History Appeasement

History Unit 2

Revision notes

Post-War Attitudes to the Peace Settlement

1919 The Treaty of Versailles

Terms: (also see p41-42 of booklet)

1.       Blame clause/clause 231 - Germany had to accept blame for the war.

2.       Disarmament - army of 100,000, de-militarise the Rhineland, six battleships, no subs or planes.

3.       Reparations - £6,600 million.

4.       Land - Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar land to France, West Prussia, Upper Silesia to Poland, colonies became LofN mandates, and Danzig became a free city.

5.       League of Nations - established in the TofV

6.       Anschluss with Austria forbidden.

Obviously, Germany felt furious, and cheated. They were only as responsible for the war as the other nations had been, and the TofV was going to cripple them for decades to come. They had believed that the Treaty would be based upon Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points.

France was mostly happy, but felt that not enough had been done to destroy Germany.

Britain and America were uneasy, believing that the terms were too harsh and that it would cause another war in the coming years.

Wilson was also upset that the LofN, which he had come up with, was not being accepted by American congress.

1919 - 1939 The League of Nations and Collective Security

Known as New Diplomacy in theory, there would never be another war, as all conflicts would be resolved as peaceful discussions.

It had an Assembly of all its members, and a Council of selected powers.

Decisions were made by unanimous vote. Thus, the instant a LofN power was involved in a conflict, the LofN became completely powerless.

The League was initially successful: Åland Islands, Bulgaria, Kellogg-Briand Pact, etc.

However, its only real way of punishing countries which violated the terms of its Covenant was to stop trading with the aggressor. However, this frequently damaged the members of the League as much as it damaged the aggressor. As a result, this was neither popular or effective.

Furthermore, the League was undermined by nations such as Britain and France, who still continued to use old diplomacy methods, such as bi-lateral agreements. This prevented the LofN from effectively doing its job.

As a result, the LofN was less successful in the 1930’s (31 Disarmament conference, 31 Manchuria, 35 Abyssinia, 36 Rhineland, 38 Anschluss, 39 Poland)

1920’s The Impact of Keynes

Encouraged the British government to solve economic issues by putting more money into them. Also calculated that Germany could only possibly pay £2.2 billion in reparations, not the £6.6B they were forced into.

Believed that America needed to save the European economy by allowing its war loans owed to it by France and Britain to go unpaid. However, America was not willing to do this.

Between 1919 and 1924, Keynes was mostly ignored. However, the introduction of the Dawes Plan (see below) showed that Keynes was beginning to be noticed. This was demonstrated further by the Young Plan (see below),…