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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;The Eidolon, post: 4626517, member: 102103&quot;]Day 115:&nbsp; Two coins from the former Free City of Danzig</p><p>L:&nbsp; Danzig, 10 Pfennige, 1923</p><p>R:&nbsp; Danzig, 5 Pfennig, 1932</p><p>I don&#039;t know enough German to know why there&#039;s an extra &quot;e&quot; at the end of </p><p>Pfennige on the 10 but not the 5.</p><p><br /></p><p>Danzig was semi-independent from 1920 until the German/Soviet invasion of Poland</p><p>in 1939.&nbsp; World War I (The Great War at the time) had a strange resolution on the </p><p>Eastern Front, as it was essentially a war with no winning power.&nbsp; Russia dropped</p><p>out in 1917-18 with the Soviet Revolution, giving large territorial concessions to the </p><p>Central Powers.&nbsp; The war ended for the rest of the powers with an armistice in 1918, </p><p>with the Central Powers on the losing side, though it was not officially declared as </p><p>such.&nbsp; Neither Germany, Russia or the dissolving Austria-Hungary were in a strong </p><p>position to make territorial claims.&nbsp; So many new nations and formerly existing </p><p>nations came to be in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Free City of </p><p>Danzig.&nbsp; This probably led to instability.&nbsp; Smaller nations usually require the backing</p><p>of a great power to maintain their independence, such as the UK having a foreign</p><p>policy evolving over centuries protecting the independence of the Low Countries </p><p>from domination by Germany, France or Spain.&nbsp; Most of the newly independent </p><p>states after World War I had no such protector, and the Western powers were </p><p>reluctant to go to war for their sake to protect them from a resurgent Germany </p><p>and Soviet Russia.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1145023[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]1145024[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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