Editing Interwar period (section)

== Turmoil in Europe ==
{{Main|Aftermath of World War I}}{{Further|European interwar economy}}[[File:Europe in 1923.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Map of Europe in 1923]]
Following the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918|Armistice of Compiègne]] on 11 November 1918 that ended World War I, the years 1918–1924 were marked by turmoil as the [[Russian Civil War]] continued to rage on, and [[Eastern Europe]] struggled to recover from the devastation of the First World War and the destabilising effects of not just the collapse of the [[Russian Empire]], but the destruction of the [[German Empire|German]], [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian]], and [[Ottoman Empire]]s, as well. There were numerous new or restored countries in Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe, some small in size, such as [[Lithuania]] and [[Latvia]], and some larger, such as [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]] and the [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia|Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes]]. The United States gained dominance in world finance. Thus, when Germany refused to pay further war reparations to Britain, France and other former members of the [[Entente Cordiale|Entente]], the Americans came up with the [[Dawes Plan]] and Wall Street invested heavily in Germany, which repaid its reparations to nations that, in turn, used the dollars to pay off their war debts to Washington. By the middle of the decade, prosperity was widespread, with the second half of the decade known as the [[Roaring Twenties]].<ref>{{cite book |first1=Bärbel |last1=Schrader |first2=Jürgen |last2=Schebera |title=The "Golden" Twenties: Art and Literature in the Weimar Republic |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1988 |isbn=0-300-04144-6 }}</ref>