Interwar period: what it was, history and stages

We explain what the interwar period was like, as well as its stages and main events.

After the prosperity of the “roaring twenties” the Great Depression broke out in the thirties.

What was the interwar period?

The interwar period was the time span between the end of World War I (1914–1918) and the beginning of World War II (1939–1945).

One of the characteristics of the interwar period was the disbelief of many social sectors in the progressive values ​​of liberalism and in parliamentary institutions, especially in Europe, after the horrors of the First World War.

In this context, support for communism grew.which had triumphed in Russia in 1917, and the nationalist movementswhich were fed by resentment over the humiliating treatment offered to some of the countries after the First World War (as was the case of Italian fascism, which came to power in 1922 and inspired German Nazism).

An expression of the political and ideological conflict of the period was the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), which pitted republican, socialist, communist and anarchist sectors against the rebellious or “national” side that had the support of fascism and Nazism. This conflict ended a few months before the start of World War II.

These twenty years were marked by a series of stages:

• The first stage was characterized by the problems arising from the human and material losses of the war (especially in Europe), which included reconstruction efforts, the negotiation of war reparations imposed on the defeated, and the signing of treaties (such as the Treaty of Versailles).
• The second stage It was a period of economic recovery and political détente that increased the consumption of goods and entertainment (the “crazy years”), especially in large cities. This phase ended after the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929 and the world crisis that lasted for most of the 1930s.
• The third stage It was strongly influenced by the economic crisis and was characterised by the adoption of protectionist measures and state intervention in the economy of some countries (such as the New Deal in the United States). It also led to the rise of Nazism in Germany, which led to the expansion of the Third Reich and the outbreak of the Second World War.

The Treaty of Versailles

After the armistice signed between Germany and the Allies November 11, 1918, which ended World War I (then called the “Great War”), in early 1919 a peace conference met in Paris.

There the victors, especially the British Prime Minister (David Lloyd George), the French Prime Minister (Georges Clemenceau) and the President of the United States (Woodrow Wilson), decided the peace conditions they would impose on the defeated.

This resulted in the signing of a series of treatiesbetween 1919 and 1923, with Germany (Treaty of Versailles), Austria (Treaty of Saint Germain), Hungary (Treaty of Trianon), Bulgaria (Treaty of Neuilly) and Turkey (Treaties of Sèvres and Lausanne).

These treaties They were characterized by the severity with which the defeated were treated, especially Germany.. The German state was held responsible for the war and was subject to restrictions on rearmament and monetary reparations demanded by the governments of France and the United Kingdom, which the German state had serious difficulties in meeting.

On the other hand, with the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman and Russian empires, The treaties tended to redesign the map of nations In Europe there is already a division of control or mandate over territories in the Middle East and in the former German colonies in Africa.

Another result of the treaties was the creation of the League of Nations, whose objective was the safeguarding of peace among the nations that made it up, under the principle of “collective security.”

Although it was created at the request of United States President Woodrow Wilson, who included it in his Fourteen Points for World Peace in 1918, the United States refused to integrate it after the Senate’s refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, and it was ineffective during most of its existence.

The “crazy years”

In Europe, the early postwar years were marked by treaty signings, war memorials, and costly reconstruction policies.

Inflation and unemployment devastated Europe and encouraged social protest, with uprisings such as the one encouraged by the Spartacist League in Germany, inspired by the Russian Revolution and put down by the government of the Weimar Republic. This climate favored the growth of nationalist movements.

On the other hand, The government and economy of the United States emerged stronger from the world war. The war had not reached its territory, and American industrial and financial capacity determined that it became creditor of countries such as France and the United Kingdom.

For its part, from 1925 onwards Europe experienced a phase of monetary stabilisation and economic recovery, which coincided with the reconstruction of commercial circuits and an industrial boom in both Europe and the United States.

This period is known as the “Roaring Twenties,” “Golden Years,” or “Roaring Twenties,” especially in the United States but also in thriving cities in Europe and other parts of the world. During these years, the pessimism of the immediate postwar period was left behind and consumption, comfort and entertainment expanded.

“Mass consumption” encompassed both durable goods and entertainment (such as cinema), sports and other forms of leisure. The spread of Charleston, jazz and tango went hand in hand with changes in fashion.

In political terms, reforms were implemented such as “universal suffrage” in the United Kingdom (1918), which, in effect, granted the right to vote to all adult men and women over 30 years of age, and the 19th amendment to the US Constitution that ratified women’s suffrage in 1920.

The great Depression

In the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt applied the New Deal to address the crisis.

The prosperity of the 1920s changed dramatically toward the end of the decade. The crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929 inaugurated what is known as the Great Depression.

Although the underlying reasons have been a matter of debate among historians and economists, after years of financial speculation, The stock market crash of the so-called “Black Thursday” produced a deep recession in the United States.

This recession spread to most of the world and was felt during the 1930s. Commerce, production and the financial sector entered into an international crisis that caused unemployment and poverty.

In the United States, the president Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented an economic recovery plan known as New Deal (“new deal”)which consisted of a program of public works, promotion of consumption, aid to agricultural sectors, labor rights and reform of the financial system.

In Latin America, crisis-imposed export limits led to import substitution policies, often in the context of political changes such as the 1930s military coups in Argentina and Brazil.

Protectionist measures were adopted in Europe and the gold standard was abandoned, and in the mid-1930s it began both there and in the United States. an arms race that contributed to economic recovery just before the start of World War II.

Italian fascism

One of the characteristic phenomena of the interwar period was the rise of fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany, and related movements in other parts of Europe.

Despite having been part of the winning side in the First World War, Italy did not see all its territorial claims recognized at the Paris peace conference.

This fact was added to others to allow the rapid rise of a nationalist movement extreme right wing that was led by Benito Mussolini:

• the memory of war casualties
• the advance of socialism and communism (which were perceived by some sectors as a threat)
• the economic crisis of the early 1920s
• an increasingly widespread impression of the inability of liberalism and parliamentary governments to resolve the urgent problems of the moment.

Mussolini founded the National Fascist Party In 1921 and October 1922 his “blackshirts” (war veterans, unemployed people and other sympathizers who were organized as a paramilitary force) staged the March on Rome, during which King Victor Emmanuel III was forced to accept Mussolini as prime minister.

Shortly after A dictatorship was established with Mussolini as “il Duce” (the leader)which organized a corporate state based on the persecution of the opposition, the use of violence and censorship, and the deployment of a propaganda apparatus that focused on…