1.
Gustav Stresemann
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Gustav Stresemann was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor in 1923 and Foreign Minister 1923–1929, during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926 and his most notable achievement was the reconciliation between Germany and France, for which he and Aristide Briand received the Nobel Peace Prize. During a period of instability and fragile, short-lived governments. During his political career, he represented three successive liberal parties, he was the dominant figure of the German Peoples Party during the Weimar Republic, Stresemann was born on 10 May 1878 in the Köpenicker Straße area of southeast Berlin, the youngest of 7 children. His father worked as a bottler and distributor, and also ran a small bar out of the family home. The family was middle class, but relatively well-off for the neighbourhood. Stresemann was an excellent student, particularly excelling in German literature, thus, he entered the University of Berlin in 1897 to study political economy. Through this course of studies, Stresemann was exposed to the principal arguments of his day. His editorials for the paper were often political, and dismissed most of the political parties as broken in one way or another. In these early writings, he set out views that combined liberalism with strident nationalism, in 1898, Stresemann left the University of Berlin, transferring to the University of Leipzig so that he could pursue a doctorate. He completed his studies in January 1901, submitting a thesis on the beer industry in Berlin. In 1902 he founded the Saxon Manufacturers Association, in 1903 he married Käte Kleefeld, daughter of a wealthy Jewish Berlin businessman, and the sister of Kurt von Kleefeld, the last person in Germany to be ennobled. At that time he was also a member of Friedrich Naumanns National-Social Association, in 1906 he was elected to the Dresden town council. Though he had worked in trade associations, Stresemann soon became a leader of the National Liberal Party in Saxony. In 1907, he was elected to the Reichstag, where he became a close associate of party chairman Ernst Bassermann. However, his support of expanded social-welfare programs didnt sit well with some of the more conservative members. Later that year he lost both his Reichstag and town council seats and he returned to business and founded the German-American Economic Association. In 1914 he returned to the Reichstag and he was exempted from war service due to poor health
2.
Austen Chamberlain
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Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain KG was a British statesman, son of Joseph Chamberlain and half-brother of Neville Chamberlain. He stood for the Liberal Unionist party, which merged with the Conservatives in 1912, as Foreign Secretary, he negotiated the Locarno Pact, aimed at preventing war between France and Germany, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was one of the few MPs supporting Winston Churchills appeals for rearmament against the German threat in the 1930s and his mother, the former Harriet Kenrick, died in childbirth, leaving his father so shaken that for almost 25 years he maintained a distance from his first-born son. In 1868, his father married Harriets cousin, Florence, and had further children, Austen was educated first at Rugby School, before passing on to Trinity College, Cambridge. While at Trinity College, he became a friend of F. S. Oliver, a future advocate of Imperial Federation and, after 1909. Chamberlain made his first political address in 1884 at a meeting of the universitys Political Society and was vice-president of the Cambridge Union Society. For nine months, he was shown the brilliance of Paris under the Third Republic, from Paris, Austen was sent to Berlin for twelve months, to imbibe the political culture of the other great European power, Germany. Among others, Austen met and dined with the Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, Austen returned to England in 1888, lured largely by the prize of a parliamentary constituency. He was first elected to parliament as a member of his fathers own Liberal Unionist Party in 1892 and that was highly significant, given the bad blood existing between Joseph Chamberlain and his former leader. Appointed a junior Whip of the Liberal Unionists after the general election, in the wake of the struggle between his father and Balfour, Austen Chamberlain became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1903. While Austen supported his father’s programme, his influence within the cabinet was diminished following the departure of the senior Chamberlain to become backbenchers, with the Unionists in disarray after two successive electoral defeats in 1910, Balfour was forced from his position as party leader in November 1911. Chamberlain was one of the candidates to succeed as Conservative leader even though he was still technically a member of the Liberal Unionist wing of the coalition. Chamberlain was opposed by Canadian-born Andrew Bonar Law, Walter Long, after a short period of internal party campaigning, Chamberlain determined to withdraw from the contest for the good of the still-divided party. He succeeded in persuading Long to withdraw him in favour of Bonar Law. In the last years before the outbreak of World War I, Chamberlain was concerned with one issue above all others, Chamberlain was resolutely opposed to the dissolution of the Union with Ireland. Chamberlain joined the cabinet as Secretary of State for India and he was widely acclaimed for such a principled act. Later, he returned to government and became a member of the War Cabinet in April 1918 as Minister without Portfolio, replacing Lord Milner, citing ill health, Bonar Law retired from the leadership of the Conservative branch of the Lloyd George government in the spring of 1921. He was succeeded at the Exchequer by Sir Robert Horne, it seemed that after ten years of waiting, Austen would again be given the opportunity of succeeding to the premiership
3.
