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Versailles Treaty
This treaty is forced upon Germany after they were defeated in WWI by Britain, France, and the United States. Germany was to limit their army to 100,00 men and keep troops away from its Western territories, also called the "demilitarized" Rhineland. Additionally, Germany had to make heavy reparation payments for the huge amount of damage caused in the war. Lastly, Germany was forced to cede territory to France, Poland, Denmark, and Belgium, and were forbidden to unite with Austria. -
League of Nations
This league was the world's first international security organization. Germany and Soviet Russia are not admitted and the United States decides not to join. -
Communist International
The Comintern, founded in 1919, gains the ability to split the European Socialist parties and create a significant Communist party for every country. Progressively they are assimilated to the Bolshevik party model, and by the late 1920's almost all are slavishly subservient to direction from Moscow. -
Fascism in Italy
Mussolini is named Prime Minister of Italy and his regime eventually set up a model that others aspire to imitate, specifically in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. He is not effectively in control until a few years later and is also not a major factor in diplomacy until after 1929. -
Hopeful Years
This is an era of good feeling in European international relations witnesses major agreements that ease reparations and additionally guarantee frontiers. In 1926, Germany is admitted to the League of Nations. -
Stalin in power in Russia
After Lenin's death on January 1924, Stalin defeats the last of his major rivals for power. Over time Stalin's position of dominant power brings forced industrialization, brutal police repression and purges, a very suspicious attitude toward the world, and shaky control over foreign communist parties. -
The Great Depression
The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929 (in the United States). Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, 15 million Americans were unemployed and half the country’s banks had failed. -
Japan invades Manchuria
Japanese armies open a long undeclared war against China in Manchuria.The League of Nations attempts to restrain Japan or by other means all fail, which weakened faith in international order. -
Third Reich
Hitler’s emergence as chancellor on January 30, 1933, marked a crucial turning point for Germany. His plan, embraced by much of the German population, was to do away with politics and make Germany a powerful, unified one-party state. He and his Nazi party are in full command in a matter of months. -
Germany starts to go at it alone
Some nine months after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the Third Reich announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations and disarmament conference. The main reason was the refusal of the Western powers to acquiesce in Germany’s demands for military parity.
