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Senior Scholars Interwar Europe Fall 2019 Week 10 11/5/19 Peace, Appeasement, War Senior Scholars: • Goal of Paris Peace Conference was “collective security” Interwar Europe: – Showpiece was League of Nations WorkinG Out Modernity in the Midst of Crisis Fall 2019 Prof. Kenneth F. Ledford [email protected] 368-4144 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War Peace, Appeasement, War • Collective security was threated by the existence of • The British public reverted to its traditional aversion to revisionism continental entanglements – Nations who rejected the legitimacy of the settlement and sought to – Britain repudiated its guarantee pledge to France revise it – Britain relied on the League of nations and multilateral action rather • Differences emerged among victors as to the meaning of than bilateral security arrangements collective security – Even with the League, Britain relied on moral suasion, opposing attempts to apply military or economic sanctions – Differences, combined with economic tensions and revisionism, weakened collective security until it proved meaningless after 1936 – Also weakened by isolationism HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War Peace, Appeasement, War • The French viewed things differently • So France resorted to creating a network of military alliances – Not cut off by water from German invasion outside of the League – Their recent victory was only with vast aid and great effort – September 1920: Defensive alliance with Belgium – Felt pressing need to supplement their defensive resources – February 1921: Defensive alliance with Poland – France had to find a substitute for the Rhineland pledge – January 1924: Military alliance with Czechoslovakia – Sought to strengthen the League in its power to punish aggression – Brokered a Polish alliance with Rumania • Draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance, 1923 – Brokered the “Little Entente” of Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Yugoslavia • Geneva Protocol of 1924, compulsory submission of all disputes to PCIJ or League • Aimed at Hungarian revisionism Council for arbitration – All aimed at encircling Germany and distancing the Soviet Union • Both efforts blocked by Britain and the Dominions – Seem stronger than it actually was HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 1 11/5/19 Peace, Appeasement, War • Hitler’s Foreign Policy Views – Key Doctrines: • Race and Space • Space meant agriculturally usable land • Survival meant war for new land • Land meant land in Europe • Not limited to regaining pre-1914 borders • Expansion to be in the east of Europe HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War Peace, Appeasement, War • Hitler had two goals: • Viewed Britain as potential ally – Prepare home front for war • Viewed Russia/Soviet Union and other Slavs as inferior races • Basic political change • “Coordination” or “Gleichschaltung” • Viewed France as inevitable enemy – Acquire more efficient allies than in World War I – Defeat first before drive to the east • “Putrid state corpses” HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War Peace, Appeasement, War • First years combined doctrinal rigidity with tactical elasticity • Early stages of foreign policy, 1933-35 • Three-fold goals: – Caution – Complete Gleichschaltung – May 1933, renewed Berlin Treaty of 1926 with Soviet Union – Regain foreign policy freedom of action by withdrawing from treaties – June 1933, signed “Four Power Pact” with Britain, France, and Italy, entered into by Stresemann and Brüning signaling equality – Test other Powers’ will to resist in order to calculate speed at which he – July 1933, signed Concordat with Vatican could move forward – January 1934, signed 10-year nonaggression pact with Poland HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 2 11/5/19 Peace, Appeasement, War • Austrian Nazis attempted putsch on July 25, 1934 – Engelbert Dollfuss murdered, replaced by Kurt Schuschnigg • Italy and France composed differences – Laval-Mussolini Agreements, January 7, 1935 • Reiterated support for independent Austria • France gave Italy a free hand in Abyssinia Signing Concordat 1933, Future Pope Pius XII HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War • Hitler’s military surprises of March 1935 provoked response – March 8, announced “new” air force – March 15, denounced military limitation clauses of Versailles Treaty • France had already in May 1933 agreed with Soviet Union to to enter coalition against each other – May 2, 1935, Franco-Soviet Pact in Paris, immediate assistance in case of unprovoked attack – May 16, Czech-Soviet Pact in Prague, immediate assistance in case of unprovoked attack, only in event that France assisted attacked party HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War Peace, Appeasement, War • Other Great Powers responded • Britain broke the “Stresa Front” in June 1935 by negotiating a – British