Major bloody war of the first halfTwentieth century, not in vain, has long been called the world. The scale of the tense military disasters, the number of armed forces, dead and maimed - all impressed by its scope. The dead alone were measured by millions of people. Both the winners and the losers spent a huge amount of material resources and undermined their financial systems (except for the United States, but this is the exception rather than the rule).
Однако после нескольких лет смертоубийства в 1918 year the First World War ended. And the triumphant winners received their bonus - after such a costly (in all understandings) victories, only they could manage the future of the world order. The decisions of the Versailles Conference were the first brick in the basis of the new world order. Read more about this historic event below.
The Paris Peace Conference
Дата Версальской конференции оказалась недалеко from the end of a fierce war. First, in January 1919, an international conference started in Paris, assembled by the victor countries to form and sign peace agreements with the losing parties. The event took place (with some breaks) until the end of January 1920. In addition to the main participants, almost all the countries that existed at that time were on the side of the Entente.
Losing countries were involved in the work of the conference after the negotiation of peace treaties. Soviet Russia was not invited to the conference. The leading role was occupied by the United Kingdom, France and the United States.
Затем были и другие международные форумы.Within the framework of the Paris Conference, several diplomatic meetings were held, among which the Versailles Conference is particularly notable. Because of this, the two events unite and often simply referred to as the Paris (Versailles) conference. The event really turned out to be significant.
Challenges 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 former world political map was changed. The strongest monarchies collapsed.
- A fairly solid, albeit short-lived (as it turned out later) system of world agreement was created.
- The states were defined - new leaders of the post-war world order, which became its short-lived guarantors.
However, not everything worked out so clearly and unequivocally.In the course of a gradual political peace settlement, great controversies were identified not only around the vanquished, but also among the triumphant winners. In particular, the United States and some European powers were concerned about strengthening the position of externally neutral Japan in the territory of the Far East, where during the war years she had no strong rivals. The country gradually increased its armed and economic forces.
During the formal diplomatic negotiations inIn the early post-war years, the Japanese managed to retain the conquered territories in China and on the marine expanses of this region. But at the same time, the victorious United States increasingly felt that they were “masters” at the world arena, and especially in the Pacific. After all, they were powerful even before the war, capturing the leading place in the world. During the years of military confrontation, the United States suffered relatively small human and economic losses, while the total debt of European countries to Americans rose to two dozen billion dollars. It was clear that the United States would seek to obtain not only economic, but also political profit from such a situation. Because of all this, the conditions of the Versailles Conference proved to be very contradictory and ambiguous. Of course, this affected its results even soon after the event.
The participants
At the Paris (Versailles) Peace Conferencethere were a large number of countries in accordance with the number of combatants. Diplomatic negotiations that formally ended hostilities attracted several groups of negotiators:
- the main participants in the war are the winners;
- losing states;
- neutral strong states (like Japan);
- newly formed European states;
- secondary states of Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Among the former and current states of the Entente are notIt turned out only our country. Why Russia did 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 limited number of the winning states have the right to vote.
US conditions
The development of the postwar world, despite the largethe number of participants in the Versailles Conference largely depended on the position of the United States, which was based on 14 points of Wilson. It was a radical and not entirely realistic program of rebuilding the world, not accepted by many political forces, even in the United States. Its essence:
- openness of the world order, including openness of contracts, shipping, trade;
- the solution of the colonial question between states, taking into account the rights of the population;
- the solution of the Russian question, taking into account the interests of Russia itself;
- the solution of territorial issues in Europe, taking into account the interests of countries (France, Belgium);
- the expansion of Italy was to be resolved in the light of the national question;
- the creation of new European states;
- creation of an international organization (League of Nations).
Эта программа, достаточно утопичная и не taking into account the interests of many countries, although it had a serious influence on the decisions of the Versailles Conference, was only partially implemented. Implemented only 4 points Wilson.
