Keeping the Peace

1. Keeping the Peace The Golden Twenties?

2. The League of Nations • Part of Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points for peace • Abandonment of secret diplomacy • Freedom of the seas and navigation • Removal of ecomomic barriers • General disarmament • Settlement of colonial demands • Evacuation of Russia by Germany • Belgian independence • Evacuation of France by Germany and the return of Alsace-Lorraine • Re-adjustment of Italian frontiers • Autonomy of nationalities within the Austro-Hungarian Empire • Evacuation of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania; autonomy for non-Turkish nationalities within the Ottoman Empire • Self-determination for non-Turkish nationalities within the Ottoman Empire • Creation of Poland, with access to the sea • Establishment of a general association of nations

3. The 14th Point

4. Main principles • If a member country is attacked, the rest of the League • would treat the matter as an attack on themselves and • go to the aid of their fellow members. This was • called collective security • Problems solved by talking not fighting • If talks break down the League helps settle differences • If fighting breaks out, members will cut off trade (trade • sanction) • If all else fails the League will enforce military sanctions

5. Weaknesses Missing in action; United States, Germany and Russia No power to enforce it’s decisions, no police force or army, reliant on member states providing troops when needed Even if it had troops it couldn’t act unless everyone agreed to act

6. Successes? • Mediates in border disputes, including Greece and • Bulgaria in 1925 • Set up Interpol, suppress drug trafficking and white • slavery • America sends observers and cooperates on some issues • Germany joins in 1926 • BUT NO REAL CHALLENGES YET

7. The French • Still worried about the Germans • Other powers lose interest in Europe • Want to keep Germany weak • Want to keep themselves strong through • a powerful army and alliances with Poland • Czechoslovakia and Belgium

8. The Ruhr

9. Crisis in 1923 German reparations, set at 6600 million pounds were impossible to meet Germans not visibly trying to pay it off French need German reparations to meet their own war debts so invade Ruhr industrial area Workers go on strike, government keeps printing money to keep things going and massive inflation occurs

10. Keeping the peace The Dawes Plan 1924 The Young Plan 1930 • Practical relief to the reparations problem • American loans are made available to Germany, with which they can pay reparations to Britain and France, who then paid their war debts to USA • Prosperity grows, jobs increase • Reduces Germany reparations from 6.6 billion pounds to 2 billion pounds

12. Keeping the peace The Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928 The Locarno Pact 1925 • French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and American Secretary of State Frank Kellogg sign a pact renouncing war • 65 countries sign • No penalties for breaking the pact • Germany agrees to accept her western frontier with France and Germany as final and settled • If either side breaks the Pact, Italy and Britain will come to the aid of the victim • No mention of Germany’s eastern frontiers with Poland and Czechoslovakia