Tez Özet 1

The Settlement of 1919

-The peace of 1919 provoked most study, controversy, regret

-The failure of the versailles has been the source of unending debate over
*lost peace
*limits of liberal internationalism
*the posibility of international order based on democracy
*self determination
*rule of law

The peace settlement after WWI
= most explicit and public discussion of the princibles
= organization of postwar order

+Post war leaders clashed over competing designs for postwar order


-Basic logic of order


+ The public and political parties in Europe and America were heavily engaged in inspiring or constraining war aims and postwar proposals, shaping and limiting the ability of American and European leaders to persue their post war building goals

United States brought
   -ambitious institutional agenda aimed at binding democratic states together in a universal rule-based association.

These more sweeping than Britain brough in Vienna
They envisioned = a world wide organisation (League of Nation)
   -Operating according to more demanding rules and obligaitons

+Great powers still in the core of this community
    -but power balancing replaced more legal and rule based mechanisms of power management and dispute resolution.
United States did try to use its power advantages
   -to secure a postwar settlement that locked in a favorable order attempted to use offers of restraint on and commitment of its own power to gain
     + an institutional agreement with european states
An institutional agreement
- would bind the great powers together -Germany-
- create princibled commitment
- mechanisms for the settlement of disputes

1- Willingness of USA:
to expoit its position for short-term gains in order to faciliate agreement was a constant policy theme of the Wilson's administration.
American concessions:
- restrained its own arbitrary exercise of power by operating within and institutionolized post war order
- offered a diffuse security commitment to its European Allies

2- Postwar power asymetrics did favor USA
 -providing resources oportunities to lock in an institutional agreement.

Both Britain and France
= fashioned their postwar proposals
binding the newly powerful United States to Europe

The circumstances and Wilson's conduct of policy tended to undercut the American position

U.S. entered the war very late

American leverage (baskı) treat
= to persue an early an seperate peace with Germany

European fear of fear of abondonment and worry about Wilson's administration intrusiveness (fazlalık) in European politics => did make them receptive (açık) to an institutional bargain that included American offers of commitment and restraint.

*The disparities of power and the democratic character of the states worked in favor of an institutional bargain.

Wilson's convictions (inanç)
- democratic revolutions and source of institutional commitments
= were decisive(belirleyici) in shaping the compromise at Versailles
=doming  treaty ratification

Wilson's vision of liberal postwar order
- on the success of grand historical process
bring => progressive and center-left coalitions of power
lead to => a cooperative association of nations.


The Strategic Setting
War
-lead to dismemberment or disintigration of the German, Russian, Austria Hungarian, and Turkish empires
-introduce to princibles of self determination
-prompt(hareket) the establishment of the League of Nations

* The breakdown of the old order was nearly complete

-The new postwar distribution of power left the United States

+U.S. passed Britain in Economic size and productivity and continued to increase in the decades before and after 1919.

* Population, agricultural production, raw materials, industrial capacity and financial capital, in all US was unrivaled

As war broke out after a decade of massive European military spending , united states military power was relatively insignificant but its economic synamism allowed it to match the europeans

By 1920, US was a leading military power and also other capacities continued to be a greater source of postwar preeminence (egemenlik)

During the war =
the allies were dependent on US for financial assitance and supplies

American exports was high, American treasury would control the finances of Europe.
  -Its stock of gold had almost doubled since 1914 (half of the world)
This economic preemince ensured that US would have a leading voice in the settlement.

+The power asymentrics were not entirely favorable to the US
+The allied powers were well aware that the way the war ended and the share of sacrifice in fighting the war would influence who would have a voice in the peace process.

The commander of American forces in Europe General John j. Pershing:
" When the war ends, our position will be stronger if our army acting as such shall have played a distinct and definite part"

It was for this reason that pershing oppesed the armistice, hoping to be better positioned after the war.

- President Wilson told Colonel House in July 1917 that:
"when the war is over we can force them to our  way of thinking, because by that time they(the allies) will, among other things, be financially in our hands."

-Many European believe that
  The united states had not paid the price to be the main architect of peace

-Woodrow Wilson sought to lead the world toward a liberal post war settlement, but to get his way he was relying more on the forces of histroy than the forces of war.

The Europeans were eager (hevesli) to keep America involved in Europe after the war in order to support the post war economic recovery and stabilize great power relations on the continent
   -Even though many Europeans diplomats doubted Wilson's Wuthority.

Wilson: " the war about a ' just and permanent settlement' " and
his view that:
"nobody has a right to get anything out of this war."

