The Treaty of Verailles Essay Example for Free

The Treaty of Verailles Essay The World War I was over by the end of 1918 but the further situation was far from clear. The Paris conference was arranged to design the future world order, as was previously done by the Congress of Westphalia in 1648, the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Congress of Berlin in 1879. Future was unclear also because of sharp differences among leading states. The Treaty of Verailles was destined to be a core of international system for inter-war period. The involvement of the USA and China as well as establishment of League of Nations made it a truly global regulator. Added by four other treaties with former allies of Germany, the whole complex is known as the Versaille world order (added sometimes by the decisions of conference of Washington in 1921-22). Last months of the 1918 witnessed an active preparation for the conference by the states of Antante and the USA. It was agreed to be held in Paris, but the positions of allies were far from agreement. The very approach to the problem of the new world order varied extremely. France and Great Britain were eager to restore a system of multipolar equilibrium, which meant cutting Germany’s ambitions and potential in such a way that it would never become a hegemon. That desire was shared by the two countries, although France was a little bit more insistant taking into account closer neighbourhood with German power. American approach was different. Wilson’s main task was to create such an international order that could prevent wars in general, allowing for peaceful settlement of small and large disputes. That required a qualitatively new methods. One of them seemed to be the creation of universal organization as the guarantor of international law provisions and a tool for resolving conflicts. The difference of approaches was even indicated by different opinions concerning place of conference. Wilson offered one of the cities of neutral Switzerland to host peace negotiations, while Clemenceau insisted on Versailles Palace as a proper place to humiliate former German Empire. The 18 of January 1919 was the historical day when the Conference started its work. From the very beginning it was facing some rather complicated problems. In Europe in turned evident that Austro-Hungary was no longer able to remain a single state. The same was true about Russia. Thus it was no longer possible to restore a per-war system in a little bit modofoed edition. Old practice of reshuffling power among winners and losers was obsolete. Something completely new had to be installed instead. More than a dozen of new, unstable political units in Central Europe which included states and different â€Å"movements† was a serious challenge. From the one hand this vacuum of power had to be filled somehow; but from the other there was no opportunity even to try to block the proccesses of self-determination. Thus the task was to elaborate some new principles and make new states follow them. The USA were primarily concentrted on that issue. France and Great Britain had another more inportant task – solving of German problem. With this goals in mind the Conference began its work. 35 states were presented at the Conference by 70 well-known politicians and diplomats. Hundreds of experts and officials were participating. French delegation put forward the so-called â€Å"Carthago peace initiative† under which Germany was to be completely disarmed and divided. Bavaria, Rein province and Saar were under this plan to be separated from Germany and the latter was to pay a huge sum in reparations. The problem of stability and security was identical for the French side to a problem of total weakening of Germany and securing French supremacy. Besides, France aimed at creating a belt of states to the East of Germany, where French influence was to be decisive. Regarding all that the French were not enthusiastic about League of Nations, prefering well-known balance of power politics. Wilson was the first American President to participate in peace confernece in Europe. For this end he left the country for almost six months (with little exception in February and March 1919). The whole strategy of Wilson’s foreign policy was built at the time upon the rejection of old principles of isolationism, which was rather controversially treated in the US. In November 1918 the elections to Congress were won by Republicans (Wison was a Democrat), which led to a constant and firm   opposition to Wilson’s initiatives. That undermined President’s negotiation capacities as soon as the Congress was to ratify all the treaties signed by Wilson. American President presented in Paris a special doctrine of new world order, known as â€Å"14 points†. He wanted to create a special system of collective security in Europe, based upon prevention of conflicts. Two main elements of the system should have included a principle of self-determination and effectiveness of League of Nations as the embodiment of international law. What is interesting about that is that self-determination was planned for a rather limited number of nations, excluded vast colonial territories, which were ruled under mandate system. British main objective was to continue politics of splendid isolation. Although it was difficult and almost impossible under new circumstances, the British delegation did it best to secure naval supremacy as the main precondition for splendid isolation. That is why the British Prime-Minister was hard about everything that concerned naval points and sceptical about French claims about extreme limitaion of German power. One of the reasons for the latter was the fear that too hard conditions would provoke a revolution like it already happened