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In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II (WWII). It was relatively short, yet featured many social, political, military, and economic changes throughout the world. Petroleum-based energy production and associated mechanisation led to the prosperous Roaring Twenties, a time of social mobility and economic mobility for the middle class. , , radio, and more became common among populations in the developed world. The era's indulgences were followed by the Great Depression, an unprecedented worldwide economic downturn that severely damaged many of the world's largest economies.
Politically, the era coincided with the rise of communism, starting in Russia with the October Revolution and Russian Civil War, at the end of WWI, and ended with the rise of fascism, particularly in Germany and Italy. China was in the midst of a half-century of instability and the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang, the Chinese Communist Party, and many warlords. The empires of British Empire, France, and others faced challenges as imperialism was increasingly viewed negatively and independence movements emerged in many Colony; in Europe, after protracted low-level fighting most of Ireland became independent.
The Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and were dismantled, with the Ottoman territories and German colonies redistributed among the Allies, chiefly Britain and France. The western parts of the Russian Empire, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland became independent nations in their own right, and Bessarabia (now Moldova and parts of Ukraine) chose to reunify with Romania.
In Russia, the Bolsheviks managed to regain control of Belarus and Ukraine, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, forming the Soviet Union. In the Near East, Egypt and Iraq gained independence. During the Great Depression, countries in Latin America nationalised many foreign companies (most of which belonged to the United States) in a bid to strengthen their own economies. The territorial ambitions of the Japanese, Italians, and Germans led to the expansion of their domains. The Soviets additionally harbored territorial ambitions during this period and would seek to revise the post-WWI settlements.
Militarily, the period would see a markedly rapid advance in technology which, alongside lessons learned from WWI, would catalyse new strategic and tactical innovations. While the period would largely see a continuation of the development of the technologies pioneered in WWI, debates emerged as to the most effective use of these advancements. On land, discussions focused on how armoured warfare, mechanised, and motorised forces should be employed, particularly in-relation to the traditional branches of the infantry, horse cavalry, and artillery. (1996). 9780521552417 ISBN 9780521552417 In the air, the question of allocating air forces to strategic bombing versus dedicating such forces to frontline close air support was the primary contention, with some arguing that interceptor development was outpacing bombers, and others maintaining that "the bomber will always get through." In the navy sphere, the primary question was whether battleships would maintain their dominance of the seas or be rendered virtually obsolete by naval aviation.
The military deliberations and controversies characteristic of the interwar period would ultimately find resolution via the events of WWII, which served as a foundation for many of the tenets, doctrines, and strategies of modern warfare. Overall, the innovations of WWI and the interwar period would see a shift away from traditional line- and front line and towards a significantly more mobile, mechanised, and asymmetric form of combat.
Disarmament was a very popular public policy. However, the League of Nations played little role in this effort, with the United States and Britain taking the lead. U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes sponsored the Washington Naval Conference of 1921 in determining how many capital ships each major country was allowed. The new allocations were actually followed and there were no naval races in the 1920s. Britain played a leading role in the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference and the 1930 London Conference that led to the London Naval Treaty, which added cruisers and submarines to the list of ship allocations. However the refusal of Japan, Germany, Italy and the USSR to go along with this led to the meaningless Second London Naval Treaty of 1936. Naval disarmament had collapsed and the issue became rearming for a war against Germany and Japan.
Most independent countries enacted women's suffrage in the interwar era, including Canada in 1917 (though Quebec held out longer), Britain in 1918, and the United States in 1920. There were a few major countries that held out until after the Second World War (such as France, Switzerland, and Portugal). Leslie Hume argues:
In Europe, according to Derek Aldcroft and Steven Morewood, "Nearly all countries registered some economic progress in the 1920s and most of them managed to regain or surpass their pre-war income and production levels by the end of the decade." The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Greece did especially well, while Eastern Europe did poorly, due to the First World War and Russian Civil War. In advanced economies the prosperity reached middle class households and many in the working class with radio, Car, , and and Home appliance. There was unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle and culture. The media began to focus on celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars. Major cities built large sports stadiums for the fans, in addition to palatial cinemas. The mechanisation of agriculture continued apace, producing an expansion of output that lowered prices, and made many farm workers redundant. Often they moved to nearby industrial towns and cities.
The Great Depression had devastating effects in countries both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits, and dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%. Unemployment in the United States rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. (2025). 9780073193977, McGraw-Hill/Irwin. ISBN 9780073193977 Prices fell sharply, especially for mining and agricultural commodities. Business profits fell sharply as well, with a sharp reduction in new business starts.
Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few alternative sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most.
The Weimar Republic in Germany gave way to two episodes of political and economic turmoil, the first culminated in the German hyperinflation of 1923 and the failed Beer Hall Putsch of that same year. The second convulsion, brought on by the worldwide depression and Germany's disastrous monetary policies, resulted in the further rise of Nazi Germany. In Asia, Japan became an ever more assertive power, especially with regard to China.
Italian fascism took control of the Kingdom of Italy in 1922; as the Great Depression worsened, Nazism emerged victorious in Germany, fascism spread to many other countries in Europe, and also played a major role in several countries in Latin America.Stanley G. Payne (1995). 029914870X, University of Wisconsin Press. 029914870X Fascist parties sprang up, attuned to local right-wing traditions, but also possessing common features that typically included extreme militaristic nationalism, a desire for economic self-containment, threats and aggression toward neighbouring countries, oppression of minorities, a ridicule of democracy while using its techniques to mobilise an angry middle-class base, and a disgust with cultural liberalism. Fascists believed in power, violence, male superiority, and a "natural" hierarchy, often led by dictators such as Benito Mussolini or Adolf Hitler. Fascism in power meant that liberalism and human rights were discarded, and individual pursuits and values were subordinated to what the party decided was best.
Japan joined the Allies of the First World War to make territorial gains. Together with the British Empire, it divided up Germany's territories scattered in the Pacific and on the Chinese coast; they did not amount to very much. The other Allies pushed back hard against Japan's efforts to dominate China through the Twenty-One Demands of 1915. Its occupation of Siberia proved unproductive. Japan's wartime diplomacy and limited military action had produced few results, and at the Paris Versailles peace conference at the end of the war, Japan was frustrated in its ambitions. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, its Racial Equality Proposal led to increasing diplomatic isolation. The 1902 alliance with Britain was not renewed in 1922 because of heavy pressure on Britain from Canada and the United States. In the 1920s Japanese diplomacy was rooted in a largely liberal democratic political system, and favoured internationalism. By 1930, however, Japan was rapidly reversing itself, rejecting democracy at home, as the Army seized more and more power, and rejecting internationalism and liberalism. By the late 1930s it had joined the Axis military alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
In 1930, the London disarmament conference angered the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces. The Imperial Japanese Navy demanded parity with the United States, Britain and France, but was rejected and the conference kept the 1921 ratios. Japan was required to scrap a capital ship. Extremists assassinated Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi in the May 15 Incident and the military took more power, leading to rapid democratic backsliding.
The Army, however, was itself divided into cliques and factions with different strategic viewpoints. One faction viewed the Soviet Union as the main enemy; the other sought to build a mighty empire based in Manchuria and northern China. The Navy, while smaller and less influential, was also factionalised. Large-scale warfare, known as the Second Sino-Japanese War, began in August 1937, with naval and infantry attacks focused on Shanghai, which quickly spread to other major cities. There were numerous large-scale atrocities against Chinese civilians, such as the Nanjing massacre in December 1937, with mass murder and mass rape. By 1939 military lines had stabilised, with Japan in control of almost all of the major Chinese cities and industrial areas. A puppet government was set up. In the U.S., government and public opinion—even including those who were isolationist regarding Europe—was resolutely opposed to Japan and gave strong support to China. Meanwhile, the Japanese Army fared badly in large battles with the Red Army in Mongolia at the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in summer 1939. The USSR was too powerful. Tokyo and Moscow signed a nonaggression treaty in April 1941, as the militarists turned their attention to the European colonies to the south which had urgently needed oil fields.
The Spanish Civil War was marked by numerous small battles and sieges, and many atrocities, until the Nationalists won in 1939 by overwhelming the Republican forces. The Soviet Union provided armaments but never enough to equip the heterogeneous government militias and the "International Brigades" of outside far-left volunteers. The civil war did not escalate into a larger conflict, but did become a worldwide ideological battleground that pitted all the Communism and many Socialism and Liberalism against Catholic Church, conservatives and fascists. Worldwide there was a decline in pacifism and a growing sense that another world war was imminent, and that it would be worth fighting for.
