Spanish Civil War

In July 18th in 1936, the most conservatives Spanish militaries led their troops into a revolt against the Republican government. The militaries expected little opposition to their manifestation, but they were not aware the government and its supporters were strong enough to battle them. This led to a three year war.
This civil war is known to be as a war of contradictions and political fighting. Both sides had troubles in maintaining a stable support from groups or political parties.
The Government had the support of all the Left political parties, the Republicans, the Socialists, the Communists, and the Anarchists. They and their associated Trade Unions provided with weapons to the military service that resisted the manifestation at the beginning. Some parts of the Military Forces stayed loyal to the Republican Government, like the most of the Navy, also a big portion of the Air Force, some units of the Peninsular Army, some parts of the Civil Guard and Frontier Guards and the majority of the national Riot Police. Some foreign supporters were the French Socialist Government, the Mexican Government and the Russian Government. Also many foreign volunteers participated being part of the International Brigades.
The Insurgents, also called the Nationalists, had the support of the Army of Africa, a part of the Peninsular Army, the remaining part of the Civil Guard, National Riot Police and Frontier Police. Also the Traditionalist and Right Political parties were on their side. Both parties had armies which helped in the resistance and battling, this made their participation of great importance. The Catholic Church supported the Insurgents.
The Nationalists also received foreign military aid. The Right governments of Italy and Germany sent militaries, tanks, aircraft and artillery. Also some Portuguese, French and Irish volunteers fought with the Insurgent armies.

The Battles and their Main events:


The Siege of the Alcazar: July 20th to September 27th, 1936
After the Rising in Madrid had failed, the Nationalists occupied the Military Academy in the Alcazar fortress, in Toledo. The people who participated in the battle were mainly from the local Civil Guard and Falange, commanded by Colonel Jose Moscardo. For two months the Insurgents held out against the Republican Army by besieging them.
They were finally relieved when the Army of Africa, led by Colonel Jose Varela, stormed Toledo.

The Republican invasion of Majorca: August 16th to September 3rd, 1936
On August 16th, the Catalan troops (republican), led by Captain Bayo, landed on Majorca. The Nationalist Army on Majorca was commanded by Colonel Garcia Ruiz. With the help of Italian aircraft and bombers the Nationalists were able to stop any further Republican advance, and on September 3rd they attacked the Republican bridgehead. The Catalan troops rapidly went into their ships and escaped.

The Battle for Madrid: November 8th to November 23rd, 1936
The Nationalists wanted to make an attack on Madrid hoping to capture the Spanish capital and ending the war. Their Army was led by General Emilio Mola and most of the participants were from the African Army. At the beginning, almost three-quarters of the University City fell to the Nationalists, but the republican army supported by Russian tanks and aircraft, stopped any Nationalist advance. Also the international Brigade went to aid the republican army. By November 23rd, both sides were exhausted by the fighting. Although the Nationalists had in their control the North and West areas of the city, all frontal attacks upon Madrid would be likely to fail.

The Battle for the Corunna Road: December 13th (1936) to January 15th, 1937
As the frontal attack upon Madrid had failed, the Nationalists now tried to tighten to cut off the capital from the rest of Republican Spain. On December 13th General Jose Varela attacked the Corunna Road (which is 25 miles to the North of Madrid). Between January 3rd and 15th his forces held a series of fierce attacks against the Republican troops but, as dead people were left on both sides, it became apparent that the situation had become a tie.

The Battle for Malaga: January 17th to February 6th, 1937
Having the Italian volunteers in Spain made the Nationalists feel they were able to set an attack to the southern provinces of Republican Spain. Although large numbers of Republican troops had the capacity to defend Malaga, they were not organised. By February 3rd, the attackers had reached the outskirts of the city and, three days later, the Nationalists entered Malaga.

The Battle of Jarama: February 6th to February 24th, 1937
The Nationalists renewed their attempts to capture Madrid. This time they concentrated their efforts on cutting the Valencia Road where it runs through the Jarama Valley to the south-east of the city. The Nationalists, under the leadership of General Luis Orgaz, began their attack on February 6th and, by February 11th, they had driven the Republican army, commanded by General Sebastian Pozas, across the River Jarama. By February 24th, when the battle ended, the Nationalists had failed again to cut Madrid off from the rest of the Republic, because the republican army was able to defend themselves, stopping the Nationalists plans.

