Review: Locarno Diplomacy
| Published date | 01 March 1975 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207503000113 |
| Date | 01 March 1975 |
| Author | Fred Stambrook |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
163
evocation of
the
sights
and
sounds,
the
tensions
and
jubilations,
the
tawdriness
and
nobility
of
wartime
London.
It
is
also
a
view
of
literary
London,
seen
often
through
the
eyes
of
Elizabeth
Bowen,
with
whom
Charles
Ritchie
had
a
strong
and
intimate
friendship.
This
is
a
splendid
book,
and
will
take
an
easy
unqdestioned
place
in Canadian
literature.
Claude Bissell/University
of
Toronto
LOCARNO
DIPLOMACY
Germany
and
the
West
1925-1929
Jon
Jacobson
Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1972,
xii,
42opp,
$13.00
That
wise
French
diplomat
Ren6
Massigli
once
found
it
necessary
to
instruct
a
British
colleague
on
the
facts
of
international
life:
'Mon
cher
Hugesson,
il
y
a
trois
choses,
le
Locarno
spirit,
l'esprit
de Locarno,
et
le
Locarnogeist.'
Each
was
very
different
from
the
others.
Massigli's
dictum
encapsulates
the
theme
that
runs
through
Jacob-
son's
fine
study
of
Locarno diplomacy.
He
begins
by
describing
the
problems
confronting
German,
British,
and
French
foreign
policies
during
the
winter
of
1924-5,
and
the
long-range
objectives they
re-
spectively
pursued
during
the
months
of
negotiations
that
led
to
Locarno. Germany's
Stresemann
wanted to
split
the
Entente,
achieve
the evacuation
of
the
Rhineland,
and
open
up
for
Germany
new
prospects
of
revising
the
peace
treaty.
Britain's
Austen
Chamberlain
sought
to
calm
French
fears
about
their
own
security
in
order
to
make
them 'more
reasonable'
in
their
treatment
of
Germany.
France's
Briand
strove
to
safeguard
his
country's
position
through
adherence
to the
Versailles
settlement.
These
objectives,
especially
those of
Stresemann
and
Briand,
were
in
the
long
run
incompatible.
The
differences
between
them
were
for
a
time
disguised
by
their
own
rhetoric
and
that
of
the
press,
by
their
unwillingness
to
cause
an
open
breach,
and
by
progress
in settling
some
immediate
problems.
The
balance
of
Jacobson's book
may
here
be
called
into
question,
for
he
passes
quickly
and
at
times
sketchily
over
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