964 Ch. 24 • The Elusive Search for Stability in the 1920s
Map 24.2 Areas Of French And German Disputes, 1920s Border areas,
including the Rhineland and the Saar Basin, that were occupied by Allied troops or
were part of a demilitarized zone after the Great War.
the hope of winning independence. In January 1918, one of Wilson’s Four
teen Points was an independent Poland. On Armistice Day, November 11,
1918, Poland became independent. The Treaty of Versailles awarded Poland
much of Pomerania, constituting what the Germans would call the “Polish
Corridor” (Eastern Pomerania, which had been annexed by Prussia during
the late-eighteenth-century partitions of Poland) that led to the Baltic Sea
and divided East Prussia, which remained German, from the rest of Ger
many. The port city of Danzig (Gdansk) became a free city under the protec
tion of the League of Nations. Poland’s new frontiers were settled in 1921
and accepted by the League of Nations two years later.
The German army was to be reduced to 100,000 volunteer soldiers. The
German navy, now blockaded by the British fleet, would be limited to twelve
warships, with no submarines. Germany would be allowed no air force.
