The Frustrated Peace? The Political, Social and Economic Impact of the Versailles Treaty Václav Horčička – Jan Němeček – Marija Wakounig – Vojtěch Kessler – Jaroslav Valkoun (Eds.) Václav Horčička – Jan Němeček – Marija Wakounig – Vojtěch Kessler – Jaroslav Valkoun (Eds.) The Frustrated Peace? The Political, Social and Economic Impact of the Versailles Treaty Václav Horčička – Jan Němeček – Marija Wakounig – Vojtěch Kessler – Jaroslav Valkoun (Eds.) The Frustrated Peace? The Political, Social and Economic Impact of the Versailles Treaty This publication has undergone the process of anonymous, international peer review. Proofreading: Kira Almudena Zoé Edelmayer, Martin Lee Randolph Kramesberger. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.de abrufbar. Alle Rechte, insbesondere das Recht der Vervielfältigung und Verbreitung sowie der Übersetzung, vorbehalten. Kein Teil des Werkes darf in irgendeiner Form (durch Fotokopie, Mikrofilm oder ein anderes Verfahren) ohne schriftliche Genehmigung des Verlages oder der Autoren/Autorinnen reproduziert oder unter Verwendung elektronischer Systeme gespeichert, verarbeitet, vervielfältigt oder verbreitet werden. © 2021 by new academic press, Wien, Hamburg www.newacademicpress.at ISBN: 978-3-7003-2206-1 Cover: The Palace of Versailles on the day of signing peace treaty with Germany on June 28, 1919. Archive of the T. G. Masaryk Institute, Prague, EB Papers IV / 3, No. 195. Druck: Prime Rate / Budapest Satz: Patric Kment/patric.kment@univie.ac.at Table of Contents Preface, Introduction Editors Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Erik Goldstein The Enduring Contributions of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 . . . . . . 15 Political, Social and Economic Impact on Europe The “New” European States Andrej Rahten “Nothing but a Hope”: The Slovenes between Wilsonian Idealism and Post-War Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Jerzy Gaul Józef Piłsudski’s Attitude towards the First World War Peace Talks in Paris, the Versailles Treaty and the Polish Borders in the East 1918–1921. . 41 Milada Polišenská Diplomatic Relations of Czechoslovakia and the Paris Peace Conference: Twenty-Four Countries of Three Continents . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Sorin Arhire The Election Law of 27 March 1926 and Its Impact on Romanian Political Life, 1926–1937 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 The “Danube” and the Economy Roman Holec The Danube and the Economic and Political Consequences of the Versailles Treaty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Ivan Jakubec Brachte der Versailler Frieden tatsächlich Veränderungen im verkehrstariflichen und Außenhandelsbereich? Die tschechoslowakisch-deutschen Beziehungen in den 1920-er Jahren . . 107 The Elites and the Nobility Marija Wakounig Nachteile und Chancen der Pariser Friedensschlüsse für den Adel (Ost-)Mitteleuropas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Václav Horčička The First Czechoslovak Land Reform on the Estates of German State Nationals, 1918–1939 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Global Political, Social and Economic Impact Canada and USA Jaroslav Valkoun The Canadian Attitude to Article X of the Covenant of the League of Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151 Nataliia Zhukovskaia “Diplomatic Sovereignty” or “United Diplomatic Front of the British Empire”: Finding a Balance in Relations with the Dominions at the Paris Peace Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Daria Pokrovskaia Canada after Versailles: Searching for a Place in the New World Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 The Global South and the Colonies Hermann J. Hiery The German Colonies and the Treaty of Versailles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Jindřich Dejmek Establishment of the League of Nations Mandate System in Paris and Its Development in Reference to Africa (1919–1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Tilman Lüdke The Disastrous Peace: The Effect of the Versailles Treaty and Its Successors on the Middle East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Otis Illert Reclaiming the Empire: The Colonial Movement’s Quest to Recover the German Colonies during the Weimar Republic and Third Reich . . . . . 229 Global Consequences and Obligations Florian Ruttner “Carthaginian Peace” or Nationalistic Bugbear? Assessments of the Versailles Treaty in the German Speaking Exile during World War II. . 251 Jan Slavíček Constitutional Comparative Politics of Central and Eastern Europe after the Great War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Sources and Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Preface, Introduction Preface The Paris Peace Conference put the First World War in the past. Signatures of individual peace treaties with the defeated countries Germany, Austria, Hungary and their allies Bulgaria and Turkey put an end to one of the cruelest conflicts of all time, which is rightfully often referred to as the Great War. With its multifaceted repercussions, the First World War certainly represented one of the most crucial breaking points in the development of modern Europe. For many countries and nations, it was the actual start of the 20th century. However, it also signaled the climax of a pretty short dominance and the beginning end of the old continent, which continued in the second global conflict, the Cold War between the superpowers as well as the dissolution of the global empires of the European superpowers. The end of the Great War and its impact, including the unequivocally democratizing but also socially revolutionary waves, was an attempt at a new, fundamentally changed organization of international life and its current established order. The Parisian aftermath radically transformed the composition of the face of Europe: it resulted in the dissolution of the monarchies – the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, Tsarist Russia and Austria-Hungary – and laid the foundation for a new European continent, which basically exists to this day despite the changes caused by the Second World War. The events following the signature of the Paris Peace Conference, the destruction of the Versailles peace system in the 1930s, and the Second World War, led to discussions regarding the meaning of these treaties and the significant impact they had on the post-war organization of Europe and the world. Were the conditions of the victors too cruel or justified? Was the Second World War the result of the conditions of the Versailles Peace Treaty? Such questions have