The Treaties of Locarno took place between 5 October and 16 October 1925. A total of seven treaties were negotiated in the small city of Locarno in Switzerland, a country famous for its neutrality. The treaties were not formally signed at Locarno but later in London, England on the 1st December 1925. The treaties were not fully ratified, and thus did not become fully effective, until September 14, 1926 when countries exchanged their ratification documents in Geneva, Switzerland and also registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series.
Aims of the treaty
The aim of the treaties was to normalise European diplomatic relations in the aftermath of World War 1. The parties to the agreement were the victorious European powers and the new Eastern and Central European states. Relations with Germany, which was by this time had a democratic government in the Weimar Republic, were normalised. While the borders of Western Europe were guaranteed by the treaty and thus set it stone, the borders of Eastern Europe were declared open for revision. Historians disagree on the effect of this, but this gave an open invitation to German revisionism.
Background to the Locarno Treaties
On 9th February 1925 Gustav Stresemann proposed German recognition of its Western borders, which had included unfavourable revisions in the Treaty of Versailles including the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, in return for normalising German relations with the Western European powers. Over the summer notes were exchanged between Germany, France and Britain which would lead to the Locarno Treaties.
Britain’s aims
British diplomacy was favourable to some German revisionism. Even in the Treaty of Versailles, Britain had not been as strongly anti-German as France, and over the course of the 1920s turned its view more favourably towards a policy which some have described as revisionism.
Books about Locarno and Interwar Diplomacy
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Citation information:
- Article title: Locarno Treaties
- Article author: Sean Spurr
- Date of first publication: August 21, 2011.
- Date of last revision: August 21, 2011.
- Website name: History Empire
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