The great bloody war of the first half of the twentieth century has long been called the world war for a reason. The scale of intense military disasters, the number of armed forces killed and maimed - everything was striking in its scope. The dead alone numbered in the millions. Both the winners and the losers have spent a huge amount of material resources and undermined their financial systems (except for the United States, but this is more an exception than a rule).
However, after several years of slaughter in 1918, the First World War ended. And the triumphant winners received their bonus - after such a costly (in all senses) victory, only they could decide the future of the world order. The decisions of the Versailles Conference became the first brick in the basis of a new world order. Read more about this historic event below.
Paris Peace Conference
The date of the Versailles conference was not far from the endfierce war. First, in January 1919, an international conference began in Paris, brought together by the victorious countries to form and sign peace agreements with the losing parties. The event took place (with some interruptions) until the end of January 1920. In addition to the main participants, almost all the countries that existed at that time that were on the side of the Entente participated in the conference.
The losing countries were involved in the work of the conference after the agreement of peace treaties. Soviet Russia was not invited to the conference. The leading role was occupied by the UK, France and the USA.
Then there were other international forums. Within the framework of the Paris Conference, several diplomatic meetings were held, among which the Versailles Conference stands out in particular. Because of this, the two events are combined and often referred to simply as the Paris (Versailles) Conference. The event really turned out to be significant.
Challenge and opportunities
For the full announcement of the results of the last war, the Versailles Conference of 1919 began to work. Its results are striking in their globality:
- The previous world political map has been changed. The most powerful monarchies collapsed.
- A fairly strong, albeit short-lived (as it turned out later) system of global agreement has been created.
- The states have been determined - the new leaders of the post-war world order, which have become its short-lived guarantors.
However, not everything turned out so clear and unambiguous. During the gradual politicalpeaceful settlement, great contradictions were determined not only around the vanquished, but also among the triumphant winners. In particular, the United States and some European powers were concerned about the strengthening of the position of the outwardly neutral Japan in the Far East, where during the war years it did not have strong rivals. The country gradually built up its military and economic forces.
During formal diplomatic negotiations in the first post-war years, the Japanese managed to retain their occupied territories in China and in the seas of this region. But at the same time, the victorious United States more and more often felt like "masters" in the world arena, and especially in the Pacific Ocean. After all, they were powerful even before the war, seizing the leading place in the world. During the years of military confrontation, the United States suffered relatively small human and economic losses, but the total debt of European states to the Americans grew to two tens of billions of dollars. It was clear that the United States would seek not only economic but also political profit from such a situation. Because of all this, the conditions of the Versailles Conference turned out to be very contradictory and ambiguous. Of course, this affected her results even in the short time after the event.
Members
At the Paris (Versailles) Peace Conference there were a large number of countries in accordance with the number of combatants. Diplomatic talks formally ending hostilities attracted several groupsnegotiators:
- the main participants in the war are the winners;
- losing states;
- neutral strong states (like Japan);
- new European states;
- minor states of Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Among the former and current states of the Entente, only our country was missing. Why did Russia not participate in the Versailles Conference? Soviet Russia refused to participate in the conference, although it was formally invited to it.
In this large gathering of countries, only a handful of the winning states had the right to vote.
US conditions
The development of the post-war world, despite the large number of participants in the Versailles Conference, largely depended on the US position, which was based on Wilson's 14 points. It was a radical and not entirely realistic program for rebuilding the world, not accepted by many political forces, even in the United States. Her Essence:
- openness of the world order, including openness of contracts, shipping, trade;
- solution of the colonial issue between states, taking into account the rights of the population;
- solution of the Russian issue, taking into account the interests of Russia itself;
- solving territorial issues in Europe, taking into account the interests of countries (France, Belgium);
- Italian expansion was supposed to be decided taking into account the national question;
- creation of new European states;
- creation of an international organization (League of Nations).
This program, quite utopian and nottaking into account the interests of many countries, although it had a serious impact on the decisions of the Versailles Conference, was only partially implemented. Only 4 Wilson points implemented.
Results of the Treaty of Versailles
The results of the Versailles Conference were very great for the world. Diplomatic negotiations ended with a number of agreements that can be divided into several groups:
- Germany lost part of its territories in Europe;
- the country lost all its existing colonies in Africa and Asia;
- recognized the independence of the territories that were part of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the war, canceled all agreements concluded with the Soviet state, recognized all countries created in one or another part of Russia;
- recognized all new states;
- Germany had a sharp reduction in the army, it paid reparations to the winners.
