France: The Insecure Peace; From Versailles to the Great Depression

151, [1] pages. Illustrations (some in color). Chronology of Events. Index of main people, places, and events. Author's suggestions for further reading. This is one of the Library of the 20th Century. John Patrick Tuer Bury was very much a Cambridge man. Nephew of a Regius Professor of Modern History, and the son of a Cambridge LittD, he himself held a Fellowship at Corpus Christi College for over fifty-four years (1933-87), and, following appointment as Lecturer in History in 1937, remained a loyal and hard-working member of the History Faculty until his retirement in 1975. This service, both to college and university, was interrupted only by spells with the Ministry of Supply and with the Foreign Office during World War II. A leading authority on the French Third Republic, he published, over nearly fifty years, three classic studies of Le on Gambetta, which in conjunction with his other studies of French history, and of Anglo-French relations, earned him the respect and affection of historians in both countries. Bury was also heavily involved in the compilation of that massive cooperative post-war labor, the Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-39. He edited volume ten of the New Cambridge Modern History (1960). Interwar France covers the political, economic, diplomatic, cultural and social history of France from 1919 to 1939. France suffered heavily during World War I in terms of lives lost, disabled veterans and ruined agricultural and industrial areas occupied by Germany as well as heavy borrowing from the United States, Britain, and the French people. However, postwar reconstruction was rapid, and the long history of political warfare along religious lines was finally ended. Parisian culture was world-famous in the 1920s, with expatriate artists, musicians and writers from across the globe contributing their cosmopolitanism, such as jazz music, and the French empire was in flourishing condition, especially in North Africa, and in Subsaharan Africa. Although the official goal was complete assimilation, few colonial subjects were actually assimilated. Major concerns were forcing Germany to pay for the war damage by reparations payments and guaranteeing that Germany, with its much larger population, would never be a military threat in the future. Efforts to set up military alliances worked poorly. Relations remained very tense with Germany until 1924, when they stabilized thanks to large American bank loans. However, after 1929 the German economy was very badly hit by the Great Depression, and its political scene descended into chaos and violence. The Nazis under Hitler took control in early 1933 and aggressively rearmed. Paris was bitterly divided between pacifism and rearmament, so it supported London's efforts to appease Hitler. French domestic politics became increasingly chaotic and grim after 1932, moving back and forth between right and left, without clear goals in mind. The economy finally succumbed to the Great Depression by 1932 and did not recover. The popular mood turned very sour and focused its wrath on the corruption and scandals in high government places. There was a growing threat of politicized right-wing violence in the streets of Paris, but the numerous right-wing groupings were unable to forge a political coalition. On the left, the Popular Front pulled together Radicals (a centrist group), socialists and communists. The coalition stayed in power for 13 months from 1936 to 1937. After massive labor union strikes, it passed a series of reforms designed to help the working classes. The reforms were mostly failures, and the disheartened Popular Front collapsed on foreign policy issues. War came when Hitler's Germany stunningly reached a détente with Stalin's Soviet Union in August 1939, and both countries invaded Poland In September 1939. France and Britain had pledged to defend Poland and so declared war on Germany.…