Results of the Versailles Peace Treaty
The outcome of the Versailles Conference was very great for the world. Diplomatic negotiations ended with a number of agreements that can be divided into several groups:
- Germany has lost some of its territories in Europe;
- the country has lost all of its existing colonies in Africa and Asia;
- recognized the independence of the territories that were inthe composition of the Russian Empire to the beginning of the war, canceled all agreements concluded with the Soviet state, recognized all countries created on this or that part of Russia;
- recognized all new states;
- Germany sharply reduced the army, it paid reparations to the winners.
The Versailles Peace Treaty, developed at the Paris Peace Conference, simultaneously concluded the war and opened a new era in international relations. But the new world did not last long.
The League of nations
The actual effect of the Versaillesinternational conference was the emergence of a new international organization. The problems of the 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 the world and preventing a new war based on the formation of international cooperation.
However, during the conference it became clear that there are several rather contradictory problems of the creation and functioning of the League of Nations.
Project of a new international organization from Francewore a clear anti-German character and took into account the content of the documents of the Versailles Peace Conference. At the same time, Germany itself had no right to be listed in this structure. Under the League, the creation of international troops and a general staff was envisaged.
That is, France advocated the creation of realstructures that were 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 some scheme.arbitration in the sphere of interaction of large states that were united in an alliance. His task is to prevent an unexpected attack of one of the members of the union on the other. The British believed that this would provide an opportunity to save their considerable colonial possessions.
The American project has increased the number of members inLeague at the expense of smaller states. The principle of the 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 boundaries was permitted, provided that 75% of the members of the League see them not meeting current national circumstances and the principles of the sovereignty of nations.
As a result, this document was an agreement betweenUnited States and Britain, and reflected their interests and understanding of the development of the world. The main tasks of the League of Nations were the confrontation to the war and the preservation of the current world order.
Charter
The League of Nations was clearly 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 kinds of countries in the League:
- The founding states that approved the Charter as part of a peace agreement to end the war, these were countries that participated in the war;
- states that did not participate in the war (thirteen states of Europe, Latin America and Persia);
- the remaining countries are admitted to the League of Nations by a 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 was collected once in the current year and could analyze all issues related to the current position and the follow up of the contracts.
The second body of the League consisted of unchangedrepresentatives 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 the regulations, was located in Geneva. It consisted of several employees and led the ongoing work of the League of Nations.
Washington Summit 1921-1922
The leaders of the Asian and European countries that have in the Pacific Ocean, solved a number of issues that have accumulated during the turbulent years of the second half of the 10s. Twentieth century.
Конференция проходила с ноября 1921 г.to February 1922 in Washington. Germany and Soviet Russia who lost in the war were not invited to the conference. But representatives of these countries conducted informal negotiations on issues of interest to them.
A number of important legal agreements were signed at the conference.
One of the main contracts was an agreementabout the preservation of colonial possessions in the light of the changes. The former treaties were canceled and new ones were signed, indicating the growing influence of the United States, Japan and partly of China.
Another treaty, which determined the situation in the worldsubsequent years, there was an agreement on the containment of naval weapons. It determined the list of states having the right of 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 courts and fortified maritime buildings.
The conference in the capital of the United States continued and in many ways modified the agreement of the Versailles Conference.
System instability
International agreements adopted for severalpost-war years, recorded the situation, noted the ways and extent of further development and, ultimately, stabilized for some time the international situation. However, this brought only temporary stabilization, since the system was unstable and inefficient. There are several reasons for such consequences:
- The Versailles Peace Conference embraced only a part of the states, the absence of the USSR and the USA had a particularly negative effect - these are two large countries; without them, the preservation of the situation in Europe was impossible.
- The system itself was in an unstable position.The contradictions between Britain and France, the humble position of Germany, the new states that do not fit into the previous structure - all this had to be affected sooner or later.
- Серьезным недостатком системы был зафиксированный in it the principle of economic activity of European states. This division seriously destroyed economic ties in the regions of Europe. The single market was broken not dozens of small ones, but it was not possible to neutralize this problem. Europe was not able to make common decisions on economic issues. And the global economic crisis in the middle of the interwar era contributed to a strong drop in relations between countries.
