Peace Initiatives During World War I
"The way WWI developed made it impossible to negotiate a peace settlement that all belligerents could accept." - To what extent do you agree with this statement?
During the period of the First World War several peace initiatives took place, but none of them were successful, until an armistice that was signed by Germany on 11th of November 1919 after 4 years, 3 months and 2 weeks after the beginning of the war. After the fighting ceased, it took additionally 6 months to enclose the peace treaty which was established by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on October 21, 1919.
During the time period of 1914-1916 the major participants in the process of initiating peace were Germany and the US. Germany was willingly attempting to achieve …show more content…
Therefore they were produced disregarding the wins or losses of the opponents. As a result of this, it was vitally hard, or almost impossible to negotiate a deal which all participants would agree to, since all of them had mutual interests in expansion and economic growth which could not be grated to all of them in case of an armistice. Consequently any terms were favourable to some, but extremely disadvantageous for the others, which prevented an agreement between the …show more content…
The new appointed Russian Provisional Government made significant peace efforts for the sake of their own nations, since an extreme discontent among the population arose due to the continuous warfare. Bethmann Hollweg hoped to use these circumstances to benefit from ending the war and to resolve this, a representative from each county was present during a negotiation. Since they actually agreed on certain terms, such as the restoring of Russian pre-war border. There were other terms that they could not agree on, one of them was, whether Russia should be in control of Poland and the Baltics or not. There was a great potential in ending the war at this point since they could agree to some extend and if more effort should have been made there is a chance that they would come up with a solution that would have suited both, to certain extent. Furthermore, socialism was beginning to form in Russia and its direct affects were not only on the Russians, but also on many other people all around the world. Furthermore, the Provisional Government wanted to arrange a meeting with all socialists in the conflicting states, in order to led them spread the message of “Petrograd formula” – a peace “without annexations or indemnities...based on the rights of nations to decide their own affairs.”. This was supposed to be presented at the Stockholm conference
During the period of the First World War several peace initiatives took place, but none of them were successful, until an armistice that was signed by Germany on 11th of November 1919 after 4 years, 3 months and 2 weeks after the beginning of the war. After the fighting ceased, it took additionally 6 months to enclose the peace treaty which was established by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on October 21, 1919.
During the time period of 1914-1916 the major participants in the process of initiating peace were Germany and the US. Germany was willingly attempting to achieve …show more content…
Therefore they were produced disregarding the wins or losses of the opponents. As a result of this, it was vitally hard, or almost impossible to negotiate a deal which all participants would agree to, since all of them had mutual interests in expansion and economic growth which could not be grated to all of them in case of an armistice. Consequently any terms were favourable to some, but extremely disadvantageous for the others, which prevented an agreement between the …show more content…
The new appointed Russian Provisional Government made significant peace efforts for the sake of their own nations, since an extreme discontent among the population arose due to the continuous warfare. Bethmann Hollweg hoped to use these circumstances to benefit from ending the war and to resolve this, a representative from each county was present during a negotiation. Since they actually agreed on certain terms, such as the restoring of Russian pre-war border. There were other terms that they could not agree on, one of them was, whether Russia should be in control of Poland and the Baltics or not. There was a great potential in ending the war at this point since they could agree to some extend and if more effort should have been made there is a chance that they would come up with a solution that would have suited both, to certain extent. Furthermore, socialism was beginning to form in Russia and its direct affects were not only on the Russians, but also on many other people all around the world. Furthermore, the Provisional Government wanted to arrange a meeting with all socialists in the conflicting states, in order to led them spread the message of “Petrograd formula” – a peace “without annexations or indemnities...based on the rights of nations to decide their own affairs.”. This was supposed to be presented at the Stockholm conference