Diplomacy in the 1920s

• Washington Conference 1921


  USA, Britain, Japan and France reduce size of navies

  • This showed that some countries were keen on disarmament
  • Afterwards, nobody wanted to reduce arms further, and Japan's navy was the dominant power in the Pacific
• Geneva Protocol 1924


  Tries to make countries use the League to sort out disputes

  • This seemed to be strengthening the LoN
  • Britain refused to sign it after a change in government
• Dawes Plan 1924 - USA plan to lend Germany and spread out repayments

  Young Plan 1929 - Reduces German reparations by 75% and gives it 59 years to pay

  • these would help Germany to recover, increasing trade and cooperation
  • The benefits of the Dawes and Young Plans were wiped out by the Depression which would soon affect everybody
• Locarno Treaties - 1925


  Germany's western borders set at Versailles should be permanent

  • suggested Germany was prepared to accept the ToV
  • proposed by the German foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann, and signed voluntarily. Germany seemed to be moving on and could be treated more like an equal
  • allowed Germany to join the LoN in 1926
  • nothing was said about Germany's eastern borders, which worried Czechoslovakia and Poland
• Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928


  65 nations agree not to use 'aggression' to settle arguments

  • one weakness of this pact was that it didn't define what 'aggression' actually meant, so countries could claim that they weren't guilty of it. Also, no one knew what would happen if a country broke the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • however, it was still one of the most significant steps of the entire decade towards a lasting peace. It showed that countries were truly committed to the idea of preventing future wars
  • the USA signed it too, despite the isolationism that had kept them out of the LoN