And that was what happened in Ireland. The British government finally realized it couldn’t keep Ireland by force, so it suggested a compromise. Ireland would become a free country, but would have to stay part of the British Empire, while the six provinces of Northern Ireland, where most people were Protestants, would go on being part of Great Britain. Protestants in Northern Ireland were proud of being British, and didn’t want to live in a country where most people were Catholics.
Michael Collins, one of the leaders of the Irish Republican Army, went to Dublin Castle to become Ireland’s first free prime minister. When the British governor complained that he was seven minutes late, Collins just laughed.
“We Irish have been waiting for freedom over seven hundred years,” he said, “you can have the extra seven minutes.”
But many Irish hated the British proposal, and didn’t think the Irish Parliament, the Dáil, should have agreed to it.
“Freedom ought to mean freedom for the whole island of Ireland!” they said. “We’ll never swear loyalty to the British Empire!”
And they killed Michael Collins and began a civil war. It went on for a year, but the Irish didn’t really stop quarrelling until Ireland left the British Empire ten years later. Even then, the troubles of Northern Ireland were not over. Today the six provinces of Northern Ireland are still part of Britain, but Republicans and Loyalists still quarrel, and terrorists sometimes attack British soldiers. And Protestants and Catholics still look at each other with hatred and suspicion, never knowing if the violence of the past will explode into their lives again.
The Russian Revolution
IRELAND wasn’t the only part of the world where fighting went on after the Great War was over. There was even more trouble in Russia, where communists began a revolution, killed the czar, and turned Russia into a communist state. Russia had never had a proper parliament or fair law courts. The czar decided everything. So when the Great War went badly for the Russians, it wasn’t surprising they complained about the czar.
“Why should we die for a country we have no say in?” they asked each other.
To start with, the revolutionaries only wanted to set up a free parliament and make fair laws. “Just like in Britain and America,” they said.
But at a time of revolution it is always the most violent and determined people who win out, just as they did in the French Revolution, a hundred years before. The communists’ leader was called Vladimir Ulyanov. He had read Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’s books about a world where the workers were in charge, there were no factory owners, everything was shared and everyone was equal. He had spent his whole life trying to start a revolution, and had even given himself a revolutionary new name – Lenin.
“Setting up a parliament won’t give workers enough to eat,” he shouted. “We need to change the whole system!”
Lenin was abroad when the revolution started, but he quickly caught a train back to Russia. The capital, Petrograd, was in turmoil, as soldiers rushed around the streets trying to keep order, politicians spent hours in meetings, and the czar issued orders that no one obeyed.
The disturbances went on for months, and for a time Lenin had to flee abroad, but that October he gathered his followers together. “We’re going to take charge tonight,” he told them.
That night, communist sailors from the navy directed their guns at the royal capital, communist soldiers attacked the czar’s palace and factory workers marched into the city, waving the communists’ red flag. Lenin and the communists drove all the aristocrats out of Russia, divided their palaces into flats for poor people, and gave factories to the workers and farms to the peasants.
“It’s our land now,” they said proudly.
They murdered the czar and his family, closed churches because they didn’t believe in religion, and even changed Russia’s name. It became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR.
For years countries like Britain and France had been frightened of the communists taking over; now there was a country where they actually had. Workers in Russia marched up and down the streets waving their huge red banners.
“Soon there will be revolutions everywhere!” they shouted.
Was that what the future held? Would workers take over Glasgow, Cardiff, London and Dublin, fly red flags over the Houses of Parliament, and turn Britain communist too? That was what British politicians feared. And when British workers went on strike, it looked to them as if the communist revolution was beginning.
The General Strike
MANY workers in Britain did want things to change. Although not many joined the communists, most belonged to unions and became members of the Labour Party, which became larger at every election, while the Liberal Party shrank.
The excitement of beating Germany didn’t last long, for the Great War had been very expensive, and, after being the richest country in the world for centuries, Britain suddenly felt poor. People had been promised new homes and better schools after the war; instead they lost their jobs.
When coal miners in Wales were told their wages would be cut, they went on strike. The mine owners refused to listen to them, so the other unions called a general strike, and declared no one in Britain would work at all. There would be no electricity, no coal, no milk, no schools or newspapers, and all the factories would shut down. Everything in Britain would stop.
“This is the revolution!” the politicians said nervously to each other. “The communists are going to take over here as well!”
But most of the strikers weren’t communists; they just wanted more money, better homes, decent heating and enough to eat. Britain was getting fairer, but not fast enough.
On the day the strike began, there were no buses in the streets and the stations were empty because there were no trains. Soon shops began to run out of food.
Many people began grumbling about the strikers. “If we don’t give the workers what they want, they’ll starve us to death,” they said. “That’s blackmail!”
“We’re only asking for what’s fair!” the strikers protested.