The Advance on the Mediterranean Coast: March 9th to July 23rd, 1938
With the failure of the Republican attack upon Teruel the Nationalists were now able to set an attack on Aragon and Levante. The intention was to cut Republican Spain into two parts. The manifestation was led by General Fidel Davila and began on March 9th. Lerida, in Catalonia, surrendered to the Nationalists on April 3rd, and twelve days later Vinaroz, a village on the Mediterranean coast, was captured and the Republic was cut in two. The Nationalists wanted to make this gap bigger and on June 14th they captured Castellon de la Plana. Republican resistance was increasing, and the Nationalists stopped for a while the invasions for their troops to rest before the attack on Valencia.

The Battle of the Ebro: Between July and November in 1938
The Republic ordered General Juan Modesto to set an attack across the River Ebro. Made by the newly formed Republican Army of the Ebro, forced the Nationalists, who were led by General Juan Yague, to stop their invasions. In its initial phase the offensive was very successful, then it began to lose force. Later, it was the Nationalists who forced the Republicans to retreat. This battle ended on October 30th, in a massive Nationalist attack and by November 18th the Republicans had been forced back across the River Ebro.

The Battle for Barcelona: December 23rd (1938) to January 26th, 1939
The nationalists now set an attack against Catalonia. The attack against the forces defending the Republicans was made by six nationalist armies. This was too much for the already exhausted republicans. They went back to Barcelona and once Borjas Blancas was captured on January 4th, they had lost. The Republican troops maintained a resistance in Barcelona anyways until January 26th, when the city surrendered.

Nazism

As we know, Nazism is an ideology that kind of marked history because of the importance it will have later in the development of World War II. It was a nineteenth-century idealism, which ideological roots arose from Romanticism. Such ideas, supported by the Ariosophical German Order and the Thule Society much influenced Adolf Hitler’s world-view.
According to Mein Kampf (Hitler’s book), Hitler developed his political theories by carefully observing the policies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was a natural-born citizen of the Empire, and believed that ethnic and linguistic diversity weakened it. In addition, he saw democracy as a destabilizing force, because it placed power in the hands of ethnic minorities, who had incentives to weaken and destabilize the Empire.
National Socialism classically says that a nation is the highest creation of a race. Therefore, large nations are said to be the creation of great races. And the weakest nations are said to be those from "impure" or "mongrel" races, because they have divided, quarrelling, and therefore weak cultures. The Nazis theory postulates the Aryan race to be superior over other ones, especially Jews and some Slavic people.
The Nazi justification was heavily invested in the militarist belief that great nations grow from military power. Hitler wanted to recover the militaristic nationalist that characterized the previous era. After Austria and Germany's defeat of World War I, many Germans still had heartfelt ties to the goal of creating a greater Germany, and thought that the use of military force to achieve it was necessary.
Hitler extended his rationalizations into religious doctrine, claiming that those who agreed with and taught his "truths," were "true" or "master" religions, because they would "create mastery" by avoiding comforting lies. Those that preach love and tolerance, "in contravention to the facts," were said to be "slave" or "false" religions. The man who recognizes these "truths," Hitler continued, was said to be a "natural leader," and those who deny it were said to be "natural slaves." "Slaves," especially intelligent ones, he claimed were always attempting to hinder masters by promoting false religious and political doctrines.

