The
ThePeace
Peace
Settlement
Settlement
Significant dates
1918:
November Armistice is signed between
1923:
January French and Belgian troops
the victorious Allies and the defeated occupy the Ruhr industrial region of
Central powers Germany in an attempt to force the
December Lloyd George wins the British German government to pay reparations
general election promising electors to (they withdraw at the end of 1923)
'make Germany pay' the cost of the First July Treaty of Lausanne brings final
World War peace settlement between the Allies and
1919: Turkey
January Paris peace conference opens at 1924:
the Palace of Versailles August Dawes plan reduces German
June Treaty of Versailles is signed reparation payments and the US
“under protest” by the German government grants the German
government government a loan to meet payments and
September Treaty of St Germain is signed to stabilise the German currency, which
by representatives from the Austrian collapsed in the 'great inflation' that
delegation gripped Germany throughout 1923
1920: 1925:
January League of Nations is established October Locarno Treaties, which accept
March US senate refuses to ratify Treaty the western frontiers laid down by
of Versailles and US government signs Versailles, are signed by Germany
separate peace treaty with Germany 1926:
June Treaty of Trianon is signed by Germany joins the League of Nations
Hungary 1931:
August Treaty of Sèvres is signed by Japan invades Manchuria, but the League
Turkey of Nations fails to remove Japanese
1921: troops
Allies set Germany's reparations at 132 1932:
million marks (£6,600 million at 1921 World disarmament conference opens,
prices) but does not gain agreement from the
1922: major powers for arms limitations
Washington naval conference establishes 1933:
limits on the building of warships by Germany leaves the League of Nations
Britain, the USA, Japan, France and Italy and a new era of tension in Europe begin
Overview
It was in January 1919, at the sumptuous Palace of Versailles, that the first session of
the famous Paris peace conference began. The leaders of 32 nations were present to
discuss the terms to be imposed on the defeated Central powers (Germany, Austria-
Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey) in the First World War and to find a means of
preventing such a catastrophe ever happening again. It ultimately proved a monumental
failure. Even the very titles of books on the peace settlement of 1919 – The economic
consequences of the peace, The lost peace and The twenty year crisis – reflect the fairly
negative light in which the settlement has been viewed by historians.
What were the major difficulties facing the peacemakers in 1919?
A great number of difficult problems confronted the peacemakers. The previous
European balance of power had been shattered by the bloody battles of the Great War”.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 therefore aroused deep anxiety among the peacemakers
concerning the possibility of a communist revolution spreading throughout Europe
unless some new order were quickly established. In addition, Europe at the time of the
peace conference was beset with deep economic problems, most notably a collapse of
world trade, unstable currencies, unemployment, agricultural depression and mounting
debts. Material damage inflicted during the First World War – devastated towns, rail-
ways and roads blown up, houses, farms and livestock destroyed, and merchant ships at
the bottom of the sea – added to these economic worries. To complete a depressing
picture, a flu epidemic spread across Europe in the months following the end of the war,
claiming millions of lives.
Coping with the effects of war on this scale proved extremely difficult. A total of 17
million people were killed, severely wounded or permanently disabled in the conflict.
This produced two different types of reaction among the victors and the vanquished. In
the victorious countries, there were heated demands to 'make Germany pay' the
economic costs of the war, while in the defeated nations, but particularly in Germany,
movements of ex-soldiers emerged calling for vengeance. In Britain, the popular press
screeched the banner headlines Squeeze the German lemon till the pips squeak' and
'Hang the Kaiser'.
What were the aims of the peacemakers?
All the major decisions at the conference were decided by the 'Council of Four' – the
four major victorious Allies, represented in Paris by their respective leaders – David
Lloyd George (Great Britain), Woodrow Wilson (USA), Georges Clemenceau (France)
and Vittorio Orlando (Italy). The representatives of 28 other Allied nations were also
present, but the Soviet Union, in diplomatic isolation, was not invited, and the defeated
nations were required to accept the decisions of the peacemakers with little or no
opportunity to modify them. The two major aims of the peacemakers were to bring
political order to European politics and to prevent such a catastrophe ever happening
again.