All this together with serious internalproblems of many states plunged the existing system of the Versailles Conference. In addition, the events led to another world war, this time even more ambitious.
The position of Germany and the USSR
The Versailles-Washington Conference broughtso necessary, but very unstable and unjust peace. According to the Versailles Agreement, two major states - Germany and Soviet Russia - were victims, which led to a mutual rapprochement of the two states. Germany created illegal military equipment in the USSR and taught its personnel to the military. The USSR formally received the status of a significant European state (1922), as a result it was gradually forced to recognize the Entente states, otherwise Germany alone would have a special position in trade relations with Russia.
Both countries considered Versailles decisionsconference unfair. The states of the Entente cast off any responsibility for the past war, although in practice it was a cumulative European problem, and all the belligerents were to blame for the bloodshed.
Значительный объем репараций, потребованный с Germany, contributed to inflation and depletion of serious segments of the local population. In fact, because of this, the Nazi regime emerged, which formulated populist appeals for revenge.
The League of Nations, which began work in early 1920, controlled by the Entente. Having not stopped the French attack on Germany (the seizure of the Ruhr basin in 1923), the League of Nations lost its authority and ability to jam the larger conflicts of these years, and, ultimately, was unable to stop the new world war.
results
Results of the Versailles-Washington Conference weresignificant. The new inter-war system of world relations is a world order, the base of which was founded by the Versailles Agreement of 1919, as well as by a number of legal documents between countries. The European component of the existing system (otherwise - Versailles) was largely created under the influence of the interests and position of the winning countries while ignoring the interests of the losers and the newly created states (only in Europe - nine countries), which made this structure sensitive to disintegration, including because of the requirements for its reform, and did not allow prolonged consistency in world affairs.
The negative response of the United States to the questionabout work in the existing system, the isolation of Soviet Russia and the anti-German focus made of it in a poorly stable and not narrowly targeted machine. Because of this, the possibility of a new global conflict soon grew. The United States became a sovereign country and broke the current order. Difficult for Germany points of the Versailles peace (the amount of reparations, etc.) insulted the population and stirred up revanchist emotional tendencies, which resulted in one of the reasons for the seizure of power by the fascists, who started a new, bloody world war.
Вашингтонская военно-политическая система, covering the Pacific region was a much more significant equilibrium, but was also not perfect. Its instability caused the vagueness of the political formation of China, the military nature of Japan’s foreign policy development, the isolationism of US policy and other important factors.
Another typical sign of the Versailles system that appeared was anti-Soviet aspiration. In many points for diplomatic politeness, the countries showed bloodthirstiness towards Soviet Russia.
The largest profit created by Versaillessystems found England, France and the United States. At that time, a civil war continued in Russia, and the Communists won. At first they tried to establish diplomatic ties with neighboring Afghanistan, with the newly emerged Baltic countries and Finland. There was an attempt to improve diplomatic relations with a hostile Poland, but Pilsudski carried out openly anti-Soviet actions, the Polish army was on the territory of neighboring Ukraine. In response, Communist Russia tried to re-attach these two parts of former Tsarist Russia, but the Poles put up resistance and the USSR suffered a serious defeat, as a result of which the Bolshevik government was forced to come to an agreement with Poland. This country has reserved a part of the Soviet territory.
Contracts signed in the post-war periodoccurred due to a number of problems in the content of agreements aimed at eliminating contradictions in certain regions of the Earth. In this regard, Washington was both the next part of Versailles and the beginning of its change. Although the system created during the Versailles-Washington Conference, very quickly showed its incapacity, it nevertheless contributed to, albeit temporal, but still stabilization.
Then the world order reeled again.This time, no less significantly. After a generation (even a little less), a new war broke out, again Germany became the aggressor. Again, Soviet Russia opposed. The “new order” has collapsed. The world froze in anticipation, but the war turned out to be significant, although no one expected the repetition of the horrors of the First World War. The Versailles-Washington system collapsed, and forever. After the establishment of peace, completely different people have already decided the world law and order.