Social consequences of World War I

Is important to know in a deeply way all the different consequences that the World War I caused. We focus in the people that suffered in this war, because anything that could happen to the world in the “interwar period” has always something to do with this social consequences.
More than 9 million people were killed in the war. Between them; many parents, children, soldiers, workers, innocents, teachers, etc.
Why does this happen? Well, the countries that were involved in this war only focused on chasing and getting their principal objectives. They never care about how many live were lost in the several battles, or how much their disaster would cost; “they never give up until someone won”. This “European conflict” starts introducing more countries that were affected by the war, and this led them lose control of the situation and start taking bad decisions and make serious mistakes that finally they were not favorable and it would affect them.
Many children became orphans, and by having no protection and care, they also die. In addition, the worker’s (males) families die because they don’t have enough goods and food to survive, or they became poor. By losing workers, the industries present a crisis, and the productivity would decrease.
Many soldiers were killed in the war, naturally; but it is something (lamentable) that a lot of people died because of a war, thinking about their families and work. Many innocents, that has nothing to do with the war died because they were close to a battle.
There are some statistics that show in detail how many people died in the war, in different areas:
Allied soldiers:
- Belgium: 13.700
- Great Britain: 908.000
- Australia: 60.000
- Canada: 55.000
- India: 25.000
- New Zealand: 16.000
- South Africa: 7.000
- United Kingdom: 715.000
- France: 1.240.000
• French colonies: 114.000
- Greece: 5.000
- Italy: 650.000
- Japan: 300
- Montenegro: 3.000
- Romania: 336.000
- Rusia: 1.700.000
- Serbia: 45.000
- United States: 50.600
Central power soldiers
- Germany: 1.770.000
- Austria-Hungary: 1.200.000
- Bulgary: 87.500
- Turkey: 325.000
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Civilists
- Armenia: 900.000 by Genocide
- Germany: 760.000
- Austria-Hungary: 300.000
- Belgium: 30.000
- United Kingdom: 31.000
- Bulgary: 275.000
- France: 40.000
- Greece: 132.000
- Romania: 275.000
- Rusia: 3.000.000
- Serbia: 650.000
- Turkey: 1.000.000

This killing statistics are the largest one that the world has had so far.

Is important to know the consequences that the World War I brought, so we could get more conscience of how much we could lost during a war (money, opportunities, people, faith, nationalism) and we don’t receive nothing good from it. Also get sure that this kind of wars would never happen again.

Fascism in Italy: Benito Mussolini in the power

It's a bit hard to give a precise definition of what fascism is, as his description varies depending on the location in which it was applied to and because rather than a movement with an established program, fascism is a way of action, a way of acting.
The regimes of the Fascist movement were more than mere dictatorships; these were simple performances given in specific political situations, when there was a lack of popular support. The goal of the fascist movement was to overcome the lack of horizons of the nineteenth-century Western civilization; they thought they needed to build a new state completely different from the last one.

One of the characteristics of fascism is the absolutism, which is understood as the state’s absolute supremacy over all other entities, political, economical, social and cultural. Then there is also the supremacy of executive power, which is a dictatorial regime, anti-parliamentary and elitist. Fascism also had what is called the arrogance of the leader, in which he is indisputable. Also some other characteristics are, nationalism and unification, this will guide the nation towards an internal development, also gaining respect from the other countries. It only recognizes one political party declaring the others as illegal. Finally, imperialism and militarism, imperialism would bring a strong militarism.

In Italy they were living times of confrontation between the left and right. Two overthrows took place; the first was made by the left parties calling for a strike on July 31, 1922, the event fails because all public places were secured by the fascist armies. The second coup was made by the fascists. Mussolini, their leader, called a strike on October 27, 1922. In this one his army is placed around the city of Rome and moved by it.

On October 30, Mussolini is in charge of forming a government; he accomplishes full powers over the king and parliament, thus starting the trend of revitalizing the executive power over the legislative power. Mussolini dissolved the chamber and called for new elections, in which the Fascist National Party gets the majority of votes.

Mussolini took the lead of the government, making the king and the Senate be just like his puppets , due to the deputies were elected by the National Fascist Party and the king believed that the only way to keep his throne was following what the fascist movement told him to do. Truly, the head of state was Mussolini; he selected, appointed and dismissed officers as he wanted, also in the institutions of the city and province he put people from the fascism party, which were trustful to him, to govern. Knowing that the aspirations of this person as anyone who is part of the movement is to become rich and reach a higher status in the fascist hierarchy.
Since 1926, he dissolved all the political parties, movements and organizations that didn’t agree with the regime and the Fascist Party is named as the only party officially valid. The opposition press is deleted and it is prohibited for any citizen to leave the country, Benito controlled all of this with the UAO (political police) and the Special Court for the Defense of the State.

