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59-503: Unlike the previous international economic conference in Brussels (1920) , the Genoa conference was attended by heads of government and not only experts, which enhanced its authority but also the risks of politicization and grandstanding, at a time of contention on the unresolved issue of German war reparations. The conference was intended by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George to resolve

118-624: A Russo-Japanese agreement and a Japanese guarantee for France's strategically vulnerable possessions in Indochina. Britain encouraged the Russo-Japanese rapprochement. Thus was built the Triple Entente coalition that fought World War I. At the start of World War I in 1914, all three Triple Entente members entered it as Allied Powers against the Central Powers : Germany , Austria-Hungary ,

177-403: A gold standard that "conserved" gold stocks, with the gold remaining in the vaults and day-to-day transactions being conducted with representative paper notes. The partial return to the gold standard was accomplished by permitting central banks to keep part of their reserves in currencies, which were themselves directly exchangeable for gold coins. However, citizens would not receive gold coins of

236-483: A large proportion of its food supplies and its raw material, completely destroyed for all purposes of commerce; nations, instead of cooperating to restore, broken up by suspicions and creating difficulties and new artificial restrictions; great armies ready to march, and nations already overburdened with taxation having to bear the additional taxation which the maintenance of these huge armaments to avoid suspected dangers renders necessary. Lloyd George controversially sought

295-566: A series of agreements, the Entente cordiale , mostly aimed toward resolving colonial disputes. That heralded the end of British splendid isolation. France and Britain had signed five separate agreements regarding spheres of influence in North Africa in 1904, the Entente cordiale . The Tangier Crisis later encouraged co-operation between the two countries from their mutual fear of apparent German expansionism. Britain, traditionally having control of

354-517: A shaky set of understandings that withstood various crises and emerged as a fully-fledged alliance after the outbreak of World War I. In 1907, the Anglo-Russian Entente was agreed, which attempted to resolve a series of long-running disputes over Persia , Afghanistan and Tibet and end their rivalry in Central Asia , nicknamed The Great Game . and helped to address British fears about

413-626: A time of rapid development of commercial banking in continental Europe, which led to issues of credit being considered alongside narrowly defined currency matters. At the Brussels conference in 1892, German academic Julius Wolff submitted a blueprint for an international currency that would be used for emergency lending to national central banks and would be issued by an institution based in a neutral country . An Inter-American Monetary Commission met separately in Washington DC in early 1891, focused on

472-449: Is that the Entente is not an alliance. For purposes of ultimate emergencies, it may be found to have no substance at all. For the Entente is nothing more than a frame of mind, a view of general policy which is shared by the governments of two countries, but which may be, or become, so vague as to lose all content". Russia had also recently lost the humiliating Russo-Japanese War , a cause of

531-634: The Baghdad Railway , which would help German expansion in the Near East . The coming into being of the entente did not necessarily fix a permanent division into two opposing power blocs. The situation remained flexible. The alignment of the Russian Empire with Europe's two largest power centres was controversial on both sides. Many Russian conservatives distrusted the secular French and recalled British past diplomatic manoeuvres to block Russian influence in

590-516: The Bank for International Settlements . International Monetary and Economic Conferences The international monetary and economic conferences were a series of gatherings held in the last third of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, culminating in the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944. The first four conferences in the 19th century focused on matters of coinage and

649-601: The Bolshevik regime in Moscow . Germany and the Soviet Union predictably expressed loud dissent and stole the limelight by negotiating a separate bilateral agreement on the conference's sidelines, the Treaty of Rapallo . Even so, the conference further cemented the policy consensus on principles formed at the Brussels gathering two years before. The Economic and Financial Organization of

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708-602: The Hague conference in 1929-1930 (whose lasting legacy was the Bank for International Settlements that started shortly afterwards in Basel ), and the Lausanne Conference in 1932. The international monetary and economic conferences ultimately failed because they lacked a commitment device to ensure compliance with whatever principles were agreed. From that standpoint, the Bretton Woods Conference of July 1944 can be viewed as both

