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12 - Towards the Locarno pact

Britain's quest for a new European concert, 1924–1925

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2009

Patrick O. Cohrs
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

From an Anglo-American perspective, the making of the Locarno accords can be analysed as a process comprising four distinct stages after the – limited – foundations of the Dawes system had been laid: (1) ‘gestation’ – the failure of the Geneva Protocol's universalist, League-based approach to security and the search for alternative models (September 1924 – mid-January 1925); (2) ‘germination’ – the recasting of British security policy towards the pursuit of a pact as nucleus of a new European concert, not least under the impact of Stresemann's ‘security initiative’ and America's endorsement of this approach (late January – March 1925); (3) ‘crisis and perseverance’ – Britain's promotion of newly integrative negotiations over the Rhine pact with France and Germany, spurred by American pressure (culminating between June and August 1925); and finally (4) ‘resolution’ – the finalisation of the security accords and actual emergence of the new European concert at the Locarno conference (October 1925).

The limits of the Geneva Protocol and the pre-Locarno constellation

After the London conference, the Coolidge administration re-affirmed its anti-Wilsonian creed, and the Hughes doctrine, in the domain of ‘classic’ security politics. In the autumn of 1924, Hughes reverted to what he regarded as a proven and advantageous policy of strategic non-entanglement outside the American hemisphere. Both he and his designated successor Kellogg thought that they could foster European security most effectively, and without provoking Congressional opposition, if they guarded their ‘neutrality’. Both thus excluded a partisan involvement in the League or European politics.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Unfinished Peace after World War I
America, Britain and the Stabilisation of Europe, 1919–1932
, pp. 201 - 219
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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  • Towards the Locarno pact
  • Patrick O. Cohrs, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Unfinished Peace after World War I
  • Online publication: 21 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511497001.017
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  • Towards the Locarno pact
  • Patrick O. Cohrs, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Unfinished Peace after World War I
  • Online publication: 21 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511497001.017
Available formats
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  • Towards the Locarno pact
  • Patrick O. Cohrs, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Unfinished Peace after World War I
  • Online publication: 21 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511497001.017
Available formats
×