Fascism ends up being a misleading system, because without previous government decisions or anything, Mussolini took the power. Ending with the king and his senate acting as his puppets and getting what he wanted, which ultimately was to implement his ideas, but also to get rich, so as the members of the fascist group. As we can see,actually there are no countries whith a fascist regime, so we can conclude it wasn't a good system, that it didn't lead to the country's development and finally, failed. Governments nowadays are more democratic, in the mayority. The fascism system was very radical, extreme and ended up being absolutist and dictatorial. It predicated fake values because it talks about nationalism, but exaggerates it to the point were the objectives for the common wealth are lost. This system does not promotes prosperity that's why it is not used anymore.

Hitler's Rise to Power

After the disastrous World War I, German monarchies came to an end. A Republic was proclaimed (the president had political and military power and a parliamentary democracy) and because Berlin was in chaos, the Central Government was in the Province of Weimar (1918) for a period of time, where a National Assembly was elected in order to write the Constitution. The president had the right to dismiss the cabinet, dissolve the Reichstag, and prohibit legislation, so the legislative powers of the Reichstag were weakened. The government included the Social Democratic Party, the German Democratic Part and the Center Party, which were very popular and supported.

The Treaty of Versailles was ratified in 1919 and Germany had to pay a lot of reparations for all the damages caused by the war. Germany also lost her colonies and a big part of her territory. This treaty was humiliating, degrading and harsh for Germans; many shared the sentiment of seeing Germany as a great nation, just like Hitler did.

After a war in Munich, Hitler was assigned to keep an eye on the German Worker’s Party, which was disorganized and had no plan; however, Hitler saw this party as a way of accomplishing his political ideas. His hate for the Jews became part of the party, so the ads for it came out in the anti-Semitic newspapers. The turning point of Hitler’s career happened in a meeting in October 16, 1919 for the reason that his moving speech enthralled the listeners and then donations were made for the party.

With the help of his party staff, Hitler created a party that had 25 points and continued to win support by exciting people’s emotions and his good ideas. Among the 25 points there were negative comments about the Versailles Treaty, annulling civil rights for the Jews and expelling the one that had arrived to Germany.

Some of the things that attracted the most the people were his promotion of the popular wellbeing, the right of establishment of autonomy for Germans and equal rights for their state, etc.
The Bavarian government confronted the Weimar Republic, accusing it of being too left-winged and Hitler supported this event. On November 8, 1923, Hitler proclaimed in the Beer Hall Putsch a revolution and the next day he tried to take over the Bavarian government with an army together with General Ludendorff. Once they had seized power in Munich, they planned to use the place as an operating center against the republic government, but the police suppressed this revolt and accused them for treason. Ludendorff was exonerated for his services to Germany, but Hitler was convicted for 5 years, but only remained in jail for 8 months, time he used to write a part of his book “Mein Kampf”, which was an autobiographical book that narrated some of his views on the future of Germans.

After serving his time in prison he decided to get the power constitutionally, using his speech skills (convincing, touching) to make people resist the oppression from the Jews and Communists. He organized again the party under the Führer principle.

After failing his attempts to win the elections, in 1933 Hitler decided to enter a coalition government as chancellor. When Hindenburg (president) died, Hitler succeeded him, and as the economy progressed and he shut down other parties’ hostilities, he claimed himself the dictator of Germany.

He readied for a war, calling for the "Führer Conference," when he showed his plans for a war of aggression in Europe. The ones who did not support him were sent away and got support from the lower middle class and peasantry, most of them, Protestants.

But, why did people support Hitler?

First of all, people supported Hitler because he said and promised what each part of the population wanted to hear during that time when Weimar Republic couldn’t solve the problems Germany had and the lives of the people were getting difficult and unfortunate. So he promised something to every part of the population:

People supported Hitler because he promised them what they wanted and needed to hear.

Taken from: http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/lessons/riseofhitler/whysupport.htm
And to everyone he swore he would bring back honor by ending with the treaty of Versailles and making Germany great.

