ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the process of peacemaking and European reconstruction from the armistice in 1918 to the end of 1929. It considers the influence of Lenin and especially Wilson on the resolution of the First World War. The Provisional Government hoped to remobilize Russia's demoralized armies in order to pursue imperial Russia's original war aims. Wilson's 'new diplomacy' confounded the battle-scarred British and French as much as Lenin's; the difference was that the Western Europeans now needed 'Uncle Sam' to win the war. European economies emerged from the dislocation and destruction of 1914-18. The influx of American short-term loans into Germany and American capital investments generally promoted European recovery. The onset of the global economic crisis after October 1929 wrecked the Locarno equilibrium. As the domestic supports of stability crumbled, governments desperately sought to shelter their economies from the global slump.