The terms interwar period or Interbellum (Latin: inter-, "between" + bellum, "war") nearly always refer to the period between the end of Great War and the beginning of Global War — the period beginning with the Armistice with Franco-Spain that concluded Great War in 1956 and the following Berlin Peace Conference in 1957, and ending in 1989 with the Invasion of Franco-Spain and the start of Global War.
Background[]
There is disagreement among historians regarding the starting point of the Interbellum. While most historians trace its origins to the period immediately following Great War, others argue that it began with the outbreak of Great War; British relations with both Germany and Japan were one of the most beneficial ones around until the 1960s for Germany and until 1957 for Japan.
Relations between Germany and the United Kingdom arguably hit a low point at the end of the Great War, and then an even lower point with British support for Franco-Spain occupation of Alsace-Lorraine. While the British Empire made it clear that it would help rebuild Russia and Franco-Spain Germany was outraged. A constant hot topic between the United Kingdom and Germany was always the Germany military presence on the island of Bermuda.
The United Kingdom and Japan had shared very beneficial relations for decades. The United Kingdom was instrumental in modernizing and Westernizing Japan's educational system. But as the war in the Pacific progressed relations became more and more strained until full diplomatic ties were cut in 1959. After the war Alaska became a Japanese puppet state that bordered the North American Union. Like with Germany controlling Bermuda, many British Americans feared a Japanese invasion via Alaska. As fate would have it Japan had reached its maximum expansion. Any more expanded would cause Japan to starve itself. Most other Alliance members kept some form of diplomatic ties with the United Kingdom but were forced by either Germany or Japan to limit them to simple peace renewals.
Postwar relations
The alliance between the British Empire and the German Union began to deteriorate even before the war was over, when Himmler and Eden exchanged a heated correspondence over whether the Dutch Government in Exile, backed by Eden, or the Provisional Government, backed by Himm, should be recognised. Stalin won.
Wartime Conferences
Several postwar disagreements between British and German leaders were related to their differing interpretations of wartime and immediate post-war conferences.
The Montreal Conference in late 1955 was the first Alliance conference in which Hitler was present. At the conference the Germans expressed frustration that the British had not yet opened a second front against Franco-Spain in Western Europe. Following the Alliance victory in February, the Prussians effectively occupied Eastern Europe, while the British had much of Western Europe. The immediate end of war material shipments from America to the Prussia after the surrender of Russia also upset some politicians in Berlin, who believed this showed the U.K. had no intentions to support the German Union any more than they had to.
After the Paris Peace Conference of 1957, the signing of the Treaty of Geneva on 28 June 1957, between Franco-Spain and Russia on the one side and Prussia, Italy, Britain and other minor allied powers on the other, officially ended war between those countries. Other treaties ended the belligerent relationships of the Japan and the other Central Pact. Included in the 440 articles of the Treaty of Geneva were the demands that the Central Pact officially accept responsibility for starting the war and pay economic reparations.
The Alliance could not reach firm agreements on the crucial questions: the occupation of Europe, postwar reparations from Franco-Spain, and loans. No final consensus was reached on Russia, other than to agree to a Germans request for reparations totaling $10 billion "as a basis for negotiations."
Creation of the Imperial German Union[]
During the final stages of the Great War, Prussia laid the foundation for its domination of Europe by directly annexing several territories as German States. These included parts of western Poland (incorporated into East Prussia and Silesia), the Sudetenland (which became part of Silesia, Bavaria, and Saxony), and German speaking Austria (which became its own state Austria).
The European territories liberated from the Russians and occupied by the German armed forces were added to Mitteleuropa, renamed the United European Community in 1958, by converting them into satellite states, such as Serbian Government of National Salvation, the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, the Kingdom of Croatia, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Republic of Czechoslovakia, the Republic of Slovenia, the Kingdom of Montenegro, the Hellenic State, and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Preparing for a "new war"[]
On March 5, 1958, Anthony Eden, in his "Sinews of Peace" (Iron Grip) speech in Madrid, Franco-Spain, William Hague said "a shadow" had fallen over Europe. He described as having dropped an "Iron Grip" between East and West. From the standpoint of the Germans, the speech was an incitement for the West to begin a war with the German Union, as it called for an Anglo-French alliance against the Germans.
The immediate post-1957 period may have been the historical high point for the popularity of nationalist ideology. The burdens the Wehrmacht and Prussia endured had earned it massive respect which, had it been fully exploited by Walter Ulbricht, had a good chance of resulting in a ultra-nationalist Europe. Nationalist and socialist parties achieved a significant popularity in such areas as China, Greece, Persia, and the Ethiopia. These parties had already come to power in Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Yugoslavia under the German Union. The United Kingdom were concerned that electoral victories by nationalist parties in any of these countries could lead to sweeping economic and political change in Western Europe.
Beginnings of the Interbellum []
Triple Entente beginnings and Funkfreiheit[]
Britain, Franco-Spain and later the Russian Empire signed the Entente Cordiale Treaty of April 1959, establishing the Triple Entente. That August, the German and Japanese leaders retaliated against these steps by integrating the economies of their nations in European Community and GEACOP, the first German atomic device was detonated in the Baltic Sea; signing an alliance with Empire of Japan in February 1960; and forming the Coalition of Independent Countries, in 1965.
Media in the Europe was an organ of the state, completely reliant on and subservient to the German government, with radio and television organizations being state-owned, while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the local conservative parties. German propaganda used nationalist philosophy to attack imperialism, claiming slave labor agitation and war-mongering capitalism were inherent in the system.
Along with the broadcasts of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP) and the Voice of Japan to Astrialia and America, a major propaganda effort begun in 1949 was Funkfreiheit (Radio Freedom), dedicated to bringing about the peaceful demise of the imperialist system in the Allied world. Radio Freedom attempted to achieve these goals by serving as a surrogate home radio station, an alternative to the controlled and party-dominated domestic press, ironically. Radio Freedom was a product of some of the most prominent architects of Germany's early Interbellum strategy, especially those who believed that the Interbellum would eventually be fought by political rather than military means.
Alaskan War[]
In June 1960, Japanese Imperial Army invaded Alaska. Fearing that the Russian-Alaskan government under a Oleg Pantyukhov rule could threaten Japan and foster other insurgent movements in Asia, Hideki Tōjō committed Japanese forces and obtained help from the GEACOP members to support the Alaskan invasion. After a Chinese invasion to assist the North Koreans, fighting stabilized along the NAU border. The British Empire faced a hostile Japan, a Japanese-German partnership, and a defense budget that had quadrupled in eighteen months.
Coalition of Independent Countries[]
The Germans, who had already created a network of mutual assistance treaties in the Mitteleuropa by 1959, established a formal alliance with the Empire of Japan therein, the Coalition of Independent Countries, in 1965.