[2] Historians have criticized this thesis on the grounds that it excuses the actions of fascist and Nazi historical actors.
[4] In 1948, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave the idea a boost when, in the first paragraph of the preface to The Gathering Storm (1948), he wrote that his books would "cover an account of another Thirty Years War".
In addition, the interwar period saw significant levels of civilian and labor conflict as well as colonial wars.
Likening World War I and the Versailles peace to a prologue, he interprets what followed as five acts of a Greek drama of approximately equal length: 1919–24, 1924–29, 1929–34, 1934–39 and 1939–45.
[6]The thesis has been challenged and rejected by many historians, who see it as too simple an explanation for the complex series of events that occurred during the interwar period of 1918 to 1939.