I’ve found that explaining historical events in my own twisted words helps me to remember things in context. Because I’m having a hard time keeping treaties and conferences straight in my poor, addled brain, I’m going to attempt to humorously explain some of them for you, my soon-to-be-bored blog readers. If diplomatic history is not your thing, please feel free to skip this entry. I promise cat pics tomorrow or double your money back. (Two times nothing is nothing, right?)
The Treaty of Brest Litovsk: Russia negotiated a separate peace with Germany during WWI. The rest of the allied and associated powers were just a wee bit pissed about that one. This might have caused some hard feelings later. Almost like we had a “war.” And it was cold.
Vladivostok/Murmansk: Woodrow Wilson showed his commitment to Russian sovereignty and self-determination by sending troops into Russia.
Paris Peace Conference of 1919The Allied/Associated Powers of WWII had a peace conference for a war that had ended six months earlier and didn’t invite the Germans (sucks to lose wars, doesn’t it?) or the Russians (A separate peace? We’ll show you a separate peace!). Woodrow Wilson assembled a top-notch group of advisors, made them stay up all night working things out and then didn’t listen to them. He also gave up on just enough of the ideals from his Fourteen Points plan to piss off Congress. Oh, and he didn’t bring a single member of his oppositional party with him. The man was a genius.
The Five Power Treaty: This treaty between the US, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy set limits on navy tonnage. Damn, you sunk my battleship!
The Four Power Treaty: Was decried in the US as an “entangling alliance.” Apparently Americans used to be smart enough that they understood the concept of an “entangling alliance.” This treaty ended an alliance between the English and the Japanese (good!). It also pledged that the US, Japan, France and Great Britain would get together if there were any problems in Asia instead of immediately resorting to shooting at each other. Apparently this was a bad thing.
The Nine Power Treaty: Was a consolation prize for China, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal. None of them apparently had big enough navies to think about setting limits on them. The Nine Power Treaty put the Open Door policy into law.
The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928: Condemned war. A noble idea, if ever there was one. It was about as effective as a UN General Resolution. Which is to say, not that much. The French had hoped for a real treaty between the US and the French promising not to wage war against each other. What they got instead was a meaningless piece of fluff that every two-bit country wanted to get in on. That plus Freedom Fries and it’s a wonder they still speak to us.
Lenin’s New Economic Policy: Lenin invited any and all capitalistic swine to come in and help develop in the Soviet Union. The West thought that this was a turn away from communism. Really, it was economic exploitation at its finest. Psyche!
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff: has a very funny name. It also helped to cause the Great Depression by raising tariffs to such ridiculous levels that other countries said “Eff you!” and decided not to sell their goods in America. That’s not so funny.
The Clark Memorandum, written by Undersecretary of State Reuben Clark, promised that the US wouldn’t use the Monroe Doctrine (especially the Roosevelt Corollary) to justify intervening in other countries. It’s so cute when the US pretends that it’s going to keep its nose out of Latin American/Caribbean Countries’ business.
The Neutrality Act of 1935: Decreed that once the President (FDR) declared any country to be belligerent, that the US wouldn’t trade with them, wouldn’t send arms to them (the shooty kind of arms, not the kind with hands and fingers) and that any Americans traveling on belligerent ships did so at their own risk. FDR was just a wee bit pissed about this act.
The Neutrality Act of 1936: Reaffirmed all of the above and added in a prohibition against sending loans.
The Neutrality Act of 1937: This act reaffirmed all of the above but added in a “cash and carry” clause. Basically, the US said “We’ll sell you whatever you want, but you have to pay cash and you have to carry it away with you.” We became the world’s largest shady pawn shop.
Munich: Neville Chamberlain assured his place in history as an absolute goat by appeasing Hitler. Believe you me, you do not want to go down in history as a Hitler appeaser. England rolled over and showed Germany their big, fluffy belly and allowed them to annex the Sudetenland. Chamberlain was probably just stalling for time but history has still judged him to be a big ol’ pussy. Stalin later signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler in his own attempt to stall for time. For some reason, history has failed to brand him in the same way as our poor friend Neville. Probably because he was a mass-murdering nut-job. Nobody ever called Manson a pussy either.
