ATTEMPTING TO SEARCH TO THE VERSAILLES SYSTEM. ON THE GENESIS OF WORLD WAR TWO (Zrozumiec system wersalski czyli o genezie II wojny swiatowej)

• Authors: Kornat Marek
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The Versailles Order, created after the World War I is still in the center of controversial problems of the history of the 20th–century. In the interwar years (1919-1939) it was regarded as the 'Clemenceau peace' (la Paix de Clemencau) signifying the French attempt for European domination which was contested by the British Government. In his famous The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) John Maynard Keynes wrote on 'the Carthaginian Peace'. German propaganda operated with the term 'Versailler Diktat' repeating the thesis on 'imposed' and unjust peace. For many historians this international system could have not survive due to its internal contradictions and too rigorous conditions introduced against Germany. American political scientist Arnold Wolfers considered that any solid peace foundations could not have been based because of 'conflicting strategies' of France and the United Kingdom. In historiography there are many contradictory interpretations of the origins of World War II. For the dominant current of post–war German historiography there is no doubts that the war was precipitated by Hitler. In Germany The formula of 'die Entfesselung des zweiten Welkrieg' is in use from 1945. The most controversial problem is connected with Stalin's foreign policy. Many historians argued that Stalin's role in the genesis of War was decisive. The works of Phillip Fabry, Andreas Hillgruber and Ernst Topitsch exposed this point of view. The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of August 23, 1939 was always considered by them as a 'conditio sine qua non' of starting of World War II. Visibly different view was proposed by British historian Alan J. P. Taylor, who in his Origins of the Second World War argued that the war was provoked by the British 'guarantees policy' and especially by the guarantee offer to Poland of March 31, 1939. For the Soviet historiography there are two major causes of the war. First of them was the Western Powers appeasement policy and the second one: Hitler's policy of aggressions. The Soviet historiography condemned the Polish Government for it's anti–Soviet policy which decided on the impossibility of 'the Great Coalition' against the Third Reich in 1939. Poland refused to permit the Soviet Army to across Polish territory in case of war. As we know this motive was used by the Soviet Government to break the Moscow negotiations with the Western Powers in August 1939. In the present Russian post–Soviet historiography these motives are still functioning because there was no consequent breaking off with the Soviet past in Russian historiography.

Keywords

EN

VERSAILLES SYSTEM; WORLD WAR II GENESIS OF

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Dzieje Najnowsze
• Year: 2009
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 5-32
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Kornat Marek

• Marek Kornat, Instytut Historii PAN, ul. Rynek Starego Miasta 29/31, 00-272 Warszawa, Poland.

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10PLAAAA072223