altered by observing it
Ø New world view = no predictability, uncertainty at the root of all physical laws
Ø The change in science made the physical world seem uncertain
¨ Intellectual challenges
Ø Friedrich Nietzsche
Glorified the irrational. Irrational is good. Western emphasis on reason is decaying. Emphasized emotion and passion, kind of like the Romantics
G-d is Dead- Christianity is blamed for teaching weakness, pity
Looking for a Superman- a person freed from ordinary “good and evil” and creates his own values and leads the masses (prelude to Hitler)
“It is necessary for higher man to declare war upon the masses”
¶ Opposed democracy, social reform, and universal suffrage
Ø Henri Bergson
Influenced French thought
Rational scientific thought is good for practical and useful things, but truth and “ultimate reality” can only be grasped intuitively
Ø George Sorel
Combined Nietzsche and Bergson to make revolutionary socialism (masses will be run by an elite, which follows Nietzsche’s ideas)
General strikes à violent heroic action
Revolutionary socialism will be led by a small ruling elite (masses are incapable of self rule)
Ø Sigmund Freud
The Interpretations of Dreams
Human behavior is influenced by the unconscious
¶ Former experiences + inner drives
Inner life is a battleground of the:
¶ Id- center of the unconscious, which is ruled by pleasure
¶ Ego- reason, ruled by reality principle that to live peacefully in society, you must follow reject certain pleasures. Settles the dispute between id and superego and decides what you will do
¶ Superego- conscious, moral values from parents and society. Forces the ego to curb the id
These ideas were popularized after WWI, and got twisted around
Ø Carl Jung
Freud’s student
Said Freud was too narrow
Said the unconscious was an opening to deep spiritual needs, instead of repressed desires
Two aspects of the unconscious
¶ Personal- based on your own needs and experiences
¶ Collective- all people sharing certain memories and ideas that show up in dreams, which is the source of myths, religion, and philosophy
Ø The study of the unconscious made people feel unstable
¨ Economic instability and disappointment
Ø 1924-29 there had been hope that there would be improvement
Ø Great Depression 1929- made economics a huge problem for every country
Causes
¶ Domestic economic problems- agriculture improved à overproduction, prices fell, protective tariffs, fall of coal industry
¶ Countries were tied to the US, and once the stock market crashed, everyone was in trouble
Depressions like this occurred other times in history, but the Great Depression had unusual effects that were more serious than usual
Industrial production fell, unemployment went up, so many people were homeless (Sp 785)
¨ Social upheaval
Ø Women were able to get jobs (servants) while men couldn’t à
Discontent when a man could not get a job and had to live on his wife’s money
Ø à Political effects that just made everything worse
Governments took the 19th century liberal approach of un-involvement
Cut government budget
Increased tariffs to keep out foreign goods
à Problems just got worse
Ø Some people disagreed with the government’s approach and wanted more government help (even in the US)
Ø Marxism got a boost because it seemed as though Marx’s predictions that overproduction would destroy capitalism were coming true
Ø Other people turned to Fascism
Ø Cultural trends
New mass communication- radio, movies, more leisure, sporting events, travel, operas
¶ à More homogeneity of people in different countries
Avant garde (people who were culturally ahead of the time) of the prewar period became acceptable in the 20s and 30s
General attitude that humans can not make a rational world because they are irrational
Breakdown of middle class morality and values
v Art
¨ Abstract expressionism
Ø Dadaism- purposelessness of life
Like everything else in life, Dada is useless
Anti-art- rebellion of the artists. Used photo montages to show confrontation
Cut with a Kitchen Knife
Ø Surrealism
Influenced by Freud
Dali
¶ Recognizable objects in unrecognizable relationships
¨ Architecture- functionalism (buildings should be useful, so you must unite art with engineering)
Ø US was the leader- Chicago school of 1890’s
Louis Sullivan
Frank Lloyd Wright
Ø Bauhaus- German school of architecture- was in Weimar then moved to Dessau
Walter Gropius founder
Blended fine arts and crafts to make new buildings/objects
Often buildings unornamented steel with glass walls (look modern)
¨ Artists tried to get popular support
Ø Kurt Weil used jazz
Ø Studios in poor neighborhoods to bring art to the masses
Ø Edwin Piscator- plays with political messages to entertain and radicalize people who were on a picket line
¨ Opposition to the new art
Ø Nazis and Soviets wanted to glorify their systems and wanted art that people could recognize (Nazis called modern art “Jewish” art)
Ø Socialist realism- similar to Nazi art, but it glorified Stalin
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¨ Music parallel changes in art
Ø Stravinsky: Irrational forces in music, pulsating rhythms, dissonances
Ø Schonberg: atonal music
12 tone composition- akin to abstract painting
¨ Literature
Ø Interest in the unconscious
Ø James Joyce Ulysses
Stream consciousness- follows what and how a person thinks
Ø Virginia Woolf
Bloomsbury Circle- a group that deliberately tried to make new forms of art and literature
Also used stream consciousness
Women writers should make their own money
Ø Hermann Hesse
Focus on spiritual loneliness of a mechanized society
Influenced by Jung and Eastern religions
v
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