A new Spanish constitution formed a presidential-parliamentary government with proportional representation, much like the Weimar Republic in Germany. The king abdicated-another victim of the crisis of the Great Depression-and a Spanish Republic was established. Many found fault with the Catholic Church, which received government funds to educate and provide welfare for the poor, but was seen as ineffective and hypocritically enjoying its own riches by the starving, illiterate, and landless peasants and proletarians.īy 1931, even the middle class had had enough of Spain’s backwardness. In the early years of the new century, Spanish workers were inspired by socialism and anarchism, the belief that taking down all forms of repression would liberate the natural socialist and communal tendencies of humanity. By the time Spain lost the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico to the United States in 1898, the Spanish empire was less stable and poorer than several of its former territories such as Argentina and Chile. Review of Soviet armored fighting vehicles used to equip the Republican People’s Army during the Spanish Civil War.Īfter losing most of its Latin American colonies in the early nineteenth century, Spain fell into decades of civil wars. As we’ll see, such atrocities were typical of the racism inherent in fascist regimes, who thought that using such terror was the only way to “teach a lesson” to “inferior” conquered peoples. At least 20,000 were murdered, including Ethiopian intellectuals who had already been imprisoned in wretched conditions. In February 1937, in response to an attempted assassination on the new Italian viceroy in the capital city, Addis Ababa, Italians went on a three-day killing spree to exact vengeance on the Ethiopians. In April 1936, Ethiopian King Haile Selassie went to the League of Nations to ask for help, but the League had no army to attack Mussolini’s.Įmboldened by the ineffectiveness of world opinion, the Italian occupation of Ethiopia was brutal. ![]() By the end of 1936, most pockets of Ethiopian resistance were defeated. Using air power and poison gas, Mussolini’s military swept through Ethiopia. The Italians had been defeated by the Ethiopians in 1896 this time was different. In October 1935 Italy invaded independent Ethiopia from its colonies in Eritrea and Somalia. While Hitler was still consolidating the Nazi regime and rebuilding German armed forces in violation of the Versailles Treaty, Mussolini decided to act. The belief that their nation’s greatness lay in war and conquest was fundamental to fascist ideology in both Italy and Germany. The Road to War in Europe Ethiopian King Haile Selassie on cover of Time magazine, November 1930 Again, it is striking how similar the racial beliefs in the Japanese military were to those of the Nazis: the “Yamato” people of Japan had a special mission to dominate East Asia in the same way that the “Aryans” of Germany were destined to rule all of Europe. The last chapter presented how the Japanese military, taking the initiative against the weak objections of Japan’s elected government, initiated the conflict that would become World War Two by invading and occupying the northern Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Germany was not alone in abandoning democracy and embracing authoritarianism-the same happened all over Eastern and Central Europe, Latin America, and, most importantly, Japan. ![]() Fascism and communism seemed to some to offer the only plausible reactions to the crisis-remember that although neither the Nazi nor the Communist parties in the German Weimar Republic ever won a majority in a contested election, by 1932 most German voters opted for one or the other, and essentially voting against liberal democracy. However, World War Two was also a result of the worldwide reaction to the Great Depression, which was seen by many as not only a failure of capitalism, but also a failure of democracy. The Nazi regime promised to reverse all of it, and place a powerful new German Empire as the dominant force on the continent-and perhaps the world. Germans supported Hitler and the Nazis because they promised to overcome the humiliation of Germany at the Versailles peace conference in 1919: being forced to admit “war guilt,” to pay massive reparations, and to limit the size and quality of their armed forces. ![]() In many ways World War Two was a continuation of World War One, especially in Europe.
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