Conference paper
The Question of the Big and Small States Equality Based on the Protection of National Minorities in the Treaty of Saint- Germain Signed in 1919
Livia Kardum
; Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The World War I denuded the image of supremacy of European great powers which not only failed to preserve the peace, but couldn't manage to end the war their own. Thus it appeared as the right time to secure the future world peace on completely differently basis. American president Wilson promoted the idea of the so called ''fair" peace without winners or defeated which couldn't make any difference between big and small states, thus guaranteeing future stable international relations. During the war he was in principle supported by the Entente leaders. Already during the Paris Peace conference political reality took place over political idealism by denying equality between winners and defeated as well as between big and small states. This was obvious when small states, successors of the Austro-Hungarian empire, were obliged to accept the Convention for Protection of Minorities, given that ethnic borders were not fully determinable after the fall of Dual monarchy, while at the same time great powers like Italy and France, which had significant minority population inside their borders, were not obliged to accept this commitment. Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and Romania were particularly dissatisfied having in mind that Convention covered the area which belonged to Romania and pre-war Serbia before 1914.
Keywords
World War I; Paris Peace Conference; Treaty of SaintGermain; Convention for Protection of Minorities
Hrčak ID:
291309
URI
Publication date:
21.9.2008.
Visits: 275 *