The four major victorious powers came to Paris with no agreed agenda, apart from
Wilson's famous 14 points. The US president believed the war was due to three central
causes – the secretive and selfish nature of European diplomacy, the tendency of larger
powers to deny ethnic minorities self- determination and autocratic regimes which
ignored the wishes of the people. Remove these three impediments to peace and a new
order of international relations could be created, based on principles of open diplomacy,
national self-determination and democracy. Such high moral principles seemed
idealistic when compared to old-fashioned European diplomacy. However, Wilson
proved less than completely faithful to his principles. There was very little democracy
about the decision-making process. The Council of Four took all the decisions in closed
sessions.
Clemenceau is often regarded as the chief architect of the harsh settlement with
Germany. The French obsession with security at the conference was due to three factors
- the long French frontier with Germany, the loss of Russia as a balance to German
power in eastern Europe and the alarming differences in population and industrial
potential between France and Germany. In fact, Clemenceau believed the gravest
mistake of the peacemakers would be to make 'excessive demands' on Germany. The
French desired two guarantees of future security against a possible German revival:
first, the demilitarisation of the region sandwiched between the German-French border,
known as the Rhineland; and second, severe restrictions on German military power. In
addition, the French sought financial assistance to rebuild their shattered territory.
However, they pushed for a high reparations settlement only when their own demand
for a cancellation of war debts was rejected by the USA and Britain. 'Every effort must
be made to be just towards the Germans, said Clemenceau, 'but when it comes to
persuading them that we are just towards them, that is another matter.
Lloyd George was primarily concerned to achieve a peace settlement which
reconstructed Europe and ensured British involvement in European affairs was limited.
The defeat of Germany had achieved all of Britain's war aims. The German naval threat
was destroyed, the German military threat was seemingly defeated and the German
colonial threat was over. This allowed Lloyd George to revert to the old idea of Britain
taking a middle position within the European balance of power. As France was now the
dominant military power, this meant taking a conciliatory attitude to Germany. As a
result, the British delegation wanted military restrictions placed on Germany and some
limited financial compensation, but not a totally punitive settlement. Many economic
experts in the British delegation, including John Maynard Keynes, the brilliant young
economist, saw German economic revival as vital for the recovery of Britain's European
export trade and argued against a harsh reparations settlement.
Orlando, the Italian premier, was largely ignored by the three major powers, and proved
ineffective. The Italian delegation wanted to gain territory as compensation for entering
the war on the Allied side in 1915 and suffering heavy losses. But Orlando was unable
to gain the port of Fiume, the prime territorial objective. The row over Fiume resulted in
the Italian delegation walking out of the conference and led to the fall of Orlando's
government. The denial of Fiume became a passionate nationalist issue in Italian
politics. In 1919, Gabriele D'Annunzio, an Italian poet, formed a legion of nationalist
agitators who seized the port and declared it a 'free city'. With problems at home and
abroad, the Italian democratic government became deeply unpopular. It was eventually
overthrown by Benito Mussolini, leader of the nationalist Fascist Party. During the
inter-war period, fascism' became a popular and despotic alternative to weak democratic
governments in a state of deep economic and political crisis in many parts of Europe.
How fair was the Treaty of Versailles towards Germany?
Five separate treaties made up the Paris peace settlement, but the Treaty of Versailles,
signed by Germany in the historic Hall of Mirrors at Versailles on 28 June 1919, was
the most significant and controversial. German military power, the chief cause of the
war, was the dominant issue at the peace conference. Germany had come very close to
victory and most of its industry was untouched. Unless the peacemakers took adequate
precautions, there was every prospect of a German revival. To prevent this, a number of
arms limitations were implemented. The army was limited to 100,000 men, conscription
abolished and tanks and aircraft prohibited. The navy was slimmed down to a coastal
force of 36 vessels and the building of battleships and submarines was outlawed. By
these measures, the German army was reduced to the level of that of Greece and the
German navy was left on a par with that of Argentina.