As the war ends, new asymetries of power were created by the violent upheavel(isyan) and US was in an extraordinary position to shape the peace settlement in order to get the willing cooperation of the other states, however, it had to overcome fears of domination and abondanment.


American War Aims and Settlement Ideas
In the initial years of the war.
Wilsons administrations's policy:
1- how to get involved in the war to help bring it to an end, in particular how to deal with Germany.
2- how to foster(teşvik) a post war order that would ensure peace.

Basic view about what had caused the war in Europe
- the old politics of military autocracy and power balancing
- not the aggresion of a single state, the larger system that was to blame

For this reason:
US:
-stood aloof(uzak durmak) from the war
-also it offered the most radical and sweeping ideas for the peace settlement

+Wilson asked the warring(savaşan) governements to state their terms for peace
+British and French were not willing to see the war end until German Military was destroyed. Becasue of great losses to Germany

American view of Peace settlement:
   - if US did not push early peace agreement, country would inevitably be drawn ino the war.

Wilson's case for a "Peace without victroy, a peace among the equals"

US stood apart Europe and was determined to shape the peace settlement

"Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power?"

Wilson called for the established of a League of Nations that would ensure the terms of the peace and provide American involment in the new order.

Wilson's deals => If European agreed to a peace on America's terms.
The US would commit itself to participartion in an international peacekeeping league.

Wilson argued: No peace could be permanent if it were based on the "balance of power" rather than a  "community of power, not orgonized rivalries but organized peace".
It must be with the participation of the "New World".

Wilson said that The US would join other countries in guaranteeing world peace.

In such an union of democracies the nature of guarantees are different freom commitments in teh old world of balance of power politics.
+ In Wilson's view they were more acceptable to the american people.


Wilson continued to make speecges that adavanced American ideas of a settlement

In summer 1917 => Wilson emphasized(vurguladı) that US has entered the war to fight german militarism, not the german people (means a peace without victory)
And peace would need to be based on a community of democratic countries.

- The enemy was not Germany, it was militarism and autocracy.

+in declaring war on Germany:
Wilson:" US was going to fight for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peaoples, the german peoples included."

Unlike earlier Wilson was asking, if not for victory over Germany at least victory over German militarism.

This shift in Wilsons position, identifying the german military state as the cause of war.
-When US entered the war Germany became enemy and to het public support it was necessary to point Germany and its "military masters" as evil.
-It was not the german people who were the object of allied wrath (öfke) but its anti-democratic military state.


Wilson made the dinstinction between the German people and its governement.
Wilson was concerned with establishing the conditions for postwar assurance and commitments
-and in his view it was democratib government that provided the necessary conditions.

After Bolshevik revolution
- The bolsheviks had appropriated(uygun) Wilsons call for a new diplomacy and he needed to respond.

+Wilson presented his final aim:
the establishment of a "general association of nations" that would guarantee the independence and territorial integrity of all countries.

+Wilson's goal was to persuade the people of Europe that American principles, not Bolshevik ones, provided the most enlightened basis for a new postwar order.

=>The basic liberal vision embraced(benimsendi) by Wilson
Four objectives:
-"what we seek i,s the reign of law based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.

+If peace was to endure(tahammül) as one historian summaries Wilson's position, "the world must be regenerated(yenilemek" as a commonwelth of indepandent nations composed(oluşmuş) of free citizens able to choose their own governments.

Wilson presented a case for a new international organisation to guarantee and monitor the peaceful settlement of disputes and help democratic government worldwide, mostly in Europe.
-the war must overturn (yıkmak) these old regimes the struggle was between democracy and autocracy.

Temperley summarize this essential Wilsonian view:
"American and Europe were not only to be one in sympathy but to be bound(bağlı together by a charter of freedom which would show that there was to be no difference between American princibles and those of mankind"

Wilson's view:
The rest of the world was coming to embrace (kucaklamak) American principles, and this would overcome (çözmek) the problems, such  as how to guarantee the peace and how to overcome European fears of American somination and abondonment.


British and French War Aims

British aims:
  effort to appeal to Wilson and stave off defetmek the early peace negotiations that Wilson sought with Germany.

In addition:
  There were liberal internationalists surrounding Lloyd George although the goals of internationalist differed from Wilson, there were some who were interested in constructing a new pattern(model) of international relations.

- the liberal party was in the power. Even liberals were increasingly concerned to protect of the empire rather than the expansionalist(yayılmacı) moves. And they also feared that war might sweep(sürüklemek) the conservatives lock into power, as the party associated with the military.

