The search for European

stability, 1917-1929
WWI: Killing Machine, 52 months
• 1915 – Bulgaria and Ottoman Empire joined war on the side of the
Central Powers
• The Entente assembled a global coalition of 22 states including Japan
and America
• But Britain and France stuck at the Ottomans at Gallipoli and in the
Middle East
• WWI – 20th century Total war
• No decisive victory
• Triple Stalemate: diplomatically, militarily and nationally
• No decisive victory
• The only way –the war could have come to an end was by the domestic
collapse of one of them
• Governments borrowed loans
• Postponed their bankruptcies
• 1917= civilian governments were succeeded by politicians and generals who
promised a decisive outcome at any price

• 52 months
• Horrific loss of life and wealth
• Struggle accelerated Europe’s decline in world affairs
Turning point: 1917
1) French armies mutinied
2) The Tsarist regime fell apart
1917 war exhausted Russia
3) Bolshevik take over knocked Russia out of war
Italy & Austria – Hungary were on the brink of bankruptcy
4) US rescued Entente from bankruptcy
US needed to balance German ambitions
Old vs. New Diplomacy
• The outbreak of war discredited ’the OLD’ diplomatic instruments of
international affairs
• Military alliances
• Secret treaties
• Balance of power politics

• Old Diplomacy
• The practice of autocrats and exclusive ruling elites who suppressed their own
peoples as well as minorities in their societies

• When the Europeans fail to bring the war to a decisive end «NEW
DIPLOMACY» found millions of supporters in 1917
The voices of change came from US &
RUSSIA
• Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

• Leader of Bolsheviks
• Acc. to him: Wars took place
because of secret treaties, dirty
alliances
• These had to change
• He called for a revolutionary
solution to international anarchy
• Woodrow Wilson
• President of US
• inter-state competition had fatal/devastating
impact on the system
• This had to change

• He advocated a more open diplomatic system

• This system would be based on «the rule of law»
• Composed on free and independent nation-states
• Guided by the organized moral force of mankind
 1917 //
• diplomatic, military and domestic
stalemate started to break down
• The process brought the armistice
first, and then the peace treaty
• 1st break in the stalemate:
• Develeopments in war-exhausted
Russia
• March 1917 // strikes for food,
demonstrations against famine
triggered the abdication of Nicolas II
• The Tsarist regime was replaced
by a Provisional Government
(March 1917)
• But the new gov. continued war
plans
• expressed interest over the Straits
• Imperial Russian war plans
resulted with the Bolshevik
seizure of power in October
1917
• Their famous slogan was «peace,
land, and bread»
• Bolsheviks initiated Russia’s exit
from war
 • Lenin:
• expansionist impulses of
capitalism caused the war

• A wave of workers’ revolutions all

over Europe would sweep away
bourgeoisie ruling classes

Concepts: Bolshevik &

• This would create an enduring
national self-determination peace within a new international
solidarity of workers’ states that
would replace the pre-1914 world
of imperial competition
1917 Revolution in Russia
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHZ3Qww9kIY
Bolsheviks hoped for more proletarian revolutions
across Europe
• In order to trigger these revolutions
• 1. they issued a Decree on Peace in Nov. 1917
• Called for 3 –months armistice
• And a final peace settlement without annexations or war reparations
• 2. they exposed aggressive war aims of the Entente by publishing their annexation plans after the
war
• Skyes-Picot Agreement (May 1916)
• 3. They presented the Central Powers with a 6-point peace plan
• This rejected annexations and war reparations
• ++++ they called for the application of national self-determination inside and outside Europe
• Central Powers accepted the peace on condition that
• The other Entente powers accepted it // Entente powers refused
• The fightings resulted with the Treaty of Brest –Litovsk (1918)
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1918

• Bolsheviks surrendered Poland, the Baltic

states, Ukraine, Finland, and the Caucasus
• These territorial losses meant the loss of
«Great Power» qualities for Russia
• Would get back once it recovered
• These losses caused domestic political
instability
• Civil war developed inside
• 1918-1922
• Entente Powers were unhappy because
Russia was out of war
• Sent forces to fight against Bolsheviks
1917 // American entry into war

