What problems did European countries face in the 1920s?

Question:Europe in the decade immediately following the First World War was troubled.

In Germany, secessionist Bavaria and Saxony, and independent Austria, these problems were particularly severe owing to nationalist dissatisfaction with the Versailles order and economic decline. In Germany, for instance, the liberal Weimar constitution was simply unable to guarantee the rule of law in the face of wide-spread political violence by right-wing nationalists and left-wing Communists, while public opinion favoured an armed German challenge to Versailles to restore Germany's lost territories and prestige. In the smaller German-speaking states of Bavaria, Saxony, and Austria, attempts to discourage sentiments in favour of unification with Germany failed, as many in these three countries felt that their countries were simply too small to be economically viable. This political situation fed into the disastrous economic situation in German-speaking central Europe, which was aggravated by the reparations imposed by Versailles, and by the brief Franco-Belgian occupation of the German Ruhr in 1923. For a brief period in the mid-1920's, all four German-speaking states suffered from unprecedented hyperinflation of their national currencies. Though this was eventually halted, the severe damage inflicted upon the central European financial system and upon the finances of individual depositors plunged the area into lasting recession.

Upon its foundation in 1919, the Polish Federation's Provisional Government had promised that all the peoples in the Federation's vast territory would not only enjoy a restoration of peace, but full national liberties and economic prosperity. Though peace was secured following the Federation's defeat of the final Soviet assault upon eastern Ukraine in September of 1921, and the exuberant Polish Federation claimed to be Europe's newest Great Power, both national liberties and economic prosperity were hard to find. Though Polish Silesia continued the industrial growth that had begun there in the belle époque, improvements in the living standards of Poland's vast peasantry were hard to find. Moreover, while the Federation's population of 65 million people and French polonophilia ensured that some of Poland's claims would receive recognition, Poland proved incapable of establishing a stable parliamentary system of government and a stable federal regime. Over the 1920's, the Federation's Ukrainian population protested the whittling-away of Ukrainian autonomy while Poland's four million Jews demanded equal status with the Christian majority. In 1926 General Pilsudski staged a coup and established a personal dictatorship over the whole Federation in the hopes of a dictatorship in the hopes of unifying the Polish Federation. Pilsudski's rule failed to do this; indeed, it galvanized Ukrainian nationalist opposition to the Federation. Much smaller Lithuania immediately to Poland's north, sharing a common history with Poland, experienced much the same problems, as Lithuania's possession of Polish-populated Wilno/Vilnius and bicultural Memel/Klaipeda ensured it of continuing disputes with Germany and Poland, while Lithuania's large Jewish population began to demand full civil rights and cultural autonomy from the Smetona regime.

Conditions in the Balkans remained difficult throughout this period. Serbia, despite its substantial territorial expansion, had been devastated by the war, as a quarter of its pre-war population had died and much of the Serbian countryside had been laid waste. Along with Bulgaria, the latter resenting its territorial losses to its victorious neighbours, Serbia lurched between unstable parliamentary governments. Isolated Albania continued to be integrated into the Italian Empire almost without protest on the part of its generally apolitical tribalized population. Only Greece saw some modest economic expansion, owing to the resettlement of its landless peasants on conquered lands seized from Muslim civilians and landowners and the belated development of a stable system of government under Prime Minister Venezelos.

The sole exception to the general instability and poverty that prevailed throughout most of central and eastern Europe lay, oddly enough, in four of the successor states of the Austrian Empire -- the federal republics of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and the kingdoms of Hungary and Romania. In 1921, these four countries formed the Little Entente, a military pact aimed against any possible future expansionism by Germany or by the Soviet Union, while a collection of trade treaties signed by these states restored the thriving regional trade that had existed before the War. Moreover, these countries remained democratic and pluralistic societies, even Romania with its nasty legacies of anti-Semitism and lingering disputes over the Versailles partition of Transylvania, and slowly emerged as leading supporters both of the League of Nations and of the emerging movement towards European unification. This region -- commonly known as Mitteleuropa -- remained almost preternaturally peaceful throughout this period.

