Interwar Period (second Stage) (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what the interwar period was like, its historical context and what the years 1924 to 1933 were like. In addition, the treaties that were signed and alliances that were formed.

Between 1924 and 1929 were years of harmony, between 1929 and 1933 of escalation of the conflict.

What was the interwar period?

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

During the first years of this period Treaties were signed between the victorious and defeated countries (such as the Treaty of Versailles with Germany), which established territorial agreements and war reparations (especially onerous for Germany). Also They were years of economic difficulties and attempts at reconstruction in Europe after the material devastation caused by the war.

Starting in 1924, a stage of economic recovery began in Europe and harmony between states.sometimes called the “Briand-Stresemann era” (after the names of the foreign ministers of France and Germany). This stage of harmony It began to close with the Great Depression that began in 1929. and with a series of events that marked the path to World War II, such as the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 or the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany in 1933.

Key points

The interwar period was a time span of almost 21 years between the end of World War I (1914-1918) and the beginning of World War II (1939-1945).
The second stage of the interwar period took place between 1924 and 1933, in which agreements were established between the winning and defeated countries, and there were attempts to reconstruction economic
Despite the agreements, new situations of political tension were generated, due to differences of interests between the countries, which combined with the economic crisis that began in 1929 and led to the rise of Nazism in Germany in 1933.

The historical context

At the beginning of 1924, after the economic difficulties derived from the First World War that had ended in 1918, the great powers were looking for an agreement that would allow international monetary stability to be achieved:

The United Kingdom was trying to reestablish the gold standard (which it had abandoned during the First World War).
The United States needed monetary stability in Europe to place its financial surpluses there.
Germany needed international loans to try to establish its new currency, the Rentenmark, which had just replaced a mark that had lost its value due to hyperinflation.
France had to take measures to save its currency, the franc, greatly weakened after the invasion of the Ruhr (a German region occupied by the French and Belgians in 1923).

The governments of the United Kingdom and the United States forced France and Germany to negotiate. From then on, France began a foreign policy of subordination to the United Kingdom, aware of its own weakness and that Germany's economic recovery would once again turn this neighboring state into a threat.

The problem of compensation: the Dawes plan (1924)

A committee chaired by Charles Dawes drafted a compensation reduction plan.

In July and August 1924 the London Conference met with the aim of applying the so-called Dawes Plan. The plan, drafted by a committee chaired by American financier Charles Dawes, It meant a notable reduction in the total volume of German debts and a significant flow of American investments into Germany. with the aim of reviving the German economy.

The Locarno Treaties (1925)

The Treaties of Locarno guaranteed Germany's western borders.

Gustav Stresemann's (Germany's foreign minister) proposal in February 1925 to reach legal recognition of Germany's western borders (established in the Treaty of Versailles) met with a swift response from Aristide Briand, newly appointed foreign minister. exteriors of France.

The negotiations culminated with the meeting of the representatives of the great powers in the Swiss city of Locarno during the month of October 1925. Gustav Stresemann for Germany, Aristide Briand for France, Austen Chamberlain for the United Kingdom, Benito Mussolini for Italy and Émile Vandervelde for Belgium debated the major issues affecting European security.

The Locarno Treaties were finally ratified and signed in London in December 1925..

The main of the treaties It was a pact of mutual guarantee of Germany's western borders, which included the Rhineland demilitarized zone (bordering France and Belgium). Germany legally accepted for the first time its borders with France and Belgium approved in the Treaty of Versailles (1919). The three interested countries signed the treaty, together with the United Kingdom and Italy as guarantors.

The weakness of the Locarno Treaties was the Germany's refusal to sign similar pacts regarding its eastern bordersso it never recognized its new borders with Poland and Czechoslovakia. It was precisely on the eastern borders that the crisis that led to the Second World War subsequently began.

Anyway, The Locarno Treaties marked the beginning of a new period of détente, known as the Briand-Stresemann era.for the key role played by the heads of French and German diplomacy in those years. A new spirit of harmony (the “spirit of Locarno”) dominated the international scene until the arrival of the economic depression in 1929.

The Briand-Stresemann era (1925-1929)

The first important event of the Briand-Stresemann era was Germany's entry into the League of Nations. The session in Geneva had great international resonance: Briand welcomed his German colleague and Stresemann responded with a speech in which he exclaimed: “Down with rifles, machine guns and cannons! “Step to conciliation, arbitration and peace!” The entry of Germany gave greater credibility to the League of Nations, and meant the recognition of the German country as a great power.

In this new international environment, Briand came into contact with his American colleague Frank Kellogg in 1927, and from this meeting was born the Briand-Kellogg Pact, signed by fifteen countries in August 1928. This agreement had an important symbolic and exemplary value: France and the United States They renounced war as a means to resolve differences between both, and invited the other states to join the pact. By 1929, more than 60 countries, including Germany, had signed the pact.

