The 1920's: An Age of Anxiety?

[KeytotheDoor]

Hello everybody. I rarely post here, but I lurk like crazy.

Recently, I noticed that CivFanatics has a World History forum. I love it, and I've spent hours reading random information that I now understand somewhat because of my AP European History class. I have a decent understanding of World War I and such.

So, I have a question. Right now, I'm studying the period of time between the World Wars, with the rise of Fascism and the Great Depression. Well, I have to right a thesis paper.

The essay question is:
"The decade of the 1920s has been characterized as both an "age of anxiety" and a "period of hope." Why?

Well, for the anxiety part, I'm assuming it was because the Great War had just been concluded, and relations with Germany at the time were not exactly amicable. What with the failure to supply war reparations and stuff; I'm thinking people were worried that the general poor job of the Treaty of Versailles would lead to another war, which it did.

And for the hope, I'm thinking that there was hope for world peace. I recall reading that there were attempts for compromise with the treaties of Locarno, I think.

Can someone discuss these issues with me, so I can get a better understanding of why you would classify the 1920s like so? I don't want anyone to write my paper, I would just like some good knowledge I can use. I'll read my book too, but it's always more interesting to speak with scholars on the subject, rather than my dry textbook.

 

[Plotinus]

I have to say I find it hard to believe that everyone spent the 1920s worrying about the Versailles Treaty. Who exactly are we talking about - politicians? Ordinary people in Britain? Germany? America? To me, the 1920s means flappers and Bertie Wooster, so I think of it as a pretty carefree time. But perhaps that's a terrible distortion.

 

[Nobody]

I thought it was the golden 20s

 

[KeytotheDoor]

Hm. I guess my thesis essay really wants me to zero in on the negatives.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

I thought it was the golden 20s

Wasn't it the 'Roaring Twenties'?

 

[Verbose]

Hm. I guess my thesis essay really wants me to zero in on the negatives.

And why shouldn't it?

The 1920's look like a golden age only wedged in between WWI and the 1930's Great Depression. The "happy days", with it's "flappers", "it girls" and the first flowering of Hollywood, was still hollow to a considerable degree.
All those stock market hikes tend to be allowed to obscure that the 1920's actually saw the value of the wages of most salaried Americans decline over the decade, and iirc it was a really bad time for being a farmer in the US.

Woodhouse did write fairy tales for a modern age. (I'm the proud owner of the DVD-box of the complete Hugh Laurie/Stephen Fry "Jeeves and Wooster" series.) Even if the UK had a relatively peaceful and prosperous decade, he could continue doing that partly because something like the 1926 General Strike, with the trade unions taking on the established order, failed. (Most important was perhaps that he lived and worked in the US.)

And turning to Europe there was rampant inflation, recession, war, the rise of fascism and at least the fear of the spread of bolshevism (aiding the rise of fascism).

 

[KeytotheDoor]

Well, that's what I was thinking. Fascism was pretty huge.

 

[aluka]

Maybe you could write about Berlin in the 1920's. Wikipedia is telling me there were street fights between Communists and Fascists as well as vibrant culture.

 

[Adler17]

Well, only partly. The facists had their base in Italy and were strong in Austria and Bavaria, but nowhere else. Remember Hitler never got more than a few % of the votes to the Reichstag. It was a mere splinter party in Germany until the economic crise.
Anyway, the Golden 20s are in Germany the time from 1923- 1929, from the end of the inflation and the occupation of the Rhineland to the Great Depression. Like elsewhere the economy grew and the parties, Charleston,... But otoh Germany still tried to get rid about Versailles as being a danger for Germany. All the parties were indeed financed with short term loans from the US as Germany could not pay the reparations directly. So a collapse in the US hit Germany much harder than under normal circumstances. Also the military restrictions lead to a position of feeling unsecure. The Reichswehr was not able to defend Germany against the invading French and only because of the help of militias Polish invasions and insurrections in Silesia were not successful. So all governments tried to look for other solutions. At first all parties had their private armies. That was acceapted by the Reichswehr and the state to have more soldiers in the case of war, but also leading to a massive danger of a civil war. The fight for votes was here not only literally. Also Germany had secret bases in the other European pariah state, the USSR. German tanks and planes were used there for training and could have fastly brought home. Therefore the Russian Red Army was trained.
In the west Stresemann indeed was able to make the treaty of Locarno. But read it carefully. Indeed Germany acceptred the loss of territory in the west. But not in the East. Infact it was giving Germany a non aggression treaty with France and Britain even though a war with Poland came! And no one really understood it, as Briand and Stresemann got therefore the Nobel Price for Peace. Although this was de facto a carde blanche for a war with Poland.
So in the end for Germany it was both, a time of hope and a time of anxiety. It was the calm before the storm. The storm might have been avoided despite all problems causing it, but these problems, mostly noting Versailles, made that damn hard.

Adler

 

[KeytotheDoor]

Hmm. Wow. What an in-depth analysis to the German aspect of it. You would probably kill my teacher in a discussion (she seems so uneducated at times). I'll read my book tomorrow, but it doesn't go as detailed as you did Adler.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Nobody]

Wasn't it the 'Roaring Twenties'?

In the text book i had about the causes of ww2 it called it the golden twentys. but that might have just been my crapy text book

 

[Plotinus]

I thought it was the Roaring Forties (though that's a latitude, not a time...).

There was the Naughty Nineties too, but they were long gone by that stage!

 

[Adler17]

Well, my analyse was not very detailed IMO, but thanks nonetheless.

Adler

 

[KeytotheDoor]

It was detailed compared to certain aspects of my book. So, yeah.

 

[El Justo]

i don't know if this fits the bill or not but in hindsight, there could've been a certain anxiety attached to the significant financial boom of the 20s (and subsequent crash), especially in the US.

to be more precise, i'm referring the the "speculation" methods of investment and its inherent rise-and-fall nature (a crash in this case in '29). furthermore, in connection w/ the Depression in the US, banks were forced by law (glass stegal act iirc) to not own brokerage firms and essentially be able to invest depositors' scratch as they saw fit.

iow, the banks were using depositors' monies to invest and lots of the banks were in the practice of "specualtion". and when the poop hit the fan in '29, the depositors lost out. the FDIC was a direct reult of these economic disasters (depositor's insurance) and it prohibited the banks from using depositor monies for their investments (which makes sense imo).

so in hindsight, i guess the fundamental issue of "anxiety" in the 20s can be associated w/ the volatile nature of the economics of the decade

 

[sabo]

I thought it was the golden 20s

Actually it was the "roaring 20's" as per Knight Dragon

 

[Nobody]

so i was just reading something and it says "roaring 20s" so it seems the roaring has it, congrats.

 

[1889]

It was detailed compared to certain aspects of my book. So, yeah.

Ya Adler your posts are great, write a freakin' history book already.

It was the roaring 20's in the US until the stock market crash in Oct 1929. Europe was a different world though. France had lost almost 2 million people in the war, almost 5% of the population, and had its most valuable industrial regions destroyed. With the rest of the world showing no interest in enforcing Versailles I can see lots of reasons for anxiety. The best source of hope would be to believe the hype that WWI was "the war to end all wars" and that the League of Nations would be able to preserve peace.

 

[Serutan]

Hm. I guess my thesis essay really wants me to zero in on the negatives.

Then read up on Prohibition in the US. It spawned the rised of nationwide
organized crime, and lead to much corruption and muder; e.g. St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Now, I'm no historian of mentality, but it is often asserted that WWI shattered the belief in reason and progress among much of the European intelligentsia. This might be an angle to look at.