767-622: The Kingdom of Italy . The Triple Entente, unlike the Triple Alliance or the Franco-Russian Alliance itself, was not an alliance of mutual defence. The Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907 was a key part of building a coalition as France took the lead in creating alliances with Japan, Russia, and (informally) with Britain. Japan wanted to raise a loan in Paris, so France made the loan contingent on

826-543: The Near East . In turn, prominent French and British journalists, academics, and parliamentarians found the reactionary tsarist regime distasteful. Mistrust persisted even during wartime, with British and French politicians expressing relief when Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and was replaced by the Russian Provisional Government after the February Revolution in 1917. An offer of political asylum for

885-618: The Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria . On September 4, 1914, the Triple Entente issued a declaration undertaking not to conclude a separate peace and only to demand terms of peace agreed among the three parties. Historians continue to debate the importance of the alliance system as one of the causes of World War I . During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Prussia and its allies defeated the Second French Empire , resulting in

944-575: The Russian Revolution of 1905 , and the apparent transformation into a constitutional monarchy. Although it was perceived as useless during the war with Japan , the alliance was valuable in the European theatre to counteract the threat of the Triple Alliance. Tomaszewski describes the evolution of the triple entente relationship from the Russian standpoint during the period 1908 to 1914 as a progression from

1003-466: The Treaty of Versailles , which ended the war, were to be enforced or amended. The British thought that massive reconstruction costs laid upon Germany would undermine European economic recovery and the market for British exports of manufactured goods. The French believed that if Germany was allowed to skirt the severe financial obligations detailed in the peace treaty, its economic rise would be massively accelerated, and its political and military hegemony on

1062-575: The Western Hemisphere . In the interwar era conferences, the most sensitive issues among great powers – namely, inter-allied war debts and World War I reparations – were kept off the international conferences' agendas. These issues were addressed instead in a separate cycle of gatherings in smaller format, including the Cannes Conference in 1922, the negotiation of the Dawes Plan in 1924,

1121-619: The April conference was won, under terms that had been agreed to by the Briand government. Although antagonism between France and Britain had festered in the months immediately after the war, France found itself in the uncomfortable position of having to submit to British desires on the matter of an economic conference since without British support, France would have had little chance of collecting reparations from Germany or joining any potential strategic military alliance. The second potential hurdle to holding

1180-690: The Balkans, especially in the wake of the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War and the 1878 Treaty of Berlin , which made Russia feel cheated of its gains made in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/78, prevented the League from being renewed in 1887. In an attempt to stop Russia from allying with France, Bismarck signed the secret Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1887. This treaty assured that both parties would remain neutral if war broke out. The growing rapprochement between Russia and France and Bismarck's exclusion of Russia from

1239-570: The Bolsheviks to submit a list of delegates and support staff seeking to attend so that safe-conduct passes for travel and accommodation could be arranged. The opening ceremony of the Genoa Conference took place at 3 pm on 10 April 1922 at the Palazzo di San Giorgio , one of the oldest palaces in the city. Delegations entered at one end of the palace and ran a gauntlet of news photographers from around

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1298-531: The British reserved the right to join whatever country was attacking Germany even if Germany did not start the conflict, dooming the talks to failure. According to German historian Dirk Bönker, "To be sure, the [naval] race was decided early on; political leaders and diplomats learned to bracket it as an issue, and it did not cause the decision for war in 1914. But the naval competition nonetheless created an atmosphere of mutual hostility and distrust, which circumscribed

1357-433: The Genoa Conference has been assessed as having a lasting intellectual impact. It cemented a consensus on the need for a stable value of money to support Europe's economic reconstruction, building on the prior debates at the Brussels conference of 1920 . Its resolutions represent the first official endorsement of the need for international cooperation among central banks , paving the way for the creation several years later of

1416-554: The Genoa Conference surrounded participation of the new Bolshevik government of Russia, as the United States and most of Europe did not maintain formal diplomatic relations with the regime and harboured economic claims against it. That inconvenient situation had been effectively set aside by the Supreme Council itself, which approved a formal resolution at its meeting of 10 January 1922 that invited Soviet participation and called upon

