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Europe in Disarray
With the end of World War I, a new world was born. The European nations, reorganized and weakened, emerged economically and socially distressed, with an economic depression prevailing in Europe for much of the interwar period. Debtor nations found it impossible to repay their debts without borrowing even more money, at higher rates, exacerbating an already dire financial situation. Germany, in particular, was destroyed economically by the impossibly high reparations that Britain and France had forced upon it with the Treaty of Versailles.
The League of Nations
The League of Nations represented an effort to break the pattern of traditional power politics and bring international relations into an open and cooperative forum in the name of peace and stability. However, the League never grew strong enough to make a significant impact on politics, and its goals of deterrence and disarmament were left unaccomplished.
No Room for Moderates
The political atmosphere of the interwar years was sharply divided between the extreme left and the extreme right, both of which thought they had the answer to Europe’s problems. With very few moderates, this kept the governments of Britain, France, and Eastern Europe in constant turmoil, swinging wildly between the two. In some countries, these extreme viewpoints created totalitarian states: communism took hold in the Soviet Union, while fascism controlled Germany, Italy, and Spain.
War Looms on the Horizon Again
The extremist nature of these opposing ideologies created an atmosphere ripe for conflict. In Spain, Francisco Franco used the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s to become dictator. In Germany, Adolf Hitler’s fascist Nazi Party came to power during the 1930s and prepared once again to make war on Europe. With Britain and France tied up in their own affairs, the path to World War II lay clear.
