Victors and Losers: The Paris Peace Conference and Its Aftermath

The Paris Peace Conference took place in 1919 following World War I.
It resulted in significant treaties concerning the reorganization of war-torn Europe.

Focused on Austria. The treaty involved:
- Cession of territory to Czechoslovakia (CZ).
- Cession of territory to Yugoslavia.
- Cession of territory to Romania.
- Cession of territory to Italy.

Concentrated on Hungary. Territorial losses included:
- Cession of territory to Czechoslovakia (CZ).
- Cession of territory to Yugoslavia.
- Cession of territory to Romania.

Addressed Bulgaria, with territorial adjustments involving:
- Cession of territory to Greece.
- Cession of territory to Yugoslavia.
- Cession of territory to Romania.

The aftermath of WWI included feelings of resentment and confusion about national identities across Europe.

Rosa Luxemburg expressed disillusionment with the prevailing order of post-war Germany:
- “Order prevails in Berlin! You stupid lackeys! Your ‘order’ is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will ‘rise up again, clashing its weapons,’ and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: Ich war, ich bin, ich werde sein! [I was, I am, I will be!]”

The German Freikorps mercenaries engaged in conflicts in the Baltics.
- Many returned to Germany radicalized by their experiences.
- They were involved in the suppression of the Rosa Luxemburg-led Spartacist revolt.
- Some joined the emerging Nazi movement.

The regime sought to extend its influence westward, fostering revolutions abroad which included:
- Short-lived revolts in Germany.
- Bela Kun's establishment of a brief Soviet state in Hungary.
- The Red Army's subjugation of Ukraine.

Marshal Józef Piłsudski led Poland against Soviet forces, achieving the “Miracle on the Vistula” in 1920.

Ukraine and Belarus were integrated into the Soviet Union, causing ethnic discord.
Hungary faced resentment due to the loss of substantial territory.
Austria struggled with confusion regarding statehood.
Poland's ambitious territorial acquisitions led to conflicts with neighboring nations:
- Disputes arose with Lithuania, Germany, and Czechoslovakia.
- Greece and Turkey executed brutal population transfers.

This period produced a sense of nostalgia as expressed by Stefan Zweig in his reflections on the vanished world before the Great War:
- “I was born in 1881 in the great and mighty empire of the Habsburg Monarchy, but you would look for it in vain on the map today; it has vanished without trace. I grew up in Vienna, an international metropolis for two thousand years, and had to steal away from it like a thief in the night before it was demoted to the status of a provincial German town. … So I belong nowhere now, I am a stranger or at the most a guest everywhere. Even the true home of my heart’s desire, Europe, is lost to me after twice tearing itself suicidally to pieces in fratricidal wars. Against my will, I have witnessed the most terrible defeat of reason and the most savage triumph of brutality in the chronicles of time. Never— and I say so not with pride but with shame—has a generation fallen from such intellectual heights as ours to such moral depths.”

The Paris Peace Settlement resulted in:
- Establishment of states for approximately 60 million people.
- Creation of 25 million minorities in new or expanding states in Eastern Europe (EE).
- Countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania had populations consisting of up to 1/3 minorities.
- The Western powers compelled these newly formed states to sign international minority rights treaties supported by the League of Nations (LoN).

Poland served as a significant case due to its complex multiethnic nature.
Polish nationalists faced a dilemma between two competing visions:
- An assimilationist vision promoted by Roman Dmowski.
- A multicultural approach advocated by Marshal Józef Piłsudski.
- The settlement favored the multicultural vision and compelled minority rights treaties.

The minority rights project failed primarily due to:
- The weakness of the League of Nations to enforce rights.
- Failure of France and Britain to intervene in minority rights issues.
This failure spurred minorities to adopt a more activist stance and seek external support.
The principle of minority rights treaties was regarded as humiliating and hypocritical since Western powers continued to discriminate against their minorities and subject peoples.

Results of the treaties led to rising tensions and resentments within the new states:
- Minorities were often viewed as potential fifth columns or Bolsheviks.
- Discrimination against Germans, particularly in Czechoslovakia, occurred mainly through the actions of modernizing liberals rather than radicals or reactionaries.
Liberal democracy in Eastern Europe, while considered progressive, often resulted in anti-Semitism and ethnic strife, contradicting its role as a bastion against discrimination.

Mark Mazower posits that the rise of Hitler should be understood in the context of long-standing anti-Semitism:
- “It is in this context of widespread, indigenous traditions of anti-Semitism – common to modernizing, state-building national elites of authoritarian and democratic countries – that Hitler rose to power. Nazi Germany was not an anomaly, nor even a pioneer in such policies of ‘cleansing the nation,’ though it took them to new extremes.”