The cabine's deicision to enter the war was triggered by the German invasion of belgium. This violated traditional British policy to protect the independence of the LOw Countries (Belgium, Holland,Luxemburg)

- The growth of German power made necessary to support a strong france
and these led to the announcement (on 3 August 1914)

-Foreign Minister Edward Grey
"britain would oppose any German attempt(teşebbüs) to attact French Chanel ports(liman)"

+Early initiative of Wilson worried british and French governments, because stoping the war without defeating Germany risked the return of conflict in the near future.

-The biritsh held discussions with French and respond to Wilson that They would support the goals of a postwar league but they also insisted on a satisfactory territorial and military settlement.


  British foreign secratary sent a note to the US government.
=> in order to establish of an international organisation, redrawing the map is important.
=> establishment of democracy in Germany
=> A general appeal to Anglo American liberalism, pledging(vaat) devotion (sadakat) to the international reforms favored by the "best thinkers of the new and "Old Worlds"

British thinking was uncertain and conflicted.

+Some in the Imperial War Cabinet wanted Britain to fight to the end so as to destroy Germany
+Others were willing to accept a negotiated settlement
+Some who were inspired by Wilson's call for a League of Nations(guaranteeing peace)
+Others who wanted only to reconstiture the post war balance of power

The British government:
-the report favored the destruction of German's colonial empire and, the detachment(parçalama) of the Turkish terriroty.
-another part of the report advanced the Wilsonian view that democracy among the great powers was necassary to ensure postwar peace

Lloyd George:
" the democratication of Europe was the only way to ensure against future wars" Liberty=Peace

George said that the british were not fighting to dismember Germany or destroy the imperial constitution of Germany, although he claim that the adoption of democratic institutions in Germany would make a negotiated peace easier.

He argued that the territorial settlement in Eastern Europe must be based on self determination, and disposition(durumu) of German colonies would need to wait for the peace conference

Lloyd Georger:
Three conditions necessary for a lasting peace:
- the reestablishment of the sanctity(kutsallık) of treaties
- a territorial settlement based on the right of self determination
- the creation of some international organisation to limit the burder or armaments and diminish the probability of war.

He supported the idea of league of nations
Wilson and Lloyd George did share a variety of ideas about the terms of peace, liberal ideas they have, they both believed in the rational settlement of conflict. They both were anti-imperialists and agreed that imperalism sprang(çıkmak) from autocracy and militarism.


Lloyd George and Wilson differed
The British leader argued that he was eager to see the germans adopt a democratic constitutions.
Wilson wanted a much more far-reaching (geniş kapsamlı) view of the necessity of change in Germany

The french government led by Clemenceau was resolved to restore the European balance of power and take advantage of every oppotunity to place France in a position of unassailable (itiraz edilemez) military superiority over Germany.

Clemenceau:
-sought to break apart German territory
-occupy strategic border areas
-ensure german disarmamanet, and impose heavy reparations

French concern is security against Germany
German armies invaded france twice
   the aim is to destro German power.
France: combination of strategies
threefold.
1- the most overt (aleni) was to diminish German power directly through territorial dismemberment(parçalama), reparations, and disarmament
-the possible development of democracy in Germany was not seen as a solution

Clemenceau rejected Wilson's distinction between the German military autocracy and the german people.
-the gola must be radical weakening of the german economy and a "federalization" of the german state
Clemenceau: " the more seperate and independent rebublics were established in germans , the better he would be pleased"

2- Wilson met with Clemenceau on 15 december 1918
Wİlson raised the league of nations proposals and clemenceau voiced some skepticism of it workability but also said that it was a worthy endeavar(çaba)

3- The final strategy was the containment of german power through allienace and the agregation of allied power.
Clemenceau remained resolute(azimli) in his belief that a balance of power was necessary to protect france after the war.

  Although Clemenceau was single-minded about weakening the German state and creating a balance of power to counter German aggression, he remained open to various strategies of doing so.

The objective of the allied leaders toward Germany sharply diverged.
- France desired a sufficient weakening of the German state the create a new balance of power strongly in its favor.
-the british were torn(yırtık) between the establishment of balance on the continent and movement toward a more concert-based order drawing on formal institutional agreements and a league of nations
- The dominant America goal was the triumph of constituonal democracy in germany and across Europe , which would ensure peace a reasonable but unambigious(açık) punishment of Germany, and the creation of a new community of nations organized around liberal princibles and practices.