1920s International Agreements

Two of them are about money

Four agreements sit in this part of your course, and listed out they look like four separate diplomatic events. The Dawes Plan, 1924. Locarno, 1925. The Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928. The Young Plan, 1929. ⚠️ THEY ARE TWO PAIRS. DAWES AND YOUNG ARE ABOUT MONEY. LOCARNO AND KELLOGG-BRIAND ARE ABOUT WAR. And the order matters more than almost anything else in this topic. The money came first. By the early 1920s reparations had produced a crisis that made any agreement between France and Germany unthinkable. Germany could not pay what had been demanded; France had borrowed against the expectation of being paid. ⚠️ WHILE THAT DEADLOCK HELD, THERE WAS NOTHING TO NEGOTIATE ABOUT. The Dawes Plan of 1924 did not cancel reparations. It restructured the payments and brought American lending into Germany, and the effect was to turn an impossible demand into a manageable one. ⚠️ LOCARNO CAME THE FOLLOWING YEAR. THAT IS NOT A COINCIDENCE, AND SEEING WHY IS MOST OF THIS TOPIC. Once the money question was survivable, the security question became negotiable. Kellogg-Briand in 1928 and the Young Plan in 1929 then extended both halves of the settlement. So when people describe the later 1920s as years of hope, they are describing something real. ⚠️ BUT THE HOPE RESTED ON AMERICAN MONEY RATHER THAN ON THE PROMISES THEMSELVES, and that is the judgement this topic asks you to argue about: were these agreements evidence that international cooperation worked, or that it worked while it was cheap?

Four agreements and the problem behind them

Five terms, defined by what they were and when. What each one led to comes next.

Match each agreement to what it led to

Why 1925 and not 1922

Locarno was negotiated in 1925, a year after the Dawes Plan, and not earlier. According to the argument this topic rests on, what best explains the timing?

• The reparations deadlock had made any Franco-German settlement unthinkable, and Dawes made the money question survivable enough for the security question to be negotiable
• Coincidence: the two had nothing to do with each other
• The League of Nations had to organise the conference first
• The politicians involved only came into office in 1925

Two pairs, and what held them up

Read the first two columns as the two halves of the settlement, and the third as the thing neither of them contained.

True about the four agreements

Select the TWO statements that are true.

• The money agreements made the security agreements possible, which is why the sequence matters
• Locarno guaranteed Germany's western borders while leaving the eastern ones unguaranteed
• The Dawes Plan cancelled Germany's reparations
• All four agreements were negotiated through the League of Nations

The judgement this topic is really asking for

Questions on this part of the course almost never ask you to list the agreements. They ask how successful the 1920s were, and that is a judgement rather than a recall exercise. ⚠️ AND THERE IS A REAL DISAGREEMENT TO TAKE A SIDE IN, WHICH IS WHY IT IS WORTH ASKING. One view: the agreements worked. Reparations stopped being a crisis. Germany and France settled a border question that had caused a war. Dozens of states put their names to renouncing war. Compared with 1923, the later 1920s were transformed, and that transformation was real. The other view: they worked while conditions were easy. ⚠️ NONE OF THE AGREEMENTS CONTAINED A WAY OF ENFORCING ITSELF. Locarno relied on its guarantors choosing to act; Kellogg-Briand had no sanctions at all. What actually held the settlement together was prosperity, and prosperity is not a mechanism. Both views are supported by the same facts, which is what makes it a genuine question. So structure the answer as a judgement rather than a survey. ⚠️ PICK A CRITERION AND SAY WHAT IT IS. Successful at what? Ending a crisis, or building something that would survive one? An answer that never says what it is measuring cannot reach a conclusion, and it is the commonest reason a well-informed answer sits in the middle band. Then use the strongest evidence against yourself. ⚠️ IF YOU ARGUE THE AGREEMENTS SUCCEEDED, DEAL WITH THE ABSENCE OF ENFORCEMENT. IF YOU ARGUE THEY WERE HOLLOW, DEAL WITH THE FACT THAT THE CRISIS GENUINELY ENDED. An answer that only meets the easy objections has not been tested. And keep to the decade the question asks about. What happened to these agreements afterwards is a different question, and answering it instead is a common way to run out of time on the one that was set.

