Professor Brophy
History 102

The Twenty Years’ Crisis

I. The End of the First World War
-the problems with peacemaking
-Paris Peace Conference vs. Vienna (1815)
-prevalent moods:  Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Orlando
-Wilson’s program: ideology and practice

II. The Settlements
-Settlement with Germany: the 14 points, the dictated peace, reparations, the loss of territory, guilt clause, limited army
-the fragile Weimar Republic
-Eastern Europe: redrawing map of Europe; winners and losers

III. The Interwar Political System
-the fragile French hegemony
-status quo vs. revisionism
-the Rapallo Treaty (Ger.-USSR, 1922)
-French occupation of German Ruhr valley, 1923 and its aftermath
-the Dawes Plan (1924) & Locarno Treaties (1925): the “Locarno Spirit”
-optimism of Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)
-the ‘golden twenties’: a period of cultural experimentation

IV. The Versailles System Dismantled
-the Great Depression: stability shattered
-rise of authoritarian governments in central and eastern Europe: revisionism
-the failure to achieve collective security in 1920s
-the challenge of fascism as vital, dynamic political force

VI. The ‘Diplomatic Revolution,’ 1933-36
-Hitler’s rise to power (Jan. ‘33)
-Germany’s withdrawal from League (’33)
-Hitler’s failure in Austria (1934)
-rearmament; proclamation of Luftwaffe (’35)
-Ethiopia (Oct. ‘35); Rome-Berlin Axis (’36)
-Remilitarization of the Rhineland (Mar. ‘36)
-the Spanish Civil War (1936-39)

VII. The Road to War
-Hitler’s Lebensraum speech (1937)
-annexation (Anschluss) of Austria (1938)
-The Czechoslovakian Crisis (1938)
-The Munich Conference (Sept. 1938)
-Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy
-March 1939:  end of appeasement
-Hitler-Stalin Pact (August ’39)