Was the ‘Liberal Internationalism’ espoused in 1919 destined to fail or merely a concept ahead of its time.

There can be few historical documents that have rivaled the Treaty of Versailles for the level of criticism that it has been given by historians over the time since its creation. But how much of this was as a result of failings of the representatives at the talks to come up with a suitable agreement and how much of it was as a result of a failure of implementation? The point to make is that there had never been an attempt at global peace like this before, even the Treaty of Vienna 1809 does not come close. One of the main problems of the treaty was that it was backward-looking, designed to prevent a war such as the one that had just finished, not accounting for changes in the international system. It also only satisfied a small number of nations, namely 'The Big Four' of the US, France, Britain and Italy, leaving out Germany, Russia and Japan.6 For the legitimacy of the treaty, it was necessary that Germany especially was included, but she was not, thus causing resentment of its terms. There were also large inconsistencies in the treaty. Yet the granting of occupation of the Rhineland to France goes against the principles of National Self-Determination by a government elected by the indigenous population. The empires of Britain and France were also treated as one country, so the ideas of self-rule, that Lloyd-George was so keen on, was seemingly conditional to the empires of those 'victim' nations7. It seems that the main leaders at the conference did not envisage a problem of say, putting Czechs and Slovaks together to form one country and even though it is understandably difficult to draw borders on a map, future generations have been left to deal with these issues of ethnicity and race.

Perhaps the single most important part of the Versailles Treaty, and indeed the drive for liberal internationalism was the League of Nations. Created as a result of the need for some kind of a concert of states due to the failure of the Balance of Power in 1914, a powerful league could have made sure that Liberal internationalism was a success, creating the framework for international relations which had grown extremely complex8, virtually unrecognizable from the Westphalian system. The background to the League can be accredited fourteen points, but those like the Bryce Group also investigated into such as system and realised that some kind of a formalised system of co-operation was necessary. There were however several problems inherent in the League. The Hankey memorandum points out that relying on international organs to arbitrate would 'create a sense of security which is wholly fictitious'9. This argument certainly holds water, with the need for unanimous voting on all actions, states could use their veto to protect their national interest, even if the motion would have been generally advantageous. The League was also considered to be a 'European Club' where the main actors in Europe sat on the Council and influenced the Leagues direction10. It was also the case that several treaties such as those of Sykes-Picot and London had been agreed during the war caused the league problems, especially in the case of Italy and Fiume11.

All of these underlying weaknesses of the League of Nations would have been fundamentally insignificant however, had the US signed up to the League. They objected mainly to the threat to their sovereignty and in particular, Article X, the Monroe Doctrine12. It was the League of Nations, and therefore the Treaty of Versailles that the US Senate failed to ratify. Wilson spent twenty two days touring America giving thirty eight speeches, but failed to instill enough enthusiasm for the intergovernmental body, suffering from increasing headaches and eventually a stroke which paralysed the left side of his body, leaving him a shadow of his former self13. Without US backing, the League lacked universal acceptance, credibility and economic and political clout to deal with the forthcoming situations that signaled its demise. It was divided throughout and failed to deal with Japan over Manchuria in 1933 and was dealt a devastating blow with Italy's invasion of Abyssinia in 1936. Although at its start, the majority of the world's countries had signed up to it, many of the 'New World' countries such as Paraguay, Nicaragua and Chile left in the mid-twenties, then Japan and Italy, leaving it severely weakened, eventually to collapse leaving single countries like Britain to cope with the Nazi threat, forcing the much criticised appeasement of Hitler.

It is possible that had there not been such a level of illusion surrounding the success of economics and politics of the mid-to-late 1920's, liberal internationalism could have succeeded. Hobsbourn believed that there was a general recovery in the 1920's and that depression in 1929 destroyed economic liberalism for half a century14. This however does seem to be an optimistic viewpoint as there were several systemic weaknesses in the post-war system. Firstly there was a problem with the break up of the old empires that had built up a high level of inter-bloc efficiency over time. Now split up and new borders created under national self determination, this no longer existed. Infact, there was a widespread occurrence of economic nationalism, with the will to protect nascent industries resulting in the increase in tariffs on imports15. There was also the belief that a state can't rely on others which meant that some states tried to create autarky's even though many did not have the internal resources for this.

There was also a problem in the global economy with US isolationism. In the post-war period it was necessary for the US to underpin the global economy like Britain had done in the previous two hundred years. One of the ways in which Britain did this was to import semi-finished goods and export finished ones, but unlike Britain the US has got an extensive external market and hardly needed to import any goods, operating a 'closed door policy'16. This was especially the case with Europe whose goods had become inappropriate in the post-war period as much of the industry had difficulty moving from war-time production, and because of the emergence of countries in Latin America who supplied commodities like rubber, tungsten and bauxite. Despite this governmental isolationism, US private financiers extended and increased the number of short term leases to Europe dramatically, fostering the illusion of prosperity, making Europe more dependant on the strength of the US economy and exponentially increasing the blow when the Wall Street Crash came about in November 1939. There was also a general reluctance to pay back the loans as they were seen as part of the US war contribution, being minimal compared to the loss of lives by the Entente Powers

As far as political illusions are concerned, these were equally as damaging to liberal internationalism. It was Kissenger's belief that the Locarno Treaty 1925 reinforced the idea that Germany was defeated in the West but not the East, which lay the way for an assault on Eastern Europe17. In fact, it could also be suggested that Chamberlain and Briand were tacitly accepting German expansion into Poland and Czechoslovakia just by signing it18. The German expansionism of the late 1930's could certainly be considered the start of the end for the liberal internationalism of the time. It was also true that no sooner had the ink dried on the agreements at Versailles that Britain went cold on the idea of helping France and her security. France and Britain had been enemies longer than Britain had with Germany, with the Napoleonic war and in recent memory, the Fashoda crisis 1896. So despite the fact that war had forced them to put aside their differences, the cracks soon started to appear after the threat had subsided.