Away from Europe's troubled middle, Europe's fringes -- north, south, west -- did moderately well. Italy and Spain continued their wartime industrialization into peacetime despite aftershocks in the form of high inflation and occasional political turmoils, and in each country the new middle classes finally provided support for stable federal democratic systems of government. In Belgium and Luxembourg, the industrialization forced in wartime continued apace, as Germany's economic collapse let Belgian and Luxembourgeois exporters of steel, coal, and consumer goods take over many former German markets outside Europe. The British Isles experienced some modest technological advances in the form of long-range aviation and radio communication, while writers from the various British nations -- Woolf, Thomas, MacDiarmid -- gained international renowned, but persistent high unemployment along with the political fallout from Ireland's bloody separation and the immense death toll of the past war put a pall on things. The Netherlands, the Scandinavian kingdoms, and newly-independent Finland managed to combine functional democratic regimes with prosperous social-democratic

In the 1920's, France experienced almost unhindered growth. The hundreds of thousands of war dead and millions of invalids remained a difficult topic for all French, as did the wartime devastation of so many of the rich and beautiful border territories of France. Yet, France's wartime economy managed to adapt superbly to the new international economic environment even as its innovative industrial plants adopted the latest techniques en masse, not least of which was mass production. Not only did unemployment remain low, but exception high wages and growing labour shortages not only accelerated French urbanization but attracted some three million immigrants during this decade -- Italians, Spanish, Brazilians, Poles, Americans. Paris shone as never before, with a brilliant nightlife in its brasseries and salons publiques and world leadership in the new cultural movements -- the cubism pioneered by Picasso in the graphic arts, the surrealism pioneered by Breton and do Caxias, the modernism demonstrated stirringly in the oddly stilted English prose of Hemingway and the satirical Marxist prose of Brecht. The growing popularity of the Communalist and Socialist Parties in national and regional elections coincided with a marked liberalization of French mores, symbolized most spectacularly by the referendum result in 1928 that extended the franchise to all French women citizens and the new androgynous fashions (the flat-chested and short-haired marcheuse, the clean-shaven and well-groomed flaneur) that prevailed in France's major cities. The prostration of Germany and the continuing poverty of the Soviet Union and most of central Europe allowed France to retake the position as leading power of Europe that it had lost with the Franco-Prussian War, while beyond Europe France's prosperous colonial empire and the prestige of French culture ensured France of an unquestioned presence beyond. As the United Kingdom began to falter, the France of the Second Orleanist Kingdom -- quietly, kindly -- began to take the reins of world leadership.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Europe in the decade immediately following the First World War was troubled.

In Germany, secessionist Bavaria and Saxony, and independent Austria, these problems were particularly severe owing to nationalist dissatisfaction with the Versailles order and economic decline. In Germany, for instance, the liberal Weimar constitution was simply unable to guarantee the rule of law in the face of wide-spread political violence by right-wing nationalists and left-wing Communists, while public opinion favoured an armed German challenge to Versailles to restore Germany's lost territories and prestige. In the smaller German-speaking states of Bavaria, Saxony, and Austria, attempts to discourage sentiments in favour of unification with Germany failed, as many in these three countries felt that their countries were simply too small to be economically viable. This political situation fed into the disastrous economic situation in German-speaking central Europe, which was aggravated by the reparations imposed by Versailles, and by the brief Franco-Belgian occupation of the German Ruhr in 1923. For a brief period in the mid-1920's, all four German-speaking states suffered from unprecedented hyperinflation of their national currencies. Though this was eventually halted, the severe damage inflicted upon the central European financial system and upon the finances of individual depositors plunged the area into lasting recession.

Upon its foundation in 1919, the Polish Federation's Provisional Government had promised that all the peoples in the Federation's vast territory would not only enjoy a restoration of peace, but full national liberties and economic prosperity. Though peace was secured following the Federation's defeat of the final Soviet assault upon eastern Ukraine in September of 1921, and the exuberant Polish Federation claimed to be Europe's newest Great Power, both national liberties and economic prosperity were hard to find. Though Polish Silesia continued the industrial growth that had begun there in the belle époque, improvements in the living standards of Poland's vast peasantry were hard to find. Moreover, while the Federation's population of 65 million people and French polonophilia ensured that some of Poland's claims would receive recognition, Poland proved incapable of establishing a stable parliamentary system of government and a stable federal regime. Over the 1920's, the Federation's Ukrainian population protested the whittling-away of Ukrainian autonomy while Poland's four million Jews demanded equal status with the Christian majority. In 1926 General Pilsudski staged a coup and established a personal dictatorship over the whole Federation in the hopes of a dictatorship in the hopes of unifying the Polish Federation. Pilsudski's rule failed to do this; indeed, it galvanized Ukrainian nationalist opposition to the Federation. Much smaller Lithuania immediately to Poland's north, sharing a common history with Poland, experienced much the same problems, as Lithuania's possession of Polish-populated Wilno/Vilnius and bicultural Memel/Klaipeda ensured it of continuing disputes with Germany and Poland, while Lithuania's large Jewish population began to demand full civil rights and cultural autonomy from the Smetona regime.