Popular Front

During the 1930s, European countries went through difficult social tensions and class struggle. France was a capitalist power; while 40 million French enjoyed political democracy many other governments were authoritarian. French conservative and liberal parties confronted sometimes and some socialist currents supported them. the great depression caused several consequences in the world. In France, capitalism and democracy were affected and dramatic changes appeared in politics.
After World War I, from 1920s to 1930s, France was governed by leftwing and rightwing governments. With the mobilization of many fascists and Royalists, the French government collapsed and the Prime Minister Edouard Daladier resigned and he was replaced by Gaston Doumergue (1934), whose regime was semi-dictatorial. The Communist Party reacted to the working class’ resistance by forming an Alliance with the Social Democrats and Radicals – a party of the lower middle social class (also called the “petit bourgeoisie”) – (also between the left-wing movements, such as the French Communist Party, the French Section of the Workers’ International) in the form of the Popular Front. This union represents consciousness of the people, the peak of Communism, and a time when leftists, liberals and ordinary people got together to organize labor unions, fight racism and end with fascism.
In the elections of 1936, the Popular Front won. It was the first time that the Socialists got more seats than the Radicals and the Socialist intellectual leader Léon Blum became the Prime Minister of France, apart from being the first Jew to hold the office. The Popular Front came to power with the command from its supporters of distributing wealth more fairly.
The Government did five main things, which can be shown in the Matignon Agreements: it created the right to strike (and there would be no retribution against strikers), collective bargaining, a law that ordered 12 days of paid Annual leaves for workers, a limited work time per week (up to 40 hours), raised salaries (15% for the lowest-paid workers, declining to 7% for the relatively well-paid), and specified that employers would recognize shop stewards. It also nationalized the Bank of France, the railroads and the armaments industry.

However, the Popular Front, failed its attempt to end with fascism, while the workers it had organized into unions were taken to fight and die in World War II, and at the same time in the Soviet Union, socialism turned into Communist totalitarianism. This is why the Popular Front represented a tragic defeat for the working class, not a victory.
A series of events blocked the accomplishments of this alliance. The communists did not cooperate much and criticized it in the parliament and the press, business people were afraid of the striking workers and their new economic weapon (strikes) because they had occupied their struck plants and before long, the nation was separated in the supporters and opponents of the Popular Front, but unfortunately, given to the uprising opposition, Blum had to resign in 1937 so the Popular Front was disintegrated.

The League of Nations

A conflict of such level of importance had never happened before. This is, World War I. After this disastrous event, many leaders of that time thought it was necessary to have an international organization that would have the task of preventing this type of catastrophe by maintaining peace and resolving international conflicts when these occurred. Woodrow Wilson claimed his Fourteen Points should serve as the basis for this organization. So the League of Nations was formed in Geneva, Switzerland, since this country hadn’t fought in the War; consequently, it was neutral.

Its constitution contemplated collective security and arbitration as a way of resolving dispute peacefully. If any country opted for war, the League had three ways of controlling its behavior:
- Call on the states in the League’s Assembly to discuss the problem in order and peace and reach a decision.
- Warn the attacker nation that she would need to leave another nation’s territory or face the consequences.
- If the states in argument didn’t listen to the Assembly’s decision, the League could begin economic sanctions, so the aggressor would have to do as the League said (angry people in the aggressor state would force the government to accept the League’s decision). If this didn’t work, physical sanctions could be used. The League could use military force, although it had actually no armed forces available in its disposal, and no member of the League had to provide them in order to join. Plus, most of the countries were devastated after World War I. As a result, it could not threaten anybody and any country would be aware of this limitation.
Some negative aspects of the League of Nations:
- The United States, the most powerful nation, did not join the League, so this blew its reputation.
- Germany was not allowed to the League because one of the punishments in the Treaty of Versailles was not to be considered as a member of any international organization. This was negative in the sense that the League could not apply any of its sanctions to Germany.
- Russia was not allowed either, given that its communist government scared Western Europe
Three of the world’s greatest nations did not support the League. Britain and France, the two most powerful members, were suffering financially and militarily after the War and neither of them wanted to get in any fights that did not involve Western Europe.
Failures and successes of this League can be considered when the League could or could not avoid wars. So while it was valid, the League of Nations managed to avoid some wars and others it couldn’t. The League of Nations succeeded noticing wars in the border disputes between Bulgaria-Greece (1925), Iraq-Turkey (1925-26) and Poland-Lithuania (1927).
In a social level, teams were sent to the Third World to dig fresh water wells, the Health Organization started a campaign to eradicate leprosy; women’s status, refugee work and child slave labor were improved, drugs were controlled, famine was relieved, but most important, problems were being informed, so people knew they existed and should do something about it.

