Collective Security • Versailles (League of Nations) – Article 10 of the League Covenant… required member states “to respect and preserve against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League.” • Locarno and the “Little Entente” – Intended to isolate Germany – Mutual defense treaties involving Czechoslovakia, France, Rumania, Yugoslavia – Germany invited to the League, promises status quo – “Locarno Spirit” – Kellog-Briand Pact
Transcript
Collective Security
• Versailles (League of Nations)– Article 10 of the League
Covenant… required member states “to respect and preserve against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League.”
• Locarno and the “Little Entente”– Intended to isolate
Germany– Mutual defense treaties
involving Czechoslovakia, France, Rumania, Yugoslavia
– Germany invited to the League, promises status quo
– “Locarno Spirit”– Kellog-Briand Pact
1933 JANUARY ---Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of GermanyEnabling Act: Hitler Becomes Dictator
1934---Germany withdraws from the League of Nations
1935---Hitler enacts mandatory military service for German males Italy invades Ethiopia
First Crisis
•Italian Invasion of Ethiopia (1935)
•League of Nations…weak response
•Sanctions, sans oil
•Haile Selassie, emotional and eloquent plea for intervention
•League fails to act…
collective security fails
Italy Invades Ethiopia1935
Italian forces from Somalia
1936 (March 7) – Germany Reoccupies
the Rhineland
France fails to respond with force
British were equally culpable for lacking the resolve to back French
Collective Security fails
Rhineland Response
• Pre-election time in France…”stopgap” government in place
• Foreign Minister, Flandin, favored military response• French military advisors opposed any move that could
result in war
• British Prime Minister Baldwin in response to Flandin’s pleas… “ You may be right, but if there is even one chance in a hundred that war could follow from your police operation, I have not the right to commit England… England is not in a state to go to war”
Spanish Civil War
•Violent revolt against democratically elected government
•Francisco Franco backed by Mussolini and Hitler
•German pilots and planes bomb Guernica
•League of Nations refuses to act, failure to recognize partisan involvement of Germany and Italy
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans
Salvador Dali
1938
I. Germany Annexes Austria---AnschlussMarch 1938
Anschluss “I have only to give an order, and in one single night all your ridiculous defense mechanisms are blown to bits. You don’t seriously believe that you can stop me or even delay me for half an hour, do you? … Don’t think for one moment that anybody on earth is going to thwart my decisions. Italy? I see eye to eye with Mussolini… And England? England will not move one finger for Austria… And France? Well three years ago we marched on the Rhineland with a handful of battalions, that was the time I risked everything. If France had stopped us then we would have had to retreat… But now, now it is too late for France.”
Hitler to Kurt von Schuschnigg, February 12, 1938
Sudetenland Crisis
1938
Munich Conference
September 1938
Collective Security Fails
I. Germany and the Sudetenland
II. Munich Conference … September 1938
The “Problem” of theThe “Problem” of theSudetenlandSudetenland
The “Problem” of theThe “Problem” of theSudetenlandSudetenland
Owing to the fact that the state of Czechoslovakia was not invited to the conference, the Munich Agreement is commonly called the Munich Dictate by Czechs and Slovaks. The phrase Munich betrayal is also frequently used because military alliances between Czechoslovakia and France were not honored
AppeasementAppeasement: The Munich : The Munich Agreement, 1938Agreement, 1938
AppeasementAppeasement: The Munich : The Munich Agreement, 1938Agreement, 1938
Now we have Now we have “peace in our time!”“peace in our time!” Herr Hitler is a man we can do Herr Hitler is a man we can do
business with.business with.
British Prime Minister Neville British Prime Minister Neville ChamberlainChamberlain
Poster Child for Appeasement
Neville Chamberlain
But now a chilly wind was blowing
From Europe: German strength was growing.
The Versailles Treaty stripped them bare:
No colonies left anywhere;
The most colossal bill to pay
(They borrowed from the USA);
And not a single ship or plane.
A most unsavoury campaign
Made Hitler Chancellor, then Fuhrer
He trod on treaties, and grew surer
That since we wanted him Appeased
He might as well do as he pleased.
The Austrians, and then the Czechs,
Were nations Adolf would annex:
At Munich, for a year’s delay,
We signed the Czech’s own lands away.
James Muirden, A Rhyming History of Britain
The Enigma of HitlerSalvador Dali…1938
Winston Churchill
Voice of Reason… Cassandra of the British Empire…
For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has been to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating power on the Continent… Observe that the policy of England takes no account of which nation it is that seeks lordship of Europe. The question is not whether it is Spain, or the French Monarchy, or the French Empire, or the German Empire, or the Hitler regime… Therefore, it seems to me that all the old conditions present themselves again, and that our national salvation depends upon our gathering once again all the forces of Europe to contain, to restrain, and if necessary frustrate German domination.
