Lesson 2/55 min
After the war: events and treaties
Key dates
| When | What |
|---|---|
| 1917 | Lenin brings the ‘Peace Decree’ to take Russia out of the war |
| 2 November 1917 | British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour writes to Baron (Walter) Rothschild about a Jewish national home in Palestine: the ‘Balfour Declaration’ |
| 8 January 1918 | Wilson presents the Fourteen Points to the US Congress |
| 28 June 1919 | Treaty of Versailles between the Allies and Germany at Versailles, France; in force 10 January 1920 |
| 10 August 1920 | Treaty of Sèvres with the Ottoman Empire, at Sèvres, France |
| 1925 | Locarno treaties: negotiated at Locarno, Switzerland, signed later in London |
| 29 October 1929 | Crash on the US stock market: ‘Black Tuesday’; start of the Great Depression (1929–1939) |
Versailles and Sèvres
- The Treaty of Versailles formally ended the First World War; harsh terms were imposed on Germany
- Many experts see the seeds of the Second World War in its terms
- Under the Versailles settlement the International Labour Organization (ILO) was set up in 1919
- Under Sèvres the Ottoman empire was divided: Lebanon and Syria under France, Palestine and Iraq under Britain, Armenia an independent state
Did you know?: The Treaty of Sèvres never came into force; its terms were replaced in Turkey's favour by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
Fall of empires
| Empire | Fell |
|---|---|
| Russia's Tsarist empire | 1917 |
| Austro-Hungarian Empire | 1918 |
| Prussian (German) Empire | 1918 |
| Ottoman Empire | 1922 |
Economy and the new order
- In 1918 the Kaiser fled to Holland and Germany became the democratic Weimar Republic; it fell with Hitler's rise in 1933
- To fight the Depression, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd) launched the ‘New Deal’
- The 1944 Bretton Woods conference made the US dollar the international currency and led to the World Bank, the IMF and GATT
- The World Bank and IMF are Bretton Woods bodies; the WTO (which replaced GATT) is not
- The WTO began on 1 January 1995
Watch out: The book dates the WTO's start, replacing GATT, to ‘15 January 1995’. Several sources give 1 January 1995. The book also says the ‘Federal Republic of Germany was born’ after the Weimar Republic fell, which is wrong: Germany after 1933 was Hitler's Nazi state.
Memory trick: Point 1 of the Fourteen Points: open diplomacy; Point 14: an association of nations to keep the peace (the League of Nations).
Check yourself
When was the Balfour Declaration, and to whom was the letter written?
At a glance
- 1
The Balfour Declaration is dated 2 November 1917; it led to the birth of Israel in 1948 (14 May 1948).
- 2
Wilson's Fourteen Points: 8 January 1918; Point 14 called for the League of Nations.
- 3
Treaty of Versailles: 28 June 1919 (in force 10 January 1920); Treaty of Sèvres: 10 August 1920.
- 4
Great Depression 1929-1939; ‘Black Tuesday’ 29 October 1929; the New Deal was Franklin D. Roosevelt's.
- 5
Empires that fell: Russia 1917, Austria-Hungary and Prussia 1918, Ottoman 1922.
- 6
Bretton Woods conference 1944; the WTO has existed since 1 January 1995.