discontents was of no great significance in the 1920s. During that decade the political
and strategic contexts placed strict practical limits upon the potential of discontented
states to make trouble. The question of the 1920s, had anyone been minded to look to the
future in this way, was whether the discontented parties could, or would, come to accept
the post-war environment. As an aid to such acceptance, could they adjust the settlement
to a meaningful degree before the course of strategic history staged some surprises and
tested the stability of the existing order?
It would be difficult to exaggerate the impact of World War I upon the course of
twentieth-century history, so the more significant of the war’s consequences need to be
cited.
Both international relations and the domestic functioning of societies were all but
turned upside down. What became a total war, requiring belligerents to mobilize all of
their assets of all kinds, had revolutionary, certainly far-reaching, implications for
relations between classes, capital and labour, between sexes, between government and
industry, and between governments and the governed.
104 War, peace and international relations
Box 8.1Principal features of the Versailles Settlement
- War guilt:Germany and its allies accepted sole responsibility for the damage
and costs of the war caused by their aggression. - Territorial loss:Germany suffered modest losses of territory, population
(13 per cent) and resources. - Reparations:Germany agreed to make financial reparation to the victors for
the non-military damage that its war-making had effected. The amount to be
paid and the time schedule for payment were not part of the settlement. - Disarmament:Germany was effectively disarmed, even though it cheated
systematically on its obligations. Also, the victors committed themselves to
disarmament, at least in principle. - New states:In accordance with the principle of national self-determination,
the geopolitics of Eastern Europe were transformed from a condition of
domination by three rival empires – the Austrian, Russian and Ottoman – into
one characterized by an array of squabbling small states. Most importantly,
Poland reappeared on the map for the first time since 1795, and the new multi-
ethnic state of Czechoslovakia was created. - The League of Nations:The League was founded to keep the peace. It was to
do so through application of the principle of collective security. The whole
collectivity of nations was supposed to combine to resist an aggressor. - The Locarno Treaty of 1925:This final element in the post-war settlement
registered the mutual acceptance of the Franco-German and Belgian–German
frontiers, and guaranteed the integrity of those frontiers. Britain and Italy
were the treaty’s ‘guarantors’. Locarno marked Germany’s re-entry into the
community of nations. The treaty guaranteed frontiers only in Western Europe,
not in the East.