Germany lost 13 per cent of its territory, including Alsace-Lorraine, Eupen- et-
Malmédy, North Schleswig, West Prussia (the Polish Corridor) and Posen (Poznań).
The loss of territory in eastern Europe was bitterly criticised by the German
government. Danzig became a 'free city', linked by a customs union to the new Polish
state, which also gained Upper Silesia, a major industrial area. The Poles were
additionally given a 'corridor' of land to the sea, which cut off East Prussia from the rest
of Germany. In western Europe, the French got what they wanted. The Rhineland was
made a demilitarised zone and the Saar, a key coal-mining region, was placed under the
control of the League of Nations. In addition, all German colonies were put under
League of Nations mandates and the Allies insisted that the German government agree
to uphold a democratic constitution and free elections.
The Germans were also required to pay substantial financial compensation. The final
figure, decided by the Reparations Committee in 1921, was set at £6,600 million, and
all the foreign currency and assets of Germany abroad were seized. Not surprisingly, the
German government thought the figure too high. To justify reparations, the Allies
inserted article 231 into the treaty (the war guilt clause'), which obliged Germany to
accept full responsibility for the outbreak of the war.
The German people greeted the terms of the Treaty of Versailles with varying degrees
of anger, horror and disgust. The German leaders who signed the treaty were branded by
nationalists as 'the criminals of 1919. It is easy to understand the harsh reaction to the
Treaty of Versailles in Germany. Most Germans had little idea of the size of the German
defeat, and believed that, because Germany had requested an armistice, a lenient
settlement would follow. As a result, the treaty came as an enormous shock. However,
the loss of 13 per cent of its territory was much less harsh than France suffered at the
Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, and far less punitive than the division of Ger- many
after the Second World War. It was mild when compared with the Treaty of Brest-
Litovsk. It is also possible to suggest that reparations were affordable, if only the
German government had been really prepared to reduce living standards. In fact, the
underlying economic and military potential of Ger- many remained favourable.
Germany was surrounded by a number of weak powers in eastern Europe and faced no
strong military alliance. Industry was modern, with a high level of skill in areas useful
for armaments production. The German army was reduced, but its key strategists, the
Prussian officer corps, remained. Germany had an excellent opportunity to pose a threat
to Europe again. However, the psychological impact of the Treaty of Versailles on
Germany was a much more important factor in subsequent events than its objective
effects. Quite clearly, German people saw the treaty as harsh and blamed it for the
social, economic and political ills of the Weimar regime. It is hard to deny that the
Treaty of Versailles, lenient or otherwise, proved a very crucial rallying point for the
revival of German nationalism, and the belief in its harshness also encouraged the
British government to follow a policy of appeasement.
The other major treaties
The four other major treaties decided at Paris, which dealt with the other three defeated
Central powers Austria-Hungary (two treaties), Bulgaria and Turkey – also aroused
criticism. The settlement of the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Habsburg
Empire was the most complex problem the peacemakers faced. The promise to ensure
principles of national self- determination were applied to the widely diverse ethnic and
national groups in central and eastern Europe proved extremely difficult to keep. Few
ethnic groups were ever satisfied with the settlement in eastern Europe.
The Treaty of Trianon (1920) concerned Hungary and was arguably even harsher than
the Treaty of Versailles. Hungary lost 66 per cent of its territory and 40 per cent of the
ethnically diverse population of its former empire. Most of this territory went to
Romania and Czechoslovakia.
The Treaty of St Germain (1919) dealt with Austria. All former territory of the
Habsburg Empire, outside Austria, was shared between Czechoslovakia, which gained
Bohemia and Moravia, including the Sudetenland with 4 mil- lion German-speakers;
Italy, which took South Tyrol; Yugoslavia, which took Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina
and Dalmatia; Poland, which gained Galicia; and Romania, which was awarded
Bukovina. The desire of Austria to unite with Germany was strictly forbidden.
