How The French Wanted Germany Punished After WW1 | Impossible Peace (Postwar Documentary) | Timeline

hi everybody and welcome to this documentary on timeline my name is Dan snow and I will tell you about history hit TV it's like the Netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit TV you can either follow the information below this video or just Google history hit TV and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video [Music] two world wars tore the heart out of the 20th century they are a rent in the fabric of history when the first Great War ended the world faced the challenge of making a lasting peace at Versailles in remaking the map being reward the world's economy they fumbled and impossible [Music] On February the 6th 1922 at the Washington Naval conference a deal was struck that ended three months of debate about armament disarmament and rearmament for every five ships the United States and Great Britain had Japan would have three and Italy and France would have 1.75 each what was called the rolls-royce rolls-royce Ford ratio by such shaky steps might peace be maintained if it was given the jobs [Music] [Music] on the morning of June the 24th 1922 Walter Ratan how a dominant and sensible minister of Lima settled for work from his villa in the Berlin suburb of Grunwald the weather was fine so he instructed his chauffeur to use the open top limousine and around in the back he was gunned down by anti-republican nationalists although it is probably the most famous in these assassinations it's not the only assassination of a moderate centrist or left-wing figure in the early years of the Varna Republic there is a concerted campaign of right-wing terrorism really from 1919 until nineteen twenty one twenty two twenty three and in some ways I think Raphael's significance is almost bound up with his analysis solution on his death in the subsequent Reichstag debate the Chancellor Musa firt cause by accusing the white wing press of inciting the murder there stands the enemy be called across the chamber and there is no doubt about it the enemy is on the right with violence becoming commonplace political murders and hundreds Germany a unified nation for less than half a century was at risk of disintegration the political scene rallies street demonstrations the paramilitary turnouts that first lifted Hitler to prominence were fractious and feverish because living was descending into chaos food prices increased almost Eightfold between 1918 and 1921 in 1922 they increased 130 fold when numbers are so fantastic unreality permeates everything everyone is liable to follow Alice Through the Looking Glass thus the Bavarian Parliament with its deficit doubling in 1922 and having not a clue how to deal with massive tax liabilities voted to double its annual grant encouraging gymnastics [Music] in the whole course of history said British ambassador Lord Davin one of the Reichsbank reckless money-printing no dog has ever run after its own tail with the speed of the Reichsbank a policy described by Joseph Addison of the British Embassy in Berlin as the daily creation of fresh paper money [Music] things were worse in Austria where by the end of August the krona hit three hundred and fifty thousand to the pound band was still untethered allowed to survive with this elegant capital as the barely viable run proper once tremendous employer Austria comprised in the words of historian Adam Ferguson a few million bankrupt hungry people floundering about on a map they did not recognize dr. Seibel the Chancellor addressed the League of Nations and made clear that unless help was forthcoming Austria would be obliged to surrender some of her autonomy help fourth game the Geneva Protocol for the reconstruction of Austria was signed on October the 4th prices began to fall the value of the Chrome is stabilized such things were possible but not Universal in Italy between 1920 and 1921 there had been a 500% increase in unemployment and a 50% hike in prices in 1922 Mussolini took power he did not seem to have a particular plan in September he confessed that our program is simple we want to govern Italy and they're pretty much was the entire program what starts in Italy is something that looks very very small a small group of activists led by a maverick come to power they have no programmatic document they have no equivalent of mine camp and in fact even the declarations by Mussolini don't help either Mussolini famously has said that fascism is action Mussolini did not seize power by marching on Rome history and King Victor Emmanuel we're misinformed there's a sort of military ish coup in the sense that armed fascists march on the capital city Rome they don't really get there but they march towards it it rains heavily and the map support it's not quite clear whether the army is going to resist them or something or other Rome is defended by soldiers and barbed wire the king is asked to declare martial law that means fighting and bloodshed and the King refuses he will permit no Civil War he Telegraph's Mussolini to come and take the government Mussolini arrived on an overnight