Group H: Martina Mendiondo, Miranda Correa Perkins and Gitika Manwani.

In the following essay we will analyze how far Stresemann is responsible for the German recovery in the 1920s.
To start with, we would like to focus on economy as Stresemann had a big influence on it. Firstly, Stresemann was a right winger so he has a wider support, plus he was helped by the fact that through the 1920s the rest of Europe was gradually coming out of the post-war depression. Moreover he built up Germany’s prosperity and under the Dawes Plan he took a loan from the U.S. What is more, by 1927 German industry seemed to recover and in 1928 they produced as much as before the war, even better, reparations were being paid and exports were on the increase. However, the loans from the U.S could be called in at short time and though there were many economic winners as well as losers. People who didn’t benefit began to feel that the Weimar government offered them little.
Secondly, there was a cultural revival in Germany. Many writers and poets flourished and painters painted wonderful powerful paintings, some, criticized old German leaders. The Bauhaus style of architecture came into fashion, this style rejected traditional styles and created new and exciting, plus people were quite curious about it and liked it pretty much. Furthermore, the 1920s were a golden age for German cinema, many famous actors and producers became famous. Berlin started to be characterized by its daring and liberated night life, it had lots of night bands and going to clubs became a general pass time. In the 1920s there were cabaret artists performing songs criticizing political leaders or even about sex that would have surely been banned during the Kaiser’s day. Anyways, though this resulted quite exciting to many, in many of Germany’s villages and country towns this “new” culture seemed to them a moral decline. Because of this, organizations like the Wandergovel organization took place, this organization aimed to return to simple values to see more help in the country side and less decadence in the towns.
Thirdly, politics became more stable, an opponent of Ebert even ended up supporting the republic little by little in 1923. Yet, there were almost 30 per cent of the votes that went to parties opposing the Republic. Additionally, German people elected Hindenburg as president in 1926 despite him being opposed to democracy and writing to the Kaiser in exile for approval before taking up the post! Politics were not all; Stresemann seemed to have his greatest triumphs in foreign policy. Stresemann agreed signing the Locarno Treaties guaranteeing not to try to change Germany’s western borders with France and Belgium in 1925 and by 1926 Germany was accepted into the League of Nations. Besides, he started to work on reversing some of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, especially the ones concerning reparations and Germany’s eastern frontiers, as a result by the time he died (1929) he had negotiated the Young Plan that lightened up the reparations burden on Germany and he was able to work out the final removal of British, French and Belgium troops from the Rhineland. Despite his success, nationalists attacked Stresemann for joining the League of Nations and for signing the Locarno Treaties, seeing it as an acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles; communists also attacked the Locarno Treaties thinking it was a plot against the communist government in the USSR.
In conclusion, Stresemann was fully responsible for the German recovery in spite of some dangerous decisions and opposition.

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History Essay Correction for Group H

            Appeasement was a controversial policy, it had a lot of advantajes and disadvantajes. In the following essay we are going to analyse how far it was to blame for the outbreak of the war.

            To start with, one of the advantajes of  this policy was that Britain needed to buy time because they were not ready for war. Chamberlain’s defenders thought he had to buy time for rearmament because Britain’s forces were not ready. Although Chamberlain had supporters for this cause public opinión, important countries in the empire and the USA were against it.

Even though, Chamberlain thought that Britain´s forces were not ready for war he had an exaggerated view of Germany’s strength. During the 1960s, Taylor, a British historian said Germany’s strength was 45 percent of what British intelligence reports said it was. During rearmament Britain’s regular army and reserves, craft in navy and aircraft production improved way more than Germany’s in proportion.

On the other side, Appeasement was a wrong policy because it encouraged Hitler. Critics state that it was a way to encourage Hitler at that war, they claim that if Britain or France faced Hitler from the start peace would have been secured.

All things considered, Appeasement was partly to blame for the outbreak of the war because it encouraged Hitler, but at the same time it seemed like a good way to buy time for rearmament.

Tomas Posse, Pedro Nardi, Nacho de Achaval.

In the following essay we will explain, in our opinion, how far the League of Nations was or was not successful in the 1920s.
In the first place, we can say that throughout the 20s, the League had successes as well as failures. We will explain some of the successes during those years. In 1920 a plebiscite was organised by the League for the population of Upper Silesia to decide wether they wanted to become part of Germany or stay being Polish. The rural areas voted for Poland and the industrial for Germany, so the territory was divided in two. Both countries accepted the decision.
Moreover, the Aaland Islands were located midway beetwen Sweden and Finland, and both nations wanted control of it in 1921. Since both were threatening to use their armed forces to get them, they appealed to the League for help. In order to avoid a war to break out, after deeply studyin the case, the League of Nations simply decided the islands should be Finish. Sweden accepted this choice and war was bypassed.
In addition to this, in October 1925 an incident ocurred in which Greek soldiers were killed near Bulgaria’s frontier. In revenge, Bulgaria was invaded by Greek troops and so Bulgarians asked the League for help. The League of Nations ordered Greece to withdraw and pay compensation to Bulgaria. Reluctantly, the Greeks accepted, but their complaint was that there seemed to be one rule for the powerful nations and another for the weak.
Now we will explain some border disputes that were unsuccessfully solved by the League of Nations in this decade. Vilna was the capital of Lithuania, but its population was largely Polish. This made Poland invade the city in 1920, so Lithuania had no reason but to appeal for help. The League protested to Poland and ordered to take their troops out, but they did not obey. Neither France nor Britain were prepared to fight against Poland, so in the end they did nothing. The Poles kept control of Vilna.
Furthermore, on 27 August 1923 an Italian general and his team, who were sent to help solve a dispute, were killed in Greek territory, near the Albanian border. The Italians blamed Greece, but the Greek did not know who the murderers were. So Italy invaded the Greek Island of Corfu and Greece appealed to the League for help. She decided that Italy had to withdraw and Greece to pay compensation but that money be held by the League until and if the killers were found. However, behind the scenes, the Italian leader Mussolini persuaded the members of the League to make Greece apologise and pay compensation directly to Italy.
Besides, Britain and France (the major powers of the League) decided in 1924 that every member should sign a protocol. This protocol consisted in the members obeying the League in their decisions. Nevertheless, there was a general election in Great Britain, and the new leaders were not in favour of this protocol. Finally, it was not signed by anyone. The Protocol, which was meant to strengthen the League, in fact weakened it.
Taking everything into consideration, we can say that in the 1920s the League of Nations was partly a success and partly a failure. However, I believe that it was much more unsuccessful because it showed not to be able to solve big international conflicts.

The failure of the League of Nations in the 1930’s was partly to blame for the outbreak of the Second World War because there were other factors that also influenced.
Fristly, the treaty of Versailles contributed a lot in the outbreak of war because Chamberlain, the USA president, thought it was unfair for Germany so they decided to give Hitler some land thinking that that was all he would ask for, but that was not enough.
What is more, appeasement was a policy which also helped because it failed and with it the peace failed too. When Hitler decided to attack Poland, USA and France thought that was the end of the peace treaty and started the Second World War.
In addition, another enormous factor was Rearmament. Hitler started rearming with the idea of conquering silently, but on the other side Great Britain and France noticed that and decided to start rearming. Although, they were giving the back to the treaty of Versailles.
All things to considered, there were many important events that supported the outbreak of the second world war and the failure o the League was one of them but not the only one.

Camila Cincunegui, Chloe Taylor y Marina Menendez

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HISTORY ESSAY CORRECTION