Under the Treaty of Neuilly (1919), Bulgaria lost territory to Yugoslavia and Greece.
To further the principle of national self-determination, the peacemakers created two
completely new states – Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The historic state of Poland,
carved out of German, Austrian and Russian territory, was also restored, but soon
became a virtual military dictatorship. Yugoslavia, formed out of Serbia, with the
addition of territory from Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, was bitterly divided between
the dominant Serbs and their Croat rivals and also lurched towards the right.
Czechoslovakia, fashioned out of Austrian, Hungarian, Russian, Romanian and Polish
territory, was the only fully functioning democracy in eastern Europe during the inter-
war years. Even so, minority groups in Czechoslovakia claimed each coalition govern-
ment was so dominated by the Czechs, who made up 65 per cent of the population, as to
render the principle of national self-determination virtually meaningless.
The noble idea of national self-determination did not end traditional ethnic rivalries and
disagreements. Eastern Europe was arguably more unstable and divided than ever
before. The successor states of the former Habsburg Empire were weak, politically
divided and in a poor economic condition, with little industry, weak currencies,
inefficient agriculture, high debts and low invest- ment. Falling world agricultural prices
during the inter-war years ensured eastern Europe remained impoverished. The trading
relations between the eastern European countries were stormy, owing to the use of
protective tariffs.
What is more, parliamentary democracy never took root in eastern Europe. Hungary
was deeply unstable and developed its own brand of fascist dictator- ship in the 1930s.
Austria was a political battleground between right and left, and parliamentary
government gave way to right-wing dictatorship. Bulgaria and Romania also developed
right-wing dictatorships, led by their respective kings. Even among the three new states
of eastern Europe, democracy was not in the ascendancy. The foreign relations of these
eastern European states were also tense. In Hungary hatred was shown towards
Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. The latter three powers responded by
forming a close alliance in 1920, known as the 'Little Entente. Polish-Czech relations
were equally hostile, and the Yugoslav and Romanian governments disliked each other
intensely. To add to the tension, the Soviet Union was locked in bitter territorial
disputes with Poland and Romania, and the German government refused to accept the
settlement of territory in eastern Europe. The only country in Europe which actively
supported the new successor states was France, which signed treaties of mutual
assistance with Poland (1921), Czechoslovakia (1924), Romania (1926) and Yugoslavia
(1927). The French government hoped this group of eastern European powers, all
committed to upholding the peace settlement in eastern Europe, might provide stability
in the region. Yet these states, with their divided loyalties and discontented ethnic
minorities, were no compensation for the loss of the Franco-Russian alliance.
The settlement of the territory of the former Ottoman Empire also produced tension and
uncertainty. The Treaty of Sèvres (1920) divided Turkey into British, French and Italian
spheres of influence and placed all former Ottoman possessions under British and
French administration. However, a Turkish nationalist group (the Young Turks) gained
power and chose to fight rather than accept the peace terms. This matter was finally
resolved – after further haggling and small-scale military engagements - by the Treaty
of - Lausanne (1923), under which Turkey accepted its loss of colonies in return for a
guarantee of territorial integrity.
How successful was the League of Nations in encouraging international co-
operation from 1920 to 1933?
The League of Nations and the limits of international co-operation
The Paris peace conference also gave birth to the League of Nations, which was
designed to create a completely new framework of international relations. The League
had an agreed constitution, outlined in its Covenant, which pledged to 'respect and
preserve against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political
independence of all members of the League, and to 'take action against any member
regarded as an aggressor' through economic sanctions and, if these failed, 'collective
military action'. The organisation consisted of an assembly, which met annually, a
council, which had regular meetings and four permanent seats (Britain, Italy, France,
Japan), raised to five, with the addition of Germany in 1926, and four temporary seats,
elected by the assembly, raised to six in 1926 and nine in 1929. It was in the council that
real power lay, but as each member had a veto over any decision there was not much
real power to exercise. The day-to-day administration of the League was carried out by
the secretariat. A permanent court of international justice was also established, at The
Hague, to offer 'advisory opinions' on questions referred to it by the assembly or the
council.