Developed at the Paris Peace Conference, the Versailles Peace Treaty both ended the last war and opened a new era in international relations. But the new world did not last long.
League of Nations
The actual consequence of the Versailles International Conference was the emergence of a new international organization. The problems of spheres of influence and the number of members of the new international organization led to serious discussions at the conference. Previously, the League of Nations was formed with the tasks of protecting peace and preventing a new war on the basis of the formation of international cooperation.
However, duringthe work of the conference, it became clear that there are several rather controversial problems of the creation and functioning of the League of Nations.
The project of a new international organization from France was clearly anti-German in nature and took into account the content of the documents of the Versailles Peace Conference. At the same time, Germany itself did not have the right to be listed in this structure. The League provided for the creation of international troops and a general staff.
That is, France advocated the creation of real structures that would be able to ensure the implementation of the decisions of the League of Nations. However, such a project did not attract the country's leading allies - neither Britain nor the United States - their projects were more moderate.
The English project had only a certain scheme of arbitration in the sphere of interaction between large states that were united in an alliance. His task is to prevent an unexpected attack by one of the members of the association on another. The British believed that this would make it possible to save their considerable colonial possessions.
The American project increased the number of members in the League at the expense of smaller states. The principle of obligations of territorial unity and political sovereignty of any member of the organization began to work. However, the possibility of changing the existing state formations and their borders was allowed, provided that 75% of the League members saw them as not meeting the current national circumstances and the principles of the sovereignty of nations.
As a result, this document was an agreement between the United States and England and reflected their interests and understandingdevelopment of the world. The main tasks of the League of Nations were to resist the war and preserve the current world order.
Charter
The League of Nation was obviously created taking into account the current international situation and the decisions of the Versailles Conference. The first article of the document established membership in it. There were three types of countries in the League:
- Founding states that approved the Charter as part of the peace agreement to end the war, these were the countries participating in the war;
- states that did not take part in the war (thirteen states of Europe, Latin America and Persia);
- other countries admitted to the League of Nations by general vote.
League Organs
The leading bodies of the organization were the Assembly - the general meeting, the Council - the current executive body and the permanent Secretariat.
The first structure met once in the current year and could analyze all issues related to the current situation and adherence to treaties.
The second body of the League consisted of permanent representatives of the five leading powers and four variables. The Council is obliged to meet once a year and study a large list of issues that were within the scope of the work of the League.
The secretariat, subject to regulation, was in Geneva. It consisted of several employees and carried out the day-to-day work of the League of Nations.
Washington Summit 1921-1922
The leaders of Asian and European countries located in the Pacific Ocean solved a number of issues that had accumulated over the turbulent years of the second half of the 10s. XX century.
The conference has been held since November1921 to February 1922 in Washington Germany, which lost the war, and Soviet Russia were not invited to the conference. But representatives of these countries held informal negotiations on issues of interest to them.
A number of important legal agreements were signed at the conference.
One of the main treaties was an agreement on the preservation of colonial possessions in the light of ongoing changes. Previous agreements were canceled and new ones were signed, indicating the growing influence of the United States, Japan and partly China.
Another treaty that determined the situation in the world in subsequent years was the agreement on the deterrence of naval weapons. It determined the list of states that have the right to priority development of the Navy, their share in this process and the maximum size of military courts. At the same time, it was forbidden to build large volumes of military ships and fortified seaside structures.
The conference in the US capital continued and largely modified the agreements of the Versailles Conference.
System instability
International agreements, adopted over several post-war years, fixed the current situation, marked the ways and scales of further development and, ultimately, stabilized the international situation for some time. However, this brought only temporary stabilization, since the system turned out to be unstable and inefficient. There are several reasons for such consequences:
- The Versailles Peace Conference covered only a part of the states, especially negatively affectedthe absence of the USSR and the USA are two big countries, without them it was impossible to maintain the position in Europe.
- The system itself was in an unstable position. The contradictions between England and France, the reduced position of Germany, new states that do not fit into the old structure - all this was bound to have an impact sooner or later.
