History 309 – CONTEMPORARY EUROPE – October 17, 2005

The Road to Catastrophe, 1935 – 1937

TERMS TO KNOW

1. 1931: Japan’s attack on Manchuria
2. 1937: Japan’s attack on China
3. Collective security
4. League of Nations
5. 1933: German withdraw from the League
6. 1935: German rearmament
7. 1935-35: Italian attack on Ethiopia
8. 1936: German Reoccupation of the Rhineland
9. 1936: Franco’s rebellion in Spain
10. the Spanish “Falange”
11. Spanish Loyalists
12. Guernica
13. International Brigades
14. POUM & Anarcho-Syndicalists
15. 1938: German Anschluss with Austria
16. Sudetenland
17. 1938: Munich Summit
18. 1939: Second Czech Crisis
19. 1939: Italian annexation of Albania
20. 1939: Hitler-Stalin Pact
21. Danzig & Polish Corridor.

From Perry:  be sure you know the main points from:

22. Thomas
23. Frankson;
24. Koestler (“Dialogue”)  
25. Rumbold
26. Messersmith
27.  Miller
28. Mussolini (“Solemn Hour”)
29. Haile Selassie
30. Zweig (“World”)
31. Chamberlain
32.  Churchill

 QUESTIONS

1.         The events of these years represent the THIRD huge international catastrophe in Europe.  #1 occurred in 1914, when the European states failed to prevent war.  #2 occurred in 1919, when the European states failed to create a lasting peace.  Now, #3: the European states fail to prevent Hitler’s and Mussolini’s aggression.  What was wrong here? Why do European diplomats fail again and again?  Is there something wrong with the European “state-system”?  (Europe, of course, is more or less the size of the USA, but unlike the USA, Europe is divided into 30+ fiercely independent states – is that the problem?).  Is there some other reason why European diplomacy fails again and again between 1914 – 1939?

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Modified by:  H.  Kamerling