Why Did the Revolution Fail in Western Europe after the First World War - Essay Example

World War I, the ‘Great War’ came to an end at 11:00 on the 11th day of the eleventh month of 1918. In four and a quarter years of fighting there hadbeen more than 8 millions killed with a further 20 million wounded, and many permanently maimed (Battles of World War I, introduction). Human life and material resources had been recklessly squandered on an unprecedented scale. Three empires: Turkish, Russian and Austro-Hungarian, disintegrated. Communism became established in Russia. The United States of America finally took her place on the world stage. Such were the changes wrought by the war. Throughout Europe, the 1920’s were dominated by the after effects of World War I. Particularly speaking of the revolutions that took place after the First World War in Western Europe, many factors contributed to their failure. To analyze the circumstances that led to the failure of the Italian revolution, we must take a look on the political, economical happenings on the Italian scene before, during and after the First World War. That period of the Italian history presents in general a most melancholy spectacle (Modern European History, 153). This period was indeed marked by the failure in developing effective parliamentary institutions. Power remained in the hands of two coalitions of parties, the Left and the Right. No essential differences were to be found between the two parties so the odds of building a constructive debate or alternation of power were slim. In fact, the hostility of the church continued to embarrass Italian governments. Not until 1904 did the pope officially allow Catholics to vote and no Catholic party was founded until 1919. From the late 1880s national discontent showed itself in the growth of an extreme socialist movement (Modern European History, 154). The resort to violence in national life was distressing. In Milan, riots in Milan led to the death of 80 people on 1987, three years later, King Humbert was murdered. Between 1901 and 1913, Giolitti, an Italian statesman laid the foundations of a Welfare state and made genuine attempts to help the South, leading consequently to an improvement in the quality of life matched by the radical progress of the Italian economy. On 2 August 1914 the Italian government announced that it would be neutral (Europe between the wars, 131). The government feared Germany’s power and did not wish to antagonize Austria-Hungary to not decrease its chances of taking some territories in compensation for Trentino and Albania.The Italian public approved this decision. Neutrality, however, had its dangers. Whichever side won the war would have scent regard for Italian ambitions, especially the Central Powers, who felt that the Allied victory at the Marne was due to the removal by the French of 10 of their divisions from the Italian frontier (Modern European History, 154). Therefore Salandra’s government negotiated with both sides to extract generous terms by which Italy might enter the war. The allies managed to get the deal and in April 1915 the treaty of London was signed, committing Italy to enter the war on the site of the Entente in return for south Tyrol, Trentino, Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia, Valona and the Dodecanese. The high hopes with which Italy went to war were soon destroyed having her armies fighting on Europe’s most difficult front. Due to the many years of failure experienced by the Italian army, the United States refused to be bound by the treaty of London. The impact of war on the standard of living and social stability undermined national life. The war has had strained government finances and the public debt has risen nearly sevenfold. The victims of the war were the middle class, it suffered from higher taxation and the cost of living rose sharply because of the decline in the value of the lira. The immediate post-war years were therefore characterized by social unrest. Millions of work days were lost by strikes indeed. On the political scene, neither the Socialist nor the Catholic party could, on its own, provide the nucleus of a stable coalition. The Socialists opposed parliamentary procedures and were fragmented by disputes over whether or not to work within the system leading eventually to detachment of the extremists to form a communist party. The popular party also lacked homogeneity for its members ranged from clerical reactionaries to Christian Democrat radicals. These ideological differences stood against the creation of a coalition. Between 1018 and 1922 there were five governments with constant cabinet reshuffles. It is impossible to examine that period of the Italian history without evoking one of the most important figures in the Italian history, Mussolini. In the beginning chief editor of the socialist party newspaper, Avanti, he broke with the official social line of opposition to intervention in the war. Consequently, the Socialists expelled him from the party and from his job as editor of Avanti so he started a new paper Il Popolo d’Italia (the Italian people). At the end of the war, Mussolini searched for new means of self aggrandizement. He summoned a meeting in Milan during