• Made a huge impact (April 1917) (in addition to the Revolution in

Russia)
• Entered the war on the side of the Entente Powers
• Because Germany was labelled as a MILITARISTIC state
• If Germany won, then US would be forced to transform
itself to a militaristic state as well //
• In order to protect itself against Germany
• Germany should be defeated
• Submarine Warfare
• Zimmerman Telegram
• A secret diplomatic communication on the alliance of Germany and
Mexico

• US was driven into the Entente coalition

• The need to defeat Germany
• The ambition to build a better World (that serves American
interests)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyEqUvij4Bo
• American maritime power and finance rescued Britain and France
• Wilson wanted the role of mediator
• America was an «associated» power, not an Entente ally
• He would be able to impose a LIBERAL PEACE on all belligerents
• With Germany defeated
• And France and Britain reliant on American soldiers, material and Money
• Liberal Peace was declared in his famous 14 POINTS ( 8 January 1918)
• 14 POINTS: set out President Wilson’s vision of post-war World
• They included «open diplomacy», «self-determination» and «a post-war
international organization»
Wilson’s «Liberal Peace»
• President Wilson called for
• 1. Openly arrived Covenants – open diplomacy
• 2. freedom of the seas
• 3. removal of economic barriers
• 4. the reduction of armaments
• 5. the foundation of a League of Nations
• 6. changes in the territorial acquisitions
• Such as Poland made independent
• Alsace-Lorraine returned to France
• Collective security and national self-
determination were binding core
themes of this new peace/order
Lenin vs. Wilson // their visions of the new
world
• Lenin: The war broke out because • Wilson= the war started because of
of secret treaties, dirty alliances the anarchical and lawless system of
states
• Lenin: «peace settlement without
• Wilson: «Peace without victory»
annexations or war reparations»
• 14 Points
• Decree for Peace • He convinced the US Senate to enter
• He left war to consolidate the war to defeat Germany, and shape the
Bolshevik regime in Russia int. system
• In the next decades he would try • Wilson aimed to reform the
international system through the
to reshape World politics through exercise of American power at the top
workers’ revolutions from below (from the top)
The Entente Powers had internal
disagreements
• British and French were suspicious over US aims:
• British were annoyed and startled by Wilson’s references to
• «freedom of seas»
• «impartial adjustment of all colonial claims»
• «Removal of economic barriers»
• French were annoyed by
• Wilson’s insistence that Americans would not fight for selfish aims
• Alsace-Lorraine
• French and British were not able to agree about the fate of the
Ottoman Empire
• Their designs over the Empire clashed
• They split on reparations
• Washington insisted on the 14 POINTS as the plan of Peace
• Paris and London wanted to keep military and naval clauses to leave
Germany militarily helpless

• Germany = food shortages, labor strikes, war weariness

• Austria-Hungary = needed peace but it became reliant on Germany
• Peace could come only if Germans moderated their war plans
• ARMISTICE was concluded on 11 November 1918
• The guns fell silent
Armistice, Nov 11, 1918
Armistice was followed by an
internal revolution in Germany

• German soldiers rioted and triggered a military

collapse
• This led to the abdication of the Kaiser
• The foundation of the Republic in Germany

• WEIMAR Republic = 1918-1933

• Never been able to win the loyalty of the
majority of the Germans
Revolution in Germany 1918-1919
Germans believed that they were not
defeated at the front
• The war ended with an armistice not with
a surrender
• 1st Chancellor: Friedrich Ebert
• Greeted the returning of the German soldiers as
«unconquered heroes»
• This led to a legend
• German people believed that they were
defeated not on the western front but at
home by socialists, pacificists, and Jews
(stab in the back)
• =democracy, defeat and the Paris Peace =
close connection in the minds of the
German people
Paris Peace Conference, 1919

League of Nations
Treaty of Versailles
• The Council of Four (US, Britain, France
and Italy) dominated the Conference
• They made the key decisions about the
peace treaty with Germany
• Versailles Treaty, 1919
• The other peace treaties followed Versailles
• Paris Peace fell short of the just
settlement promised by Wilson
• The Big Three missed an opportunity to
create a new and legitimate order
• Because European allies
• Pursued narrow selfish interests
• Were not able to control the developments in
CEE
• Were not powerful enough
• Wilson = a new international organization
• A league to enforce peace through the exercise of world opinion
• He made the foundation of the League of Nations his top priority
• Many agreed with him = if there was a permanent machinery for «crisis
management» and arbitration, then WWI might have been prevented
• French= wanted their Society of Nations
• Would have its troops to exercise war time alliance against Germany
• British= were annoyed increasing American influence in international
affairs
• «freedom of the seas»
The League of Nations

