"Europeans in 1935 could still be optimistic about the future of world peace"
             How far do you agree with this statement?
             The Great War was won in 1918, after four years of war in unprecedented proportions throughout the world. But even after the war was over, there ensued a new battle to ensure that peace was established and remained so. As Clemenceau said: "We have won the war: now we have to win the peace, and it may be more difficult". From 1918 to 1935, Europe and indeed the world underwent a number of economic and political changes which affected the prospect of peace in the future. People were optimistic that the Versailles Treaty would be more than just an "armistice for twenty years", as Marshal Foch had called it, although his pessimistic view was the more realistic of the two, as the outbreak of war twenty years later proved. War may well have been averted if the "era of fulfilment" (1925-1929) had continued into the 1930s. But a number of poor decisions, and unfortunate accidents and coincidences changed knocked the train off its tracks, so to speak.
             The second half of the 1920s were named this because after the unstable years directly following world war one, this period was a step in the right direction. Germany seemingly adopted a new, refreshing attitude to the Versailles Treaty, and a pacific foreign policy. Stresemann, Germany's president at the time said this period was "a new era of co-operation among nations, a time of real peace." after Germany joined the League of Nations in 1926. By the signed promise to renounce war, by the Locarno Treaties and by the disarmament talks, a new era of peace and optimism could be hailed. During this period, the outlook was very optimistic. A number of treaties were signed to reinforce the Versailles Treaty. At Locarno, in 1925, the European powers agreed and re-signed Germany's western borders. In these treaties, G...