which he proclaimed the birth of Fascism. However, in the elections of 1919, not one fascist was elected. In 1920, Mussolini moderated his policies, cutting down his tirades against the Church, the monarchy and capitalism. But it was the scare brought about by the occupation of the factories by the workers that brought widespread support for the Fascists, who claimed to be the saviours of the nation in the face of the socialist menace (Modern European History, 156). The industrialists began to give financial support, which formed about three quarters of Fascist revenue. Events began to play into Mussolini’s hands for in January 1921 the socialist party split. The communists formed their own separate party and the consequences of the breach was that membership of both parties was halved in 1921. In May, Giolitti, the prime minister, sprang elections on the country in the hope of breaking the Social and popular parties and he included the Fascists in a new coalition ‘National Bloc’. After an election campaign characterized by the violence of the fascist squads, Mussolini with 34 of his colleagues were elected. Despite a peace pact with Socialists in August 1921, violence continued and opposition from his own ranks forced Mussolini to denounce the pact in November, and a new campaign was launched against the Socialists. The violence used was connived at by many sectors of public opinion and by the army and police also. It was left for Mussolini now to gain the benevolent neutrality of the Church and monarchy. He made a speech in which he indicated that he was now ready to renounce his republican ideas. In August, a general strike had been called for by the Socialists but it was a total failure. It gave Mussolini an even better claim for standing against the Socialists. Mussolini decided to take a move towards power. With 50,000 Blackshirts, fascist paramilitary groups, began to enter Rome, and due to the fragility of Facta’s government, the king sought to entrust the task of forming a new government to Salandra and Mussolini. When Mussolini refused, the king invited him to come from Milan on October 29 to form a new government. Many circumstances stood aside and connived at the Fascist victory. The police and the army made no move to stop the Blackshirts. In addition to that, Victor Emmanuel III was disposed to accept the Fascists for feared the possibility of losing his throne to his ambitious cousin, the duke of Aosta, who enjoyed great popularity because of his war record and could be sure of Fascist backing if the king were difficult. Finally the queen Mother Margherita, was a fervent Fascist supporter. The influence of the Roman Catholic Church too was being used on behalf of the Fascists. Pius XI, seeing the Fascists as a lesser evil than the Socialists, ordered all priests to withdraw from politics gave no support to the Popular Party. Mussolini announced the formation of a coalition cabinet, including members from the Liberals, Nationalists, Popular and Socialist parties. True revolution was only to come in January 1925, Meanwhile Mussolini moved in the direction of more totalitarian power, pushing the opposition into believing that he was not really different from his predecessors. The freedom of speech faced rigid control. In 1923, Acerbo, a fascist politician, drafted a new electoral, it provided that whichever party received the largest number of votes would obtain two thirds of the seats in the chamber. Fascist violence in the election of 1924 ensured that the party obtained 64 per cent of the votes. In fact, the Blackshirts developed into a permanent Fascist militia whose support was to help Mussolini stay in power. In May 1924,a young socialist ,Matteotti, denounced fascist abuses during the election and challenged the validity of the results. In June, he was kidnapped by Fascists in Rome and stabbed to death. His body found later, indignation reigned in the country causing a political crisis for Mussolini. The public reversion against Fascism was a great opportunity for the opposition to unseat Mussolini but they ,lacking key figures like Giolitti and Salandra, failed to grasp it. A minority of Socialists and Popularists withdrew from Parliament. Amendola, the head of the Opposition movement, hoped to destroy Mussolini’s regime by making it completely isolated, he hoped that Victor Emmanuel would dismiss Mussolini but the king refused to act. Finally the attitude of the Church was also assistant to Mussolini, the Pope had forced the resignation of the Popular Party’s most determined figure, Sturzo, and in he condemned the Popular Party itself and ordered all priests to resign from it. Mussolini gradually regained his composure and was able to launch his regime on a truly dictatorial path. Amendola was beaten up and died soon after, the political parties and Opposition newspapers were all suppressed. In December, a degree made Mussolini head of the Fascist Grand Council and he was no longer accountable to Parliament. Only the king had the power to dismiss him. The bureaucracy was filled only with his appointees, a secret police (O.V.R.A) was established and individual liberty was now circumscribed. The Acerbo Law of 1923 was replaced in 1928, under which the