How far did British policies towards Germany changed between the years 1918-35?
How far did British policies towards Germany changed between the years 1918-35?
Britain’s position in world politics changed drastically between 1918-35. They started off as the world’s policeman, adopting proactive policies, however, by the 1930s, it can be argued that Britain was no longer a dominating force and only seemed to react to other countries, mainly Germany. However, even though the attitude towards policies may have changed, aims of them may not. On one hand, one interpretation states that the policies stayed relatively the same, in terms of consistently avoiding commitment, supporting the empire and working hard to main peace. However, on the other hand, the policies can be seen as different, such as the change of attitudes to the Treaty of Versailles. This essay will be focusing on what extent the policies towards Germany, in particular, changed between 1918 and 1935.
Throughout the entire period, Germany was treated as an outcast to the rest of Europe, mostly because of the Treaty of Versailles which in a way condoned such behaviour, placing all blame on Germany. Although Germany regained some of its power and dignity in the late 1920s, many of the policies Britain composed stayed similar throughout the period. For example, the Dawes and Locarno Pact all revised the Treaty of Versailles and upheld the treaty as they didn’t reduce reparation payments; they just increased the time span in which they could be paid back. The Stresa front also re-affirmed many of the same policies as the Treaty of Versailles. Taking place in 1935, it aimed to reassert the Locarno Treaty and the borders set. However, Britain, France and Italy also agreed to resist any future attempt by the Germans to change the Treaty of Versailles, meaning that policy towards Germany would no longer be changed in their favour so policies had to remain similar. As Britain was one of the main powers that contributed to the Treaty of Versailles, the upkeep of such terms, such as the Locarno Pact, and the failure to reduce reparation payments in the Dawes Plan meant that Britain did keep their policies towards Germany very similar in terms of reaffirming the treaty. Ultimately, with France fearing over their security and Italy generally feeling threatened by Germany, Britain had little choice but to sustain the harsh policies of the treaty. However, the views expressed in the treaty of Versailles were that of public opinion and not of Baldwin, so therefore it can be stated that if public opinion was different, the policies made in Germany’s direction would have been vastly different. There were also consistent limitations on Germany’s military throughout the period, the first being the treaty of Versailles where the armed forces were limited to 100,000 men, naval forces limited to 15,000 men, 6 battleships and 6 cruisers. From this point, Germany was constantly limited to the amount of men and ships that they could possess. The inter-allied commission was set up in 1927 to ensure that Germany was abiding by the limitations, in terms of the restrictions on conscription, submarines and the limitations of naval and armed forces. As a result, this meant that Germany was still limited in terms of its resources. The disarmament conferences of 1932-4 were an effort to actualise the ideology of disarmament so every nation would become secure. Not only was this a continuation of the limitation on German forces, it was also the continuation of the Treaty of Versailles as all major powers apart from USA had committed themselves to disarmament in it. However, the disarmament conference cannot be seen as a continuation of policy as Hitler withdrew Germany from the conference and league of nations in October 1933, so effectively, the limitations were invalid from this point as it indication Hitler’s unwillingness to cooperate and possibly invalidate any further talks. Furthermore, even though the Anglo-German Naval allowed Germany to expand their forces, it still limited it to 35% of Britain’s forces. So even though in one way, it is a change in policy towards Germany, it is similar to others as it still limited the potential. However, although there are many policies that stayed similar between the years 1918 and 1935, many were different, mostly as a result of pressure from other countries or original pressure which caused Britain to retract previous actions.
