Chapter Twenty: Collapse at the Center

Hello Historians,

Chapter 20: Collapse at the Center, is an overview of what important events happened. For instance, the war that still has an impact on today's society, is the first World War: European Civilization in Crisis, which took place in 1914 to 1918. During this period, Europe had an ever-growing prominent position on the global scale, they were driven by its growing military capacity and the wonders of its Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. This situation provided the foundation for the European pride, self-confidence, and sense of superiority. Only few have imagined that this "ivory tower" of European dominance would burn to the ground more than a century later.

Legacies of the Great War:

The "Great War" demolished almost all expectations. Most Europeans believed in the summer of late 1914, but instead the war was relentlessly tackled by German occupation. At the beginning, most of the military experts expected a war of movement and attack, but it toned down on the western front into a war of attrition, in which "trench warfare" resulted in HUGE casualties while gaining or losing only a few miles of muddy, blood drenched ground. However, the aftermath of the war brought substantial, social and cultural changes to the environment. Thus, assuring the ever growing cities in Europe and America.

Capitalism Unraveling: The Great Depression:

Explaining its onset, its widespread from America to Europe and so forth, and its continuation for a decade has been a difficult task for people to dissolve. The tensions of the Depression era often found political expression in Latin America in the form of military takeover of the state. Such governments sought to stir their countries away from an earlier dependence on exports towards more independent countries for them to generate more industries within their own country.

The Fascist Alternative in Europe:

In 1919 and 1945, a brand new political ideology (fascism) found its expression and influence throughout Europe. With their ideas, fascism consider themselves as being nationalistic, their mission was seeking to purify and maintain their nation and were hopeful to mobilize its people to prepare them fro a bigger plan in its scheme. Small movements (fascists) has come up in many Western European countries, that included France, Great Britain, and even in the Netherlands. Both Conservative and Authoritarian regimes that took place in Latin America sometimes adopted the same ideas the same as fascism.
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) was a very charismatic man and a former journalist with a socialist background. The help of the private military that was made up of former veterans and jobless men (Black Shirts), Mussolini came to power in 1922, hoping for a more alternative to both communism and bad democratic rule.

Hitler and the Nazis:

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). Just like Italy and its regime, Germany's similar ideas were similar to that of its counterpart. Openly nationalistic, it advocated the use of violence as a political tool, generated a single party dictatorship. Furthermore, they were led by charismatic leaders, which they despised parliamentary democracy, that hated communism, and viewed war as a positive and eye-opening experience. This happen to be the book in which Adolf hitler's National Socialist (Nazi Party) gained growing public support. The (Nazi Party) was founded shortly after the end of WW1, that party under Hitler's leadership gave way a new era, a new message of intense German nationalism cast in terms of racial superiority, bitter hatred for Jews; considering them to be an alien presence, and their passionate opposition to the Nazi regime, hence, their determination to rescue Germany from the humiliating requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, and the willingness to tackle the country's problems.