As far as Germany is concerned, the acceptable face that Gustav Stressman put on foreign policy masked a large underlying threat that was muted only for a short period. Stressman, who was right wing and never actually accepted Germany's territorial losses realised that impotent military aggression was useless and instead pursued policies of 'fulfillment' of the terms laid out at Versailles. He exploited the fact that Britain wanted France and Germany to have a good relationship and that France feared isolation from Britain19 and subsequently engineered the signing of the Locarno and Kellog-Briand Pact and brought Germany into the League of Nations in 1926, despite Stressman's own right wing beliefs, President Hindenberg's role in the First Word War and Hindenberg's close friendship with Hitler, although that did not emerge until later. Although tight rearmament restrictions were put on Germany, she never rearmed fully. With many veterans jobless, several 'gun clubs' were set up and the was an increases in the number of fertilizer and civilian airplane factories. These could converted to produce explosives and aircraft respectively, and although a commission was set up to investigate this, its findings were inconclusive.

On December 30th 1918 in London, President Wilson said that 'never before in the history of the world, I believe, has there been such a keen international consensus [for change] as there is now'20. It would seem then that liberal internationalism should not fail. Unfortunately, Wilson's optimism was not shared by his government who could have tipped the balance in favor of the success of liberal internationalism if they had have ratified the Treaty of Versailles. As it was, the economic collapse of the 1930's after a period of illusory recovery gave rise to a new threat which destroyed much of what the concept stood for. Perhaps it could be said that no-one could have envisaged the rise of Hitler out of the ashes of a broken Germany, but those like Keynes did predict the cost of such high reparations, with astounding accuracy, though were not listened to. The European powers without America could not form a cohesive body and failed to address the problem of Germany's disproportionate power in Europe. Liberal Internationalism was definitely a concept ahead of its time with ideas such as the trafficking of drugs, women and children being made illegal are still very much in existence today, and the fair treatment of laborers in their own countries and 'all countries to which their commercial and industrial relations extend'21 are not even fully adhered to today. It was not so much the over adventurous aims of liberal internationalism that were the cause of its failure, moreover the sheer turmoil left after the First World War and the fact that the most powerful nation on earth, the only nation that could perhaps have held the system together and was supposed to underpin the world economy, decided to continue to pursue the isolationist policies that it briefly took a break from in 1917.

Bibliography

* Bull and Watson: Expansion of the International System, Oxford University Press, 1994. 'A New International Disorder' Elie Kedourie

* Clarke, I: Gobalisation and Fragmentation

* Keylor, W: The Twentieth Century World, Oxford University Press, 2001

* Williams, A: Failed Imaginations: New World Orders of the Twentieth Century, Manchester University Press, 1998

* Arbrecht-Carrie, R: Versailles Twenty Years After, Political Science Quarterly, Vol 55, Issue 1, 1940

* Binkley RC: New Light on Paris Peace Conference, Political Science Quarterly, Vol 46, Issue 3, 1931

* www.san.beck.org.WP20-LeagueofNations.html

* www.tcf.org/Press_Release/Smith.html

* www.unog.ch/frames/library/archives/lon/library/essays/hankey.htm

* www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/leagcov.htm

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Andrew Williams: Failed Imaginations. New World Orders of the 20th Century

2 Andrew Williams: Failed Imaginations. New World Orders of the 20th Century

3 www.san.beck.org.WP20-LeagueofNations.html

4 Andrew Williams: Failed Imaginations. New World Orders of the 20th Century

5 Andrew Williams: Failed Imaginations. New World Orders of the 20th Century

6 Ian Clarke: Globalisation and Fragmentation

7 William Keylor: The Twentieth Century World

8 Ian Clarke: Globalisation and Fragmentation

9 www.unog.ch/frames/library/archives/lon/library/essays/hankey.htm

0 Andrew Williams: Failed Imaginations. New World Orders of the 20th Century

1 www.san.beck.org.WP20-LeagueofNations.html

2 www.san.beck.org.WP20-LeagueofNations.html

3 www.san.beck.org.WP20-LeagueofNations.html

4 Ian Clarke: Globalisation and Fragmentation

5 William Keylor: The Twentieth Century World

6 William Keylor: The Twentieth Century World

7 Ian Clarke: Globalisation and Fragmentation

8 William Keylor: The Twentieth Century World

9 William Keylor: The Twentieth Century World

20 www.san.beck.org.WP20-LeagueofNations.html

21 www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/leagcov.htm