With the end of World War I, the old international
system was torn down, Europe was reorganized, and a new world was born. The
European nations that had fought in the Great War emerged economically and
socially crippled. Economic depression prevailed in Europe for much of the
inter-war period, and debtor nations found it impossible to pay their debts
without borrowing even more money, at higher rates, thus worsening the economy
to an even greater degree. Germany especially was destroyed economically by
World War I and its aftermath: the reparations to Britain and France forced on
Germany by the Treaty of Versailles were impossibly high.
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 the goals of
deterrence of war and disarmament were left unaccomplished.
The political atmosphere of the inter-war years was sharply divided between
those who thought the extreme left could solve Europe's problems, and those who
desired leadership from the extreme right. There were very few moderates, and
this situation kept the governments of Britain, France, and Eastern Europe in
constant turmoil, swinging wildly between one extreme and the next. Extreme
viewpoints won out in the form of totalitarian states in Europe during the
inter-war years, and communism took hold in the Soviet Union, while fascism
controlled Germany, Italy and Spain.
The extremist nature of these disparate ideologies turned European politics into
an arena for sharp conflict, erupting in Spain during the late 1930s in the form
of the Spanish Civil War, after which Francisco Franco became 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.