1475-454: The German financial market in 1887 prevented the treaty from being renewed in 1890, ending the alliance between Germany and Russia. After the forced resignation of Bismarck in 1890, the young Kaiser Wilhelm set out on his imperialist course of Weltpolitik ("world politics") to increase the empire's influence in and control over the world. Russia had by far the largest manpower reserves of all

1534-469: The Germans attempted to link a "naval holiday" with a British promise to remain neutral if Germany should become engaged in a war where "Germany could not be said to be the aggressor." Zara Steiner says, "It would have meant abandoning the whole system of ententes which had been so carefully nurtured during the past six years. There was no German concession to counter the fear of German aggression." Essentially,

1593-457: The League of Nations (EFO) presented a report to the conference, which provided the first official articulation of the gold exchange standard , and also tackled novel fields for international financial cooperation such as capital flight , tax evasion , and double taxation . The conference also found agreement on the principle that financial stability must come first before trade restrictions could be beneficially lifted, even though no convergence

1652-540: The Treaty of Rapallo pulling Russia and Germany out of the main picture, the conference lapsed into a stalemate. The major powers at first agreed on a contingency package of financial aid to Russia, but the Allies could not agree on the final plan and so nothing was offered. The issue of German reparations went nowhere after Poincaré threatened to invade Germany unilaterally if Berlin defaulted on its next round of payments. Lloyd George

1711-624: The Triple Alliance. France's main concerns were to protect against an attack from Germany and to regain Alsace-Lorraine. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Britain continued its policy of " splendid isolation ", with its primary focus on defending its massive overseas empire . However, by the early 1900s, the German threat had increased dramatically, and Britain thought it was in need of allies. London made overtures to Berlin which were not reciprocated, so London turned to Paris and St. Petersburg instead. In 1904, Britain and France signed

1770-455: The acquisition of foreign loans and the reduction of the overall reparations bill. British, American and Swiss bankers were adamant that necessary loans would not be available until a final achievable reparations bill and repayment schedule could be agreed upon by all of the main parties in the dispute. In the meantime, German authorities attempted to raise the foreign currency necessary for reparations by dumping paper currency unbacked by gold on

1829-474: The chairman's seat at the front of the room. As the chief architect of the gathering, he effectively dominated the conference's public sessions. Among the propositions formulated at the conference was the proposal that central banks make a partial return to the gold standard , which had been dropped to print money to pay for the war. Central banks wanted a return to a gold-based economy to ease international trade and facilitating economic stability, but they wanted

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1888-426: The continent would be rapidly restored. France, among the main battlegrounds of the European conflagration, was particularly hard-hit and in need of external funds for reconstruction. Germany was seen as having largely escaped the destruction of infrastructure and economic capacity during the war and currently engaged in the systematic underestimation of its ability to pay. The political and economic weakness of Germany

1947-631: The establishment of the Third Republic. In the Treaty of Frankfurt , Prussia forced France to cede Alsace-Lorraine to the new German Empire , souring subsequent relations. France, worried about the escalating military development of Germany, began building up its own war industries and army to deter German aggression. Russia had previously been a member of the League of the Three Emperors , an alliance in 1873 with Austria-Hungary and Germany. The alliance

2006-406: The final draft communiqué to Russia was signed only by Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, and Sweden and left out the key world powers except Britain itself. Russia, in turn, rejected this final document. The last decision was to set up another conference at The Hague to take up the same issues. The British historian Kenneth O. Morgan concluded: Despite its ending in failure,

2065-711: The growing tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary , mainly over the Balkans , where the rise of nationalism and the continued decline of the Ottoman Empire made many former Ottoman provinces struggle for independence. To counter Russian and French interests in Europe, the Dual alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary was concluded in October 1879 and with Italy in May 1882. The situation in

