ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes the basis for the first two arguments of this book. It tracks the evolution in political ideas about the purpose and meaning of the war’s sacrifices, and uses thinkers across the Continent to illustrate the development of the idea of basing the peace of Europe on a conception of democracy rooted in both liberalism and national self-determination. It interrogates the philosophical and practical tensions underlying the attempted combination of these two concepts as the pillars of the new democracy, and uses the example of the forced population transfer of the Treaty of Lausanne to show how what was expected to be an “eastern” problem based in demographics and so-called ancient hatreds was actually one born of western political logic.
