1. Why Pursue National Interests?
Related Issue II: To what extent should national interests be pursued?
Chapter Issue: To what extent should the pursuit of national interests shape foreign policy?

2. Chapter Inquiry Question
How did foreign policy initiatives before, between, and during the First and Second World Wars hinder nations’ national interests?
Consider the following factors when analyzing the issue at hand:
Identifying nation’s needs
Relationships with nations that having opposing ideologies
Justifying nation’s needs and goals
Identifying nation’s goals
Relationships with nations that share similar ideologies

3. WWI & WWII: The Pursuit of National Interests and the Shaping of Foreign Policy
How did foreign policy initiatives before, between, and during WWI and WWII hinder nations’ national interests?

4. Foreign Policy TOOLS Treaties
Diplomacy (receiving and sending of diplomats)
Foreign aid
Military forces
Tariffs and trade
Non-governmental organizations

5. World War I Shakedown Triple Entente: Britain France Russia
Triple Alliance:
Germany
Austria
Italy

6. The Paris Peace Conference
Opened between January 12, 1919 and January 20, 1920!
Set the peace terms for the Central Powers after the armistices of 1918
Leaders of 32 states representing about 75% of the world’s population attended
Negotiations were dominated by the five major powers responsible for defeating the Central Powers: US, Britain, France, Italy and Japan

7. Treaty of Versailles
Tour of Versailles:
The Big Four:
Woodrow Wilson (president of the US)
Georges Clemenceau (prime minister of France)
David Lloyd George (prime minister of Great Britain)
Vittorio Orlando (prime minister of Italy)

9. The Treaty was a Diktat
Diktat: a harsh, unilaterally imposed settlemment with a defeated party.
The Treaty of Versailles was a diktat in that Germany was not allowed to negotiate on its own behalf at the Paris Peace Conference and it was forced to accept the Treaty and could not refuse to honour its terms.

10. Punitive in Nature – The Treaty “Punished” Germany
Six terms of the Treaty of Versailles
Remember: GARGLE
Guilt for the War
By clause 231 of the treaty, Germany had to accept the blame ‘for causing all the loss and damage’ of the war.

11. T of V: GARGLE Armed forces
The Treaty restricted German armed forces to:
Only men in the army
Conscription was banned – soldiers had to be volunteers
No submarines or aeroplanes
Only six battleships
The Rhineland had to be de-militarized

12. T of V: GARGLE Reparations
Germany had to pay for all the damage of the war in installments, until 1984
To make these payments, the Weimar Government printed extra money and created a condition of hyper inflation and extreme economic hardship in Germany

13. T of V: GARGLE Germany lost territory
Alsace-Lorraine was given back to France
The Saar coalfields were given to France for 15 years
Malmedy was given to Belgium
North Schleswig was given to Denmark (after a plebiscite/referedum)
West Prussia (including the ‘Polish corridor’) and Upper Silesia were given to Poland
Danzig was made a ‘free city’
Memel was given to Lithuania
German colonies were made ‘mandates’ of the League of Ntions, to belooked after by France (Cameroons), Britain (Tanganyika), Japan (islands in the Pacific), Austrailia (New Guinea) and New Zealand (Samoa)

15. T of V: GARGLE League of Nations Extra points
Set up as an international forum to settle disputes by discussion, not war
Germany is not allowed to join initially (until 1926) and the USA evnetually refuses to join
Extra points
The Treaty forbade Anschluss (union) between Germany and Austria
The Treaty also mae Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania independent states (in the Balkans)

16. Germany’s Losses: 10% of its land All its colonies
12% of its population
16% of its coalfields
Half of its iron and steel industry
Most of its army and navy
All its airforce

17. Treaty of Versailles: Support for the Treaty
You will complete the chart below to determine the level of support each country had for the summary statements of the Treaty of Versailles.
Identify which nations would have been dissatisfied with the Treaty, and why.
-2 = highly opposed to the clause +2 = highly supportive of the clause
Britain
France
Germany
Italy
Summary statement…
Summary statement

18. Conclusion of WWI
Maps of Pre WWI Europe and Post WWI and Treaty of Versailles

19. VOICES: Is it the Victors who Write History
Read VOICES on pages 152 and 153
Identify parts of the Brockdorff-Rantzau quotation that reinforce German national interests
Assuming that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh, how should the victors have treated Germany?

20. The League of Nations
The first item on the agenda at the Paris Peace Conference was the creation of a League (council) which was to serve as a means of guaranteeing collective security to all its members
Collective security: relying on the might of the combined group (not one or two individual countries) to ensure and matina world peace
The League hoped that this threat of collective response would make war obseolete
The great powers: USA, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and Russia
However, the US never took its place and Russia was not admitted until 1934
Germany was kept out fo the League until 1926 but eventually joined as a permanent member of the ‘power’ council

21. Flaws of the League
Several major flaws with the structure of the LofN which limited its effectiveness as an agent of collective security:
The US became isolationist in nature (again) and did not join the world’s most powerful council
Membership in the League was voluntary.
The League’s decisions were not “binding”

22. Expansionism
One aspect of Foreign Policy

23. Expansionism Japan’s Expansionism Italy’s Expansionism
Manchuria
Italy’s Expansionism
Abyssinia, 1935
Germany’s Expansionism

24. WWII and the Pursuit of National Interests
Adolf Hitler breaks Treaty conditions
Great Britain and France were dealing with the Depression
Munich Agreement?
Key term: ___________

25. INVESTIGATION: Appeasement
Who represented Szechosloviakia’s interests at the Munich Conference? Were the national interests of Czechoslovakia taken into consideration by the political leaders at Munich?
After the Sudentenland was given to Germany, Adolf Hitler took over th rest of Czechoslovakia in March Hitler then invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, which marked the beginning of WWII, as Britain and France declared war on Germany for this invasion. What national interests motivated these actions by each of the nations involved?