2124-407: The inclusion of Germany and Soviet Russia to the international conference as equal members, which was met by particular opposition of France, which sought to neutralise and to isolate the two pariah nations of Europe by including them only in an inferior capacity. Any softening in the hardline stance towards Germany was perceived by France as a weakening of the Treaty of Versailles of which France

2183-826: The informal understanding between the Russian Empire , the French Third Republic , and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . It was built upon the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, the Entente Cordiale of 1904 between France and Britain, and the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907. It formed a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of the German Empire , the Austro-Hungarian Empire , and

2242-453: The last of the cycle started in 1867, and the beginning of a new era in which permanent international financial institutions would ensure a better governance of the global monetary, financial and economic system. In 1954, private bankers convened an International Monetary Conference , which has been held on a yearly basis since then. Officials are invited to speak at that gathering, which is not public and of an entirely different nature from

2301-532: The major economic and political issues facing Europe and to address the pariah status of Germany and the Soviet Union , both of which had been excluded from the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 . The conference was particularly intended to develop a strategy to rebuild a defeated Germany, as well as Central and Eastern European states, and to negotiate a relationship between European capitalist economies and

2360-477: The market. That triggered a hyperinflation paralyzing the country's economy, which had a desired subsidiary effect of helping to make the case that the current schedule of reparations was untenable. It was hoped by Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States and feared by France that the Genoa Conference would provide an opportunity for downward revision of the reparations schedule that had been set forth by

2419-468: The markets for gold and silver . After World War I , the scope of the conferences was expanded to matters of financial stability, then trade and economics more broadly; the two iterations in 1927 and 1933 were branded World Economic Conference . The latter of these, the London Economic Conference of 1933, ended in significant failure, and the formula of periodical international conferences

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2478-586: The prior conferences of the same name. Russell, Henry B. (1898). International Monetary Conferences: Their Purposes, Character and Results With a Study of the Conditions of Currency and Finance in Europe and America During Intervening Periods , And In Their Relation to International Action . New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers – via Internet Archive. . Triple Entente The Triple Entente (from French entente [ɑ̃tɑ̃t] meaning "friendship, understanding, agreement") describes

2537-599: The realm in exchange for their notes, unlike the prewar gold standard. Citizens of European countries had to redeem their banknotes in large gold bars, which were unsuitable for day-to-day transactions and largely achieved the goal of keeping the gold in the vaults. On 16 April 1922 on the sidelines of the Genoa Conference, Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Rapallo . Ratifications were exchanged in Berlin on 31 January 1923. The treaty did not include secret military provisions, but secret military co-operation soon followed. With

2596-518: The seas, by 1909 saw the German navy as a serious threat to its Royal Navy. Britain was well ahead in terms of Dreadnought technology and responded with a major building program. They built a Royal Navy that Germany could never rival. The British sent war minister Lord Haldane to Berlin in February 1912 to reduce friction stemming from the Anglo-German naval arms race . The mission was a failure because

2655-698: The six European powers, but it was also the most backward economically. Russia shared France's worries about Germany. Additionally, the Russians feared that the Ottomans, who had received assistance from the British under Admiral Limpus, et al., the French, and the Germans to reorganize and modernize the Ottoman armed forces, would come to control the Dardanelles , a vital trade artery that carried two-fifths of Russia's exports. There

2714-476: The space for peaceful diplomacy and public recognition of shared interests, and helped to pave the twisted road to war in Europe." The Entente, unlike the Triple Alliance and the Franco-Russian Alliance, was not an alliance of mutual defense and so Britain was free to make its own foreign policy decisions in 1914. As British Foreign Office Official Eyre Crowe minuted, "The fundamental fact, of course,

2773-532: The treaty. The apparent softening the economic terms of the peace, which had taken place at Cannes , had led to the toppling of the government of the French Prime Minister Aristide Briand and threatened the conference by leaving his successor, Raymond Poincaré , with little appetite for participation. It was only through a dedicated diplomatic offensive by Lloyd George towards the French government in February 1922 that its participation at

