IN HISTORY The Inter-War Crisis 1919-1939 Second edition R.J. OVERY ~.1. 1'1 ~ PEARSON! Harlow, England London New York Boston San Francisco Toronto Sydney. Tokyo. Singapore Hong Kong Seoul. Taipei New Delhi Cape Town Madrid Mexico City. Amsterdam. Munich Paris Milan
PEARSON EDUCATION LIMITED Edinburgh Gate Harlow CM20 2]E United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1279 623623 Fax: +44 (0) 1279 431059 Website: www.pearsoned.co.uk First published 1994 Second edition published in Great Britain 2007 Pearson Education Limited 1994, 2007 The right of R.]. Overy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN: 978-1-4058-2468-2 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London ECIN 8TS. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the Publishers. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07 Set by 35 in 10/12.5pt Saban Printed in Malaysia (CTP -VVP) The Publisher's policy is to use paper manufactured from sustainable forests.
Introduction to the Series Acknow ledgemen ts Chronology Vll Vlll IX PART ONE: THE BACKGROUND 1 1. WHAT KIND OF CRISIS? 3 PART TWO: ANALYSIS 13 2. REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION 15 The Russian Revolution 15 Exporting the Revolution 18 The Failure of Revolution 21 3. A CRISIS OF MODERNIZATION 25 The Challenge of Modernity 25 The Conservative Revolt 32 4. THE 'END OF CIVILIZATION' 38 Decline of the West 38 Science and Civilization 39 Women, Sex and Moral Decline 42 Psychoanalysis and the Modern Malaise 44 War and Civilization 46 5. THE 'GREAT CRASH': CAPITALISM IN CRISIS 48 The Causes of the Crash 48 The Effects of the Recession 52 The Search for Recovery 56 The End of Capitalism? 60 6. DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP 63 The Decline of Democracy 63 The Appeal of Dictatorship 67 The 'New Order' in Politics 71 7. THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS 76 The Unsettled Peace 76 The W or Id Crisis 80 The Slide to War 88
VI Contents PART THREE: ASSESSMENT 95 8. THE CHALLENGE OF PROGRESS 97 PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS 103 Glossary 137 Who's Who 142 Bibliography 147 Contemporary Sources, Memoirs 147 Revolution and Counter-Revolution 147 Modernization and Crisis 148 A Crisis of Civilization 149 The Inter-War Economy 150 Democracy and Dictatorship 151 The International Crisis 152 General Books 153 Index 154 MAPS 1 The main empires in 1900 10 2 The post-war territorial settlement 78
We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Document 22 reprinted by permission of FOREIGN AFFAIRS (vol 18, 1939/1940) Copyright (1940) by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc; lines from 'The Waste Land' from Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T.S. Eliot (Faber and Faber, 2002); the extract from David Gascoyne's 'Farewell Chorus' is from his Selected Poems (Enitharmon Press, 1994); Tavistock Publications for an extract from Marienthal: The Sociography of an Unemployed Community by M. Jahoda, P. Lazarsfeld and H. Zeisel (Tavistock Publications, 1972); Document 36 reprinted with the permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from NO COMPROMISE: CONFLICT BETWEEN TWO WORLDS by Melvin M. Rader. Copyright 1939 by The Macmillan Company; copyright renewed 1967 by Melvin M. Rader. All rights reserved. We have unfortunately been unable to trace the copyright holder of 'Looking for Trouble' by V. Cowles in Decade: A Commemorative Anthology: 1931-1941 and would appreciate any information which would enable us to do so.
28 July-4 Aug. 1914 Outbreak of First World War. 23 Feb. 1917 Demonstrations in Petrograd provoke revolutionary 2 Mar. 1917 25 Oct. 1917 3 Mar. 1918 9 Nov. 1918 11 Nov. 1918 Nov.-Dec. 1918 15 Jan. 1919 21 Mar. 1919 28 June 1919 10 Jail. 1920 17 Mar. 1921 6 Feb. 1922 May 1922 28 Oct. 1922 3 Sept. 1923 9 Nov. 1923 15 Nov. 1923 1 Dec. 1925 12-14 May 1926 28 May 1926 29 Aug. 1928 29 Oct. 1929 17 June 1930 14 Apr. 1931 Sept. 1931 11 Dec. 1931 6 Mar. 1932 cnsis. Tsar Nicholas II abdicates. Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia. German-Russian Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates. Armistice on Western Front ends First World War. Communist seizure of power in Bavaria. Murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Bela Kun leads Communist takeover in Hungary. Signing of the Versailles Treaty. League of Nations Organization begins its operations. Marie Stopes opens first Birth Control Clinic. Washington Naval Treaty signed. Stalin appointed General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party. March on Rome by Italian Fascists. Primo de Rivera becomes Spanish dictator. Hitler Putsch in Munich ends in his arrest. German mark collapses at end of hyperinflation. Locarno Treaty signed by Britain, Germany, Italy, France and Belgium. Marshal Pilsudski assumes power in Poland. Parliamentary rule overthrown in Portugal. Kellogg-Briand Pact signed in Paris. Start of 'Great Crash' on US Stock Exchange. Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. Founding of Second Spanish Republic. Japanese Kwantung army seizes Manchuria. Statute of Westminster gives dominions right to declare war. US 'Bank Holiday' to prevent collapse of banking system.
x Chronology 9 July 1932 July/Aug. 1932 July 1932 30 Jan. 1933 2 May 1933 June 1933 July 1933 16 Oct. 1933 6 Feb. 1934 15 May 1934 19 May 1934 30 June 1934 2 Aug. 1934 Sept. 1934 19 Sept. 1934 13 Jan. 1935 5 July 1935 Aug. 1935 2/3 Oct. 1935 13 Mar. 1936 17 July 1936 26 Apr. 1937 9 July 1937 13 Dec. 1937 12 Mar. 1938 30 Sept. 1938 15 Mar. 1939 30 Mar. 1939 23 Aug. 1939 25 Aug. 1939 1 Sept. 1939 3 Sept. 1939 End of Lausanne Conference on reparations. British Commonwealth Ottawa Conference. NSDAP wins 37% of the popular vote in German election. Hitler appointed German chancellor. German trade unions dissolved. World Economic Conference, London. US Dow Jones share index reaches lowest point. Germany withdraws from League of Nations and from Disarmament Conference. Riots in central Paris. Konstantin Ulmanis declares dictatorship in Latvia. King Boris III and the army stage coup in Bulgaria. Hitler orders murder of former opponents and SA leaders on 'Night of the Long Knives'. Hitler proclaimed Fuhrer by German parliament. Hjalmar Schacht becomes German Economics Minister. USSR joins League of Nations. Saar plebiscite returns territory to Germany. Salazar becomes dictator of Portugal. Provisional Neutrality Act passed in the United States. Italian forces attack Ethiopia (Abyssinia). German forces remilitarize the Rhineland provinces. Nationalist forces stage attempted coup, start of Spanish Civil War. German and Italian aircraft bomb Basque city of Guernica. Start of Sino-Japanese war. Japanese capture Chinese capital of Nanking. Germany concludes 'Anschluss' with Austria. Partition of Czechoslovakia agreed at Munich Conference. German forces occupy Bohemia and Moravia. Chamberlain gives guarantee to Poland. Signing of German-Soviet Pact of Non-Aggressioin. Anglo-Polish Treaty signed. Germany attacks Poland. Britain and France declare war on Germany.