Between the
Wars (Chapter 28, Sections 1-3)
What you need to know:
The work of artists, musicians, and writers in the
post-WWI era reflected global anxieties.
The Influenza Pandemic
- In the spring of 1918 many soldiers fighting in France began to complain of flu-like symptoms.
- This led to the Influenza pandemic between 1918 and 1919.
- No inhabited continent was safe from the flu.
- The death toll was well above 20 million.
- The effects caused people to view the world as a frightening place.
- The major writings of the time show dissatisfaction with traditional ideas.
- Writers like Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald became known as the Lost Generation with their liberal views on the world.
- Their generation had lost its moral grounding during the war.
- Surrealism: brings conscious and unconscious ideas together to portray life in a dreamlike way.
- Igor Stravinsky wrote The Rite of Spring in 1913 and caused riots at ballets.
- Many people found the sound disturbing.
- Painting style also changed during this time.
- Cubism emphasized geometric designs, using shapes such as cubes, flat planes, and spheres.
- Dadaism used random images to reflect the insanity of the war.
- Architecture at this time changed, and fundamentalism emerged, which helped develop the skyscraper.
- The international style was also popular, using uninterrupted sheets of steel and glass to make buildings.
Nations responded to the global economic crisis of the 1930’s by protecting their own economies.
- Many nations never fully recovered from the effects of World War I.
- Farmers had to increase food production to make money, and still were in debt.
- Many countries implemented protectionism, or economic nationalism, to protect their economies using high tariffs.
- Investors made market speculations, or risky investments.
- October 29, 1929 – Black Tuesday – the crash of the American stock market.
- The collapse of the New York Stock Exchange marked the beginning of the worldwide Great Depression.
- The United States lagged behind in creating social programs for its citizens.
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the New Deal.
- The federal government granted money to each state to provide the needy with food, clothing and shelter.
- The Social Security Act provided for unemployment and old-age benefits.
Western Europe held out during the crisis of the 1920’s, but Eastern Europe did not hold out as well.
- France emerged from WWI victorious but weakened.
- Northern France had been a major battleground.
- France owed money to its citizens and to the United States for war materials.
- The French were determined to prevent another invasion.
- They rebuilt their army and constructed a series of steel and concrete fortifications along the German border, called the Maginot Line.
- The French wanted a dictator to improve the country.
- The workers went on a general strike.
- Left-wing parties in France formed a government called the Popular Front.
- It carried out many reforms, which included a 40-hour workweek and paid vacations.
- The Popular Front fell after a year.
- The new French government took back many of the newly created reforms.
- Disarmament left many factory workers without jobs.
- A coalition government was formed between the Labour Party and Liberal Party to establish a majority.
- Ireland wanted independence.
- Irish nationalists revolted in the Easter Rising, which was crushed by Great Britain.
- The Irish Nationalist Party called Sein Fein was established, with the Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.) as its form of military.
- British officials offered a compromise and divided Ireland in two.
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Many nations in Eastern Europe built new governments.
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The breakup of empires disrupted trade patterns.
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Austria was small and poor. They wanted to unite with Germany, but treaties prevented this.
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Austria gradually became less democratic.
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Hungary became a republic in November 1918. A member of the military class ruled the
country. He found postwar
reconstruction very difficult.
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Poland was located between Germany and Russia, and had
little chance of becoming a democracy.
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Many groups opposed the government, and a military
dictatorship was installed.
Review (Study before you
answer these.)
Page written by Tom.