Aristide Briand
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Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and was a co-laureate of the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize. He was born in Nantes, Loire-Atlantique of a bourgeois family. He attended the Nantes Lycée, where, in 1877, he developed a friendship with Jules Verne. He studied law, and soon went into politics, associating himself with the most advanced movements, writing articles for the Syndicalist journal Le Peuple, from this he passed to the Petite République, leaving it to found LHumanité, in collaboration with Jean Jaurès. From that time, Briand was one of the leaders of the French Socialist Party, in 1902, after several unsuccessful attempts, he was elected deputy. He declared himself a partisan of the union of the Left in what was known as the Bloc. From the beginning of his career in the Chamber of Deputies, Briand was occupied with the question of the separation of church and state. He was appointed reporter of the charged with the preparation of the 1905 law on separation. He succeeded in carrying his project through with but slight modifications and he was the principal author of the law of separation, but, not content with preparing it, he wished to apply it as well. The ministry of Maurice Rouvier was allowing disturbances during the taking of inventories of church property, consequently, he accepted the portfolio of Public Instruction and Worship in the Sarrien ministry. So far as the Chamber was concerned, his success was complete, but the acceptance of a position in a bourgeois ministry led to his exclusion from the Unified Socialist Party. As opposed to Jaurès, he contended that the Socialists should co-operate actively with the Radicals in all matters of reform and he became a freemason in the lodge Le Trait dUnion in July 1887 while the lodge didnt record his name in spite of his repeated requests. The lodge declared unworthy to him on 6 September 1889, in 1895 he joined the lodge Les Chevaliers du Travail that was established in 1893. Briand served as Minister of Justice under Clemenceau in 1908-9, before succeeding Clemenceau as Prime Minister on 24 July 1909, in social policy, Briand’s first ministry was notable for the passage of a bill in April 1910 for workers and farmers pensions. That same year, compulsory sickness and old-age insurance was introduced for 8 million rural, however, a law court decision in 1912 that questioned the legality of compulsion “enabled a large proportion of employers and workers to evade the law. At the end of August 1914, following the outbreak of the First World War and he got on well with Lloyd George, who was also, contrary to military advice, keen for operations in the Balkans, and had a long talk with him on 4 February 1915. Briand was the main mover in persuading Maurice Sarrail to accept the Salonika command in August 1915, in October 1915 following an unsuccessful French offensive and the entry of Bulgaria, Briand again became Prime Minister, succeeding René Viviani. He also became Foreign Minister for the first time, a post held by Théophile Delcassé until the final weeks of the previous government
4.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
5.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
6.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
7.
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
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It took place in Paris during 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities. The main result was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, which in section 231 laid the guilt for the war on the aggression of Germany and this provision proved humiliating for Germany and set the stage for the expensive reparations Germany was intended to pay. They met together informally 145 times and made all the major decisions, the conference opened on 18 January 1919. Key recommendations were folded into the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, the five major powers controlled the Conference. Amongst the Big Five, in practice Japan played a small role, the four met together informally 145 times and made all the major decisions, which in turn were ratified by other attendees. The open meetings of all the approved the decisions made by the Big Four. The conference came to an end on 21 January 1920 with the inaugural General Assembly of the League of Nations, the main result was the Treaty of Versailles, with Germany, which in section 231 laid the guilt for the war on the aggression of Germany and her allies. This provision proved humiliating for Germany and set the stage for very high reparations Germany was supposed to pay, republican Germany was not invited to attend the conference at Versailles. Representatives of White Russia were present, a central issue of the Conference was the disposition of the overseas colonies of Germany. The British dominions wanted their reward for their sacrifice, Australia wanted New Guinea, New Zealand wanted Samoa, and South Africa wanted South West Africa. Wilson wanted the League of Nations to administer all the German colonies until such time as they were ready for independence, Lloyd George realized he needed to support his dominions, and he proposed a compromise that there be three types of mandates. Mandates for the Turkish provinces were one category, they would be divided up between Britain and France, Wilson and the others finally went along with the solution. The dominions received Class C Mandates to the colonies they wanted, Japan obtained mandates over German possessions north of the equator. Wilson wanted no mandates for the United States, his top advisor Colonel House was deeply involved in awarding the others, Wilson was especially offended by Australian demands. He and Hughes had some clashes, with the most famous being, Wilson, But after all. Hughes, I represent sixty thousand dead, prior to Wilsons arrival in Europe in December 1918, no American president had ever visited Europe while in office. High hopes and expectations were placed on him to deliver what he had promised for the post-war era, in doing so, Wilson ultimately began to lead the foreign policy of the United States toward interventionism, a move strongly resisted in some domestic circles. Once Wilson arrived, however, he found rivalries, and conflicting claims previously submerged and he worked mostly trying to sway the direction that the French and British delegations were taking towards Germany and its allies in Europe, as well as the former Ottoman lands in the Middle East
8.
