CAS IR 349 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Little Entente, Rosa Luxemburg, League Of Nations
18 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Stabilizing a Trans-Atlantic Europe, 1919-1929
An Alliance in Tatters
• “Big Four” in 1918
• U.S. government doesn’t ratify Treaty of Versailles
• technically still at war with Germany
• will not be part of League of Nations, which Wilson insisted be written into overall
treaty
• U.S. refuses to ratify peace-time alliance with France
• British alliance contingent on America’s, so they back out too (“rethink commitment to
France”)
• Italian dissatisfaction with results of peace conference
• only get small percentage of Italians they were envisioning
• doesn’t consider itself a strong ally of France
Alliance System 2.0
• French prime enemy still Germany, with intense belief that another war is imminent
• radical socialist Russia is off the table as potential ally, so turn to Poland (1919)
• common frontier with Germany (and common concerns about it)
• Polish port has significant German population
• hate Russian communists (fighting war against them in 1919)
• sign alliance with Belgium (1920) protecting against unprovoked aggression
• Czechoslovakia (1924)
• newly created out of peace conference
• significant German minority
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• Little Entente
• alliance b/w Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (1920)
• common Hungarian ethnic minorities poses fear of insurrection/invasion
• alliance grows to include Romania (1921)
Alliance Flaws
• some of start-up countries are at odds with each other
• Teschen (1920)
• sizable Polish and Slovak communities
• good reserves of coal and iron ore (railroads, machines, weapons)
• people vote to join Czechoslovakia
• ethnic minorities in each country cause threat of insurrection
• Sudetenland = 90% German, but given to Czech
• good natural defense in mountain range
• heavily industrialized already so no need to build it up
• Magyars
• Hungarian minority in Romania, Czech, and Slovakia
• advocate for redrawing borders to be reunited with Hungarian nation state
• main driving force of Little Entente
• Czechoslovakia has to worry about war on three fronts, limiting value in alliance
• Italians given over to Yugoslavia, even though technically on winning side of war
• produces resentment and anger over lack of recognition for contribution
• Mussolini reinvents himself as far-right fascist politician
• organizes million-man march on Rome of people mad at Italian treatment at peace
conference
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
British alliance contingent on america"s, so they back out too ( rethink commitment to. France : italian dissatisfaction with results of peace conference only get small percentage of italians they were envisioning doesn"t consider itself a strong ally of france. Hungary: have to sign triannon treaty in 1919, leaving many hungarians outside of borders, produces great unrest, resentment, and upheaval in new independent nation. Czech, yugo, and roma afraid of rebuttal: b la kun radical socialist modeled after lenin advocates for communist revolution in same way italy is trying to threat of common spread of communism influencing events of countries all over. Germany 2. 0: kaiser wilhelm goes into exile in netherlands in nov. 1918, provisional government responsible for signing paris peace treaties and ending fighting comes into power only to lose a war and get blamed for the whole thing. British power need to consider how european affairs affect wider world.