White Book justified increased military expenditure bilateral Naval Pact with Germany – France extended military service from 1 to 2 years – Accepted the violation of the Treaty of Versailles – Britain, France, Italy met at Stresa to condemn German action and reaffirm Locarno – Council of League of Nations criticized German actions HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 3 11/5/19 Authoritarian Challenge Peace, Appeasement, War • 1935-36, international relations entered a new, violent phase – Given free hand by France, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia on Oct. 3, 1935 – First step toward creation of a glorious colonial empire – Emperor Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations, which condemned Italy as an aggressor on October 7 and imposed economic sanctions on Italy on October 11 • Excluded coal and oil – Some states refused to apply sanctions – Britain and France agreed to the Italian conquest in December 1936, Hoare-Laval Agreement – British public opinion responded harshly, anti-Italian HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War Peace, Appeasement, War • Italian and German intervention in Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 – Only Soviets and independent leftists supported Republic • Final, fatal blow to principle of collective security Guernica by Pablo Picasso HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War Peace, Appeasement, War • October 24, 1936, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany signed “Rome-Berlin Axis” • November 25, 1936, Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan – Italy joined November 6, 1937 HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 4 11/5/19 Authoritarian Challenge Peace, Appeasement, War Rome-Berlin Axis HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War Appeasement and Expansion • With the open flouting of the principle of non-intervention without any meaningful response, European diplomacy entered into the period known as appeasement – A.J.P. Taylor even suggested that appeasement began with the first readjustment of reparations – The British government under Neville Chamberlain in 1937 began to rearm, but rearmament was not complete by 1938 HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Peace, Appeasement, War Peace, Appeasement, War • “Lessons” of appeasement • Appeasement was not treason – Pronounced by Churchill in 1938, when he was out of power – Rational policy-making response to economic aftermath of World War I – Very term has become a term of abuse and to “lessons” learned from it – Father of all domino theories • Domestic constraints on foreign policy were key – But to contemporaries, appeasement was not pejorative – Arising from revulsion against slaughter of World War I and social • Meant to appease just grievances strains caused by the crisis of capitalism • Settle differences by negotiation rather than force • In Sudetenland, appeasement was true to self-determination • Hitler manipulated guilty feelings of the Allies from the Paris Peace Conferences HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT 5 11/5/19 Peace, Appeasement, War Britain’s View of the Next War • Four reasons to re-examine the traditional interpretation: • After the end of World War I, the relationship between Britain – It was the “cowards” of Munich who led their countries to war against and its Empire changed Germany only a year later, and without being attacked – Another restraint on British policy-making – Hitler, usually viewed as having triumphed at Munich, believed he had – Britain and the Dominions both very aware of material and manpower been defeated; wanted war in 1938 instead of 1939 support provided by the Empire in war effort – Opponents of appeasement also pressured the Czechs to make – Dominions in 1920s and 1930s became more assertive in dealing with concessions Britain • Chamberlain would have gone to war had Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938, – December 1931, the Statute of Westminster made Dominions legally rather than continue to negotiate equal to the United Kingdom – Britain and France knew that time was on their side, having begun to • British Commonwealth of Nations rearm HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Britain’s View of the Next War Britain’s View of the Next War • Learned common “lessons” of World War I – Any future war would be a general European war – As destructive of life, wealth, and well-being as World War I – To be avoided at all costs – Best way to avoid a new war was to disarm – Spend money on easing social distress rather than on armaments – Some also subscribed to a doctrinaire pacifism – Conservative governments cut military budgets out of fiscal orthodoxy – Widespread fear of strategic bombing: • “Bomber” Harris: “The bomber will always get through.” HISTORY DEPARTMENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT Britain’s
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