Versailles Treaty Excercise: An Excercise in the Versailles Treaty

I enjoyed the peace conference exercise we did on Friday. The inclusion of Germany and Japan would have made it more interesting, and probably much more complicated, but the situation and the goals of each country (or potential country) were still fairly accurate. The one aspect of the conference that wasn't covered was colonialism and imperialism. Although the territories involved fall outside of the boundaries of Europe, the existence of colonies or desire to establish colonies in those areas played their part in the relations between the countries. In Africa, Britain and France kept their colonial empires and split up the German colonies between themselves. There had already been tension between Britain and France (and Russia before the Revolution) over the fate of the Ottoman Empire during World War One, and once the war was over these problems became apparent during the peace conference, resulting in the division of the Middle East into British and French mandates and the disastrous consequences of such actions. In addition, the imperialist tendencies of the British and French undermined the peace process and made the League of Nations more than a bit hypocritical, contributing to its lack of power in the following decades. After World War One, imperialism was still a potent force.

David Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace" is an excellent book on the subject.

The Impact of the Crimean War (Coffin 776-777)

Though the Crimean War was short and not a true victory for any of the countries involved, it had far-reaching effects, and, though I am going beyond the time period we are currently studying, I think many of the root causes of World War One lie in the circumstances surrounding the Crimean War. First and foremost are the alliances. After having been involved in over a century of intermittent warfare, culminating in the 25 years from the French Revolution to Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, Britain and France allied in response to the mutual threat of Russian expansion in Eastern Europe. Regardless of whether this alliance held for every year between 1854 and 1914 (I’ll admit I do not know the complete history of the alliance), the two former enemies had set a precedent for themselves of joining forces. On the other hand, when Austria chose not to support Russia, that alliance dissolved. Those two countries would be antagonists in World War One, and Russia, now with no strong allies, would eventually form an alliance with its former enemies, Britain and France. The other major impact of the Crimean War, according to page 777 of the textbook, was the weakening of Russia and Austria. The reduction of those two countries’ power and influence proved very beneficial to Prussia’s ambitions and the eventual unification of Germany, whose very existence upset the balance of power in Europe. The impact of the Crimean War was terribly large not in the short-run, but in the long-run.