The League of Nations was a loose and flexible organisation, with members pledging to
uphold an agreed set of principles set out in the Covenant. It faced a number of
problems in establishing its authority. Defeated powers were denied entry until they
proved a willingness to abide by the treaties imposed upon them. The original members
were the 32 Allied powers and 12 additional neutral states. A 'victors' club' was how the
League was viewed in Germany. A 'capitalist club' was how the Soviet Union, also
denied entry, described the new organisation. But the biggest blow of all to the early
credibility of the League was the decision of the US senate to block US entry. This
deprived the League of one of its key architects and the most powerful non-European
power. In reality, the League was largely a European club, dominated by the victorious
powers. Very few European diplomats thought the League of Nations would replace the
self-interests of each nation-state.
During the 1920s the League enjoyed mixed success as an effective peacekeeper. On the
one hand, a few minor disputes were settled by the League, most notably the withdrawal
of Yugoslav troops from Albania and the resolution of a territorial dispute over the
Åland islands, between Finland and Sweden. Successful arbitration was achieved in
disputes between Germany and Poland over Upper Silesia, Britain and Turkey over the
administration of oil fields in Mosul, and between Greece and Bulgaria over disputed
territory in the Balkans. On the other hand, the League could not prevent Poland
annexing Vilnius in 1922, Italians occupying Corfu in 1923 or stop the war between
Bolivia and Paraguay in the early 1930s.
An even more worrying development was the complete failure of the Geneva Protocol,
which had been designed to commit all League members to engage in collective
military action in the event of acts of unprovoked aggression. France was a keen
supporter of the idea, but it was vetoed by Austen Chamberlain, the British foreign
secretary, in March 1925. The British believed the Geneva Protocol would turn the
League into a 'policeman of the world' and involve Britain in all manner of minor and
major disputes.
However, the League of Nations did promote a greater level of international co-
operation than had ever existed before. This climate encouraged the signing by Britain,
Japan, France, Italy and the USA of the Washington naval agreement in 1922, which set
limits on naval shipbuilding, and the 1930 London naval agreement signed by Britain,
Japan, Italy and the USA, which set limits on submarines and the scrapping of some
warships. This same spirit encouraged the signing by 15 major powers in August 1928
of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which pledged all its signatories to reject 'war as an
instrument of national policy' and promised to settle disputes between nations by
'pacific means. By 1933, 60 nations had made this pledge, very much in the spirit of the
Covenant of the League of Nations.
The biggest disappointment of the League in this period was its total failure to achieve a
reduction in armaments. The world disarmament conference, organised by the League,
opened in 1932, and was attended by 61 nations and 5 non-members, including the USA
and the Soviet Union. The chief aim was to set agreed limits on army, air-force and
naval weapons. A French idea for a League of Nations army was rejected. A proposal
by the British government to place limits on 'offensive' weapons, including tanks,
bomber aircraft, sub- marines, poison gas and chemical weapons, also floundered. More
alarmingly, the German and Soviet delegations refused to accept a resolution passed by
41 votes to prohibit air attacks, the use of tanks and chemical weapons. The German
delegation constantly argued for 'equality of rights' and demanded the other powers
either disarm to the German level imposed at Versailles or allow Germany to rearm to
the level of other major powers. The German delegation walked out, and agreed to
return only if Germany was given equal treatment.