But most people didn’t think Britain would be better if the workers ran the country. They could see what was happening in the USSR, where Lenin had died and a new leader, Stalin, had taken over.
“Who will make decisions now we’re all equal?” the Russians asked Stalin.
“The communists will,” Stalin answered.
“And who’s in charge of the communists?”
“I am,” Stalin said, and when the Russians looked around their towns, they saw Stalin’s face staring down from huge posters on every wall.
Stalin drove farmers off their farms and made shopkeepers give up their shops, while his secret police arrested anyone who disagreed with him.
“What’s so fair about that?” asked people in Britain.
After the General Strike had gone on for a few days, the army started delivering food, while volunteers drove buses and trains. At last the strikers realized how few people supported them, and called the strike off.
Some things about Britain may have been unfair, but no one wanted a revolution.
The Great Depression
AFTER the General Strike, the factories opened again and the strikers went back to work. But if they hoped things would get better, they were disappointed. For soon afterwards the whole world was struck by an economic disaster that made the rich poor and left the poor with nothing.
In the old days people suffered when their crops failed. Today we suffer when the economy crashes. Everyone stops buying houses, so builders lose their jobs. Without work or money they stop buying things, so factory workers lose their jobs. Then they can’t buy anything either, so more factories close and everyone gets poorer.
The crash, which became known as the Great Depression, started in America. Ever since the Great War, America had been the richest and most exciting country in the world. Ordinary American families lived like rich people anywhere else. Henry Ford designed a motor car cheap
enough for everyone to buy, and his factory made thousands of Ford cars every week. Movies were invented and actors went to Hollywood to star in them. Musicians played jazz, and architects built huge towers they called skyscrapers. As companies grew richer, their shareholders grew wealthy as well, and some became millionaires. Then everyone wanted to buy shares, so the prices went up and up, and people got even richer.
But everyone had forgotten how risky it is to invest in shares. The boom couldn’t last for ever – it was a bubble, just like the South Sea Bubble in England two hundred years before – and one day, the price of shares crashed. People withdrew their money from banks, so the banks ran out of money. Factories closed and workers lost their jobs. Some of the bankers, realizing their wealth was gone, killed themselves by jumping out of the windows of their skyscrapers.
The crash didn’t only ruin America but Britain too, where millions of men and women lost their jobs. Children came home from school to find their fathers sitting on the sofa, head in hands. No work meant no more jazz records or rides in motor cars; it meant nothing to eat. Fathers spent hours standing in queues, only to be told there were no jobs to be had.
The north of England suffered worst. Once, the north had been called “the workshop of the world”, and machines from Leeds and steel from Sheffield could be found everywhere from Africa to Afghanistan. Now the factory gates were shut, and nobody made anything.
“The politicians have got to listen to us,” said some out-of-work men in Jarrow, on the Tyne, and they decided to march to London to ask the government to help.
Their leader was Ellen Wilkinson, one of the first women MPs, who was called “Red Ellen” not only because of the colour of her hair, but because red was the colour of the Labour Party. As they marched to London, people came out of their houses to watch the Jarrow Crusade go by with red flags flying. They handed packets of food to the hungry marchers, and at night friendly farmers let them sleep in their barns.
But when they reached London, the marchers found there was nothing the government could do to help. The whole world had fallen into the Great Depression, and the government had no money either. So the Jarrow marchers returned home as hungry as ever, and the Depression went on.
Terrible as the Depression was in Britain, it was even worse in Germany, the country that had lost the Great War. There, the Depression caused millions to lose their jobs and made the currency crash so badly that banknotes became worthless. It ruined cities and starved families. Worse than that, it brought a frightening new leader to power.
His name was Adolf Hitler.
The Nazis
AFTER the Great War, the German kaiser was driven from his throne and the communists began a revolution. Although they failed, German politicians never managed to put together a proper government, and no one was sure what to believe in any more. Wounded soldiers sat in the streets begging for bread. Old women sold their rings to buy food.
A group of people called fascists thought that Germany needed a strong leader to tell everyone what to do. Gangs of them, waving black flags, attacked gangs of communists, who waved red flags.
“Down with the communists!” shouted the fascists. “We need a leader to follow – a new hero for Germany!”
Adolf Hitler was their leader, although he didn’t look much like a hero. He was small and weedy, and had no friends. He had fought in the Great War, but wasn’t a very good soldier; he had studied to be an artist, but wasn’t a very good painter. Unfortunately Adolf Hitler possessed the most dangerous weapon in the world. He was quite sure that what he said was right.
When people are feeling scared and unhappy, they often listen to those who are sure of themselves – even madmen they’d usually be sensible enough to ignore. “He seems to know what he’s doing,” they say. “It’s good to have a leader who knows what he wants!”
The Germans were feeling scared and unhappy, so more and more of them listened to Hitler.
“We should have won the Great War,” Hitler told the Germans. “It wasn’t our fault we lost – it was the communists’ fault!”
