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World War 2:
Between World Wars
After World War I representatives of the victorious
powers met in Paris to devise a peace settlement that would protect
future generations from another such conflict. All agreed that a new
framework or system was needed in international relations. Each power,
however, had different views as to what that framework should be. From
their compromises emerged treaties of peace, the chief of which was
that with defeated Germany signed at Versailles on June 28, 1919. Based
on the assumption that Germany and her allies had been the disturbers
of the status quo, these treaties attempted to place curbs on their
future actions. Articles 160, 180, 181, and 198 of the Treaty of Versailles,
for example, forbade Germany to have an army of more than 100,000 men,
a fleet of more than 36 combatant vessels, or any submarines or military
or naval aircraft, or to maintain fortifications or military installations
within 50 kilometers of the east bank of the Rhine. In addition, the
defeated states were to be required to pay large sums as reparations
for damages that the victors had suffered during the war.
But these punitive clauses were not supposed to form
the keystone of the new system. That was to be the League of Nations,
the organization whose Covenant was incorporated in the Treaty of Versailles
and in the treaties of St. Germain-en-Laye with Austria, of Neuilly
with Bulgaria, of Trianon with Hungary, and of Sevres with Turkey (
superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne). With the victorious nations as
the original members of the League and with provision for the admission
of other states, including eventually even the Germans and those who
had been on their side, its Assembly was expected to provide a forum
for the airing of all international issues. In the event of any aggression
by one state against another or any breach of one of the peace treaties,
its Council was to mobilize all members, large and small, for a collective
effort to keep the peace.
Neither the punitive clauses of the treaties nor the
Covenant worked out quite as their authors had hoped. Although the Germans
complied with most of the restrictions imposed on them, they recovered
rapidly in relative strength. At Rapallo on April 16, 1922, they signed
with the other outcast of Europe, the Bolshevik USSR, a treaty providing
for mutual renunciation of claims and future economic cooperation. The
victors meanwhile fell out. The British and French disagreed about Middle
Eastern issues and about the amount of reparations that should be exacted
from Germany. So sharp did their exchanges become that by 1923 it was
commonly assumed that if there were another war it might well be one
between Britain and France. As for the United States, its Senate declined
to ratify the Treaty of Versailles; it took no part in the League and
withdrew into self-imposed isolation, denying that it bore any responsibility
for the maintenance of peace in Europe.
By the latter part of the 1920's, the guarantees of
peace were somewhat different from those that had been envisioned in
1919. The articles of the Treaty of Versailles designed to keep Germany
in check were supplemented by defensive alliances between France and
certain of Germany's eastern neighbors: Poland ( Feb. 19, 1921) and
the nations of the Little Entente, Czechoslovakia ( Jan. 25, 1924),
Rumania ( June 10, 1926) , and Yugoslavia (Nov. 11, 1927). At a conference
held in Locarno on Oct. 5-16, 1925, the German government entered into
treaties (signed in London on December 1) with France, Britain, Belgium,
and Italy, guaranteeing the existing Franco-Belgian-German frontiers.
On Sept. 8, 1926, Germany was admitted to the League. The peace thus
rested on three sets of undertakings: the pledges of mutual support
between France and her allies, the guarantees exchanged at Locarno,
and the promises of collective action made by those nations that subscribed
to the Covenant. Events of 1931 and later years were to prove all these
safeguards frail.
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