In the 1930s, there were so many different conflicts going on between the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Romanians and so on.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I remember the 1940s as a time when we were united in a way known only to that generation. We belonged to a common cause-the war.
When France resolved, along with England, to lend assistance in the legitimate defense of Poland, the realization burst on us that a conflict of awesome proportions was inevitable.
In 1918, Germany suffered the ghastly consequences of defeat; France suffered those of victory, the price of which was to divide and embitter French politics and culture and lead to its defeat in 1940.
The key lesson of the 1930s is that appeasement leads directly to war.
Britain in 1939 and 1940 really thought they were going to lose the war. It looked like they were going to lose. There was bombing every day, and people were literally starving.
Each had defended his own country; the Germans Germany, the Frenchmen France; they had done their duty.
In 1913 many believed that there would never again be a war in Europe. The great powers of the continent were so closely intertwined economically that the view was widespread that they could no longer afford to have military confrontations.
Whatever the reasons may be, I was very much affected by events of the 1930s - the Spanish Civil War, for example, though I was barely literate.
In France, when there was a war, we fought and our ancestors fought, though many had real reason to flee the Germans.
The latter 1940s and early '50s were a time of tense, explosive conflict, in the world at large and in the politics of our nation.