train from Milan look Cellini according to AJP Taylor entered his sleeping car in the black shirt and stepped out in a top hat and tails coat what Taylor characterized as a parable of the variations between respectability and revolution that he maintained thereafter and then the fascists come into Rome and actually commit a few murders and beat up the socials they can find and sack the newspaper officers and do all those sort of fascist things the legendary march on Rome had an official death toll of three so why do I insist on proclaiming that that October was historically a revolution as Mussolini because words have their own tremendous magic power he answered we led a coalition government which included only four fascist ministers including himself once he becomes Prime Minister almost all of respectable Italy rallies behind his coalition government it's approved by the king obviously it's approved by Fanta Caen it's approved by Italian industry and commerce it's approved by the large landowners it's approved by Freemasonry I think the prevalent feeling was that Muslim could be controlled so he could perhaps promote the rule of law and law and order and and crack down on any dissent but I don't think that any of the people who are at the decision-making table calculate things are gonna go where they end up going Britain had been at least the City of London have been banker to the world sterling was the reserve currency and it was a matter unanimously agreed in the city that a return to the pounds pre-war relationship to gold was fundamental to the recovery of that cherished position devaluation would have made exports more competitive that carried other benefits but confidence and prestige have suffered choosing deflation the Bank of England increased interest rates to 7% in 1920 and through two million people out of work still 1922 wars according to writer and critic Cyril Connolly the annus mirabilis of the modern movement except for the Dadaists who suffered a terminal falling out according to Thea von dos Berg the group of artists anarchist revolutionaries clashed over whether a locomotive was more modern than a bowler hat [Music] more enduringly ulysses generally voted the most significant novel of the 20th century was published in 1922 but the Ireland that James Joyce its expatriate author so lovingly detailed was no more even though about 150,000 Irishmen had fought in the great war in Ireland there was a very significant political movement calling inception Fame which wanted nothing to do as a great war hadn't had had nothing to do with the great war and instead had allegiance to a republic would have been proclaimed in 1916 Ireland's war of independence had ended and a civil war followed after the Irish Civil War and the granting of limited independence in 1922 Adams took view buried by the British air seconded you know as a lost Dominion for most people it was non-violence that was transforming daily life it was progress [Music] church attendance fell as Automobile estas they were called day excursionists drove out of town and to give their journeys at some point pursued a new interest which was reflected in 1922 when the car magazine changed its name to car and golf by 1920 to 1923 a run of prosperity begins and I think this is the moment when the power of American industry and manufacturing in the United States and the world becomes apparent washing machines refrigerators appear for the first time millions of cars on the road mass production is Main Street inspiration folks who don't even own a bathtub own a Model T attend Lizzie after all you can't drive into town in the bathtub if the car was left in the garage and the family remained at home there was a new marvel to entertain during 1922 the number of American radio stations grew from 28 to 570 and movie-going who was a universal pastime it's a misnomer to assume that silent cinema is recorded was watched in science it was a Babel of noise not just perhaps the honky-tonk piano twiddling away somewhere but the fact that children who grew up in sham say in America and who had learned English from from birth we're going to school would actually translate the titles to their parents in Italian or in the more frequently in Yiddish on August the 14th 1922 a man who had in his day being a candidate for most powerful person in England died he had been amongst the first to realize the potential influence of the popular press but Lord Northcliffe spent his final weeks raving mad in a hearts on the roof of the house in Carlton Gardens belonging to the Duke of Devonshire which also seems like a parable of the times [Applause] On January the 9th 1923 with britain dissenting the french belgium and italian members of the reparation Commission agreed that Germany was in default specifically it had failed to make an in-kind reparations payment to France of 100,000 telegraph poles under the terms of treaties and settlements galore this was a trigger for French occupation of the Ruhr which herbalism premier raymond waka Ray had foreshadowed to the British Prime Minister several weeks earlier it was an act which was