Impossible Peace

For four years during WWI, a life was lost every 25 seconds. After the carnage and years of vicious fighting, the survivors of WW1 expected that peace and prosperity would follow. But with so many economies and societies shattered (some maybe beyond repair) this would be far from straightforward. The First World War had bathed the new century in blood. Endless fields of gravemarkers quilted the landscape of Europe. Nine million lost their lives in a horrible war of attrition. A whole generation was traumatized by the horror of the trenches -- and swore that this would surely be the war to end all wars. The victorious nations assemble at Versailles to design the peace that they will impose on the defeated - Germany and Austria-Hungary. Russia's Bolshevik revolution has become a murderous civil war. The map of Europe is remade, with the dismantling and collapse of old empires. Everything throws dark and troubling shadows across the years ahead.

In effort to keep peace, treaties were proposed to keep the vanquished aggressors of World War 1 under-armed. This might have successfully kept peace, if it was only given a chance. The ratio of military power was drastically in favor of the US and Great Britain and they began to increase their military holdings, but it was at the expense of a humiliated Germany. The peacemakers have gone home. America has rejected its president's peace settlement and withdrawn into its previous isolationist position. Europe wrestles with its debt, inflation destabilizes Germany. The first of the dictators - Benito Mussolini in Italy - rises to power and, in Soviet Russia, Lenin dies to be succeeded by Josef Stalin. This episode focuses on the period from 1922 to 1925, when the entire northern hemisphere seems to be in chaos. Syria is rising up against France, which has occupied part of Germany, which is racked by political murders and hyperinflation that at one point sees the value of the German mark fall from 630,000 to the US dollar to 630 billion to the dollar in just three months.

Exchange rates and floundering economies were not the only things, influencing how and where people lived. The motor-car and other technological advances were transformative. Those technological advances were embraced by some – but not all – whilst Mussolini began his autocratic rule. Fascism and militarism were on the rise, it arose in Europe when many people yearned for national unity and strong leadership. In Italy, Benito Mussolini used his charisma to establish a powerful fascist state. In the US, these are the best of times. Prohibition doesn't stop anyone from having a good time, the country is on wheels or listening to the radio, welcoming the talkies or investing in the stock market. It's that brief spell they call the Jazz Age, the age of Charles Lindbergh and Babe Ruth. And in 1929, on Black Tuesday, it comes crashing down to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

By the late twenties, Europe – France especially – appeared to have put the bad old days of economic strife behind them. As Paris lurched into 1929, it seemed on the surface (to those with deep pockets) that the party would go on forever. However, few saw the impending future claiming that these people were just hiding away from a harsh reality. A few voices warned that this boom time would have inevitable consequences, but the majority weren't listening …. In a post-war boom, capitalism seemed to be delivering on its promise of prosperity for all -- boosting economies both America and abroad. Then, on October 24, 1929, the unthinkable happened: The New York Stock Exchange crashed; banks failed; and commerce suffered a blow that would be felt 'round the world. What had seemed to be an economic recovery is revealed to have been at best fragile and the world enters a global depression of unprecedented and unmeasurable savagery. Unemployment, hyperinflation and despair are everywhere and dictators arise. Old empires - Britain and France - come under pressure throughout the extended territories that they can barely afford to police.

In the 20's there seemed to be some strong, charismatic leaders and good candidates for leadership in Europe. But where were these people able to negotiate their way through this crisis period when Europe is now in the grip of a deep depression, effecting the lives of people around the world? In different ways, in different places, new leaders take centre stage: Hitler in Germany, Roosevelt in the US. Militarism triumphs in Japan, which consolidates its invasion of China's north east. In Germany, by the time the offices of president and chancellor have been combined into a single Fuhrer, Hitler has achieved absolute power in a one-party state without acting unconstitutionally. After his inauguration as Chancellor, the national socialists swept to power and the German people would take their first steps down a new road.

With the United States also suffering, the effect of the depression in the US became clear. Japanese businessmen began to think that the America would never recover, and took the opportunity to increase their sphere of influence. They then turned their attention and focus on East Asia, where the invasion of Manchuria had doubled the size of the Japanese empire. The League of Nations stood by as Benito Mussolini and his Italian forces invaded Ethiopia in 1935. In Spain, fascist insurgents led by General Franco and backed by Hitler and Mussolini, staged a ruthless assault against Spain's democratically-elected government. And, half-a-world away, Japan conquered Manchuria. In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic's repression, gulags, collectivization, and Five-Year plans are beginning to tally the human toll that will always be associated with Stalin's rule.

The power in Europe has finally and fatally shifted - the resurgent Germany of the Third Reich is the dominant force. With a unique blend of nationalism, militarism, and racial theory, Adolf Hitler persuades millions that they are a unique people -- a master race. By the mid thirties, Adolf Hitler's ambitions seemed clear to all. If the great powers had acted earlier, would their intervention have prevented WW2? No one knows for sure if early action would have stopped his ambition, although we do know that inaction certainly didn't. But why did neighboring countries refuse to act early? One word: Appeasement. In March 1938, Germany absorbed Austria in direct defiance of the Treaty of Versailles. It was a euphoric moment -- for the Nazis. In Spain, war rips country apart as a three year civil war of terrible brutality starts.

Some saw the only way to salvage peace was the idea of appeasement, repeating the disaster of WWI had to be avoided at all costs. Some were so blinded by it, that they either didn't see, or ignored, Hitler's all to obvious strategic manipulation of territories. With Adolf Hitler at the other end of the negotiating table, this was a strategy doomed to failure. After the Anschluss in 1938, Germany turned next its attention to the still young democracy of Czechoslovakia, demanding the largely German-speaking Sudetenland. All attempts at diplomacy failed. The international community took no action -- and appeasement would become the League's modus operandi. The Germans annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia in early 1939 and the twenty-year-old nation vanished. Britain and France respond with promises to Poland. Little more than 20 years after the guns fell silent, they roar back into life.