Fascist Grand Council would choose 400 from a list of nominated candidates and present them to the electorate for approval. In effect, this law ended the liberal system and replaced it with a rubber-stamp plebiscite (Modern European History, 158). Italy was now a one-party state under the dictatorship of Mussolini. The situation in Spain was not much different from the one in Italy, political and economical instabilities also led to the failure of all revolting attempts. Before the First World War, the situation in Spain was critical. The Spanish army’s defeat in the American War of 1898 and subsequent disasters in North Africa did much to call into question both monarchical leadership and military privilege (Europe Between the wars, 234). However, for Spain the First World War was a period of relative prosperity. Substantial profits were made in exports to France, the trade deficit was eliminated, the national debt repatriated and there was an impressive growth of banking capital. Although wages rose considerably in some sectors of industry, only few instances managed to keep up with the rate of inflation, when the employers were assumed to be sharing the boom profits of a country which was able to trade under exceptionally favourable conditions. Inevitably this led to an increased militancy among organized labour and in 1916 the socialist trades union Organization UGT threatened a general strike for higher wages and vaguely evoked the idea of revolution. The socialists were then drawn into an alliance with moderate republicans. They claimed the convocation of a constituent assembly aiming for a ‘national regeneration’. The alliance didn’t persist for the right feared the social revolution which the left was demanding. Strikes broke out in 1917 which were politically motivated, exceedingly violent, sporadic and ultimately ineffectual. In the Cortes the reform movement fell apart to give Spain an extremely divided parliament. With the end of the war the boom was over. Unemployment and falling wages strengthened the unions’ and the employers’ motivation to fight back. In 1919 there was a general strike in Barcelona that caused the declaration of a state of war .Frustrated at this attempt at a revolutionary strike; the anarchists resorted increasingly to a terrorism and murder. But these were gestures of sheer frustration as the workers’ enthusiasm for strike action had declined markedly(Europe between the wars, 235). Much of the blame for the failure of the strikes was placed by the anarchists on the UGT, the socialist trades union Organization, against whom ludicrous charges were levelled and considerable violence perpetrated. The anarchist revolutions went to a term and Spain was delivered to the dictatorship of Primo de Rivero. The German revolution met the same end as the Italian and the Spanish one. It took place between 1918 and 1919 when it was certain that Germany lost the war against the Allies. Admiral Paul Von Hintze, the state secretary for foreign affairs, suggested a modest democratic reform to be made, so as to meet the Allies’ insistence that they would only treat with a democratic German government. For the same reason of political and economical instability, the revolution wasn’t able to maintain its results. The impact of the war on the German society was major indeed. Germany had lost 2 million dead, the people were half starved and the fears of unemployment and inflation grew. The Weimar republic went through severe attacks by People’s party and by Socialist German workers led by Hitler as they described them as traitors. It was vital therefore that the republic be able to rely upon the fundamental institutions like the judiciary, the civil service and the army but such was not the case. The revolution of 1918 had left intact the pillars of the former regime: the junkers, the army, the bureaucracy, the great industrialists and the judges. These were more often in opposition to than behind the infant republic. The abuse of power executed by the new judiciary system dug the grave of the revolution and opened the door for Hitler’s dictatorship. Unlike big revolutions like the French and the Russian ones, the post World War I revolutions in the western European countries were more of revolts as they were not executed according to a relevant plan. They lacked organization and key figures. The world scene has also played an important role in the failure of these revolutions. The economical and political ups and downs participated in weakening up the spirit of rebels. Later in the century, in more favourable circumstances, the three concerned Countries Italy, Spain and Germany managed to make successful revolutions on 1948, 1936 and 1948 consecutively. Sources: **Anthony Levesy,Great Battles of World War I, MACMILLAW PUBLISHING company, 1989. **K.Perry, Modern European History, British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data, 1976. **Buth Henig, The Origins of the Second World War, Methien, 1985. **Martin Kitchen, Europe between the Wars, Methien, 1988. **Christopher J.Ross, Spain 1812-1996, Arnold Publishers Co-published in the United States by Oxford University press Inc., 2000. **Johan Traynor, Europe 1890-1990, Nelson, 1991. Read More