• Established in January 1920

• Council & Assembly
• To promote open diplomacy
• Covenant = would oblige signatory states
• to observe the rule of law in int.
Affairs
• To reduce armaments
• To preserve the territorial integrity
and independence of MSs
• Members- pledged to consider collective
action against covenant breakers
• Int. Disputes would be subject to a 3-month
period of arbitration
• «a cool headed diplomacy» for the public
opinion of the World to mobilize for peace
• War-weary people everywhere thought that the
League was a break from dirty/unfair practices
of the ‘old diplomacy’
• In reality, it was a workable compromise
• The League
• Would deter war by threatening covenant-
breakers with universal war
• Collective security
• All members were equal, but the Great
Powers would call the shots
Implementation:
Treaty of
Versailles
• Germany lost large areas of territory,
inhabitants, and its economic
potential
• Lost its colonies
• FR, Den, Bel, Poland gained
territories
• Saar valley (mines) would be
administered by the League for
the next 15 years
• German part of Danzig
• German speaking people
• Given to Poland to create
a Polish corridor // Access
to Baltic sea
• Germany lost its fleet, navy, battleships, overseas investments
• German army was denied heavy weapons and aircraft
• it could have only 100.000 men/soldiers
• Germany was declared «guilty for the war»
• The Versailles Treaty included a war guilt clause
• Germany was «the responsible for the WWI»
• It was imposed to pay huge sums of war reparations
• France = wanted a weak Germany
• Sought a permanent alliance with US and Britain against Germany
• Cripple Germany
• Guarantees
• US Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles in Nov. 1919
• British adherence to France was conditional on American support
Europe before and after WWI
Central and
Eastern Europe?
• Balkan Wars, conflicts should be
prevented
• Otherwise Lenin’s revolution would
spread to this region
• The collapse 3 eastern Empires =
accelerated the nation-building processes
• The allies adjusted their policies
• They supported the principle of national
self-determination
• New states would surrender Germany,
they would be allies
• Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia
emerged
 In Central and Eastern
Europe
• Serbia, Romania, and Greece = beneficiaries
• Eastern and Western Thrace = to Greece
• Transylvania (ethnic Hungarians) = to Romania
• Sudetenland = to Czechoslovakia
• Italy absorbed South Tyrol
• These annexations / exchanges of territories conflicted
with the principle of national self-determination
• Showing that the system was FLAWED since its inception
• Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria were
losers
• The Treaties signed included clauses on:
• war guilt
• Disarmament
• Reparations
• Territorial losses
• Protection of ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities
that would give them the power to intervene to their
internal affairs
 The Implementation of Peace
• «The German Problem» battle lines for future
• Too many states were dissatisfied and looked to the future for revision
• Germany and Russia =still potential Great Powers
• Would revive & determine the fate of Eastern Europe
• US
• The Senate Rejected the Treaty of Versailles and the League’s Covenant
• US did not join the League of Nations
• American public opinin did not want US to be involved in European affairs
• US returned to ISOLATIONISM
• The policy of isolating one’s country by avoiding foreign entanglements and responsiblities
• US foreign policy during the inter-war years
• Bolshevik Russia (Soviet Union after January 1, 1923)
• isolated itself, too
• Civil war, allied intervention, loss of large territories
• It was thinking about its own survival
• It was weak/vulnerable against capitalism/imperialism
• SU was in a dilemma
• The need to spread revolution to free all workers
• At the same time it needed to strengthen the regime