to double Germany's budget deficit Lloyd George called the French move an act of military aggression against an alcohol nation general Dakota led five French and one Belgium divisions 60,000 men into the war on January 11th they argue by the region in which were 85% of Germany's coal resources 80% of her steel and pig iron productions and 10% of her population who promptly down tools on January the 16th the government in Berlin announced its official support for long cooperation in the war Germany was in a very bad way indeed had been an attempt by the French and the Belgium's to extract reparations from Germany the German government had reacted by a sort of they didn't call it that then but a policy of passive resistance and it had destroyed the German economy and German inflation was absolutely wild the Reichsmark plans from 7260 to the dollar to 49,000 - the dollar within three weeks of the invasion the Reichsbank had issued its first million mark note at the end of July the German people found themselves folding 10 20 and 50 million mark notes and with ridiculous predictability on August 22nd the first 100 million marked note was issued as hyperinflation stripped the currency of all value by autumn the non-cooperation policy could not be sustained they collapsed an ignominious acquiescence as the newspaper coalition's I told price five million marks of September the 30th published the oath of service to the French and Belgians that German workers were being compelled to swear to see for himself whether it was true that there was food in the country which the farmers were not sending to the towns Joseph Addison counselor at the British Embassy left Berlin but when he tried to buy an egg from a country dweller he was told we have fallen kind of udin FETs of on Berlin we don't want any Jewish confetti from Berlin in the first six months of 1923 about 17 trillion marks were printed it involved according to one estimate the output of more than 30 paper mills 150 printing firms and 2,000 printing presses as the money flooded the country the greatest inflation in history elevated the exchange rate stratospherically from 620 thousand marks to the dollar in August 1923 to 630 billion three months later by which time a kilo of butter costs 250 billion marks people walked along the street pushing prams full of banknotes and if one blew away no one chased it the price of a cup of coffee on the unter den Linden might double between placing the order and adding the sugar petty thieves were tipping banknotes from people's baskets and trolleys and stealing the baskets as the mark sailed past sixty million to the pound the British ambassador was pleased to observe that this was approximately one mark for every second that has elapsed since the birth of Christ the number of banknotes of circulation is better written than spoken on November the fifth the price of a two kilogram loaf of bread vaulted from 20 billion two hundred and forty billion marks and there were nationwide riots Berlin once so proudly an antiseptic reclaim was looking Rubby the stone gray corpse according to artist George gross and into all of this at least into the burqa brow color strode Adolf Hitler it was November the 8th 1923 armed stormtroopers entered the building and their leader Adolf Hitler fired two shots into the air and announced that the revolution had begun [Applause] the next day November 9th 1923 Hitler and 3000 supporters marched through Munich their way was blocked shots from the Munich police defending the Odeon plots were enough to bring the intended coup to a spluttering hand 21 people were killed that Adolphe Hitler's Revolution ended as quickly as it had begun he was arrested and the printing presses continued to roll 74 million million million marks a week and the 100 billion mark note went safely into circulation by the time Hitler was released from the Landsberg prison support for the völkisch block had collapsed not because of Hitler's absence but because of Germany's recovering spearheaded by the doors plan and the issue of a new currency the rentenmark it was private bankers that helped stabilize the German economy and private bankers gave Germany seal of approval and because interest rates were higher in Germany and they were in the United States this encouraged a flow of capital from the United States the Germany the finance minister dr. Luther likened the issue of the rentenmark to building a house starting with the roof confidence was all Hjalmar Schacht headed the Reichsbank and later an important player in the Third Reich economy transformed chaos into something that at least promised order he did it his secretary for our lunch defects then by reading no letters and writing no letters he telephoned a great deal telephone in every direction and he smoked apart from that he did nothing [Music] Japan's recovery had been more disciplined and altogether more effective the economy had almost dragged the yen back to its pre-war rate against the dollar when just before lunchtime on September the first 1923 the Great Kanto Earthquake subjected Tokyo Yokohama and surrounding areas