European System of Balance of Power - Article Example

HISTORY The post First World War era also saw an emphasis on security not through the old European system of balance of power - of Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Congress of Vienna - but through the collective security of Wilson's League of Nations. In the face of Republican opposition and Wilson's unwillingness to compromise with a Republican-controlled Congress, the US never joined the League and the institution proved incapable of resisting German, Japanese, and Italian territorial aggression. In its destruction of men, territory and economies, the First World War resulted in a European public wary of war and committed to the peaceful resolution of conflict. In the First World War, while the US had lost 114,000 men, the losses of Germany (2.037 million), Russia (1.8 million), France (1.4 million), Austria-Hungary (1.1 million), Bulgaria and Turkey (892,000), the UK (723,000) and Italy (578,000) were staggering in comparison. France was very much afraid of Germany after WWI. During the treaty of Versailles they made their point. After the WWI the French economy weakened day by day. Their demands includes the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, financial and military aid by League of Nations in case of German attack and should have French control over left bank of the Rhine Republic and Saar. Finally it has been said that the French asked too much and pushed the Germans to a corner. The US on the other hand helped the European community by giving financial aid. They helped the Germans to come out of the financial crisis. The US realized the importance of United Nations and convinced its allies and enemies to join the group. After centuries of bloodshed on the continent, with reconstruction after WWII financed by the American Marshall plan and protection provided by the American military during the Cold War, old adversaries in Europe achieved reconciliation and integration. Americans see a Germany that was wounded in WWI, destroyed in WWII, and then rehabilitated and protected (in the case of West Germany) in the post-war period thanks to American military might and American money. During the second half of 1944, the Nazi empire gradually imploded as its enemies invaded from east, west, and south. Supplies and manufacturing dwindled on a daily basis. The once mighty had some of the best military aircraft in the world but lacked fuel to fly them and parts to maintain them. Evidence suggests that Chancellor Adolf Hitler himself became addicted to a variety of drugs and that he may also have suffered from syphilis, Parkinson's disease, or both. German scientists were also busily working on the development of an atomic bomb, but the war ended before they could succeed. By far the most important of the trials was the great Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946, officially known as the International Military Tribunal (IMT). The governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France put on trial the most prominent surviving German leaders as Major War Criminals for various war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. In the words of the Tribunal's Charter, these Nazi conspirators carried out their crimes as part of a great Common Plan or Conspiracy. In addition, twelve secondary Nuremberg trials (NMT) organized by the US government alone were conducted between 1946 and 1949. Similar trials were also conducted by the British at Lunenburg and Hamburg, and by the United States at Dachau. Since then, many other Holocaust-related trials have been held in West Germany, Israel and the United States, including the highly publicised trials in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann and John Demjanjuk. The Paris Peace Conference opened on 12th January 1919, meetings were held at various locations in and around Paris until 20th January 1920. Leaders of 32 states representing about 75% of the world's population, attended. However, negotiations were dominated by the five major powers responsible for defeating the Central Powers: the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan. Important figures in these negotiations included Georges Clemenceau (France), David Lloyd George (Britain), Vittorio Orlando (Italy), and Woodrow Wilson (United States). Eventually five treaties emerged from the Conference that dealt with the defeated powers. The five treaties were named after the Paris suburbs of Versailles (Germany), St Germain (Austria), Trianon (Hungary), Neuilly (Bulgaria) and Serves (Turkey). On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall spoke at Harvard University and outlined what would become known as the Marshall Plan. Europe, still devastated by the war, had just survived one of the worst winters on record. The United States offered up to $20 billion for relief, but only if the European nations could get together and draw up a rational plan on how they would use the aid. For the first time, they would have to act as a single economic unit; they would have to cooperate with each other. Marshall also offered aid to the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe, but Stalin denounced the program as a trick and refused to participate. The Russian rejection probably made passage of the measure through Congress possible. The Marshall Plan, it should be noted, benefited the American economy as well. The money would be used to buy goods from the United States, and they had to be shipped across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels. But it worked. By 1953 the United States had pumped in $13 billion, and Europe was standing on its feet again. Moreover, the Plan included West Germany, which was thus reintegrated into the European community. It is often wondered how the superpowers achieved their position of dominance. It seems that the maturing of the two superpowers, Russia and the United States, can be traced to World War II. To be a superpower, a nation needs to have a strong economy, an overpowering military, immense international political power and, related to this, a strong national ideology. It was this war, and its results, that caused each of these superpowers to experience such a preponderance of power. Before the war, both nations were fit to be described as great powers, but it would be erroneous to say that they were superpowers at that point. To understand how the Second World War impacted these nations so greatly, we must examine the causes of the war. The United States gained its strength in world affairs from its status as an economic power. In the years before the war, America was the world's largest producer. In the USSR at the same time, Stalin was implementing his 'five year plans' to modernise the Soviet economy. From these situations, similar foreign policies resulted from widely divergent origins. Reference Madhusudhan. "Re: History." E-mail to 22 Feb. 2006. Read More