Locarno Signed: Europe's Last Hope for Peace
The Germans called it their "diplomatic Versailles" — a treaty they actually chose to sign. Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann walked into the London ceremony with France and Belgium agreeing to Germany's western borders, something the Treaty of Versailles had simply imposed. The catch? Germany's eastern borders stayed deliberately vague. Poland and Czechoslovakia got guarantees from France, not Germany. Within fourteen years, that omission would matter. Hitler withdrew from Locarno in 1936, remilitarized the Rhineland, and the framework that was supposed to prevent another war became evidence that appeasement had started earlier than anyone wanted to admit.
December 1, 1925
101 years ago
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