Page 142 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

peacemaking in the modern era 1443

instituted led to a century of peace that lasted until seemed to pose a real threat in 1919, and the peace-
World War I. makers had to act with speed to stabilize international
relations. But as Jack C. Roth explains,“the defeat of Ger-
The Treaty of Versailles many concealed the fact that in 1919 her potential for
The European balance of power resulting from the European domination was possibly greater than it had
Vienna peacemaking process didn’t survive World War I, been in 1914. The war, in fact, ended in such a way as
and the nature and aims of the conflict imposed a shift to break up the very coalition needed to keep Germany
in the peacemaking process.The waging of total war led in check” (1968, 92).
to a peacemaking process that basically excluded the The peacemaking process at Versailles was inspired by
defeated nations from the resulting balance of power to a collective will to “legalize” international relations, and
prevent them from seeking to redefine it anew. the absence of any coercive mechanism meant that the
The human cost of the war was on such a scale that whole system rested on the goodwill of its adherents. In-
two new elements were introduced into the peacemaking capable of stopping Japan’s invasion of China in 1931,
process that took place at the Palace of Versailles in Germany’s rearmament, or Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia,
1919: war guilt and the establishment of a collective the League demonstrated the weakness of the collective
forum aimed at keeping war at bay.Through its infamous diplomacy introduced at Versailles and the difficulty of
Article 231, the Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June achieving a stable peacemaking process without the use
1919, held Germany solely responsible for the war. of coercion.
Excluded from the peace negotiations, Germany was
required to pay financial reparations, disarm, and limit From World War II
the size of its standing army and navy, and it was banned to the Cold War
from building a new air force. It is the alliance between Britain, the United States and
Under the influence of U.S. President Woodrow Wil- the Soviet Union that defeated Germany in 1945. Fol-
son (1856–1924), the victorious powers accepted the lowing a second German bid for power in Europe, the
establishment of an international organization designed victors decided to build a suitable peacemaking process
to ensure by diplomacy and collective security the polit- aimed at ensuring the European status quo. The end of
ical status quo resulting from the Versailles settlement. World War II marks a significant shift in international
With the aim of legalizing diplomacy by replacing armed politics. It marks the end of European domination and
conflict with negotiation, the treaty created the League of the emergence of an international system based on the
Nations, an international forum and ancestor to the existence of two superpowers: the United States and the
United Nations. Acting as an international forum aimed Soviet Union.
at achieving a general disarmament process, it failed In Yalta and Potsdam, Britain, the Soviet Union, France,
under the pressure of the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and the United States tried to build a suitable peacemak-
both seeking to change the balance of power resulting ing process aimed at resolving, once and for all, the Ger-
from the war. man problem. If the United States and the Soviet Union
Without any authority other than the moral value of hoped in 1945 to perpetuate their wartime collabora-
its covenant, the League epitomized the failure of the tion, their ideological divide soon shattered any hopes of
peacemaking process that took place in 1919. It must be collaboration, and once more the international status
understood that the peacemaking process was motivated quo rested on an equilibrium between dominant powers,
by pragmatism.The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and namely the Soviet Union and the United States. In fact,
the numerous revolutionary movements in Central Europe the incompletion of the peacemaking process meant