A Settlement That Satisfied Few
Two goals that could not both be met
- The conflicting goals of the peace negotiators in Paris pitted diplomatic idealism against the desire to punish Germany, producing a settlement that satisfied few.
- The CED locates the failure in the goals, not in the negotiators' competence.
- Satisfied few is its verdict, and few is not none — the settlement had defenders as well as enemies.
Select both conflicting goals the CED names.
The failure is located in the goals, not the negotiators.
The mandate system redistributed empire
- The League of Nations distributed former German and Ottoman possessions to France and Great Britain through the mandate system, thereby altering the imperial balance of power and creating a strategic interest in the Middle East and its oil.
- Two consequences named: altering the imperial balance of power, and creating a strategic interest in the Middle East and its oil.
- So a body founded to replace power politics also carried out a transfer of empire.
The CED's verdict is a settlement that satisfied ____.
And 'few' is not none — it had defenders as well as enemies.
Why it did not resolve the challenges
- Politically, it left a state punished but intact, and 8.6 names postwar bitterness among fascism's conditions.
- Economically, it did not repair the conditions 8.5's Great Depression would exploit.
- Diplomatically, it created an institution without the power to compel, and redistributed empire in the same act.
A goal, an outcome, or a later consequence?
Sort each element of the peace settlement.
Select both consequences of the mandate system the CED names.
A body founded to replace power politics carried out a transfer of empire.
The CED locates the failure in the goals, not the negotiators. Their conflicting goals pitted diplomatic idealism against the desire to punish Germany, so any settlement had to disappoint one of them — which is why the CED's verdict is a settlement that satisfied few rather than one that was badly drafted.
Match each challenge to why the settlement failed to resolve it.
How and why, in three lines.
Compare it with Vienna
- 5.7's Congress attempted to restore a balance and contain revolution, and 6.5 gave it an institution to do so.
- Paris attempted something harder: a settlement based on principle and on punishment at the same time.
- Naming the difference is the strongest single move available in this subtopic.
Compared with Vienna, Paris attempted...
Naming the difference is the strongest move here.
How and why it failed
- The objective is how and why the settlement failed to effectively resolve the political, economic, and diplomatic challenges.
- How: by producing terms that satisfied few and an institution without means of enforcement.
- Why: because the negotiators' goals conflicted, so any settlement had to disappoint one of them.
One party wants a settlement that no one has cause to overturn; another wants a settlement that makes one state unable to try. Every clause that serves the second weakens the first. The document that results is not a compromise; it is two documents in one binding.
The conflicting goals of the peace negotiators in Paris pitted diplomatic idealism against the desire to punish Germany, producing a settlement that satisfied few, and the League of Nations distributed former German and Ottoman possessions to France and Great Britain through the mandate system, thereby altering the imperial balance of power and creating a strategic interest in the Middle East and its oil. The failure lies in the goals, and it leaves postwar bitterness for 8.6 to build on.