2832-559: The two precious metals gold and silver . France in 1865 fostered the Latin Monetary Union , whereby its currency and those of Belgium , Italy and Switzerland were unified in respect to their gold and silver coins. The conferences, initially promoted by French statesman Félix Esquirou de Parieu , were an attempt to build on this initial step to secure reforms by concerted international action. The successive conferences were: The first conference in Paris essentially paved

2891-457: The way for the generalization of the gold standard, in line with Parieu's policy views. Monetary conditions changed radically in the early 1870s, however, and the next conferences were unsuccessful attempts driven by the United States to restore the fortunes of bimetallism . That endeavor was eventually rendered redundant by the general shift to gold standard . The late 19th century was also

2950-400: The world. At the opposite end, guests, journalists and members of the delegations' support staffs disembarked from a column of automobiles to go inside the building. Admission to journalists was through tickets distributed ahead of the event, which were strictly limited. The entrance of Lloyd George was met with a great ovation from those assembled in the hall as he took his seat to the left of

3009-476: Was a prime beneficiary and to which it was immutably committed. Two great issues lay as impediments to convocation of a multilateral convention to plan the economic reconstruction of Europe. One was the issue of reparations, which was regarded as the primary matter of contention between the Triple Entente powers of France and Britain in the postwar era. At issue was whether the terms of economic reparations in

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3068-806: Was achieved on trade liberalization measures as the EFO had recommended. The idea for a general economic and financial conference of European nations had roots in a January 1922 session of the Supreme War Council , held in Cannes . With Europe facing an economic catastrophe brought about by the half-decade First World War , marked by millions of deaths, shattered infrastructure and vast sums of squandered economic resources, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George sought an authoritative international gathering to set Europe's political and financial house in order and to establish his leadership firmly at home. The formal proposal

3127-472: Was also Russia's recent rivalry with Austria-Hungary over the spheres of influence in the Balkans and after the Reinsurance Treaty was not renewed in 1890, Russian leaders grew alarmed at the country's diplomatic isolation and joined the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894. France developed a strong bond with Russia by ratifying the Franco-Russian Alliance, which was designed to create a strong counter to

3186-487: Was at the point of collapse, as Lloyd George noted: If European countries had gathered together their mobile wealth accumulated by centuries of industry and thrift on to one pyramid and then set fire to it, the result could hardly have been more complete. International trade has been disorganized through and through. The recognized medium of commerce, exchange based upon currency, has become almost worthless and unworkable; vast areas, upon which Europe has hitherto depended for

3245-462: Was emphasized by its new Weimar government, which effectively made the argument that it would be unable to maintain the specified payment schedule. Germany's position came to be regarded as reasonably correct by British, American and other policymakers despite quiet indications from even some German authorities that some substantial portion of the reparations bill could be safely managed. German politicians sought to minimise their country's tax burden by

3304-462: Was increasingly undercut by heavy attacks from the London newspapers but offered a final series of linked proposals, which would reduce Germany's liabilities for reparations, increase the French share of payments and float an international loan to finance German payments, with the money from the loan going directly to France. However, nothing was approved, Germany was expelled, France and Belgium withdrew and

3363-478: Was made at Cannes on 6 January 1922 in the form of a draft resolution calling for such a conference that was presented by Lloyd George and was approved unanimously the same date. Lloyd George told the British Parliament that the primary intent of the conference was to provide for the "reconstruction of economic Europe, devastated and broken into fragments by the desolating agency of war". The economy of Europe

3422-542: Was part of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck 's plan to isolate France diplomatically; he feared that France's revanchist aspirations might lead it to attempt to regain its 1871 losses stemming from the Franco-Prussian War . The alliance also served to oppose such socialist movements as the First International , which the conservative rulers found unsettling. However, the League faced great difficulty with

3481-521: Was subsequently abandoned in favor of the permanent international financial institutions of the post- World War II order. The disorganized state of the European currencies in the mid-19th century, which became more serious in consequence of the great expansion in trade and industry, came into notice through great gold discoveries such as the California gold rush , and their effect on the relative price of

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