Other Treaties of 1919-1920

The Other Treaties [SaiNTS]

This topic is not strictly part of the AQA syllabus, but it will be helpful if you have at least an awareness of what was going on in the rest of Europe. Self-determination was a key element of Wilson's Fourteen Points.

The phrase 'self-determination' is simply loaded with dynamite. It will raise hopes which can never be realized.... What a calamity that the phrase was ever uttered! What misery it will cause!

Robert Lansing (1919)

US Secretary of State

Links

Self-determination - an extract from a school textbook.

A newspaper article discussing the principle and linking it to today

The Peace Treaties of 1919–20 made many territorial changes in Central and Eastern Europe. Describe the changes.

What was ‘self-determination’, and how did the principle affect the peace treaties of 1919–1920?

The Treaty of Versailles was the most important treaty of 1919–1920.

It was the treaty with Germany, and was decided by the Big Three. It was the Treaty which set up the League of Nations. Also, the Treaty of Versailles set down the principles of how the defeated countries would be treated:

	they had to pay reparations,
	they had to disarm,
	they lost land,
	self-determination.

New Words

principles: ideas to say how things should happen.

self-determination: the right of peoples to rule themselves.

nation-state: a country where the people of a certain race rule over themselves.

racial minority: where a few people of one race live in a country where most people are a different race.

Four Other Treaties

Four other treaties were made with the four countries which had helped Germany in the war. They were written by officials who just followed the principles of the Treaty of Versailles. They were all named after places in Paris:

	Saint Germain (with Austria),
	Neuilly (with Bulgaria) ,
	Trianon (with Hungary) and
	Sèvres (with Turkey) .

All four countries had to pay reparations, they all had to disarm, and they all lost land.

The treaties also created new nation-states in Eastern Europe out of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire (i.e. the principle of self-determination):

5 Nation-States

[CHAPS]

The treaties created new nation-states (see map).

1. Czechs and Slovaks in Czechoslovakia

2. Hungarians in Hungary.

3. Austrians in Austria.

4. Poles in Poland.

5. Slavs in Yugoslavia.

4 problems with self-determination

[WiGWaM].

1. It caused small Wars (see map, 1-3).

2. It was not allowed for Germany.

3. It created many small, Weak countries, which Hitler easily conquered later.

4. The new nation-states had racial Minorities living there.

Source A

A map of Eastern Europe in 1920.

Self-determination caused three small wars:

1. Poland went to war with Russia and took more land.

2. Czechs and Poles fought over the town of Teschen.

3. An army of Italians marched into the Yugoslavian town of Fiume.

Think About It:

Write a list of the ways in which the principle of self-determination affected the Peace Treaties of 1919-1920.