The Selective Service Act in the mid 1940’s was the United States’ first peacetime draft. But we were still pretending that we had no intention of joining any war. No sirree bob. We just thought that our army could stand to be a little bigger.
The Atlantic Charter: was a plan drawn up in 1941 by FDR and Winston Churchill outlining what was going to happen after the War. A War that the US hadn’t even entered into yet (that would come four months later). We weren’t putting the cart in front of the horse or anything like that. Nope. Not us. The ideas set forth but FDR and Churchill were the pre-cursors to the United Nations. Not too shabby.
A “Declaration of the United Nations”: had nothing to do with a building in NYC and everything to do with the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union promising to fight together against the Axis powers. This time, there would be no separate peace. Good thing, too. I hated that book.
The Third Moscow Conference: produced a four nation declaration from the US, Soviets, British and Chinese that they would work cooperatively together at the end of the war. That would have been nice, wouldn’t it?
The Fourth Moscow Conference: was a nice little get together between the Russians and the British to screw over the Greeks and the Romanians, respectively. The UK got to continue to control Greece and Russia got to continue to control Romania. They would share bullying duties over Yugoslavia. Surprisingly enough, Stalin kept his word. The big losers in the whole deal were Greek Leftists.
Bretton Woods: The world’s non-axis countries got together in New Hampshire (New Hampshire?) in 1944 and created the International Bank (World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Despite the socialistic principles espoused by these two organizations (promoting growth and development! collective money to rebuild war-torn countries!), the Soviets would have nothing to do with the World Bank or IMF. Hippies would have nothing to do with them either and picket their meetings to this date.
The Yalta Conference: was FDR’s final summit conference. Talk about not ending things on a high note. He did manage to get the Soviets to agree to join the UN. He just had to promise them veto power in the security council and voting rights for two or three Soviet republics in the General Assembly. Germany got carved up like a ham. Or, should I say, Germany got carved up like a bratwurst. It was also decided that Germany would pay reparations (Germany: “Do you accept rubble? We’ve got lots and lots of rubble!”). The $twenty billion figure was thrown about.
Potsdam: Began with Winston Churchill as prime-minister and ended with Clement Attlee as prime-minister. You’ve gotta love those mid-summit conference elections. It was finally decided that the bratwurstification of Germany (I believe that the official term is dismemberment, but my term has the benefit of being both funny and not sounding like something that happened during a slasher flick) would go forward. The French were thrown a bone and given a zone to take care of (The rest of the allies: “Try not to surrender this one! Bahahahahaha!”). $20 Billion was thrown out and it was decided that reparations would be percentage based. The USSR could only take reparations from East Germany. So, they started dismantling factories and shipping equipment back to Russia. New Poland (as opposed to Poland Classic) was also given part of the German Territory.
Truman casually mentioned to Stalin at Potsdam that “Well, see we have this bomb. And we exploded it. And, well, I’ve got an a-bomb and you don’t. Neener neener!” Stalin resisted the urge to say, “I know, my spies helped you develop it. Dumbass.”
The Morgenthau Plan: was so badly conceived that the guy who wrote it (Harry Dexter White) let Henry Morgenthau Jr. put his name on it so that he (White) could avoid looking like an idiot. Germany was allegedly going to be dismantled and its industry was going to be razed. Because nothing helps a country to stand on its own two feet than the inability to produce any goods whatsoever. The people who were tasked with putting this into effect took about two minutes before saying, “Uhhh, yeah, this isn’t going to work.” They would have complained sooner, but they were too busy laughing their asses off and wiping tears from their eyes. Smarter heads prevailed and the US went with the Marshall Plan instead.
Speaking of which…
The Marshall Plan: was a $13 billion program to rebuild Europe. At least the parts that weren’t occupied by godless communists.
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That’s about all that my little fingers can stand to type. Also, I can see your eyes glazing over from here. Let’s hope that my exam goes well tomorrow and that I am able to resist the urge to include some of my sillier comments from this blog entry. I hope that you enjoyed this 30 year tour of US Diplomatic History.
dude. my dad would be proud. not only as a former diplomat, but as a former history teacher. 🙂