Gerhard Schulz - Revolutions and Peace Treaties 1917–1920

Volume 27

GERHARD SCHULZ

First published in 1967 by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, as

Revolutionen und Friedensschlusse, 19171920

First published in Great Britain in 1972 by Methuen & Co Ltd

This edition first published in 2022

by Routledge

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1967 Gerhard Schulz

English translation 1972 Methuen & Co Ltd

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-032-12623-4 (Set)

ISBN: 978-1-003-26095-0 (Set) (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-13056-9 (Volume 29) (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-13058-3 (Volume 29) (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-22743-4 (Volume 29) (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003227434

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Gerhard Schulz

Translated by Martin Jackson

First published in 1967 by

Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, as

Revolutionen and Friedensschlusse, 19171920

Copyright 1967 Gerhard Schulz

This edition first published in Great Britain in 1972 by

Methuen & Co Ltd, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4

First published as a University Paperback 1974

English translation 1972 Methuen & Co Ltd

Printed in Great Britain by

Butler & Tanner Ltd

Frome and London

SBN 416 81320 8

This paperback edition is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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BARNES & NOBLE IMPORT DIVISION

Introduction: World War and World Crisis

PART ONE CRISES AND REVOLUTIONS

2 The crisis of the Central Powers in the autumn of 1916 and the United States' entry into the war

3 The promotion of revolution among the occupied peoples -imperialist policy and national emancipation movements

4 European socialism and the revolution in Russia

5 Twists and turns in the year of the Russian revolution

6 From the declaration of Wilson's Fourteen Points to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

7 The military collapse of the Central Powers

8 October reform and November revolution in Germany

9 Armistice

PART TWO THE RESTORATION OF PEACE

10 The problems of peacemaking and the assumptions of the Paris Peace Conference

11 Germany, Russia and the beginnings of the Paris Peace Conference

12 The appearance of the German delegation and the Treaty of Versailles

13 The new south-eastern and eastern Europe

14 The unratified Treaty of Sevres and the Near East

15 The System of Versailles - criticism and revision

The First World War breaks the continuity of modern history. The upheaval which it created was caused by the use of the arms and the economic potential at the disposal of the Great Powers. But the extent and the lasting effects of the upheaval were not determined by the use of these resources. What happened was something more than could be decided by arms and armies. If the historian wants to appreciate this fact fully he must leave military history aside and look at the world-shaking event of the war as part of the history of the world.

The war was the manifestation of an historic crisis which affected every aspect of the political life of the preceding period: the system of states and alliances, international relations, economic interests, economic, social and political structures, constitutional arrangements, internal and international power constellations, social conditions, the attempts to reform them, the revolutionary movements created by these conditions and the interpretations put on them, the ideologies.

In origin the war was a conflict between the two great European systems of alliances; but inevitably almost all the problems of the age came in one way or another to be affected by this momentous event. Into this category fell the military and political rivalry between Germany and France, aggravated as it was by the Alsace-Lorraine question, the maritime rivalry between Germany and Britain and the traditional causes for friction on issues of colonial and overseas policy in the Near East, the Far East and in Africa. The fate of the Danube monarchy and of the peoples of South East Europe, so significant in the history of Europe, was at stake; so was that of the Ottoman Empire chronically sick after two centuries of inadequate reforms and general decline; and so too was the political future of Turkey and of the Arabian peninsula .Big structural flaws were revealed in the British Empire, and its relationship with the emergent Great Powers, particularly the United States but also Japan, underwent a fundamental change. In most of the belligerent countries new political trends assumed shape and significance as a result of the war and existing movements were given new impetus.

The reverberations of the war were felt for years and even today their ultimate effects are still present. Looking at these effects from a political and historical viewpoint we find that at least four conflicts which reached an acute stage as a result of the war are still basically as acute today despite the changed situation: