Description
Book SynopsisThis book illuminates a set of crisis and conflicts that marked the 1920s and 1930s in the area between the Baltic and the Black Seas, demonstrating the diplomatic, military, economic or cultural engagement of France, Germany, Russia, Britain, Italy and Japan in this highly volatile region, and critically damaging the fragile post-Versailles political arrangement. By connoting the region as "Middle Europe," the editors revive the symbolic geography of the time and accentuate its position of in-betweenness, between the Big Powers and the two World Wars. The ten case studies combine more traditional diplomatic history with a broader emphasis on the geopolitical aspects of Big Power rivalry. The essays claim that the European Big Powers played a key role in regional affairs by keeping the local conflicts and national movements under the control and by exploiting the region's natural resources and military dependencies while at the same time strengthening their prestige through cultural penetration and the cultivation of networks of clientele. The authors nevertheless aim to overcome the simplistic view that the Big Powers totally dominated the lesser players on the European stage. The relationship was hierarchical, but the essays also reveal how the "small states" manipulated Big Power disagreements, highlighting the limits of the latters' leverage throughout the 1920s and the 1930s.
Trade Review"In compiling these essays, the editors aimed to gain concrete case studies on how the post-war treaties failed in Central Europe. How, although filled with Wilsonian idealism, the realities and effects of the treaties lead to a continuation of the great power politics which has plagued Europe for centuries and directly lead to the Second World War, which officially was declared over the Polish Corridor and Danzig (now Gdansk), the existence of which was hypocrisy considering the idealistic goal of 'self-determination'" -- Kamil Jaronczyk * Visegrad Insight *
Table of ContentsList of Acronyms
Introduction
Aliaksandr Piahanau and Bojan Aleksov
Cluster One: Balancing (out) of Power
1. The Anatomy of an Attempt to Create a Sphere of Influence: French Policy towards Central and Eastern Europe in the 1920s
Gusztáv Kecskés D.
2. Dealing with a “17 Stone Germany”: British Foreign Policy towards Danubian Europe, 1936–1939
Dragan Bakić
Cluster Two: Bordering
3. France and the Problem of the Borders of Poland, 1919–1923: The Province of Posen, Danzig, Upper Silesia, and Vilnius
Frédéric Dessberg
4. Transylvania and the Soviet Foreign Policy towards Romania and Hungary, 1941–1945
Iskander E. Magadeev
Cluster Three: Putting Out Fire with Gasoline
5. Establishing French Control over the Oil Fields of Eastern Galicia, 1918–1923
Sergey Ledenev
6. Diplomacy and Petroleum: Italy’s Fight for Albanian Oilfields, 1920–1925
Alessandro Sette
Cluster Four: Self-Determination?
7. Breaking Up the Fortress on the Danube? German Policy towards Slovakia and Ruthenia, 1919–1933
David X. Noack
8. Italy’s Defense of Austrian Independence, 1918–1932
Anne-Sophie Nardelli-Malgrand
Cluster Five: Culturing and Perceiving
9. Italian Cultural Diplomacy in Central Europe and the Balkans in 1918–1945
Stefano Santoro
10. Japanese Perceptions of Germany during the Interwar Period
Ian Nish
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
