Chapter 3: Boring Stuff of Modern European History That We Usually Ignore
Yes, this is the boring chapter, the one we all often ignore in our history books. Yet the information here will turn out very useful for understanding many of the pivotal events leading up to WWII and the Holocaust. So I encourage you not to skip this chapter.
We first have to take a quick overview of some consequences of the Treaty of Versailles signed on June 28, 1919, following the Paris Peace Conference begun in January 1919 at the end of WWI. We will, though, save the effects of the peace treaty on Germany until Chapter 4.
We will be going quickly over three important events:
• The creation of Czechoslovakia
• The creation of Yugoslavia
• The tightening of U.S. immigration
Below is a brief overview from the site of the Office of the Historian of the U.S. (still available online although no longer maintained).
“The Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles: Negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference were complicated. The United Kingdom, France, and Italy fought together as the Allied Powers during the First World War. The United States entered the war in April 1917 as an Associated Power.
“Treaty negotiations were also weakened by the absence of other important nations. Russia had fought as one of the Allies until December 1917, when its new Bolshevik Government withdrew from the war. The Allied Powers refused to recognize the new Bolshevik Government and thus did not invite its representatives to the Peace Conference. The Allies also excluded the defeated Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria).
“According to French and British wishes, the Treaty of Versailles subjected Germany to strict punitive measures. The Treaty required the new German Government to surrender approximately 10 percent of its prewar territory in Europe and all of its overseas possessions. It placed the harbor city of Danzig (now Gdansk) and the coal-rich Saarland under the administration of the League of Nations, and allowed France to exploit the economic resources of the Saarland until 1935.”
Also from the Office of the Historian of the U.S.:
“The League of Nations, 1920: The League of Nations was an international organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, created after the First World War to provide a forum for resolving international disputes. Though first proposed by President Woodrow Wilson … for an equitable peace in Europe, the United States never became a member.”
Here’s part of an entry from Britannica on the newly formed Czechoslovakia:
“When the new country of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed on Oct. 28, 1918 … the first task of the new state, to establish its borders, was undertaken at the Paris Peace Conference, where the historical frontiers separating Bohemia and Moravia from Germany and Austria were approved, with minor rectifications, in favor of the new republic.
“The second task of the new government, to secure the loyalty of its approximately 15 million citizens, proved onerous as well. The borders of Czechoslovakia encompassed not only Czechs and Slovaks but also Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenians, and Poles. About 15 percent of the people were Slovaks; they were a valuable asset to the Czechs, who made up about half the population. Together, these two linguistically close groups constituted a healthy majority in the cobbled-together state.”
Here’s part of an entry from Britannica on the newly formed Yugoslavia:
“After the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 ended Ottoman rule in the Balkan Peninsula and Austria-Hungary was defeated in World War I, the Paris Peace Conference underwrote a new pattern of state boundaries in the Balkans. The major beneficiary there was a newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which comprised the former kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro (including Serbian-held Macedonia), as well as Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austrian territory in Dalmatia and Slovenia, and Hungarian land north of the Danube River.
“After a decade of acrimonious party struggle, King Alexander I in 1929 … declared a royal dictatorship and changed the name of the state to Yugoslavia. The historical regions were replaced by nine prefectures, all drafted deliberately to cut across the lines of traditional regions. None of these efforts reconciled conflicting views about the nature of the state, until in 1939 Croat and Serb leaders negotiated the formation of a new prefecture uniting Croat areas under a single authority with a measure of autonomy. Whether this would have laid the basis for a durable settlement is unclear, as the first Yugoslavia was brought to an end by World War II and the Axis Powers’ invasion in April 1941.”
Station break: Let’s lighten up this chapter with an old joke that has affinity to this dizzying list of countries:
A tax collector comes every year to a peasant and collects the taxes in rubles. One year the tax collector asks for payment in zlotys. “Why zlotys?” the peasant asks. “Because this is no longer Russia; it’s now Poland,” the tax collector replies. “Thank heavens, I hated those Russian winters!”
Major changes in U.S. immigration policies:
Yes, all my grandparents came as immigrants to the U.S. – from Latvia, Tiraspol, Odessa – early in the 20th Century, although they didn’t all enter via the port of New York City. They were lucky they came then, because at that time Emma Lazarus’s poem was still accurate: “Give me your tired, your poor….”
Then after WWI that U.S. immigration hospitality underwent a dramatic shift. As Pew Research states on its site:
“By the early 1900s, the nation’s predominant immigration flow shifted away from northern and western European nations and toward southern and eastern Europe. In response, laws were passed in 1921 and 1924 to try to restore earlier immigration patterns by capping total annual immigration and imposing numerical quotas based on immigrant nationality that favored northern and western European countries.”
And for the Jews desperate to get away from Hitler once he took power in Germany in 1933 – those changes in U.S. immigration policy meant a death sentence for so many.
Chapter 1: What You Know About the Holocaust Is Probably Wrong or Incomplete
Chapter 2: The STAB IN THE BACK German Lie Blaming the Communists and the Jews for Losing WWI