to almost fully minutes of shaking with an energy released equivalent to some 400 Alhassan the sized atomic bombs followed by a tsunami the pen the end of the cherry blossom and the Geisha but always living under the shadow of nature's most dreaded manifestation the Japanese computer wreckage where the stress is more most unbelievable to the Western mind soon small fires merge to form a firestorm by the morning of September the 3rd at least 140,000 people were dead than two-thirds of Tokyo and four-fifths of Yokohama were ashes the capital area around Tokyo its main port of Yokohama were hit by what are certainly the most devastating earthquakes and Japan is faced in his modern history it had a number of sort of longer-term consequences it increased the power temporarily of the military it affected longer-term thinking about how to cope with disaster and disaster included attacked by other countries and it did influence the way in which new prime ministers were chosen a correspondent from an Osaka newspaper flying over Tokyo's ruins in an open-cockpit army reconnaissance plane observed that even at a height of 1000 meters the disagreeable and unmistakable odor of death overpowered the smell of engine exhaust much of urban Japan was knocked down and within three months Japan had been forced to seek alone taking one organized through JP Morgan at the punitive rate of 6.5% at some levels it fed into longer-term economic worlds which without doubt laid fertile ground for the political trends that emerged particularly in the 1930s President Warren Harding who had been elected to preside over the piece in the less sweeping presidential victory in history was classed by his own party as not a first-rate ER [Applause] and a Democratic opponent said that his speeches leave the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving across the landscape in search of an idea he was also a serial womanizer which may or may not have contributed to the heart attack that killed him he was succeeded by the Vice President Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge symbolizes the period I think very much so silent Cal who was well known for not being drawn in conversation we just like to sit there and have a quiet time and just let everything else unfold around him America in the 20s did not have paramilitary fascist street fighters like the gangs that transform German and Italian politics but one organization that had almost faded out did enjoy a revival the Ku Klux Klan had nearly a million members by 1923 and at three million dollars an annual income that matched that of Al Capone's empire despite being in the view of William Allen white a self constituted body of modeled idiots the clan whose original appeal and action was more anti-catholic than anti black touched something in American society not a nerve but a nervousness about a loss of identity of Americanism what most inspired membership of the Klan was the seriously held seriously clownish belief that the Catholic Church was plotted to install the Pope in the White House and the Pope will sit in the White House when hell freezes was a popular slogan the America of the biggest cities was a very different place when young Duke Ellington arrived in New York for the first time in 1923 he exclaimed why it's just like the Arabian Nights it was the bright lights of department stores the jewel in the crown of a large city's downtown section would be the department store the appeal of window shopping the beginnings of fashion as an industry for everyone and so for the first time by about 1922-23 you can compare backs a flesh-toned silk satin rayon dress by Chanel with the cheapest level of production that would cost just a few shillings these were basic consumer goods that gave the ordinary man or woman a little bit of a pick-me-up let them step through that portal of consumer society by buying a china elephant for their knick-knack shelf Mussolini was shopping for an empire on August 31st Italian troops landed on Corfu he called the invasion peaceful and provisional a description that seems absurd now and must have seemed so then after 15 days and the first fascist essay in territorial aggrandizement Italy withdrew from Corfu and in one of history's typical and pleasing ironies Italy sponsored Ethiopia's application to join the League of Nations in 1923 as the leaves started to fall it seemed that so many competing tensions across the European continent must lead to a calamity of some sort communist coup fascist good German disintegration military intervention in Spain in a permanency and mentor the captain general of Catalonia with the King's support made himself dictator this great social tension led in September of 1923 to the establishment of a dictatorship and the dictator in many ways was if you like the perfect praetorian guard for the those sectors of Spanish society that felt threatened The Dictator was me well primo de Rivera king alfonso xiii later called him my Mussolini in Russia in the winter of 1923 for as Lenin near death figures shuffled impatiently ready to step into the light Trotsky hero of the Red