in Russia. Italy wanted to gain several territories from the former Austro-Hungary and Ottoman Empire. Japan was after former German colonies in the Pacific and in China. British dominions, such as Australia and New Zealand also wanted to gain former German territories in the Pacific. The procedure of the Conference was designed in such a way, that all major decisions were adopted by five states: the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan. Almost all of them were initiated by the first three. Germany and Russia were not present at the Conference, the former only invited to sign the Threaty of Versailles itself. The Treaty was signed on the 28 of June 1919 at the Versailles Palace, the very place where German Empie was created in 1871, between Germany from the one hand and 26 other states from the other, excluding China, which did not sign the Treaty to protest against the transfer of Shandun to Japan. The most difficult part of the negotiations and subsequent Treaty was that dealing with borders of Germany. Alsace-Lorraine which were annexed after Franco-Prussian was in 1871, were returned to France. International government under League of Nations was established for Saar for 15 years due to the position of the USA. Left bank of the Rein was claimed non-military zone, temporarily occupied by allies, mainly French. The latter point was sharply criticized in Germany, fueling nationalist and racial extremist movements (French occupying forces contained African soldiers from colonies). Belgium received Eupen and Malmedi districts and some territories of Morene. Denmark gained northern part of Schleswig after referendum in 1920. The union of Germany and Austria was prohibited. Eastern borders of Germany were easier to define. Most difficulties emerged with Poland, which allies wanted to be strong enough. To that end Poland was to get all the territories which Prussia gained as a result of divisions of Poland in the XVIII century. Besides, Germany lost a part of Eastern Prussia and parts of Posen, from which a special â€Å"Danzig corridor† was formed to give Poland access to the sea. Besides, Danzig (Gdansk) and Memel, big Prussian ports at the Baltics, were transfered under jurisdiction of the League of Nations. The Treaty limited German military forces to 100,000 and prohibited conscription, military air forces, tanks and submarines. German navy was limited, and General Stuff was dismissed. A special reparation comission was established to settle the issue of financial consequences of war. France and Great Britain were determined to get as much money from defeated Germany as possible. Although there were some opposition to this idea (including position of John Maynard Keynes), the general sum of reparations defined later was high. Speacial article (Article 231) put a historical responsibility for initiating war entirely on Germany. That was another factor, contributing to revanchist tendencies. The Treaty of Versailles was added with Treaties of St. Germain with Austria, Trianon with Hungary, Neuilly with Bulgaria and Serves with Turkey. Together they formed a system of principles which guided international relations in Europe in inter-war period. This guidance was not effective enough. Revanche was the goal of Germany, which was too limited by the Treaty of Versailles. Nothing like an effective deterrence was offered by allies. Nor the League of Nations was an effective tool for crisis prevention. Together with extinction of Russia and self-withdrawal of the USA this made Versailles â€Å"order† too weak. Thus there were two main shortcomings in the post-war management. First, Russia and the USA were out of balance of power calculation. Stbility in Europe by the mid XX century was already impossible to achieve without those two powers. France and Britain, willing to restore a multipolar system, saw their primary goal in limiting potential hegemon. For this reason France did her best to limit German power. And for the same reason Britain was not so enthusiastic about that, fearing that France may become a potential hegemon. The raise of new states to the East of German border and, in fact, between Germany and Russia did not promote stability. Vacuum of power that was created provoked both Germany and the USSR for adopting aggressive politics in the 1930-s. Another fundamental weakness of new order was a system of economic interaction among states. A new division of states completely destroyed econimic ties in the Central and Eastern Europe. Instead of large markets within big states, Europe turned into a number of small but well-protected markets, competing with one another at all costs. Economic pressure on Germany was another factor, which increased vulnerability of European economy. All in all too much politics and too many economic order was one of the reasons for Versailles order to fail. Too comlicated situation connected with the establishment of several new states and rebuilding of the whole system of international relations in the Central and Eastern Europe demanded new approaches. Balance of power was not preserved; instead Germany’s desire to revenge was heated by the weakness of neighbouring countries. In the years that followed it became evident that European affairs can not be managed without Germany and Russia. Being the first to realize that fact, two countries signed a Treaty of Rappalo which opened way for a broad cooperation in many fields. Subsequently both joined League of Nations, which however did not mean that they reject their plans for re-making of world order. Idea of world revolution and the doctrine of revenge were too difficult for Europe to sustain. The result of all miscalculations was disastrous. The World War II was the end of 20 years armictice.