The French Search for Security:
An Elusive Goal between WWI & II
• Treaty of Versailles – crippling of Germany
suppose to prevent war of revenge
• Collective security agreements tried to prevent
German aggression by promise of collective
action
Allied Reparations Commission
• Set-aside $33 billion
Germany was
supposed to pay
(final payment made in 2010!!!!)
• Meant to cripple
Germany for the
foreseeable future
Occupation of the Ruhr
• Main center of
German industry
• Move intended to
allow France to
dominate the
Germany economy
and….
• Keep it weak by
enforcing payments
Locarno, Switzerland - 1925
• Britain, France, Germany,
Belgium, Italy agree to
existing boundaries
between Germany and
both France and Belgium
• Germany allowed into the
League of Nations
• “Spirit of Locarno”
produces a new and false
sense of security
Pictured, L-R:
Stressemann, G.,
Chamberlain, A.,
Briand, A.
Germany, England, France
Treaties with Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Rumania and Yugoslavia
• Intent to create a
network of defense
alliances with
Eastern Europe
• England unreliable,
looking inward….
• Tried to reinforce the
faltering collective
security system of
the League of
Nations
Kellogg-Briand Pact
1928
• United States,
France, Great Britain,
Germany, Italy – and
most of the rest of the
world – denounce war
as an instrument of
foreign-policy
• Agreement again
increased France’s
false sense of
security