How a payments agreement bought a border treaty

Follow the chain, because it is the single most useful thing in this key element. START WITH THE DEADLOCK. Germany owed reparations it could not pay. France had borrowed against being paid and could not simply forgive the debt. Each side's position made the other's impossible, and while that held, there was nothing for diplomats to talk about. Any proposal about borders or security ran straight back into the money. THEN 1924 BREAKS IT. ⚠️ AND THE EFFECT THAT MATTERS HERE IS NOT FINANCIAL. IT IS DIPLOMATIC. An impossible demand became a manageable one, and with that, the two governments finally had something other than the money to discuss. ONE YEAR LATER THEY USED IT. A border question that had helped cause a war was, on the western side, settled by agreement, and the optimism that followed was genuine. ⚠️ BUT THE SETTLEMENT EVERYONE CELEBRATED WAS, GEOGRAPHICALLY, HALF A SETTLEMENT, and no equivalent promise covered the other half. The two agreements at the end of the decade then extended both halves of the bargain, on terms easier than anything that had looked possible five years earlier. ⚠️ NOW LOOK BACK ALONG THE CHAIN AND ASK WHAT IS HOLDING IT UP. Not the promises, which committed their signatories to very little that anyone could compel. What held it up was that the money kept moving, and every one of these agreements was easier to keep while it did. What happened when it stopped is the next part of your course.

Order the road out of the deadlock

Put the stages in order, from the reparations crisis to the last agreement of the decade.

• Reparations reach a deadlock: Germany cannot pay what is demanded and France cannot afford to forgive it
• The Dawes Plan of 1924 restructures the payments and brings American lending into Germany
• With the money question survivable, Locarno in 1925 settles the western borders by agreement
• The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 has dozens of states renounce war as an instrument of policy
• The Young Plan of 1929 reduces the reparations total and lengthens the timetable

The agreements run

Five questions on the four agreements and what they rested on. Three lives.

Spot the true 1920s agreement facts

Tap the TWO statements that are true.

• The money agreements came first and made the security agreements negotiable
• None of the four agreements was negotiated through the League of Nations
• The Dawes Plan cancelled Germany's reparations debt
• Locarno guaranteed all of Germany's borders, east and west alike

Complete the 1920s agreement facts

The payments Germany was required to make to the Allies under the peace settlement were _____. The 1924 agreement that restructured those payments and brought American lending in was _____. The 1925 treaties in which Germany, France and Belgium accepted their shared borders, with Britain and Italy as guarantors, were _____. The 1928 agreement in which dozens of states renounced war as an instrument of national policy was _____.

Assemble the judgement

Build the kind of judgement step 7 describes: a stated criterion, the evidence, and the strongest point against you.

Three answers to sharpen

Three pieces of student writing. Each answer has to carry the reasoning, not just the verdict.

• An answer describes all four agreements accurately, in order, with correct dates, and concludes "so the 1920s were quite successful". It scores in the middle band. Why?
• A student argues that the agreements were hollow because none could be enforced. What is the strongest objection they need to meet?
• Asked about the success of the 1920s agreements, a student spends half the answer on what happened to them in the following decade. Is that a good use of the space?

Judge the agreements on their own decade

A classmate can name all four agreements with their dates and cannot say whether the 1920s were a success. Write them an answer that reaches a judgement. Keep to the 1920s.

• Explain why the money agreements had to come before the security ones, using the reparations deadlock
• Describe what Locarno actually settled, and be precise about what it left out
• Explain what the Kellogg-Briand Pact committed its signatories to, and what it did not provide
• State the criterion you are judging by, and reach a conclusion about whether the agreements succeeded
• Finish by meeting the strongest point against your own conclusion rather than the easiest one