In December 1922, the distinguished foreign correspondent Leonard Spray warned Britain to 'keep your eye on Hitler'. The carnage of the so-called 'war to end all wars' had left 900,000 British servicemen dead, and more than 2 million suffering physical and psychological wounds, but there was hope. The vanquished had been left with no military capacity to wage another war, and with a huge debt to pay to the victors. The Treaty of Versailles had surely made it impossible for the world to ever again be threatened by Germany? Safe in that knowledge, Britain now had her eye firmly set on new challenges. The cost of the war had already triggered her decline as the world's greatest economic power. The Great Depression that followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929 now saw Britain riven by unemployment and poverty. Seven General Elections between 1918 and 1935 resulted in mostly minority and coalition governments, bringing further uncertainty. And all the time, an Austrian ex-corporal by the name of Adolf Hitler was on the rampage, first with his 'swashbuckling gangs' in Bavaria, and then on an inexorable march to power throughout the rest of Germany and beyond. Life in Britain and Germany on the Road to War tells the story of one of the most eventful, tumultuous and heart-breaking periods in history. The twenty-one years that separated the First and Second World Wars and that eventually saw everyone's eyes firmly fixed on Hitler. AUTHORS: Anton Rippon is an award-winning newspaper columnist, journalist and author of over 40 books including Britain 1940: The Decisive Year on the Home Front; Gas Masks for Goalposts: Football in Britain During the Second World War; Hitler's Olympics: The Story of the 1936 Nazi Games; and Gunther Plüschow: Airmen, Escaper and Explorer. Nicola Rippon is an author and newspaper and magazine feature writer. Her book The Plot to Kill Lloyd George: Alice Wheeldon and the Peartree Conspiracy for Pen & Sword was described as 'a fascinating story, well-researched and expertly told'. She has appeared on a number of BBC television programmes as an expert interviewee. 32 b/w illustrations
