Contenu du sommaire : L'Europe de Versailles

To what extent was Europe an asymmetric international system a decade after Versailles ? A French questionnaire on the Briand Plan addressed to 26 European states on behalf of the League of Nations serves as an opinion survey of the state of Europe in 1930. It reveals that differences between states vary according to politics, economics and international relations. But the fundamental difference remains the question of whether to revise the Versailles treaties.

At the time of the negotiations of the Paris Peace Conference, the French security objectives went along with the projection of the political, economic and military influence of France in Central and Eastern Europe. The French ambition quickly raised the issue of the ability of the Allied powers, especially France, to transform the asset of its power into delete real political influence. Examples of the resistance to the French military model and the reluctance to satisfy the crucial French strategic imperatives were numerous. The French were thinking in terms of hegemony but they could hardly dictate the form their relations with the “smaller Allies” would take, whose aspirations for autonomy and attachment to historical and territorial legitimacies were disturbing the establishment of the new European system.

The Treaty of Versailles imposed very stringent requirements on Germany. The Germans themselves described it as a dictate and were extremely critical of it. Germany emerged from the war weakened, but it retained territorial unity and economic foundations in order to meet the demands of the Allies. Albeit reluctantly, the country adapted to the rhythm of international life. After the war, Germany took advantage of the tensions between victorious powers and cleverly played its hand in the concert of great powers, becoming an equal partner in international relations.

As a consequence of the Treaty of Trianon, signed on June 4th 1920, Hungary has lost 70 % of its territory and two thirds of its population, including 3.3 million Magyars. These circumstances explain why this treaty has never ceased to be a vital problem in Hungarian political thinking. In his essay, Ignác Romsics shows how this trauma was dealt with in the four eras of the last century to the present days. In the interwar period, classic answer given was the revision integral or optimal review, between 1945 and 1947, however, review was based on ethnicity. During communist era, there was no official review. Nowadays, the majority of the population consider the Trianon treaty unjust but final. However, a minority of people (15-20 %) think that this settlement can never be accepted.

The article includes the analysis of Soviet and modern Russian historiography of the League of Nations. Following historians from the USSR, modern national scientists lay emphasis on coverage of some basic topics connected with the LN among which different areas of political activities held by the Geneva organization within the interwar period and the evolution of its relations with the Soviet state in the 1920s–1930s are the most important. However, over the last three decades in modern Russian coverage of general heritage left by the LN some fundamentally new elements have appeared, particularly the detailed study of the League's work in non-political areas, especially in the social and humanitarian fields.

The situation of Catholic orders, institutes and congregations during the Great War helped to gauge the depth of the conflict. Like the Church, it tore apart these transnational institutions that presented themselves as families. Their members were sometimes required to bear arms, even though cannon law forbade them to do so. They left their schools, missions or convents in contradiction with their vows of obedience and even stability. The war, which merged faith in God and faith in the homeland for many of them, led them at the same time to prove their faithfulness to their country. It also influenced their spirituality, more sacrificial, and their apostolate. But if communities were divided, they remained moderate towards the adversary.

At the end of May 1918, the Czechoslovak Army Corps revolted against the Bolshevik power and a government called Komoutch (founded by members of the dissolved Constituent Assembly) was set up in Samara under their protection. However, two Frenchmen, perhaps both on secret missions, seem to have had an important role in the establishment of Komuch, and later in the capture of Kazan and the seizure of the Russian state treasury. They are Captain Joseph Bordes and the false vice-consul Lucien Jeannot. Two reports by Bordes and letters from Jeannot make it possible to know how they intervened, and Russian sources seem to confirm the accuracy of what is said.

Up until the turn of the 20th century, an explanation for the growing sugar demand could be found in the switch from a non-essential to an essential food, used to preserve many foods. However, when the Great War broke out in France, battle took place predominantly on sugar beet land in the north of the country. This led to the collapse of sugar beet production. By the end of 1914, only one in three of the factories producing sugar the previous year was still in operation; sugar production fell by four fifths in the first three years of conflict. However, cane sugar from overseas kept sugar consumption high until the end of summer 1917, but it became difficult to get hold of sugar from the autumn of 1917. Sugar beet production was low, and cane sugar deliveries began to fall. Strict rationing was introduced from the autumn of 1917 onwards. It is little known, however, that the French relied on German seeds before the war and this was the case throughout the conflict. The French struggled to overcome this difficulty, even after the war.

When the State's economic mobilization plan was implemented in 1938-1940, several companies set up an industrial establishment in Gironde. Peugeot even installed three units there, oriented towards aeronautical engineering. Then the war enticed the firm to bring down from its historical Sochaux-Montbéliard pole, hundreds of employees and machines in order to revive its production far from the front. Finally, after the armistice, its establishments in Gironde somehow lived on, with deliveries to the German army but also Resistance units. After the peace, this account offered no legacy because Peugeot abandoned the idea of making Bordeaux one of its productive poles in France and its projects in aeronautics.

INA, the major engineering school of the Ministry of Agriculture, applied obediently the various discriminatory measures adopted by the Vichy regime. The director Jean Lefèvre sometimes forestalled ministerial instructions, without expressing antisemitic opinions. Four Jewish employees identified between 1940 and 1941 were laid off. The introduction of a numerus clausus curtailed the admission of Jewish students by 3 % as early as 1941. Two students, who were arrested outside of Paris with no involvement with INA, were sent to Auschwitz where they died. After Liberation, Lefèvre was appointed as secretary-general of the Ministry. Facilitated admission measures taken in 1944 in favour of various categories of war victims were only extended to racial victims in 1946.