Source Collection: Unresolved Tensions
Document 1
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Author |
Multiple state signatories |
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Date and location |
1919, Paris |
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Source type |
Primary source – treaty |
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Description |
A treaty is essentially a contract between two or more nations; an agreement that is made as official as possible through documentation. The Treaty of Versailles is one of the most important international treaties in modern history. It concerned France, Germany, Britain, Austria-Hungary, Japan, and the United States after World War I. Though it is described as a peace treaty, it wasn’t good news for everyone. Part of the Treaty of Versailles established the League of Nations, an organization meant to help prevent international conflicts. It was negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference. |
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Citation |
Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/versailles_menu.asp |
ARTICLE 22
… those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world… should be entrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League…
ARTICLE 119
Germany renounces in favor of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her oversea possessions…
ARTICLE 231
The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.
ARTICLE 232
The Allied and Associated Governments recognize that the resources of Germany are not adequate… to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage. The Allied and Associated Governments, however, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers and to their property during the period of the belligerency…
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Glossary Sovereignty: the claim to the right to make laws and govern a country, whether by a conqueror or a ruler or the people |
Document 2
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Author |
Caleb Stillson Hammond (1862–1929) |
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Date and location |
1920, United States |
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Source type |
Primary source – map |
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Description |
The Treaty of Versailles aimed to redraw national boundaries. This map shows some of the proposed changes in red. It shows how former empires were to be reorganized into nation-states. |
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Citation |
Hammond, C.S. & Company, “Europe showing the proposed new states,” Digital Public Library of America, public domain, https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/treaty-of-versailles-and-the-end-of-world-war-i/sources/1894 |
Document 3
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Author |
Frank H. Simonds (1878–1936) |
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Date and location |
1919, New York, USA |
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Source type |
Primary source – newspaper article |
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Description |
This article was written on the anniversary of the end of the war. It spells out many of the existing tensions and ongoing conflicts. |
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Citation |
Simonds, Frank H. “A Year After the Armistice—The Unsettled Disputes.” New York Tribune, November 9, 1919. |
At the end of a year of so-called peace, war is still going forward in many portions of Europe, new disputes have arisen in place of the old issues of a year ago, and, technically at least the condition of peace between Germany and the United States has not been restored…
Domestic Unrest Grow
Out of this situation has grown domestic unrest in every nation which fought. If the Germans assail their own leaders for having consented to fatal terms in the Peace of Versailles, the French, the British and the Italian people, and, for that matter, the American people, assail their representatives for failure to dispose of the issues raised by the war in such fashion that peace or even approximate peace would be assured. A multitude of rivalries has broken out between newly liberated peoples, between the recent allies and between the great powers and smaller races…
Few Issues Really Settled
… The immediate menace of German world supremacy has been temporarily abolished, but unfortunately there are still lacking the most tenuous evidences that German defeat has been followed any change in German purpose…
Where the Fighting Still Goes On
The first anniversary of the armistice sees fighting still going on in at least a dozen places in Europe and the Near East…
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Glossary Assail: to attack something, often repeatedly |
Document 4
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Author |
Unknown photographer |
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Date and location |
1923, Germany |
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Source type |
Primary source – photograph |
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Description |
This image was taken in the Ruhr region in Germany. It shows coal being prepared for transport as part of a World War I reparations program. In 1923, this region was occupied by French forces. Reparations included coal which needed to be taken to Belgium, France, Italy, and Luxembourg each year for a decade. |
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Citation |
“Germany, 1923, French occupation of the Ruhr region, at the cokeworks of Westerholt. First coal requisitioning by way of World War I reparations, carried out by fifty French, Italian and Polish workers, under protection of the French troops.” (Photo by Photo12/UIG/ Getty Images). |
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Glossary Cokeworks: a place where coal is processed |
Document 5
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Author |
Charles Raymond “C. R.” Macauley (1871–1934) |
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Date and location |
1929, United States |
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Source type |
Primary source – political cartoon |
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Description |
C.R. Macauley won the Pulitzer for this cartoon published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. It makes a comment about the reparations that losing countries were responsible for paying after World War I. These reparations were spelled out in the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War. |
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Citation |
Macauley, Charles R. “Paying for a Dead Horse.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 23, 1929. |
Document 6
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Author |
Haile Selassie I (1892–1975), Emperor of Ethiopia |
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Date and location |
1936, Geneva, Switzerland |
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Source type |
Primary source – political speech |
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Description |
In this excerpt, the Emperor of Ethiopia appeals to the League of Nations in the midst of the Abyssinia Crisis, a period of aggression by the Kingdom of Italy. Though the League of Nations ruled against Italy and voted for economic sanctions, they were never fully implemented. Italy ignored the sanctions, left the League, made secret deals with Britain and France, and occupied Ethiopia after a prolonged conflict. Selassie’s original text was in Amharic. |
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Citation |
Selassie, Haile. “Appeal to the League of Nations, June 1936.” https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/selassie.htm |
I... am here today to claim that justice which is due to my people, and the assistance promised to it eight months ago, when fifty nations asserted that aggression had been committed in violation of international treaties.
It is not only upon warriors that the Italian Government has made war. It has above all attacked populations far removed from hostilities, in order to terrorize and exterminate them... The deadly rain that fell from the aircraft made all those whom it touched fly shrieking with pain. All those who drank the poisoned water or ate the infected food also succumbed in dreadful suffering. In tens of thousands, the victims of the Italian mustard gas fell... to denounce to the civilized world the tortures inflicted upon the Ethiopian people [is why I have] come to Geneva... The appeals of my delegates addressed to the League of Nations had remained without any answer...
Despite the inferiority of my weapons, the complete lack of aircraft, artillery, munitions, hospital services, my confidence in the League was absolute... It is collective security: it is the very existence of the League of Nations. It is the confidence that each State is to place in international treaties. It is the value of promises made to small States that their integrity and their independence shall be respected and ensured... In a word, it is international morality that is at stake...
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Glossary Denounce: to speak out against |
Document 7
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Author |
Japanese government official |
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Date and location |
1942, Japan |
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Source type |
Primary source – government document |
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Description |
This is a Japanese secret government document from 1942. It was part of a government department that researched and prepared for total war. In this document, we can see short- and long-term Japanese imperial ambitions. |
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Citation |
Tsunoda, Ryūsaku. Sources of Japanese Tradition. Columbia University Press, 1958. |
PART I. OUTLINE OF CONSTRUCTION
The Japanese empire is a manifestation of morality and... is the propagation of the Imperial Way... [It is] necessary to foster the increased power of the empire, to cause East Asia to return to its original form of independence and co-prosperity by shaking off the yoke of Europe and America, and to let its countries and peoples develop their respective abilities in peaceful cooperation and secure livelihood.
The Form of East Asiatic Independence and Co-Prosperity.
The states... comprised in those areas pertaining to the Pacific, Central Asia, and the Indian Oceans formed into one general union are to be established as an autonomous zone of peaceful living and common prosperity...
Outline of East Asiatic Administration.
… the unification of Japan, Manchoukuo, and China in neighborly friendship [is to] be realized by the settlement of the Sino-Japanese problems [by] crushing of hostile influences in the Chinese interior, and through the construction of a new China in tune with the rapid construction of the Inner Sphere. Aggressive American and British influences in East Asia shall be driven out... the war with Britain and America shall be prosecuted for that purpose.
The Russian aggressive influence in East Asia will be driven out. Eastern Siberia shall be cut off from the Soviet regime and included in our defense sphere. For this purpose, a war with the Soviets is expected...
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Glossary Manifestation: a clear sign of something |