The war did not give birth directly to Nazi Germany and its malevolent leader, but
Adolf Hitler and his party were the results of the domestic conditions produced by it. In
permissive political, economic and socio-cultural contexts, the Nazis and other extrem-
ists who were a legacy of the war and the subsequent economic crises would have a
unique opportunity to make history.
Finally, World War I bequeathed as a legacy to future strategic history an incomplete
revolution in military affairs. This was keyed to the ways in which the internal
combustion engine could be employed, and its foci were tanks and aircraft. Even today,
it is still not sufficiently appreciated that ‘The Great War of 1914–1 8 arguably had a
greater impact on military change than any modern conflict before or since’ (Showalter,
2000: 220).
The changing political context: strategic implications
It is commonplace and necessary to highlight the historical importance of particular
events and individuals. In keeping with that tradition, due respect must be paid to the
vital importance of the Great Depression and, of course, to Adolf Hitler. However, as a
strategic history, this book must explain the structure of the strategic context that
rendered particular events and personalities so potentially lethal in their capacity to
foment international disorder. History’s makers and shakers need the opportunity to act;
they require their strategic moment. But the potential in that opportunity is governed by
the strategic context.
The strategic context of the 1920s was fundamentally different from that of the 1930s.
In the earlier decade, statesmen and publics may have been seduced by ‘the illusion
of peace’ (Marks, 2003). Plainly, the international order at that time was not seaworthy
in heavy weather, though one might question whether any order can be. The war had
demolished the old balance of power system. The pre-war and wartime alliances were
defunct. Peace and stability in the post-war era were hoped by optimists to be guaranteed
by the working of the collective security principle under the aegis of the novel League of
Nations. In practice, though, every international order requires, though does not always
enjoy, the service of an effective policing agent or guardian. The peace settlement was a
faithful expression of the strategic context at the time of its creation. The dissatisfied
states, the would-be revisionists, temporarily were strategically impotent, a fact which
left the anxiety-racked French with a seemingly simple task. Despite British hostility,
France was able to play the role of heavy-handed hegemonic ordering power in Europe
in the 1920s. And since Germany was effectively disarmed, a relatively benign inter-
national political context prevailed.
The Weimar Republic, more sincerely than its Nazi successor, was committed
unswervingly to the repeal, or avoidance, of as much of the Versailles Settlement as it
could negotiate or ignore. The dominant European statesman of the 1920s was Germany’s
Foreign Minister from 1923 until his death in 1929, Gustav Streseman. With much
British connivance, Streseman succeeded in undermining and chipping away at much
of the constraining edifice and legacy of Versailles. He played to perfection the role
of responsible statesman of a respectable country that deserved to be treated as a normal,
senior member of the community of (great) powers. The decade saw a cascade of confer-
ences, large and small, formal and informal, typically conducted in one or other of the
106 War, peace and international relations