WAR - Between Wars (Lesson)

Between Wars

Magazine cover from the 1914The Greek invasion of Turkey, the Irish War of Independence, the Russian Civil War...all were immediate examples of how the "War to End All Wars" did NOT end all wars. And in less than two decades, it would become apparent that the World War I peace treaties—designed to prevent future wars—did NOT prevent future wars. There were many reasons for this but mostly this was due to the fact that neither the war nor the peace treaties significantly addressed those issues that led to the Great War in the first place. And as the combatants returned home, the world continued to not address those issues—instead, the world licked its wounds, started to rebuild, and attempted to deal with the new normal of uncertainty, increasing social tensions and an accelerated pace of change.

Modernism

If you will remember, Europeans responded to the unsettling Protestant Reformation and Age of Religious Wars (1517-1648 CE) by entering the intellectual and philosophical movement of the Enlightenment in the 1700s. Just as the Enlightenment helped the Europeans sort out their new world order then, the philosophical movement known as Modernism helped the world sort out the new world order following the Great War (World War I.)

Technically, Modernism began as a philosophical and cultural movement before World War I started as a response to the uncertainty, increasing social tensions and accelerated pace of change that preceded the war. But as all of those conditions increased following the war, so did the impact of Modernism which, in its essence, was based on breaking with traditions and stemmed from the urban world with its technological advances, increased leisure time, and universal education. Modernism influenced everything from art to science and was very controversial at the time as its intent was to break "the rules" that were established during the earlier Renaissance and Enlightenment periods.

In the art world, Modernism changed the definition of art so that artwork no longer needed to exactly represent reality in order to be considered art.

On Left- Renaissance Portrayal of Woman. Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci On Right - Modernism Portrayal of Female - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, by Pablo Picasso

As you can see, Pablo Picasso's Modernist portrayal of the female was vastly different from Leonardo da Vinci's Renaissance portrayal. To Modernist Picasso, as he broke with the Renaissance styles and introduced the world to Cubism—a style of art that used simple geometric shapes to illustrate the world—his work was "art for art's sake" (a relatively recent credo in the art world.) Here are a few more examples of art from the Modernism movement...

1 - Georgia O’Keeffe’s Inside Red Canna (1919) O’Keeffe is often credited as the “Mother of American Modernism.” 2 - Henri Matisse’s Portrait du peintre (1918) Matisse is often linked with Picasso as a father of modern art. 3 - Diego Rivera’s Maternidad, Angelino y el niño Diego (1916) Rivera brought the Mexican mural movement to many American cities. 4 - Max Ernst’s Ubu Imperator (1923) Ernst specialized in surrealism.

Were you able to tell that O'Keeffe's painting is of a flower, Matisse's painting is a self-portrait, Rivera's painting is of a mother nursing a child, and that Ernst's painting was of a spinning top that represented his understanding of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's writings? Welcome to Modernism and its reflection of the early 20th Century view of the world!

In the architectural world, Modernism rejected the ornamental styles of earlier and, instead, streamlined designs in favor of function and simplicity. In this way, popular architecture went from this...

Clockwise from top left Opéra de Paris By Jastrow (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Rotunda of St. Marija Assunta in Malta By Frank Vincentz (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright By Daderot (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons The Bauhaus Building in Germany By Mewes [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Villa Tugendhat By Petr1987 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons Chrysler Building in New York City By Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

In the science world, Modernism centered on work done in laboratories that required high-level math training and brought forth many new scientific fields.

From Left to right Albert Einstein, a German theoretical physicist, developed complex theories on relativity (that replaced the theories developed by Isaac Newton) and mass-energy equivalence (leading to the famous equation E equals MC squared and later the development of the atom bomb. ) Considered, along with Max Planck, on of the founding fathers of Quantum physics. Satyendra Nath Bose, an Indian theoretical physicist, developed radical (for the time) calculations on particle statistics that influenced Einstein's work. Together they created the Bose-Einstein statistics to explain the particles know as Bosons. (If you've ever watched the television comedy the Big Bang Theory, you've heard his terms.) Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst was the founder of psychoanalysis (a psychological method used to treat mental disorders through the exploration of the conscious and unconscious mind.) Freud's work led to his defining of such popularly known terms as Oedipus complex id, ego and superego. Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, studied the ways in which modern societies could maintain their stability and unity. He is credited as one of the founding fathers of sociology - a relatively new field from the 1800s - and for pushing it to become an independent scientific field.

 

The Golden Twenties/ The Roaring Twenties/ Les Années folles

In time, the populations of the world regained their footings and by the time they entered the mid-1920s they were looking for a good time. In the world of popular culture, new forms of affordable and accessible art and entertainment occupied the minds of the modern world as they visited museums, attended lectures and plays, cheered on sports teams and danced:

The Great Depression

The "Golden/Roaring/Crazy" Twenties was a brief respite from reality, though. In 1929, the United States stock market crashed. As seen in previous decades, when one nation experienced a banking crisis, others soon followed. But this time was worse than preceding crises as the United States had replaced Great Britain as the financial center of the world (due in great part to the fact that the U.S. emerged in better financial shape after World War I.) Therefore, the impact of the banking crisis and following Great Depression spread quickly to the rest of the world. In need of cash, the United States started calling in many of the international loans previously granted to help rebuild war-torn European nations. World War I was extremely expensive. Collectively, the individual participating nations spent roughly $180 billion on fighting the war. Afterwards, Europe spent approximately $150 billion on rebuilding. A great portion of that money came from United States financial institutions. In Europe, France and Germany were the two nations most heavily in debt to the United States—France borrowed from the United States when it became apparent that the Soviet Union had no intention of paying France back for wartime loans made to Russia under the tsar—AND—Germany borrowed from the United States as a means of making their reparation payments to the Allied nations. Both were heavily hit when America's financial institutions collapsed and were not capable of repaying their loans. At this point, the United States stopped lending money abroad with the result that Europe soon ran out of cash. With regards to financial history, another lesson you've learned in World History is that when the economy is fragile, so too is the government.

Authoritarian or totalitarian regimes replaced previous governments in the USSR, Italy, Germany, Spain and Japan. While each were different—

  • Communism in the USSR
  • Fascism in Italy
  • Nazism in Germany
  • Militarism in Spain and Japan

—they also shared many features.

Authoritarian Regime Features Desire to revive nation's power Claim that modern economies required government direction created political system with only onw political party that worked on the behalf of the government's wishes use of youth movements to promote the regime Ambivalence towards the role of women outside the home Use of terror and violence against own citizens.

Another feature of these new forms of government was their effect on other places around the world. Watching old and new nations completely transform within a few years was scary and inspirational—scary for those in power and inspirational for those who were not.

 

 

 

Recap Section

Watch the video below to review what you've learned.

 

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