British Raj strongly supported the Empire in the First World War. It expected a reward, but failed to get self-government as the government was still kept in control of British hands and feared another rebellion like that of 1857. The Government of India Act 1919 failed to satisfy demand for self-rule. Mounting tension, particularly in the Punjab region, culminated in the Amritsar Massacre in 1919. Indian nationalism surged and centred in the Congress Party led by Mahatma Gandhi. (2025). 9780195683677, Oxford UP. ISBN 9780195683677 In Britain, public opinion was divided over the morality of the massacre between those who saw it as having saved India from anarchy and those who viewed it with revulsion. – 25 chapters; 845 pp
Egypt had been under de facto British control since the 1880s, despite its nominal ownership by the Ottoman Empire. In 1922, the Kingdom of Egypt was granted formal independence, though it continued to be a client state following British guidance. Egypt joined the League of Nations. Egypt's King Fuad and his son King Farouk and their conservative allies stayed in power with lavish lifestyles thanks to an informal alliance with Britain who would protect them from both secular and Muslim radicalism. Mandatory Iraq, a British mandate since 1920, gained official independence as the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932 when King Faisal agreed to British terms of a military alliance and an assured flow of oil. (2025). 9781439084755, Cengage Learning. ISBN 9781439084755 excerpt pp. 774–845
In Palestine, Britain was presented with the problem of mediating between the Palestinians and increasing numbers of Yishuv. The Balfour Declaration, which had been incorporated into the terms of the mandate, stated that a national home for the Jews would be established in Palestine, and Jewish immigration allowed up to a limit that would be determined by the mandatory power. This led to increasing conflict with the Arab population, who openly revolted in 1936. As the threat of war with Germany increased during the 1930s, Britain judged the support of Arabs as more important than the establishment of a Jewish homeland, and shifted to a pro-Arab stance, limiting Jewish immigration and in turn triggering a Jewish insurgency.
The Dominions (Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Irish Free State) were self-governing and gained semi-independence in the World War, while Britain still controlled foreign policy and defence in all except Ireland. The right of the Dominions to set their own foreign policy was recognised in 1923 and formalised by the 1931 Statute of Westminster. The Irish Free State effectively broke all ties with Britain in 1937, leaving the Commonwealth and becoming an independent republic.
When Germany defaulted on its reparation payments, French and Belgian troops occupied the heavily industrialised Ruhr district (January 1923). The German government encouraged the population of the Ruhr to passive resistance: shops would not sell goods to the foreign soldiers, coal mines would not dig for the foreign troops, trams in which members of the occupation army had taken seat would be left abandoned in the middle of the street. Rather than raise taxes, the German government printed vast quantities of paper money, much of which was spent to pay striking workers in the Ruhr and to subsidise inactive factories and mines, causing hyperinflation, which also damaged the French economy. The passive resistance proved effective, insofar as the occupation became a loss-making deal for the French government. But the hyperinflation caused many prudent savers to lose all the money they had saved. Weimar added new internal enemies every year, as anti-democratic Nazi Party, Nationalists, and Communists battled each other in the streets.
Germany was the first state to establish diplomatic relations with the new Soviet Union. Under the Treaty of Rapallo, Germany accorded the Soviet Union de jure recognition, and the two signatories mutually agreed to cancel all pre-war debts and renounced war claims. In October 1925 the Treaty of Locarno was signed by Germany, France, Belgium, Britain, and Italy; it recognised Germany's borders with France and Belgium. Moreover, Britain, Italy, and Belgium undertook to assist France in the case that German troops marched into the demilitarised Rhineland. Locarno paved the way for Germany's admission to the League of Nations in 1926.
Hitler's diplomatic strategy in the 1930s was to make seemingly reasonable demands, threatening war if they were not met. When opponents tried to appease him, he accepted the gains that were offered, then went to the next target. That aggressive strategy worked as Germany pulled out of the League of Nations, rejected the Versailles Treaty, and began to rearm. Retaking the Territory of the Saar Basin in the aftermath of a plebiscite that favoured returning to Germany, Hitler's Germany remilitarised the Rhineland, formed the Pact of Steel alliance with Mussolini's Italy, and sent massive military aid to Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Anschluss, considered to be a German state, in 1938, and took over Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement with Britain and France. Forming a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in August 1939, Germany invaded Poland after Poland's refusal to cede the Free City of Danzig in September 1939. Britain and France declared war and World War II began – somewhat sooner than the Nazis expected or were ready for.Gerhard L. Weinberg, Hitler's foreign policy 1933–1939: The road to World War II. (2013), Originally published in two volumes.
After establishing the "Axis powers" with Benito Mussolini, and signing the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan – which was joined by Italy a year later in 1937 – Hitler felt able to take the offensive in foreign policy. On 12 March 1938, German troops marched into Austria, where an July Putsch had been unsuccessful in 1934. When Austrian-born Hitler entered Vienna, he was greeted by loud cheers. Four weeks later, 99% of Austrians voted in favour of the annexation (Anschluss) of their country Austria to the German Reich. After Austria, Hitler turned to Czechoslovakia, where the 3.5 million-strong Sudeten Germans minority was demanding equal rights and self-government.Donald Cameron Watt, How war came: the immediate origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 (1989).R.J. Overy, The Origins of the Second World War (2014).