This was just the start for an organization as the United Nations to be created and try ti bring to the world peace.

1929: Vatican City becomes a sovereign state, the Lateran Treaty between the Vatican and Mussolini

It is important to know about the Church’s history because of its significance on those times and nowadays. In the XIX century, a problem occurred between Italy and the Vatican City that later in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty is solved, representing a benefit for the Vatican, because the treaty restored all their power and with this, the Vatican is independent
The Vatican is what is known as an ecclesiastical state ruled by the Pope. It is a walled, sovereign territory located in Rome, Italy. It has a population of 800 individuals, and is an area of approximately 440,000 m². The Vatican City is considered the main Episcopal See of about 1.2 billion Catholics around the world.
Italy, before the XX century, was divided in many independent states as Naples, Modena, the Papal States, the duchies of Parma, the kingdom Sardinian-Piedmontese and Tuscany. But then, Italy unified as a country and for that they take some of the pile of lands that belonged to the Vatican. The Italian state was probably “invading” the Vatican because it was an independent state like the others, and their lands supposedly cannot be taken. But the Italian state took lands from the Vatican not only for the unification, also they take their lands because Garibaldi -the leader of the Italian unification- did not agree with the Church’s power, and, consequently, by having so much lands the Church had a lot of material power. The ones that supported the Vatican in this “invasion” were the Swiss; from there comes the Pope’s Swiss Guard.
After the unification, there were two oppositions: the unified Italian states, and the Vatican/Church that weren’t in the capacity to fight with them.

In 1929, Benito Mussolini, the prime minister of Italy, signed, along with Pope Pius XI, the Lateran Treaty. This treaty gives the Pope the power of the Vatican again, making it an independent state once more. But, it was not the same as in Middle Ages or now, because when the Pope gets the power again, it is known that, effectively, the Vatican was not occupying the same important position that used to have in that time, -when the Pope has control of all Rome- because there were other places inside Rome that were more significant –for people that lived there- than this clerical City.

That’s why the Vatican has their own head of State, that is the Pope, and the Pope delegates his government functions to the State’s Secretary. The Vatican has their own diplomatics –that are the Apostolic Nuncios of the Holy See- as any other country.
It’s important to know why the Vatican is an independent state inside Italy. This would help you to understand and know better this religion, and also get some fundamental knowledge that would help you in any occasion of your life.

1929: Wall Street cash – The Great Depression

In October, 1929; one of the worst economic crisis happened. The New York stock market collapsed. It’s important to know about this economic crisis that overwhelmed the world.
In the years before the crash, it’s known that USA’s economy was growing very fast. It was considered the most important and efficient manufacturing country in the world. Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Soviet Union and Great Britain produce less things that the ones that USA could produce by itself.
In 1929, the incomes of USA started declining. The most successful factories were the most affected. Also, the prices for the exportation of some products started waning and people start suffering from the economic crisis. Most of the world’s economy depended from the USA’s economy, so that’s why this crash is very catastrophic and important.
The principal consequences that the depression bring:
- European businesses went bankrupt
- Africa’s raw materials sale declined
- Declines in price and exportation of Latin American products.
- Declines the price of wool in Australia and New Zealand, and the price of Canadian grain falls.
- The Japanese silk trade also declines.
This depression affected principally Germany. In that time, Germany was in a little political crisis with Weimar, and with the crash, everything got worst. Also, this depression helped Adolf Hitler develop his political party, the Nazi Party. Because of the crisis, the people were unfocused on what they need to do, while Hitler was enlarging his Party gaining seats in the Parliament. Also, people weren’t happy with democracy so they start supporting Communism.
Great Britain suffered drastically because it is a country that always had a good economy, and with the great depression the levels of productivity were decreasing a lot. For example, the ship building buckled. Also, in comparison, with the crash Britain now was producing only 7% of what they used to produce in 1914.
One country that didn’t suffer a lot with the Great Depression was France. France was just organizing their economy and they didn’t depend of USA’s economy, because they were first stabling and investing money to develop their country well and then they would focus on a better economical progress. Also, throughout the years, this crash affected France’s economy someway because the trade levels were decreasing and not so much countries were buying their products.
Is important to know the principal crisis that the world suffered because this would help you understand all the history. It also makes you think that a considerable crisis related to money also brings very bad political consequences for the future. Everything’s connected, and is important to make people know why things happened like the way they happened.