Non-European problems
The way the peacemakers dealt with non-European problems left a great deal to be
desired. A demand by Japan to have a clause proclaiming a commitment to 'racial
equality' placed in the Covenant of the League of Nations was rejected. Nationalist
groups who demanded the right to self-determination in the Middle East, Africa and
India were politely informed the principle would not apply to them. In fact, imperial
rule was actually expanded at the Paris peace conference. All former Turkish and
German colonies were termed 'mandated territories' and placed under the supervision of
the victorious powers. The British Empire assumed control of the former Ottoman
territories of Palestine, Iraq, Transjordan and the former German African colonies of
Togoland and the Cameroon. The French gained control over Syria and Libya and were
allowed access to oil in Mosul, Iraq. The fig leaf of a League of Nations mandates hid
old-fashioned imperial gains. British and French officials claimed they were marching
the mandated territories towards independence, but nationalist groups doubted if such a
day would ever arrive. The disposal of the former German colonies in the Asia-Pacific
region served only to inflame relations between China and Japan still further. China had
entered the war on the side of the Allies in 1917 and expected to regain control of
former German colonies in Africa and Asia on the principle of national self-
determination. However, Japan, an ally of Britain since 1902, seized these areas in 1914
and expected to retain them. The peacemakers decided Japan would keep its trading
rights in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, but would not gain political control. It was
also decided that Japan should supervise the administration of Shantung, provided they
promised to return the area to China at a future date. This settlement satisfied neither
Japan nor China and laid the basis for a long-running and bitter dispute between the two
nations, which eventually led to full-scale war in 1937.
Historical interpretation: the 1919 peace settlement
A great many historians have viewed the 1919 peace settlement as a failed compromise
between the idealism of Wilson, the US president, and the realism and selfishness of the
European powers. As James Joll puts it, 'Europe was divided by the peace conference
into those who wanted the peace revised (Germany, Italy, Japan and Hungary), those
who wanted it upheld (France, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) and those who
were not that interested (USA and Britain). For E. H. Carr the Paris peace settlement
was based on unworkable idealistic principles, most notably national self-determination
and collective security, but the fundamental weakness of the settlement was its failure to
solve the 'German problem. This view was supported by A. J. P. Taylor, who suggested
the Treaty of Versailles was crushing, vindictive and lacked moral validity because 'no
German accepted it as a fair settlement and all Germans wanted to shake it off. For
Taylor, the Second World War was really 'a war over the settlement of Versailles; a war
which had been implicit when the First World War ended because the peacemakers had
not solved the "German problem”. The failure of the peace settlement to create a viable
balance of power in Europe has been seen as a vital weakness. In P. M. H. Bell's view,
the peace settlement was 'a rickety edifice which was unstable from the start. At the
heart of its weak foundations was, in Anthony Lentin's view, a failure to tackle the
underlying potential of Ger- many. The peacemakers did not seem to realise the collapse
of Russia and the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires left Germany in a potentially stronger
position in Europe than ever before. The newly constituted nation-states of central and
eastern Europe were small, weak, ethnically divided and open to domination by a
resurgent Germany. However, many historians offer a much more sympathetic
interpretation of the Paris peace settlement. Adam Adamthwaite views the peace
settlement as a 'brave attempt to deal with intractable, perhaps insoluble problems. For
Ruth Henig, the settlement was 'a creditable achievement', which failed because of the
severe economic and social problems left behind by the war, major divisions among the
peacemakers about the terms of the settlement and, most importantly, the reluctance of
political leaders in the inter-war period to enforce it. According to this view, the
architects of the peace settlement failed to follow through the principles laid down in
Paris; their failure ensured a German revival and, through further doses of
indecisiveness, brought about war. Paul Birdsall views the refusal of the USA to
become involved in upholding the settlement as a crucial reason for its subsequent
failure. This destroyed the prospects of building a successful League of Nations and the
forging of a democratic front to uphold the settlement. Paul Kennedy points out the
great differences between the success of the settlement in the 1920s, when it worked,
and its shortcomings during the 1930s, when it was crushed by the combined militarism
of Germany, Japan and Italy. For Kennedy, the crucial reason for its collapse was the
Great Depression of the early 1930s, which destroyed international co-operation and
encouraged extreme selfishness to dominate international relations. The Depression also
helped destroy German democracy, and contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler.