At the Munich Agreement of September 1938, Hitler, the Italian leader Benito Mussolini, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier agreed upon the cession of Sudeten territory to the German Reich by Czechoslovakia. Hitler thereupon declared that all of German Reich's territorial claims had been fulfilled. However, hardly six months after the Munich Agreement, in March 1939, Hitler used the smouldering quarrel between Slovak people and Czechs as a pretext for taking over the rest of Czechoslovakia as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In the same month, he secured the return of Memel from Lithuania to Germany. Chamberlain was forced to acknowledge that his policy of appeasement towards Hitler had failed.
The month following the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne, Mussolini ordered the invasion of the Greek island of Corfu after the Corfu incident. The Italian press supported the move, noting that Corfu had been a Venetian possession for four hundred years. The matter was taken by Greece to the League of Nations, where Mussolini was convinced by Britain to evacuate Royal Italian Army troops, in return for reparations from Greece. The confrontation led Britain and Italy to resolve the question of Jubaland in 1924, which was merged into Italian Somaliland.Lowe, pp. 191–199
During the late 1920s, imperial expansion became an increasingly favoured theme in Mussolini's speeches. Amongst Mussolini's aims were that Italy had to become the dominant power in the Mediterranean that would be able to challenge France or Britain, as well as attain access to the Atlantic Ocean and . Mussolini alleged that Italy required uncontested access to the world's oceans and shipping lanes to ensure its national sovereignty. This was elaborated on in a document he later drew up in 1939 called "The March to the Oceans", and included in the official records of a meeting of the Grand Council of Fascism. This text asserted that maritime position determined a nation's independence: countries with free access to the high seas were independent; while those who lacked this, were not. Italy, which only had access to an inland sea without French and British acquiescence, was only a "semi-independent nation", and alleged to be a "prisoner in the Mediterranean":
In the Balkans, the Fascist regime claimed Dalmatia and held ambitions over Albania, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Greece based on the precedent of previous Roman dominance in these regions. (1998). 9780415161114, Routledge. ISBN 9780415161114 Dalmatia and Slovenia were to be directly annexed into Italy while the remainder of the Balkans was to be transformed into Italian client states. The regime also sought to establish protective patron-client relationships with Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
In both 1932 and 1935, Italy demanded a League of Nations mandate of the former German Cameroon and a free hand in the Ethiopian Empire from France in return for Italian support against Germany in the Stresa Front. This was refused by French Prime Minister Édouard Herriot, who was not yet sufficiently worried about the prospect of a German resurgence. The failed resolution of the Abyssinia Crisis led to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, in which Italy annexed Ethiopia to its empire.
Italy's stance towards Spain shifted between the 1920s and the 1930s. The Fascist regime in the 1920s held deep antagonism towards Spain due to Miguel Primo de Rivera's pro-French foreign policy. In 1926, Mussolini began aiding the Catalan separatist movement, which was led by Francesc Macià , against the Spanish government. With the rise of the left-wing Republican government replacing the Spanish monarchy, Spanish monarchists and fascists repeatedly approached Italy for aid in overthrowing the Republican government, in which Italy agreed to support them to establish a pro-Italian government in Spain. In July 1936, Francisco Franco of the Nationalist faction in the Spanish Civil War requested Italian support against the ruling Republican faction, and guaranteed that, if Italy supported the Nationalists, "future relations would be more than friendly" and that Italian support "would have permitted the influence of Rome to prevail over that of Berlin in the future politics of Spain". (1999). 9780415180788, Routledge. ISBN 9780415180788 Italy intervened in the civil war with the intention of occupying the Balearic Islands and creating a client state in Spain. Italy sought the control of the Balearic Islands due to its strategic position—Italy could use the islands as a base to disrupt the lines of communication between France and its North African colonies and between Gibraltar and Malta.John J. Mearsheimer (2025). 039332396X, W. W. Norton & Company. 039332396X After the victory by Franco and the Nationalists in the war, Allied intelligence was informed that Italy was pressuring Spain to permit an Italian occupation of the Balearic Islands.
