The Conference of Ambassadors of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers was an inter-allied organization of the Entente in the period following the end of World War I. Formed in Paris in January 1920 [1] it became a successor of the Supreme War Council and was later on de facto incorporated into the League of Nations as one of its governing bodies. It became less active after the Locarno Treaties of 1925 and formally ceased to exist in 1931 [2] or 1935. [1]
The Conference consisted of ambassadors of the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan accredited in Paris and French minister of foreign affairs. The ambassador of the United States attended as an observer because the United States was not an official party to the Treaty of Versailles. [1] French diplomat René Massigli was its secretary-general for its entire existence. [2] It was chaired by the French foreign ministers, among them Georges Clemenceau, Raymond Poincaré and Aristide Briand. [2]
Jules Laroche and Massigli were the first two secretaries-general. A series of committees and commissions worked as permanent or sometimes ad hoc advisers to the secretaries-general. [3]
It was formed to enforce peace treaties and to mediate various territorial disputes among European states. [2] Some of the disputed regions handled by the Conference included Cieszyn Silesia (between Poland and Czechoslovakia), the Vilnius Region (between Poland and Lithuania), the Klaipėda Region (between Germany and Lithuania) and the Corfu Incident (between Italy and Greece). One of its major territorial decisions was made on 15 March 1923, in recognizing the eastern borders of Poland created following the Polish–Soviet War of 1920. [4] The Conference also recognized Polish sovereignty over the Vilnius region and Eastern Galicia. [5] [6]
At its March 1925 meeting held at the French War Ministry (Quai D'Orsay) in Paris, Marshal Foch gave a briefing on the state of German disarmament. He said:
In response, Foch asked that a treaty of security be signed between France and the United Kingdom. Lord Crewe, the British ambassador, blocked further discussion on the subject. [7]
The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The main organization ceased operations on 18 April 1946 when many of its components were relocated into the new United Nations. As the template for modern global governance, the League profoundly shaped the modern world.
The Polish Corridor, also known as the Danzig Corridor, Corridor to the Sea or Gdańsk Corridor, was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia, which provided the Second Republic of Poland (1920–1939) with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Weimar Germany from the province of East Prussia. At its narrowest point, the Polish territory was just 30 km wide. The Free City of Danzig, situated to the east of the corridor, was a semi-independent German speaking city-state forming part of neither Germany nor Poland, though united with the latter through an imposed union covering customs, mail, foreign policy, railways as well as defence.
The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties. Although the armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, and agreed certain principles and conditions including the payment of reparations, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiations before signing the treaty.
The San Remo conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council as an outgrowth of the Paris Peace Conference, held at Castle Devachan in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. The San Remo Resolution passed on 25 April 1920 determined the allocation of Class "A" League of Nations mandates for the administration of three then-undefined Ottoman territories in the Middle East: "Palestine", "Syria" and "Mesopotamia". The boundaries of the three territories were "to be determined [at a later date] by the Principal Allied Powers", leaving the status of outlying areas such as Zor and Transjordan unclear.
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. However, his main Allied colleagues were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism.
The Locarno Treaties were seven agreements negotiated in Locarno, Switzerland, from 5 to 16 October 1925 and formally signed in London on 1 December, in which the First World War Western European Allied powers and the new states of Central and Eastern Europe sought to secure the post-war territorial settlement, in return for normalizing relations with the defeated German Reich. It also stated that Germany would never go to war with the other countries. Locarno divided borders in Europe into two categories: western, which were guaranteed by the Locarno Treaties, and eastern borders of Germany with Poland, which were open for revision.
The Paris Peace Conference was a set of formal and informal diplomatic meetings in 1919 and 1920 after the end of World War I, in which the victorious Allies set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and Italy, the conference resulted in five treaties that rearranged the maps of Europe and parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, and also imposed financial penalties. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and the other losing nations were not given a voice in the deliberations; this later gave rise to political resentments that lasted for decades. The arrangements made by this conference are considered one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history.
The Curzon Line was a proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I. Based on a suggestion by Herbert James Paton, it was first proposed in 1919 by Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, to the Supreme War Council as a diplomatic basis for a future border agreement.
The causes of World War II have been given considerable attention by historians. The immediate precipitating event was the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany made by Britain and France, but many other prior events have been suggested as ultimate causes. Primary themes in historical analysis of the war's origins include the political takeover of Germany in 1933 by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party; Japanese militarism against China, which led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the Second Sino-Japanese War; Italian aggression against Ethiopia, which led to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War; or military uprising in Spain, which led to the Spanish Civil War.
The Polish–Lithuanian War was an undeclared war between newly independent Lithuania and Poland following World War I, which happened mainly in the Vilnius and Suwałki regions. The war is viewed differently by the respective sides. According to Lithuanian historians, it was part of the Lithuanian Wars of Independence and lasted from May 1919 to 29 November 1920. Polish historians deem the Polish–Lithuanian war as occurring only in September–October 1920. Since the spring of 1920, the conflict became part of the wider Polish–Soviet War and was largely shaped by its progress. It was subject to international mediation at the Conference of Ambassadors and the League of Nations.
