ABSTRACT
The coming of the Second World War in Europe is the classic morality tale of international politics. In the 1920s the Europeans, reliant on dollar loans to feed the cycle of debt and reparations payments, resented the American practice of protecting their own producers while insisting that Europe open its markets to mass-produced American exports. In Europe and America the banking crisis put pressure on currency exchanges and drained gold reserves. In Europe, some officials speculated that the election of a Democrat to the presidency might transform American policy. In Europe, German industry was the worst hit by the fall in demand. In a European war, Rome would have to rely on its preponderant northern ally for coal to fuel Italian war industries and for military aid. As British and French planners had made clear a year earlier in the Czech crisis, there was little that they could do to help the Poles.
