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French foreign policy in relation to Germany in the years following World War I
As the Wilson’s concept of collective security architecture insured by the creation of the League of Nations came at odds with France’s security concerns, France decided to maintain its own foreign policy in relation to Germany. Even despite war losses, Germany proved to be much economically stronger than France in perspective, especially when considering its coal and steel industry, which was almost seven times larger than that of France . As Henry Kissinger writes, France had three strategic choices after World War I: either forming an anti-German coalition, partitioning Germany or conciliating Germany . The first way was problematic: weakened Germany with limited fleet posed little to no threat to France’s main war allies, the United States and the United Kingdom — so they did not see a necessity of forming a security alliance with France. The other important former ally, Russia, was under Bolshevik rule, which considered the Paris Conference to be “a capitalist orgy organized by countries whose ultimate goal was to intervene in the civil war in Russia” . Moreover, Russia was separated from Germany by newly formed Polish state — that instance considerably narrowed the possibility of Russian help in case of German revenge . Conciliation between France and Germany was not acceptable due to its incompatibility with the Versailles Treaty as well as due to unpreparedness of the French society to it .
Partitioning was also considered a bad idea by the United States and the United Kingdom, mostly due to these powers’ commitment to a Wilsonian principle of national self-determination, which meant retaining a unified Germany. Nevertheless, France, left as the only great power interested in continental European affairs, attempted to act according to their aspirations. French troops occupied Rhineland and Saar just after Germany became incapable of paying reparations, while French diplomacy was aimed on supporting the Eastern European new states as a backyard pro-French force, which would compensate the nonexistence of a great power bordering Germany from the East . These activities were mostly driven by a French paranoia of a possible resurrection of a German state, powerful enough to defeat France in revenge — that paranoia actually remained at place until the beginning of 1990s, when Germany was finally unified once again.
Partial reconciliation came only in 1924-25 thanks to the efforts made by French and German foreign ministers, Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann. Locarno treaty, signed in 1925, became an insurance for France that it will not be attacked by Germany — that pledge was outlined mainly in Article 2 of the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee . Germany, on its side, temporarily returned to the global international scene — until the Nazi coup.
The Emergence of the Soviet Union on the European scene
As it was mentioned above, Bolshevik representatives were not invited to the Paris Peace Conference, nor were they aspiring to participate in it, as Entente forces intervened Russia to help Empire loyalists to defeat Bolsheviks. On the other hand, neither the representatives of Bolsheviks’ opponents were effectively present in Paris as they were busy struggling against Bolsheviks back in Russia. Bolsheviks finally came out as winners from the devastating civil war, but their new Soviet state appeared to be diplomatically isolated from the outside world.
Despite that isolation, European powers understood that Bolshevist Russia should be at least in some degree included into European politics. The first major diplomatic victory for Soviet Russia was its participation in Genoa Conference in 1922. Even though the main aim of the conference was to resolve economic and financial questions, including those considering Eastern Europe, diplomatic manoeuvers of that conference mostly overshadowed its overall result. One of the main themes that attracted attention of contemporary scholars when analyzing that conference was the “suspicious” treaty signed by Germany and Russia during the conference, which is now known as the Treaty of Rapallo . In fact, Treaty of Rapallo became the main instrument of Soviet participation in European affairs during the period when the Soviet Union was mostly unrecognized by European great powers. The treaty provided covert military co-operation, which proved to be natural as both states felt disgraced by being driven by Western powers. Inability of France to make the USSR an ally against possible German attack and the emergence of cordon sanitaire, which was not only composed by Soviets’ former and potential future enemies, but also complicated Soviet-German co-operation, only strengthened Soviet-German mutual sympathy, which continued until the establishment of Nazi rule that was antagonist to Communists. Overall, Soviet Union re-emerged as a European power mostly thanks to its links to the Weimar Republic — that is why the Genoa Conference and the Treaty of Rapallo had a decisive impact on the events of the next two decades.
Works Cited
American Society of International Law. "Final Protocol of the Locarno Conference, 1925 (with Annexes), together with Treaties between France and Poland and France and Czechoslovakia." The American Journal of International Law 1926: 21-33. Print.
Harris, Wilson. "The Genoa Conference." Journal of the British Institute of International Affairs September 1922: 150-58. Print.
Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Print.