Army because of his role in the 1921 victory in the Civil War xenovia head of the Comintern and boo caron the revolutions leading theorist the succession would fall on none of them deeper in the shadows stood a man who had been in the Czarist equivalent of the gulag not as a political martyr but as a bank robber his party name was Joseph Stalin as general secretary of the Bolshevik Party Stalin had enormous patronage opportunities as the general secretary he was in charge of the mechanisms of appointing key people to key posts across the city do you know said Britain's ambassador after first meeting Stalin I think the chaps a gentleman [Applause] [Music] Calvin Coolidge was elected in his own right in 1924 the slogan that carried the day was Coolidge or chaos Coolidge believed that the less government the better and he aspired in Irving stones words to become the least president the country had ever had Coolidge possessed what one writer described as God given him inertia and a famed report reportedly by Dorothy Parker could stand as an indictment of Coolidge's presidency on being told in 1933 that Coolidge had died she is said to have asked how can you tell in Europe the threat of chaos seemed more present than in America in France the franc which had traded at 93 to the pound by April 25th had dropped to 164 and by July 26 to 243 which had a savage effect on French government spending but it was deliciously appealing to expats on tight budgets and they poured in in the Italian election of April 1924 Mussolini's block by now dominated by the fascists won 375 of the 535 seats Giacomo Matteotti the leader of the Socialists protested the legitimacy of the result he disappeared and was later found murdered in repressive actions that followed in Mussolini's own words the foundations of the totalitarian state were laid with socialist traders they become illegal the newspapers are more and more censored their editors are replaced and instead of having some editor who might be a critic of Mussolini you get editors who will always toady then express enthusiasm but Cellini was one of the most wonderful men of our times according to Winston Churchill's wife pope pius xi called him the man whom providence has sent us steps we're meanwhile and at last being taken to stabilize Germany's economy compromised the election of Gustav Stresemann and a committee set up to re-examine the issue of reparations under American Banker Charles doors looked for a way forward there is an effort by this Republican administration to try and help Europe back on its face the doors plan and the young plans of the 1920s Oh an effort revived the European economy which had obviously been hugely disrupted by the war constructive diplomacy in one part of the world was offset by prejudice in another 1990s Paris settlement had rejected Tokyo's proposal racial equality clause in 1921 Britain chose not to renew the anglo-japanese alliance and in 1924 the United States Congress enacted legislation excluding Japanese from immigration quotas the stage was set from upsurge in Japanese nationalism for the emergence of a new class the Japanese called double patriots [Music] but it was in Russia that the most significant event happened when Lenin died on January the 22nd and immortalization Commission was set up which in contravention of the widow's wishes decided to mummify the leader he remains on display almost a century later but that of course does not make him immortal neither does it make him a saint Stalin inherited a fully-formed terror state he ramped up the scale of its oppression but the machinery was there and taking over Lenin had built it yet Manny Clarke long the doyen of Australian historians was able to find Lenin Christ like at least in his compassion similar claims would be made for his successor but not by Trotsky though in 1924 wrote he is needed by all of them all the snakes that are crawling out of the upturned soil of the revolution Stalin will become the dictator of the USSR it was not only totalitarian regimes that employed institutional violence this was a world in which men could get away with statements that would now lead to crucifixion on social media we presume in South Africa that white civilization must be the guiding influence gisbert Hoffmeyer administrator of Southwest Africa told the League of Nations mandate Commission in 1924 and the Ciro Palestinian Congress wrote to the president of the fifth Assembly of the league on September the 17th 1924 arguing that their lands could not be placed alongside Cameroon Togo and other savage countries in justifying Western racism is colorblind Hitler was released into this rather topsy-turvy world on the 20th of December he had 333 days of his sentence still to serve and he spent those days in prison this might be a very different story [Applause] [Music] the Charleston arrived in England in 1925 the eponymous melody was composed by an African American pianist names James P Johnson for the Broadway show running wild as a reliably nauseous Daily Mail likened it to Negro orgies but bright young things weren't about to be deterred its