• Moscow renounced its debts

• Denounced the 1919 Peace Agreement and the League of Nations
• But at the same time turned to diplomacy and trade agreements to strengthen the regime
• A rapprochement with other potential Great Power – Germany
• They connected diplomatically, expanded economic cooperation
• Secret military cooperation
• This was a REVISIONIST alignment
• Soviet Union raised antipathy
• The alignment with Germany
• And Spread of communism in China and the European empires
• France did not want to accept that it lost its all-time ally // called for another intervention to civil war
• In the end France would hold on a new ally in the East, Poland
• France & Britain
• Had clashing thoughts and designs about post-war Europe
• British: believed that French had Napoleonic aims over the continent
• They wanted to turn away from Europe
• They had other aspirations in the overseas and Middle East
• The more British turned away, the more French tried to consolidate their
supremacy in Europe
• They confirmed British prejudicies and misconceptions
• Friction in the ME confirmed their suspicions as well
Occupation of Rhineland by France and
Belgium, 1922
• Allies were not able to settle their
internal disputes over war reparations
• FR- harsh on Germany
• BR-willing to loose the terms
• Germany had difficulties in paying the
reparation payments
• 1922//the Reparations Comission
voted that Germany faulted the
payments
• The Commission = FR, Bel, It, Br (only
Britain said no)
• Belgium and France occupied Rhineland
• Rhineland is heavily industrialized
• FR the mines in the Rhineland
produced coal and they were
carried to France accross the border
• This move (occupation) alienated
British and Americans from French
• They had suspicions over French aims
• From now on, BR positions itself as a
mediator btw Germany and France
• Not as a French ally
• Berlin was in a very bad position
• German gov. Printed Marks to pay for WWI
and then for reparations
• This caused hyper-inflation
• Production collapsed, leading to a shortage of
goods, especially food.
• Because there was excess cash in circulation,
and few goods, the price of everyday items
doubled every 3.7 days.
• The inflation rate was 20.9% per day.

• Anglo-American Powers tried to rescue the

German Mark and the rapidly falling Franc
• An American loan financed German
reparations
• American and British loans were given to
France
• Evacuation of Rhineland was achieved
Locarno Era // Locarno Treaties
• How to reach/ build a security structure in Europe?
• 1924-1925 talks
• LOCARNO, 1925 outlines this basic structure concretized by agreements:
• 1. there has to be a consensus/ kind of friendly relations btw FR and Ger
• 2. Fr would end 1923 occupation and surrender other controls over German
sovereignty
• 3. Germany would be integrated into the states system & fulfil its obligations
about war reparations
• 4. Britain would be the broker
• Give guarantees for French security
• Guarantee western Europe’s frontiers
Locarno Treaties, 1925, included points such
as…
• İnviolability of Franco-German and Belgo-German frontiers
• Demilitarization of the Rhineland
• France gave new security promises to its new CEE allies
• Locarno Treaties = brought peace and security in the end (not the Treaties
signed after WWI)
• But this was an illusion because
• Germany was still pursuing a revision to Paris Peace
• Offered no assurances about fulfilling its disarmamament commitments
• It did not hide its revisionist ambitions, but seemed more peaceful
• The Chancellor was OPEN in expressing that they looked for a revision to eastern
borders
Stresemann: Weimar’s longest-serving
foreign minister signed Locarno Treaties

• He was revisionist
• But he called for a Peace
• He accepted Western borders at Versailles
• He did not accept eastern frontiers = meant that Germany would have its
revision
• but still made conventions with eastern neighbors, Czechoslovakia, Poland,
• He accepted war reparations plan because it broke Germany’s isolation
• Set the stage for an economic recovery that would elevate Germany once
again to a Great Power
• Germany joined the League of Nations, 1926
• 1928 // The Kellogg-Briand Pact
• International Treaty for the Renunciation of war as an Instrument of
National Policy
• Expressed an aspiration, not a reality
After Locarno (1925-1929)
• A stable but a fragile international structure took shape in Europe
• American loans helped European recovery
• Currencies stabilized // talks for lower trade barriers were held
• But Europe was still vulnerable to fluctations in food prices and
competition
• Economies were hit by 1929 crisis
• What do we know about it?
• There was no break with «old diplomacy»
• League of Nations regulated small states
• Great Powers returned to League when it suited them
• Despite the limited Powers of the League a political equilibrium was emerging
• This was wrecked by 1929 economic crisis
• Crisis in capitalism deepened all political crises in Europe
• Governments turned to protectionism
• Closed their economies as much as possible
• Right-wing, nationalist, revisionist, anti-minority fascist political parties were gathering power

• Germans were impatient with slow pace of revision // right-wing agitation // Nazi Party was
legitimized