- A serious shortcoming of the system was the principle of economic activity of European states fixed in it. The resulting division seriously destroyed economic ties in the regions of Europe. The single market was broken not by dozens of small ones, but it was not possible to neutralize this problem. Europe was incapable of making common decisions on economic issues. And the global economic crisis in the middle of the interwar era contributed to a strong decline in relations between countries.
All this, together with the serious internal problems of many states, caused the collapse of the existing system of the Versailles Conference. In addition, events led to another world war, this time even more massive.
The position of Germany and the USSR
The Versailles-Washington Conference brought a much needed, but very unstable and unjust peace. As a result of the Versailles Agreement, two large states - Germany and Soviet Russia - were victims, which led to a mutual rapprochement of the two states. Germany created illegal military equipment on the territory of the USSR and trained its military personnel. The USSR formally received the status of a significant European state(1922), as a result, the states of the Entente were also gradually forced to recognize it, otherwise Germany alone would have a special position in trade relations with Russia.
Both countries considered the decisions of the Versailles Conference unfair. The Entente states shied away from any responsibility for the past war, although in practice it was a common European problem, and the blame for the bloodshed was on all the belligerents.
The significant amount of reparations demanded from Germany contributed to inflation and the impoverishment of serious sections of the local population. In fact, because of this, the Nazi regime emerged, which formulated populist calls for revenge.
The League of Nations, which started in early 1920, was controlled by the Entente. By failing to stop the French attack on Germany (the capture of the Ruhr in 1923), the League of Nations lost its credibility and ability to silence the larger conflicts of these years, and, ultimately, proved unable to stop a new world war.
Results
The results of the Versailles-Washington Conference were significant. The new interwar system of world relations is the world order, the basis of which was founded by the Versailles Agreement of 1919, as well as a number of legal documents between countries. The European component of the existing system (in other words, Versailles) was created to a large extent under the influence of the interests and position of the victorious countries while ignoring the interests of the losers and newly created states (only in Europe - nine countries), which made this structure susceptible to collapse, inincluding because of the requirements for its reform, and did not allow long-term constancy in world affairs.
The negative response of the United States to the question of working in the existing system, the isolation of Soviet Russia and the anti-German focus turned it into a poorly stable and not narrowly focused machine. Because of this, the possibility of a new world conflict in the near future grew more and more. The United States became a sovereign country and broke the current order. The points of the Treaty of Versailles that were difficult for Germany (the amount of reparations, etc.) offended the population and aroused revanchist emotional tendencies, which resulted in one of the reasons for the seizure of power by the Nazis, who started a new bloody world war.
Washington's politico-military system spanning the Pacific was a much larger balance, but it wasn't perfect either. Its instability was determined by the vagueness of China's political formation, the military nature of Japan's foreign policy development, the isolationism of US policy, and other important factors.
Another typical sign of the emerging Versailles system was anti-Soviet aspirations. At many points, behind diplomatic courtesy, the bloodthirstiness of countries towards Soviet Russia was manifested.
England, France and the USA gained the biggest profits from the created Versailles system. At that time, the civil war continued in Russia, the communists won it. At first they tried to establish diplomatic ties with neighboring Afghanistan,with the newly emerging B altic countries and Finland. There was an attempt to improve diplomatic relations with hostile Poland, but Pilsudski carried out openly anti-Soviet actions, the Polish army ended up on the territory of neighboring Ukraine. In response, communist Russia tried to reattach these two parts of the former tsarist Russia, but the Poles resisted and the USSR suffered a serious defeat, as a result of which the Bolshevik government was forced to negotiate with Poland. This country left behind part of the Soviet territory.
Treaties signed in the post-war period were due to a number of problems in the content of agreements aimed at eliminating contradictions in certain regions of the Earth. In this respect, Washington was both the next part of Versailles and the beginning of its change. Although the system created during the Versailles-Washington Conference quickly showed its incapacity, it nevertheless contributed, albeit temporarily, but still to stabilization.
Further, the world order is shaken again. This time, no less significant. A generation later (even a little less), a new war broke out, again Germany became the aggressor. Again, Soviet Russia opposed. The "new order" collapsed. The world froze in anticipation, but the war turned out to be significant, although no one expected a repetition of the horrors of the First World War. The Versailles-Washington system collapsed, and forever. After the establishment of peace, completely different people ruled the world legal order.