And his party, the Nazis, began attacking communists.
“Germany ought to be as great a nation as Britain or France!” Hitler insisted. “It isn’t our fault we aren’t.” And he lowered his voice and hissed, “It’s the Jews’ fault!”
So the Nazis attacked Jews as well.
Jews had lived in Germany for centuries. They dressed and spoke just like other Germans, but on the Sabbath their synagogues were filled with candles and the chanting of prayers.
When people want to blame someone else for their own troubles, they often pick on outsiders, just as playground bullies pick on children who are smaller than everyone else, or who look different. Hitler told the Germans to blame communists and Jews for Germany’s problems, and because they were scared and unsure of themselves, they listened to him and elected him chancellor of Germany.
Calling himself Der Führer, which is German for “the leader”, Hitler passed laws to make Jews wear yellow stars on their clothes, so that everyone could see who they were. People spat at Jews in the street and refused them jobs. One night, the Nazis smashed up every Jewish shop in Berlin.
Some Germans remembered that their country had once been a peaceful place, famous for philosophy and music. “What is happening to us?” they whispered. But there were too few of them to stop the Nazis. Jews began to leave Germany. Some went to Palestine. Palestine (which was then run by Britain) had been the Jews’ home centuries before, and they dreamed of starting a new Jewish country there. Others went to America, Holland or Britain. Sometimes a whole family couldn’t afford to leave Germany, so the children were sent by themselves.
“Don’t worry about us,” their mothers and fathers said as they kissed them goodbye at the station. “We’ll come and join you soon!” But when the train was out of sight, they said to each other, “At least our children will be safe. God knows what will happen to us!”
The children arrived in London carrying nothing but some clothes and a favourite book or teddy bear. London didn’t look like home, or smell like it. The food was different, and passers-by stared at them as if they were animals from the circus. Even the street signs were strange, and the policemen wore odd uniforms. Strangers came up, asked questions they didn’t understand, and plucked at the yellow stars on their coats.
“They mean to be kind,” sisters explained to their brothers in German. “They’re trying to help us.”
In fact the British government did little – it had too many mouths to feed already. Instead, the refugees from Germany were looked after by British Jews, or by kindly people who saw them standing at the docks and befriended them. They were grateful for the help they were given, but couldn’t stop thinking about home. And at night, unable to sleep, they fingered the dirty yellow stars they had unpicked from their coats, and wondered what was happening in Germany.
Hitler and Germany
IN Germany it wasn’t long before the Nazis declared that there wouldn’t be any more elections, and that they would rule for ever. Like bullies who force everyone else to play their game, they made everyone behave like a Nazi. All Germans had to use the Nazi salute, by sticking one arm straight out in front of them, and display the Nazi symbol, the swastika, which looked like a twisted cross.
And Germany wasn’t the only fascist country in Europe. Italy had a fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, who called himself Il Duce. In Spain there was a civil war between communists and fascists. Communists from Britain went to fight in the war, but Hitler sent his soldiers to help the Spanish fascists, and they won. Their dictator was called General Franco.
In Russia Stalin made everyone do what he wanted, even though he called himself a communist, not a fascist. Once, communism had sounded like a fair idea. In fact, “everyone being equal” turned out to mean “everyone being exactly the same”; and “no bosses” turned out to mean that the Communist Party was the boss. It had far too much power, and anyon
e who disagreed with Stalin was shot or sent to jail. Millions of Russians were condemned to prison camps, and forced to work until they died.
If you’ve read this far in this book, you’ll know that the world is full of different people with different ideas, different customs and different religions. The only way for them to live in peace is if everyone agrees to respect those differences and leave each other alone. But the dictators who ruled Germany, Italy and Russia hated the idea of anyone being different. They wanted to control everything, and didn’t mind how many they killed so long as they got what they wanted.
Quite often, today, you meet people who refuse to vote in general elections. “I’m not interested in politics,” they say. “It doesn’t make any difference who you vote for – politicians are all the same!”
They ought to go back to Germany in the 1930s to see what it’s like living in a place where you aren’t allowed to have your say. Then, perhaps, they’d realize how many people have died for the right to live in a free country, and how important it is to vote.
Hitler wasn’t content with ruling Germany. He wanted to rule the whole world, so he took over Austria as well. He had been born in Austria, and many Austrians welcomed him. Instead of stopping him, the British and French hardly even complained.
“Whatever happens, we mustn’t have another war,” they said.
Then Hitler announced he wanted part of Czechoslovakia as well. People asked the League of Nations to help, but Hitler didn’t care about the League of Nations.
“Anything but war,” the British said. “The Great War was the last. There mustn’t be another one!”
“If we let Hitler have Czechoslovakia, then he’ll be content, and we can go on living in peace,” said the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain.
The Story of Britain Page 24