Conditions in the Balkans remained difficult throughout this period. Serbia, despite its substantial territorial expansion, had been devastated by the war, as a quarter of its pre-war population had died and much of the Serbian countryside had been laid waste. Along with Bulgaria, the latter resenting its territorial losses to its victorious neighbours, Serbia lurched between unstable parliamentary governments. Isolated Albania continued to be integrated into the Italian Empire almost without protest on the part of its generally apolitical tribalized population. Only Greece saw some modest economic expansion, owing to the resettlement of its landless peasants on conquered lands seized from Muslim civilians and landowners and the belated development of a stable system of government under Prime Minister Venezelos.

The sole exception to the general instability and poverty that prevailed throughout most of central and eastern Europe lay, oddly enough, in four of the successor states of the Austrian Empire -- the federal republics of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and the kingdoms of Hungary and Romania. In 1921, these four countries formed the Little Entente, a military pact aimed against any possible future expansionism by Germany or by the Soviet Union, while a collection of trade treaties signed by these states restored the thriving regional trade that had existed before the War. Moreover, these countries remained democratic and pluralistic societies, even Romania with its nasty legacies of anti-Semitism and lingering disputes over the Versailles partition of Transylvania, and slowly emerged as leading supporters both of the League of Nations and of the emerging movement towards European unification. This region -- commonly known as Mitteleuropa -- remained almost preternaturally peaceful throughout this period.

Away from Europe's troubled middle, Europe's fringes -- north, south, west -- did moderately well. Italy and Spain continued their wartime industrialization into peacetime despite aftershocks in the form of high inflation and occasional political turmoils, and in each country the new middle classes finally provided support for stable federal democratic systems of government. In Belgium and Luxembourg, the industrialization forced in wartime continued apace, as Germany's economic collapse let Belgian and Luxembourgeois exporters of steel, coal, and consumer goods take over many former German markets outside Europe. The British Isles experienced some modest technological advances in the form of long-range aviation and radio communication, while writers from the various British nations -- Woolf, Thomas, MacDiarmid -- gained international renowned, but persistent high unemployment along with the political fallout from Ireland's bloody separation and the immense death toll of the past war put a pall on things. The Netherlands, the Scandinavian kingdoms, and newly-independent Finland managed to combine functional democratic regimes with prosperous social-democratic

In the 1920's, France experienced almost unhindered growth. The hundreds of thousands of war dead and millions of invalids remained a difficult topic for all French, as did the wartime devastation of so many of the rich and beautiful border territories of France. Yet, France's wartime economy managed to adapt superbly to the new international economic environment even as its innovative industrial plants adopted the latest techniques en masse, not least of which was mass production. Not only did unemployment remain low, but exception high wages and growing labour shortages not only accelerated French urbanization but attracted some three million immigrants during this decade -- Italians, Spanish, Brazilians, Poles, Americans. Paris shone as never before, with a brilliant nightlife in its brasseries and salons publiques and world leadership in the new cultural movements -- the cubism pioneered by Picasso in the graphic arts, the surrealism pioneered by Breton and do Caxias, the modernism demonstrated stirringly in the oddly stilted English prose of Hemingway and the satirical Marxist prose of Brecht. The growing popularity of the Communalist and Socialist Parties in national and regional elections coincided with a marked liberalization of French mores, symbolized most spectacularly by the referendum result in 1928 that extended the franchise to all French women citizens and the new androgynous fashions (the flat-chested and short-haired marcheuse, the clean-shaven and well-groomed flaneur) that prevailed in France's major cities. The prostration of Germany and the continuing poverty of the Soviet Union and most of central Europe allowed France to retake the position as leading power of Europe that it had lost with the Franco-Prussian War, while beyond Europe France's prosperous colonial empire and the prestige of French culture ensured France of an unquestioned presence beyond. As the United Kingdom began to falter, the France of the Second Orleanist Kingdom -- quietly, kindly -- began to take the reins of world leadership.

recovering from the first world war.

The Jews controlling the banks and controlling business, making hard times for your typical Aryan German.

No, I'm joking.

But I know Germany did have a bunch of economic problems after WWI