Kellogg Briand Pact Essay

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August 27, 1928, marks the date that which the Kellogg-Briand Pact was born. The Pact was signed and ratified by the 15 states- the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, the Irish Free State, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, and South Africa (Randall Lesaffer). The Pact, also called the Pact of Paris, for which the city it was signed in, agreed to abandon war. All signing nations also agreed to settle all disputes by peaceful means. The Kellogg-Briand Pact was an agreement attempting to eliminate war as an instrument of national policy (Encyclopedia Britannica). The Pact was named after its authors Frank Kellogg, Coolidge’s secretary of state and Kellogg’s French counterpart Aristide Briand (What was the significance of the Kellogg-Briand Pact). The American press almost didn’t recognize Briand’s message. His treaty proposal of June 20, 1927, went by the American Administration (Office of the Historians). On December 28, 1927, Kellogg answered Briand’s proposal with a counterproposal. The counterproposal enlarged the French initiative and invited all the major powers to commit themselves to ‘a declaration renouncing war as an instrument if national policy’ (Randall Lesaffer). The pact went into full swing on July 24, 1929. On that date the following countries signed the pact- Afghanistan, Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Romania, the Soviet Union, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Siam, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey. Eight other countries joined the pact after this ... ... middle of paper ... ... around the agreements terms, because the pact never fully explained what it meant by “self-defense”. The dominant powers, USA, France, Great Britain, etc., wanted to remain at peace. They didn’t acknowledge the conflicts and believed they would be solved in peaceful ways. Yet as more and more conflicts began to occur, tension between nations rose and eventually this started World War II. The treaty was the high point in the peace movement. After its ratification by the Senate as well as the ratification of other states, President Hoover announced that the treaty was now in force. He stated: "I dare predict that the influence of the Treaty for the Renunciation of War will be felt in a large proportion of all future international acts" (historycentral.com). In the end, the Kellogg-Briand Pact didn’t do much in preventing was or any other problems following.

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