In Italy, Mussolini began his “March on Rome” in 1922 with the promise of national renewal. King Victor Emanuel III. was forced to resign in favor of one-party fascist rule by Mussolini. After a severe depression, a year later a military dictatorship was established in Spain with the consent of the king. In May 1926, Marshal Pilsudski carried out a coup d’état in Poland which, despite the formal retention of the constitution and parliament, made him a de facto authoritarian monarch. In the same year, a military coup in Portugal overturned the parliament and the constitution. In 1928 de Fragoso Carmona founded a one-party government there; Oppositionists fell victim to the dreaded secret police. A year earlier, the Stalin era had begun in the USSR.

In 1929, after frequent changes of government and increasing political instability, Alexander I of Yugoslavia implemented a kind of “royal dictatorship”, the main features of which were the dissolution of parliament and the repeal of the constitution. In 1933, when Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor, the National Socialists took power in the German Reich. In 1934 there were coups d’état in Estonia and Latvia, which here and there led to the establishment of authoritarian presidential regimes. In the same year, Tsar Boris III. of Bulgaria forbid all political parties in his country. In 1936, Joannis Metaxas established a dictatorship in Greece by means of a coup. In 1938 the arbitrary rule of Charles II also resulted. from Romania into open tyranny and in 1939 General Franco finally fought for power in Spain after a three-year bloody civil war. The 2nd republic could not hold out. For more information about the continent of Europe, please check ehistorylib.com.