Page 187 - Encyclopedia Of World History

diplomacy 537

Anson Burlingame, China’s representative to the Western world, with the first Chinese
delegation to the United States in 1868. The appointment of an American as their
representative was highly unusual for the Chinese.

action. Some of Wilson’s ideas were implemented in the Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) came to power in Germany
Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I.The Treaty of in 1933 determined to destroy the Versailles system.
Versailles contained the charter for the newly created Hitler wanted Germany to obtain Lebensraum, or living
League of Nations. space, in Eastern Europe, and did not shy away from the
Wilson, a liberal internationalist, introduced ideology use of war to achieve his goals. Hitler found the tradi-
once again into the conduct of diplomacy.Wilson’s ideas tional mechanism of German diplomacy wanting, and
were challenged by Vladimir Lenin, who led the Bolshe- pushed aside professional diplomats in favor of Nazi
viks to power in Russia in 1917. As a Marxist, Lenin party appointees such as Joachim von Ribbentrop, Ger-
wanted to transform the war between nations and man ambassador to Britain in 1936 and, after 1938,
empires into a class war. His newly appointed commis- Nazi foreign minister.
sar for foreign affairs, Leon Trotsky, said that he would By the mid-1930s the unity that held nineteenth-
issue a few proclamations, then close up shop. Once the century diplomacy together had fractured. Diplomats
worker’s revolution had swept away the old order, the were divided by ideological differences and increasingly
need for diplomacy would vanish. The Bolsheviks also came from differing social backgrounds. Public opinion
published secret documents drawn up by the Allies dur- exerted an unparalleled influence on diplomacy. In
ing the war for the partition of the Turkish empire, further Britain the League of Nations Union, formed to ensure
discrediting the old diplomacy. However, by 1921, it was that the British government followed League principles in
clear that the worker’s revolution had succeeded only in the conduct of its foreign relations, attracted tens of
the Russian empire, renamed the Union of Soviet Social- thousands of followers.The old diplomacy had virtually
ist Republics (USSR). Lenin’s successor, Josef Stalin ceased to function. Following the Italian invasion of
(1879–1953), had to maintain the security of the Soviet Ethiopia in 1935, the foreign ministers of France and
state, which required a great deal of diplomacy. Britain, Pierre Laval and Samuel Hoare, respectively,