been posed, are still being posed and will always be posed. The negative view of the defeated, and sometimes even the victorious, countries on the peace settlement always came head-to-head with the effort of the victors to maintain it. Ever since the beginning of the 20th century, the Paris Peace Conference, its mechanisms and most importantly its causes, inspired political debates, arguments and conflicts as well as serious interest of historians, whose studies on the Parisian meetings (whether official or otherwise) certainly contributed to the development 12 of diplomatic historiography and later to the creation of a specific area of study in international relations. There are only a few historical topics that have given rise to so many contradictory and often implacable opinions. This is why the Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Institute of World History at the Philosophical Faculty at Charles University organized the international conference The Frustrated Peace: The Versailles Treaty and Its Political, Social and Economic Impact on Europe together with the kind support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and under the auspices of Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček and Chairwoman of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Eva Zažímalová and with assistance from the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research of Austria. The conference was used as a basis for this collective monograph. The aim of the conference was to focus on the causes of the Paris Peace Conference with participation of leading Czech and foreign experts. Causes, which changed the face of Europe after the First World War and affected various other parts of the world for many years after. Dozens of leading experts from Europe and overseas took part in the two-day long meeting, which took place in September 2019 in Prague. There were of course many experts from the host country, which was the Czech Republic, as well as historians from Central Europe (Austria, Germany, Poland and Slovakia). Historians from the United States, Great Britain, Slovenia, Romania, Russia and Latvia showed a distinctive approach to interpreting development following the First World War. This colletive monograph compares the structures created by the Paris Peace Treaties, which remained largely effective in the 20th century and in some cases even to present day. The innovative global historical approach (European development compared with it in Africa, the Middle East, Canada and other parts of the British Empire) requires further research and in-depth studies, i.e. in the direction of post-colonial studies. The major questions related to the interpretation of the significance of the Paris Peace Conference were outlined in the key note speech given by prof. Erik Goldstein from Boston University in the United States. He focused especially on the question of to what extent the Paris Peace Conference and the changes it directly brought to the organization of the world, affect the current world order. He demonstrated that the peace organization after the First World War did not only have a temporary validity and was not entirely broken in the new war configuration but rather brought permanent changes to the organization of the world, e. g. in the area of international finance as well as the protection of minorities and human rights in general. Specific examples supported his generalizing conclusion that, even if many ideas of peace makers did not work in practice, the Paris Peace Conference became the basis for the current organization of international relations. The contributions of the individual participants were heard in seven sections organized by topics. Part of the presentations were dedicated to non-regional impacts of the peace conference. These for example concerned the protection of minorities, application of the rights of nations to self-determination, the development of po- Preface 13 litical systems, the issue of nationalism or international trade. Much attention was also paid to the application of the peace organization principles in specific regions. Most of the contributions focused precisely on local contexts. The significance of the peace conference, especially for Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe, was much discussed in these contributions as well as during the discussions that followed. Participants also showed a strong interest in non-European matters, e. g. the fates of former German colonies or developments within the British Empire. The conference therefore brought several new impulses for research on the history of inter-war Europe and the world. The individual contributions reflected key directions of current research. The presented collective monograph aims to introduce to the general public the current status and interpretation of the monitored phenomenon. This collective monograph has undergone the process of anonymous international peer review. For the (also linguistically) proofreading we are thankful to Kira Almudena Zoé Edelmayer and Martin Lee Randolph Kramesberger. Václav Horčička, Jan Němeček, Marija Wakounig, Vojtěch Kessler and Jaroslav Valkoun The Paris Peace Conference put the First World War in the past. Signatures of individual peace treaties with defeated countries Germany, Austria, Hungary and their allies Bulgaria and Turkey put an end to one of the cruelest conflicts of all time, which is rightfully often referred to as the Great War. With its multifaceted repercussions, the First World War certainly represented one of the most crucial breaking points in the development of modern Europe. For many countries and nations, it was the actual start of the 20th century. However, it also signaled the end of a fairly brief dominance and the beginning of the fall of the old continent, which was brought forth as a result of the second global conflict, the Cold War between the superpowers, as well as the dissolution of the global empires of the European superpowers. The end of the Great War and its impact, including the unequivocally democratizing and socially revolutionary waves, was an attempt at a new, fundamentally changed organization of international life and its current established order. The Parisian aftermath radically transformed the composition of the face of Europe: as a result of the dissolution of the monarchies – the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, Tsarist Russia and Austria-Hungary – and laid the foundation for a new European continent, which basically exists to this day in spite of changes caused by the Second World War. 9 783700 322061