For many, the war continued. The Treaty of Versailles that formally ended the war also redrew the borders of Europe, with the idea of turning the previously existing multi-ethnic empires into states of a single ethnic group. New states included Turkey, Yugoslavia, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Czechoslovakia and reshaped the map of Europe.

However, these two ideas-new borders and a single ethnic group in each state-led to more conflict as many countries were unhappy with the borders. Others began campaigns to expel members of a different ethnic group. For example, the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 was fought as the Greek government worked to protect the Greeks living in Turkey from an ethnic cleansing campaign. The Greeks invaded Turkey and seized about a quarter of the Turkish territory before being pushed by the Turkish government. The new Soviet government also began an aggressive campaign to spread its revolution throughout Eastern Europe which included invading Poland before finally being expelled. While the wars were more local in nature and on small scale than World War One, for the civilians, the conflicts were equally deadly.

European fascism is an extreme political movement that capitalized on the return to an idealized past, while promising to contain threats posed by modernity, class conflict, supposed immortality, socialism, and the rise of big business. Fascists were obsessed with national security focused on building up the military, and often promise a crack-down on illegal behavior. Ironically, the focus on extreme nationalism, beefing up defense, and attacking labor unions helped the rich at the expense of the everyday worker. In addition to attacking the rights of the working class, women were largely confined to the house. Fascists possessed an overall disregard for individual rights in favor of the collective interest of the nation. Towards this end, they would eliminate any group or organization that they did not control. As European economies struggled, the middle class felt threatened and democracy failed to provide an answer.Therefore, many in Europe increasingly supported a new generation of fascist politicians who promised change.

Hitler’s Speech on Women: “We do not consider it correct for the woman to interfere in the world of the man, in his main sphere. We consider it natural if these two worlds remain distinct. To the one belongs the strength of feeling, the strength of the soul. To the other belongs the strength of vision, of toughness, of decision, and of the willingness to act. In the one case this strength demands the willingness of the woman to risk her life to preserve this important cell and to multiply it, and in the other case it demands from the man the readiness to safeguard life.”