League of Nations
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The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organisation founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organisation whose mission was to maintain world peace. Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament, at its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a shift from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to its economic sanctions, however, the Great Powers were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could hurt League members, so they were reluctant to comply with them, after a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. Germany withdrew from the League, as did Japan, Italy, Spain, the onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, which was to prevent any future world war. The League lasted for 26 years, the United Nations replaced it after the end of the Second World War on 20 April 1946 and inherited a number of agencies and organisations founded by the League. As historians William H. Harbaugh and Ronald E. Powaski point out, the organisation was international in scope, with a third of the members of parliaments serving as members of the IPU by 1914. Its aims were to encourage governments to solve disputes by peaceful means. Annual conferences were held to help refine the process of international arbitration. Its structure consisted of a council headed by a president, which would later be reflected in the structure of the League, at the start of the 20th century, two power blocs emerged from alliances between the European Great Powers. It was these alliances that, at the start of the First World War in 1914 and this was the first major war in Europe between industrialised countries, and the first time in Western Europe that the results of industrialisation had been dedicated to war. By the time the fighting ended in November 1918, the war had had an impact, affecting the social, political and economic systems of Europe. Anti-war sentiment rose across the world, the First World War was described as the war to end all wars, the causes identified included arms races, alliances, militaristic nationalism, secret diplomacy, and the freedom of sovereign states to enter into war for their own benefit. Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, a British political scientist, coined the term League of Nations in 1914, together with Lord Bryce, he played a leading role in the founding of the group of internationalist pacifists known as the Bryce Group, later the League of Nations Union. The group became more influential among the public and as a pressure group within the then governing Liberal Party. In Dickinsons 1915 pamphlet After the War he wrote of his League of Peace as being essentially an organisation for arbitration and conciliation
9.
Covenant of the League of Nations
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The Covenant of the League of Nations was the charter of the League of Nations. Early drafts for a possible League of Nations began even before the end of the First World War, a London-based study group led by James Bryce and G. Lowes Dickinson made proposals adopted by the British League of Nations Society, founded in 1915. Another group in the United States—which included Hamilton Holt and William B, howland at the Century Association in New York City—had their own plan. This plan was supported by the League to Enforce Peace. In December 1916, Lord Robert Cecil suggested that a committee be set up to draft a covenant for a future league. The British committee was appointed in February 1918, it was led by Walter Phillimore but also included Eyre Crowe, William Tyrrell. U. S. President Woodrow Wilson was not impressed with the Phillimore Committees report, further suggestions were made by Jan Christiaan Smuts in December 1918. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, a commission was appointed to agree on a covenant, further representatives of Czechoslovakia, Greece, Poland and Romania were later added. The group considered a preliminary draft co-written by Hurst and President Wilsons adviser David Hunter Miller, the group met on ten occasions, and by 11 April 1919, the Hurst-Miller draft was approved with only a few changes. The League would be made up of a General Assembly, an Executive Council, member states were expected to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity of other members, and to disarm to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. All states were required to submit complaints for arbitration or judicial inquiry before going to war, the Executive Council would create a Permanent Court of International Justice to make judgements on the disputes. Major objections came from France and Japan, makino and Chinda requested that a clause upholding the principle of racial equality should be inserted, parallel to the existing religious equality clause. This was deeply opposed, particularly by Americans, and Wilson simply ignored the question, the treaty entered into force on 10 January 1920. Articles 4,6,12,13, and 15 were amended in 1924, the treaty shares similar provisions and structures with the UN Charter. Article X of the Covenant of the League of Nations is the calling for assistance to be given to a member that experiences external aggression. It was signed by the major Peacemakers following the First World War, most notably Britain and France. Due to the nature of the Article, U. S. President Woodrow Wilson was unable to ratify his obligation to join the League of Nations, as a result of strong objection from U. S. politicians. Although Wilson had secured his proposal for a League of Nations in the draft of the Treaty of Versailles