The Klaipėda Revolt took place in January 1923 in the Klaipėda Region. The region, located north of the Neman River, was detached from East Prussia, German Empire by the Treaty of Versailles and became a mandate of the League of Nations. It was placed under provisional French administration until a more permanent solution could be worked out. Lithuania wanted to unite with the region due to its large Lithuanian-speaking population of Prussian Lithuanians and major port of Klaipėda (Memel) – the only viable access to the Baltic Sea for Lithuania. As the Conference of Ambassadors favoured leaving the region as a free city, similar to the Free City of Danzig, the Lithuanians organized and staged a revolt.
The Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, generally known as the Geneva Conference or World Disarmament Conference, was an international conference of states held in Geneva, Switzerland, between February 1932 and November 1934 to accomplish disarmament in accordance with the Covenant of the League of Nations. It was attended by 61 states, most of which were members of the League of Nations, but the USSR and the United States also attended.
The Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty, also known as the Moscow Peace Treaty, was signed between Lithuania and Soviet Russia on July 12, 1920. In exchange for Lithuania's neutrality and permission to move its troops in the territory that was recognised during its war against Poland, Soviet Russia recognized the sovereignty of Lithuania. The treaty was a major milestone in Lithuania's struggle for international recognition and recognised Lithuania's eastern borders. Interwar Lithuania officially maintained that its de jure borders were those delineated by the treaty although a large territory, the Vilnius Region, was actually controlled by Poland.
The Sejny Uprising or Seinai Revolt refers to a Polish uprising against the Lithuanian authorities in August 1919 in the ethnically mixed area surrounding the town of Sejny. When German forces, which occupied the territory during World War I, retreated from the area in May 1919, they turned over administration to the Lithuanians. Trying to prevent an armed conflict between Poland and Lithuania, the Entente drew a demarcation line, known as the Foch Line. The line assigned much of the disputed Suwałki (Suvalkai) Region to Poland and required the Lithuanian Army to retreat. While the Lithuanians retreated from some areas, they refused to leave Sejny (Seinai), because of its major Lithuanian population. Polish irregular forces began the uprising on August 23, 1919, and soon received support from the regular Polish Army. After several military skirmishes, Polish forces secured Sejny and the Lithuanians retreated behind the Foch Line.
Little Treaty of Versailles or the Polish Minority Treaty was one of the bilateral Minority Treaties signed between minor powers and the League of Nations in the aftermath of the First World War. The Polish treaty was signed on 28 June 1919, the same day as the main Treaty of Versailles was signed, which is the reason for one of its names. It was the first of the Minority Treaties and served as a template for the subsequent ones; together with Articles 87-93 of Treaty of Versailles, it also formally established Poland as a sovereign and independent state on the international arena.
René Massigli was a French diplomat who played a leading role as a senior official at the Quai d'Orsay and was regarded as one of the leading French experts on Germany, which he greatly distrusted.
The League of Nations was established with three main constitutional organs: the Assembly; the Council; the Permanent Secretariat. The two essential wings of the League were the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Labour Organization.
International relations (1919–1939) covers the main interactions shaping world history in this era, known as the interwar period, with emphasis on diplomacy and economic relations. The coverage here follows the diplomatic history of World War I and precedes the diplomatic history of World War II. The important stages of interwar diplomacy and international relations included resolutions of wartime issues, such as reparations owed by Germany and boundaries; American involvement in European finances and disarmament projects; the expectations and failures of the League of Nations; the relationships of the new countries to the old; the distrustful relations between the Soviet Union and the capitalist world; peace and disarmament efforts; responses to the Great Depression starting in 1929; the collapse of world trade; the collapse of democratic regimes one by one; the growth of economic autarky; Japanese aggressiveness toward China; fascist diplomacy, including the aggressive moves by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany; the Spanish Civil War; the appeasement of Germany's expansionist moves toward the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, and the last, desperate stages of rearmament as another world war increasingly loomed.
The United Kingdom and the League of Nations played central roles in the diplomatic history of the interwar period 1920-1939 and the search for peace. British activists and political leaders helped plan and found the League of Nations, provided much of the staff leadership, and Britain played a central role in most of the critical issues facing the League. The League of Nations Union was an important private organization that promoted the League in Britain. By 1924 the League was broadly popular and was featured in election campaigns. The Liberals were most supportive; the Conservatives least so. From 1931 onward, major aggressions by Japan, Italy, Spain and Germany effectively ruined the League in British eyes.
The Rue Nitot meeting was an important First World War event, when the British Empire delegates at the Peace Conference in Versailles got together to register the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and tried to soften the conditions for peace with Germany. The meeting was held at Prime Minister David Lloyd George's flat, 23 Rue Nitot, in Paris, on June 1, 1919.
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