After Great Britain signed the Anglo-Italian Easter Accords in 1938, Mussolini and Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano issued demands for concessions in the Mediterranean by France, particularly regarding French Somaliland, Tunisia and the French-run Suez Canal. Three weeks later, Mussolini told Ciano that he intended for an Italian takeover of Albania. Mussolini professed that Italy would only be able to "breathe easily" if it had acquired a contiguous colonial domain in Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Oceans, and when ten million Italians had settled in them. In 1938, Italy demanded a sphere of influence in the Suez Canal in Egypt, specifically demanding that the French-dominated Suez Canal Company accept an Italian representative on its board of directors. Italy opposed the French monopoly over the Suez Canal because, under the French-dominated Suez Canal Company, all merchant traffic to the Italian East Africa colony was forced to pay tolls on entering the canal.
Albanian Prime Minister and President Ahmet Zogu, who had, in 1928, proclaimed himself King of Albania, failed to create a stable state. Albanian society was deeply divided by religion and language, with a border dispute with Greece and an undeveloped, rural economy. In 1939, Italy invaded and annexed Albania as a separate kingdom in personal union with the Italian crown. Italy had long built strong links with the Albanian leadership and considered it firmly within its sphere of influence. Mussolini wanted a spectacular success over a smaller neighbour to match Germany's Anschluss and Czechoslovakia. Italian King Victor Emmanuel III took the Albanian crown, and a fascist government under Shefqet VĂ«rlaci was established.
In the Albanian Kingdom, Zog I introduced new civil codes, constitutional changes and attempted land reforms, the latter which was largely unsuccessful due to the inadequacy of the country's banking system that could not deal with advanced reformist transactions. Albania's reliance on Italy also grew as Italians exercised control over nearly every Albanian official through money and patronage, breeding a colonial-like mentality.
Ethnic integration and assimilation was a major problem faced by the newly formed post-World War I Balkan states, which were compounded by historical differences. In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia for instance, its most influential element was the pre-war Kingdom of Serbia but also integrated states like Slovenia and Croatia, which were part of Austria-Hungary. With new territories came varying legal systems, social structures and political structures. Social and economic development rates also varied as for example Slovenia and Croatia was far more advanced economically than Kosovo and Macedonia.
The Great Depression posed a great challenge to the region. The collapse of the world economy meant that the demand for raw materials drastically declined, undermining many of the economies of Latin America. Intellectuals and government leaders in Latin America turned their backs on the older economic policies and turned toward import substitution industrialisation. The goal was to create self-sufficient economies, which would have their own industrial sectors and large middle classes and which would be immune to the fluctuations of the global economy. Despite the potential threats to United States commercial interests, the Roosevelt administration (1933–1945) understood that the United States could not wholly oppose import substitution. Roosevelt implemented a Good Neighbour policy and allowed the nationalisation of some American companies in Latin America. Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas nationalised American oil companies, out of which he created Pemex. Cárdenas also oversaw the redistribution of a quantity of land, fulfilling the hopes of many since the start of the Mexican Revolution. The Platt Amendment was also repealed, freeing Cuba from legal and official interference of the United States in its politics. The Second World War also brought the United States and most Latin American nations together, with Argentina the main hold out.
During the interwar period, United States policy makers continued to be concerned over German influence in Latin America. Some analysts grossly exaggerated the influence of Germans in South America even after the First World War when German influence somewhat declined. As the influence of United States grew all-over the Americas Germany concentrated its foreign policy efforts in the Southern Cone countries where US influence was weaker and larger German communities were at place.
The contrary ideals of indigenismo and hispanismo held sway among intellectuals in Hispanic America during the interwar period. In Argentina the gaucho genre flourished. A rejection of "Western universalist" influences was in vogue across Latin America. This last tendency was in part inspired by the translation into Spanish of the book Decline of the West in 1923.
English and Scottish engineers had brought futebol (soccer) to Brazil in the late 19th century. The International Committee of the YMCA of North America and the Playground Association of America played major roles in training coaches. Across the globe after 1912, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) played the chief role in the transformation of association football into a global game, working with national and regional organisations, and setting up the rules and customs, and establishing championships such as the World Cup.
Sports
Sports became increasingly popular, drawing enthusiastic fans to large stadiums. (2025). 9780822963370, University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 9780822963370 The International Olympic Committee (IOC) worked to encourage Olympic ideals and participation. Following the 1922 Latin American Games in Rio de Janeiro, the IOC helped to establish national Olympic committees and prepare for future competition. In Brazil, however, sporting and political rivalries slowed progress as opposing factions fought for control of international sport. The 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris and the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam had greatly increased participation from Latin American athletes.
End of an era
The interwar period ended on 1 September 1939 with the Nazi Germany invasion of Poland and the start of World War II.
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