Briand also proclaimed in 1929 the need to establish a European Federal Union, but the outbreak of the economic crisis caused the proposal to be relegated. For his part, Stresemann took advantage of the fact that Germany's international position was strengthened because it had the understanding of the Anglo-Saxon countries and a growing economy. He then applied his diplomatic work to achieve evacuation in 1930 (five years earlier than stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles) of the allied troops still remaining in the Rhineland.

You may be interested: Treaty of Rapallo (1922)

Stresemann He also achieved a new renegotiation of the payment of war reparationswhich took shape in the Young Plan 1929. The Young Plan reduced the total amount of repairs and provided that Germany would pay compensation to the victors until 1988. However, the economic depression that broke out in the United States in October 1929 put an end to the provisions of the Young Plan and the short period of international harmony.

The last moments of harmony: the evacuation of the Rhineland and the Saar (1930)

When the final protocol of the Young Plan was signed on May 17, 1930, one of the last moments of harmony in Europe was taking place. Immediately Édouard Herriot, the French Prime Minister, ordered the evacuation of the last occupation troops in the Rhineland. In December French troops also abandoned the Saar region which, however, continued under French economic administration until 1935.

These measures could not hide the rapid cooling of Franco-German relations. The death of Gustav Stresemann On October 3, 1929, it distanced both countriesand the repercussion of the crisis of 1929, especially virulent in Germany, put a definitive end to the diplomatic edifice built in the ephemeral years of harmony.

Aristide Briand's career exemplifies the dramatic change that Europe was experiencing: severely defeated in the French presidential elections of 1931, he abandoned politics and died in March 1932. The times were not for harmony nor for European unity projects. They were times of nationalism and violent solutions.

From harmony to escalation of conflict

It is not easy to establish at what exact moment We went from the “spirit of Locarno” (the time of European concord) to the escalation of the conflict that led to the start of the Second World War. in September 1939. Some historians draw the line at Hoover Moratorium of 1931 or the Lausanne Conference of 1932, events that practically put an end to the payment of German reparations. Others point to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the end of economic solidarity in the International Economic Conference of 1933, the failure of the International Disarmament Conference in 1933 or the establishment of compulsory military service in Germany in 1935.

In any case, it can be noted that The year 1933 marks a before and after. Among all the events of that year there is one that stands out: Adolf Hitler's rise to the German chancellery on January 30th.

Japanese expansionism: the occupation of Manchuria (1931)

After a minor incident, the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria.

In 1931 the first of a series of crises took place that led to the Second World War. The Empire of Japanwhich had ancient expansionist aspirations in the Far East, was hit hard by the economic crisis that began in 1929. It was an overpopulated country with few raw materials, which especially suffered from the contraction of world trade.

Aggressive and expansionist nationalism became the dominant ideological current in Japanespecially in the army. Since 1930, the ultranationalist party chaired by Inukai Tsuyoshi He set his sights on China, a huge country weakened by a long civil war. In September 1931, the Japanese army took advantage of a minor incident (the blowing up of a section of the Japanese-run railway, known as the “Mukden incident”) to invade Manchuria.

The repercussion of the economic crisis: the failure of the International Economic Conference (1933)

The devastating crisis that began in the United States in October 1929 destroyed any idea of economic cooperation and solidarity. The great powers embarked on economic policies based on raising tariffs to limit imports and devaluing currencies to facilitate exports. These policies of economic nationalism occurred within a framework of general monetary disorder.

The last attempt at conciliation took place in International Economic Conference, which was held in London between June and July 1933. Its failure was complete.:

United Kingdom He retreated into his empire and adopted a policy of imperial preference, putting an end to a long free trade tradition.
The “New Deal” of Franklin D. Roosevelt in USA had a clear isolationist tendency
In Germanyhard hit by the depression, a policy of autarky and rearmament led by Hitler's government was imposed.

The failed International Disarmament Conference (1932-1933)

In 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor and Germany left the Disarmament Conference.

In February 1932, the International Conference on Disarmament, in which 62 countries were represented. Germany demanded equal rights with the other powers and the reduction of other countries' armaments to the same level that the Treaty of Versailles had imposed on the German state.

The Anglo-Saxon countries, meanwhile, seemed more concerned about possible French hegemony than about possible German rearmament. The Soviet Union, for its part, called for total and immediate disarmament.

In this chaotic atmosphere, various competing plans were discussed. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. On October 14, Germany left the Conference on Disarmament and, a few days later, withdrew from the League of Nations.. From now on, The prospect of a new war became increasingly clear. in the European chancelleries.

References

Cabrera, M., Juliá, S. & Martín Aceña, P. (comps.) (1991). Europe in crisis. 1919-1939. Pablo Iglesias Editorial.
Morsey, R. (2022). Gustav Stresemann. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
Sevillano Calero, F. (2020). Europe between the wars. The disrupted order. Synthesis.Swift, J. (2022). Mukden Incident. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/