Lives of Women after World War I

Between the years 1919 and 1939, many changes happened, especially because of the World War I consequences. One of these, were the ones within the lives of women because it conceded them a new role on society. After the war, women were somehow more open to live; from using short and comfortable dresses, loose hair and frequenting cafes or drive cars to be able to vote freely for the first time. That way, women's emancipation became one of the greatest facts of the period between world wars.
Many European countries granted the right to vote for women in the years following the First World War. This was the first great triumph of the emancipation of women, already began in the late nineteenth century. This emancipation had three basic objectives: the right to education, vocational training and legal equality for married women.
Some countries were gradually modifying some aspects within the laws given like in the cases of private property, and secondary school teachings because sometimes they were only for the women of the bourgeoisie. Likewise, being a teacher or governess, became a prestigious and valued activity for everyone.
In the struggle for women's voting rights, the suffrage movement had an important role. The most important and radical one were the English, who appeared in 1851 when a group of women held a public petition in Sheffield advocating for the women to vote freely. This attempt was the beginning of a long way in seeking support from everyone, especially from the parliamentarians, in which years later in 1861, when submitting a petition to the House of Lords, it would be flatly denied.
In 1903, the campaign for female suffrage got intense with the founding of the Women's Social and Political Union, sponsored by Pankhurst and her daughters. Tired of so many negative responses, the suffragettes went on to direct the fight and adopted the tactic of interrupting speeches by ministers and presented at meetings of the Liberal Party to put forward their demands. In addition, it also turned to sabotage, the burning of shops and public establishments and private homes attacks on leading politicians and parliamentarians, including also the traditional methods of advertising such as rallies and manifestations.
This is how, women achieved after a series of years, the liberty of expression and could vote freely and for the first time and could leave behind quotes such as “women are not that intelligent as men for understanding politics” or “politics would isolate women from domestic duties”.

The Expansion of the Crisis

In the same way that, between 1922 and 1929, U.S. investments and loans were the engine of European prosperity, the U.S. crisis in the 1930s, dragged many countries in Europe and around the world. The connections of the international economy made the U.S. internal situation had an impact on other countries in the world but especially Europe.
The mechanisms for expansion of the crisis were many: first of all, the decline of prices in American products put companies around the world in serious difficulties because they could not compete with them. Second, the decline in U.S. demand for imports fell sharply, hurting exporters from other countries around the world. And finally, the problems of American banks caused a dramatic decline in their lending and investments in Europe. In addition, U.S. investors asked many of its capital back, stimulating the extension of the banking crisis in Europe.
The banking crisis was then, the first "symptom" of the global recession. Although some European banks were forced to close in 1930, the situation worsened in May 1931 with the collapse of the Creditanstalt, Austria's largest bank. The interbank lending crisis spread to the entire financial system, affecting especially Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Germany. But the severeness of the recession was very different from country to country, although they had all cut their production and seen the increase unemployment. For example, in Germany, people had been living since the end of the Great War a critical situation but it worsened when its inflation rose to very high levels, industrial production decreased and unemployment affected a large crowd of workers.
In the other hand, in the UK, the recession was not that severe, but the impossibility of maintaining the pound as a reference currency did break the international monetary system. The British government had to suspend gold convertibility of pounds in September 1931, causing 30% more devaluation in currency.
Moreover, France was an example of a country known as the "golden block", which kept their exchange rates. By keeping unchanged the price of their currencies while others devalued, the country lost competitiveness in the international market.
Finally, the main cause of the decline in trade was the rise of protectionism in major countries. The adoption of protective tariffs by the United States in 1930 was considered a declaration of trade war, which was answered by most governments with more protectionist measures. Consequently, each country’s attempts to solve their problems beside the rest, the deep reduction in the demand and a trade confrontation between Europe and the United States, sank the international trade.
In conclusion, the decline in trade implied the expansion of the crisis around countries which exported food and raw materials from Latin America and Asia, where sales fell dramatically. So, the decline in their loans made impossible to return the money to the U.S. bank and forced them to reduce their demand for industrialized countries. That way, once again the crisis nurtured the crisis.