International+Relations+1919-1939


 * Peace keeping, peace making - The interwar period**

The issues, conflicts, disputes and attitudes that arose during the period from 1918 to 1939 cannot be understood or appreciated without a sound knowledge of the experience of the First World War. This involves not simply an understanding of the causes, events and statistical cost of the war but something much more profound. The First World War was for many a **total war** with all the characteristics attached to that term. The war was a cataclysmic event for Western society, a descent into a brutal and largely futile struggle that undermined or destroyed much of the pre-war world. What was lost was confidence, optimism, stability and faith in the future. Massive political, social and economic upheavals occurred, which influenced events up to the outbreak of the Seconde World War and even until today.


 * The Paris Peace Conference**


 * General issues for consideration at the Conference**

On top of their specific aims, all the power represented at the Versailles Conference were expected to deal with a number of general questions.
 * __The treatment of Germany__: this included issues involving Germany's colonies, her borders, disarmament, reparations and war guilt and the prosecution of individuals for war crimes.
 * __The Austro-Hungarian Empire__: this had collapsed and a new political map was emerging in Eastern and Central Europe. How should teh boundaries of these states be determined? How could provision be made for self-determination?
 * __The Ottoman Empire__: What to do with the Middle East? How would the territory be divided up? How to resolve the conflict between Arabs and Jews?
 * __Russia__: how could the dangers posed by the spread of Bolshevism be addressed and prevented?
 * __Non-European states__: representatives from various non-European states -including Vietnam, China and Japan- made representations for an end to colonialism and/or recognition of racial equality. These were largely ignored but the issues had to be addressed at some time in the conference.


 * Issues arising from the terms of the Paris peace settlements**


 * None of the defeated countries or Russia attended the Versailles Conference or took part in the discussions. All the major decisions were made by the United States, France, United Kingdom and Italy, who were known as the Council of Four.
 * The treaties were the result of compromise in the aims of the major power; these aims were often very contradictory and hostile, which led to difficult decisions and an imperfect document.
 * The often stated view of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles was that they were not soft enough to allow for reconciliation with Germany but not harsh enough to cripple German power. This meant that when Germany recovered its strength, it would use this power to revise the treaty, perhaps through another major conflict.


 * The Spirit of Locarno**

Following the Ruhr Crisis of 1923 and the Dawes Plan of 1924, Gustav Stresemann, the German Foreign Minister, in January-February 1925, put out feelers to both Britain and France with proposals for a security pact. Stresemann was intent on gaining substantial revisions of the Versailles Treaty, including almost certainly changes to Germany’s border with Poland, but, unlike many German nationalists, he believed that the best way to achieve them was by means of improving Germany’s relations with Britain and France. Although Stresemann was careful to maintain Germany’s treaty with the USSR, agreed at Rapallo in 1922, he saw it as having only limited economic and military value to Germany. Stresemann saw a security pact with Britain and France as the way to unlock further concessions on the issues of reparations, and, the early withdrawal of both the Allied Control Commission (supervising the military restrictions laid down by Versailles) and of the Allied occupation forces in the Rhineland (due to remain until 1935). It took until September 1925 for a meeting of Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Belgium to be held at Locarno in Italy; a treaty was formally signed in London in December 1925. The agreements reached at Locarno were much more substantial concerning western Europe than were those affecting eastern Europe. This was as a result of Germany’s total opposition to any guarantee of its eastern borders (i.e. with Poland and Czechoslovakia) and of Britain’s refusal to commit itself militarily to upholding the eastern settlement created in 1919.

**The terms of Locarno**

1. Belgium, France and Germany accepted the western borders of Germany, including the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland, as laid down by the Versailles Treaty. 2. Britain and Italy acted as guarantors of the Franco-German-Belgian borders in the west; ‘flagrant’ breaches of the treaty, by either France, or Belgium or Germany, would require Britain and Italy to intervene. 3. ‘Alleged’ breaches of the Franco-German-Belgian borders in the west were to be referred to the League of Nations. 4. Germany would not confirm its acceptance of its Eastern frontiers, but agreed to sign arbitration treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia, committing itself to settle disputes with her eastern neighbours peacefully. There was no mechanism of guarantors for the eastern part of the Locarno Treaties; Locarno obliged none of the western powers to intervene in the event of the eastern settlement being violated. 5. In a bid to reassure Czechoslovakia and Poland, France renewed its treaties with them individually after the Locarno Conference. 6. It was agreed that Germany should enter the League of Nations (which it did, with a permanent seat on the Council, in September 1926).

CAUSES OF WORLD WAR II

Historical interpretations