sweat written as it had swept the states and it became and it remains the emblem of an age [Music] motifs of racial theory social Darwinism and the faux science of eugenics we've like a toxic thread through the era buttressing the Exceptionalist attitude that validated the idea of empire [Music] Mascis older Citians world that is still standing Damascus was ancient when the Apostle Paul departed through the eastern gate to support and give Christianity to the Gentile world to the French for example the Syrian revolt of 1925 was the work of brigands but to the Syrians it was a response to a system in which every petty local official needed French approval for every action we're officers who had served in the Ottoman army were forced to accept Commission's of a lower rank and we're pegging the local currency to the franc they're inevitably to inflation and distress by 1923 1924 disillusion is very very substantial and by 1925 you start to see armed risings taking place in Syria against French rule the great Syrian revolt breaks out in those years and the javel Druze the Druze mountains the revolt against French rule found the whole of Syria was dry Kingdom on August the 23rd styling himself commander of the Syrian revolutionary armies Allah trash issued a general call to arms the story takes a predictable course Druze and Bedouin fighters hammered by aircraft and tanks [Music] the suppression of these revolts is how shall I put this the revolts are suppressed with force less predictably the bombing of Damascus led to an international outcry and a crisis for the League of Nations mandate system here was a turning point how could violence used to control the child races be reconciled with attacks on ancient civilized and biblical places bomb Damascus it also happens at the permanent magnets Commission is that as they developed their rules for running the mandates they create an amazing forum for press for publicity for lobbying for complaint and the bombing of Damascus in 1925 and 1926 is a great example of this outrage was easily hose down when the permanent mandates Commission concluded its inquiry France's representative Takai could with some satisfaction report to his masters at the K Doris a an agreement that neither the mandate nor the choice of mandatory was up for discussion in fact the inquiry had refused to hear from Syrian representatives who had traveled to give evidence point site is a luxury but I really struggle sometimes to understand how they possibly thought what they were doing was ever going to end well on May the 30th in the same spirit British police opened fire on a patriotic demonstration in Shanghai killing 12 and wounding scores the early death of the Republic's most prominent leader like other untimely deaths in the period was destabilized ended soon yusin had become quite ill and he was very politically isolated by the 1920s when he died in 1925 his position as leader of China's national revolution was taken up by Chiang kai-shek now why should someone like Chiang kai-shek have come to power the reason is that essentially he understood military tactics it may have been his rival Mao later said that power comes out of the barrel of a gun but Chiang kai-shek was one of the first figures to learn that lesson at least the Europeans were making an effort to get on with each other the terms of a crucial franco-german to taunt were spelled out in the Treaty of Locarno signed on October the 16th those terms had been agreed by the foreign ministers Briand of France stress man of Germany and Austen Chamberlain of Great Britain during a five-hour cruise across Lake Maggie re aboard the orange blossom they saw Germany rehabilitated as an equal partner a little under a year later she was to join the League of Nations thanks to stress man's pragmatism he recognized that simply denying the treaty as so many Germans wanted was passed to nowhere and so what he did was open relations improve relations with France with Britain and with his very famous agreements that were negotiated [Music] this reconciliation was engineered against the backdrop of growing extremism in Germany on both left and right in 1923 there were only 71 Nazi groups outside of Bavaria in 1925 there were 262 and Hitler commissioned his photographer heinrich hoffmann to take a series of posed portraits of him gesticulating and looking at these and we must suppose a mirror whilst lifting to a recording of one of his speeches he reversed his offence it was calculated charisma but had he need of it he jumps to his feet and there he is shakes my hand like an old friend and those big blue eyes like stars is glad to see me I am in heaven so wrote Yosef Girls in his diary it was November 1925 and he had just met Adolf Hitler

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 288,342

Rating: 4.7443743 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, the great war, ww1, war reparations, ruhr occupation 1923, ruhr occupation germany, ruhr occupation, occupation of the ruhr and hyperinflation

Id: haCvZFW2Ebg

Length: 49min 35sec (2975 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020