Totalitarian Rulers in Europe… Last Words

 “If the Nations want peace, the League gives them the way by which peace can be kept. League or no League, a country which is determined to have a war can always have it.” H. Fisher A History of Europe (1938) H. Fisher A History of Europe (1938)

Keeping the Peace 1920s & 1930s League of Nations & Disarmament Article VIII of the League Covenant… “The members of the League recognize that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations.”

 May 1926, League member nations met at Geneva, Switzerland  The committee was called “The Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, being a Commission to prepare for a Conference on the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments.”  Because of lack of concrete progress, the Kellogg- Briand Pact was written and signed in  The actual Disarmament Conference met in 1932 without any success at reducing armaments

Reasons for failure of disarmament  France feared Germany  Czechoslovakia and Poland wanted reassurances in case Germany looked their way  Britain would not give assurances of security to France

Naval Conferences  Washington Naval Conference 1921… set limits on capital ships and submarines  Recognition of Chinese independence  Japanese signed reluctantly… they wanted to be treated equally with western nations  London Naval Conference 1930… revise and extend terms of the 1922 Five Power Treaty that limited tonnage of capital ships  Set new limits for shipbuilding and tonnage  Japan gained a slight additional amount in the ratio of

 Second London Naval Conference 1935  Japan walked out  Anglo-German Naval Agreement 1935  German navy could be 35% of British navy  Germany could build submarines  Gave Germany the ability to ship iron ore from Scandinavia into Germany due to withdrawal of British navy from the Baltic Sea

Germany’s Foreign Policy  Treaty of Rapallo 1922… USSR & Germany  Commercial treaty between USSR & Germany 1925  Treaty of Berlin 1926… reaffirmed the Treaty of Rapallo and neutrality for five years; renewed in 1931 and extended in 1933  German-Polish Non-aggression Pact 1934 which ended a customs war; Germany recognized Poland’s border

 1936…  Began involvement in Spanish Civil War  Rome-Berlin Axis with Mussolini  Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan  1939…  Nazi-Soviet Pact

Enlarging Germany  1935… plebiscite in the Saar… voted to join Germany  1936… regained control of the Rhineland  France did not respond due to fears of being isloated  1938… Anschluss with Austria  1938… Munich Conference… suggested by Mussolini; attended by France, Britain, Germany & Italy; Sudetenland turned over to Germany

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