The Unfinished Peace After World War I: America, Britain and the Stabilisation of Europe, 1919-1932

709 Pages·2006·5.234 MB·English

by  Patrick O. Cohrs

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The Unfinished Peace after World War I
This is a highly original and revisionist analysis of British and American
effortstoforgeastableEuro-Atlanticpeaceorderbetween1919andtherise
ofHitler.PatrickO.CohrsarguesthatthisorderwasnotfoundedatVersailles
butratherthroughthefirst‘real’peacesettlementsafterWorldWarI–the
Londonreparationssettlementof1924andtheLocarnosecuritypactof1925.
Crucially, both fostered Germany’s integration into a fledgling transatlantic
peacesystem,thuslayingtheonlyrealisticfoundationsforEuropeanstability.
Whatproveddecisivewastheleadingactors’capacitytodrawlessonsfromthe
‘Great War’ and Versailles’ shortcomings. Yet Cohrs also re-appraises why
they could not sustain the new order, master its gravest crisis – the Great
Depression – and prevent the onslaught of Nazism. Despite this ultimate
failure, he concludes that the ‘unfinished peace’ of the 1920s prefigured the
termsonwhichamoredurablepeacecouldbebuiltafter1945.
PATRICK O. COHRS is a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School’s Belfer
Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and a
research fellow at the History Department of Humboldt University Berlin.
He has been a post-doctoral scholar at the Center for European Studies,
HarvardUniversity,in2002and2003.

The Unfinished Peace after
World War I
America, Britain and the Stabilisation
of Europe, 1919-1932
Patrick O. Cohrs
cambridge university press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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©PatrickO.Cohrs2006
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withoutthewrittenpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublishedinprintformat 2006
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ForMy Mother
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Contents
Acknowledgements page x
List of abbreviations xii
Anote on the footnotes andbibliography xiv
Introduction 1
Prologue
The truncatedpeaceof Versailles and itsconsequences, 1919–1923 20
1 The widerchallenges
The legacy of theGreat War and the era ofimperialism 25
2 Wilson,Lloyd George and thequestfor a‘peace toend all wars’ 30
3 The ill-founded peace of1919 46
4 The escalation ofEurope’s post-Versailles crisis, 1920–1923 68
Part I The A nglo-Ame rican stabilis ation of Europe, 1923–1 924
5 Towards aProgressive transformation ofEuropean politics
The reorientationofAmerican stabilisation policy, 1921–1923 79
6 Towards transatlantic co-operation and anew European order
The reorientationofBritish stabilisation policy, 1922–1924 90
7 The turning-point
The Anglo-American intervention in the Ruhr crisis 100
8 From antagonism toaccommodation
The reorientationofFrenchandGerman postwar
policies, 1923–1924 116
vii
viii Contents
9 The two paths to the Lond on confer ence
The Dawes process andthe recasting ofEuropean
internationalpolitics 129
10 Thefirst ‘real’ peace settlementafter WorldWar I
TheLondon agreementof1924andthe consequences
of the ‘economic peace’ 154
Part II Eur ope’s nascen t Pax Anglo -America na , 1924–192 5
11 Thedawning ofaProgressive Pax Americana inEurope? 187
12 Towards the Locarno pact
Britain’s questfor anew European concert, 1924–1925 201
13 Regression?
US policy and the ‘political insurance’ ofEurope’s
‘economic peace’ 220
14 Beyond irreconcilable differences?
New German and French approaches toEuropean security 227
15 Thepath to Locarno – and its transatlantic dimension 237
16 Thesecond ‘real’ peace settlement after World War I
TheLocarno conference and the emergenceof anew
European concert 259
Part III The unfini shed tra nsatlant ic peace order:
the system ofLondon and Locarno, 1926–1929
17 Sustaining stability, legitimatingpeaceful change
Thechallengesofthe latter 1920s 287
18 Progressive visions andlimitedcommitments
American stabilisation efforts inthe era of
London andLocarno 296
19 ‘Reciprocity’?
Britain as ‘honest broker’in theLocarno system 325
20 Thenew European concert –andits limits 345
21 Thoiry– the failed quest fora ‘final postwaragreement’ 378
22 Towards peaceful change in eastern Europe?
Thecrux oftransformingPolish–German relations 409