As we saw in our last episode, the foundation of European society after World War I was supposed to be national self-determination. All peoples would be free to form their own national states, and nations would treat each other equally, eschewing the competitiveness of Great Power politics that had lead directly to the war. Yet as this episode demonstrates, far from achieving lasting peace, the years immediately after World War I were filled with more war and violence across most of Europe. Topics covered in the episode include the fundamental problem of measuring nationality (4:14), the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1918-19 (9:20), the Irish War of Independence (22:53), Violence in the early Weimar Republic (28:25), Hungary and Bela Kun (34:56) and the Spanish Flu (39:50).
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