Instruments of Peacemaking 1918-1941: The Failure of Diplomacy

Author: Michael Reynolds
Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN: 9781509976287
Published In: January 2026
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Description
Contents

Details

This book is a sequel to Instruments of Peacemaking 1870-1914 in that it considers how attempts were made to settle disputes between states without recourse to war after 'the war to end all wars'.

It considers the idealism of President Wilson's Fourteen Points which formed the basis for the Armistice in 1918, and his scheme for a League of Nations providing for self-determination of nations and 'collective security' for European states.

It goes on to analyse the key challenges that faced statesmen and jurists in attempting to resolve disputes under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. It considers the consequences of the Peace Conference of 1919 that failed to give France security guarantees and aroused German animosity through loss of territory, population, and payment of reparations. Despite its defects the treaty was an instrument for resolving disputes and tensions between the victors and the vanquished.

The book considers cases referred to the Reparations Commission and to arbitration under the Treaty of Versailles regarding boundary, industrial property, and shipping including the Lusitania claims. More importantly, it analyses the diplomatic challenges faced by statesmen after 1919: the attempts at disarmament, the Locarno Arbitration Agreements, and the subsequent crises in Abyssinia, the Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The decline and failure of Wilsonian idealism, the League of Nations, collective security, and diplomacy is traced through the various diplomatic exchanges that took place between governments from official records and contemporaneous accounts of the times as well as academic sources. The attempt to resolve the Sudetenland crisis by the mediation of Lord Runciman is included as part of the diplomatic intervention by Mr. Chamberlain to appease Hitler. The final chapter looks at American Foreign Policy in the context of isolationism, and Anglo-American Relations and concludes with analysis of the Army, Navy and Congressional Enquiries into the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Preface

Introduction: Wilsonian Idealism and Briand's Dream

Approaches to International Dispute Resolution 1918-1941

1. A New International Order: Versailles and the League of Nations

2. Retribution and Reparation

3. Towards a Code of International Arbitration: Instruments of Peace and Diplomacy

4. Inquiry and Arbitration as Instruments of Resolution

5. Diplomacy as an Instrument of Prevention

6. The Crisis That Led to War and Why Diplomacy based on Appeasement Failed

7. Anglo-American Relations: Democracies Hope

Epilogue The Pearl Harbour Enquiries