The Treaty of Guarantee was an agreement in which the United Kingdom and the United States guaranteed the French border against future German aggression. It came out of a proposal by British Prime Minister

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during ...

at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, as a compromise to French Marshal

Ferdinand Foch Ferdinand Foch ( , ; 2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929) was a French general and military theorist who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War. An aggressive, even reckless commander at the First Marne, Flanders and Ar ...

's insistence for the French-German border to be pushed back to the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

. Foch felt that the new border would prevent another German invasion into France. (France had been invaded from across the Rhine five times within just over a century: in 1814, 1815, 1870, 1914 and 1918.)Shirer p145

Origins at Versailles

Along with Foch,

French Prime Minister The prime minister of France (french: link=no, Premier ministre français), officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and the leader of the Council of Ministers. The prime minister i ...

Georges Clemenceau Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (, also , ; 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he was a ...

had demanded for Germany's western border to be fixed at the Rhine. Clemenceau relented when the Treaty of Guarantee was proposed, but Foch insisted that the French occupation of the Rhineland was crucial to halt future German aggression.Shirer p146

Lloyd George's proposal and Foch's protest

Lloyd George suggested a compromise. If France relinquished its claims on the Rhine, the United Kingdom and the United States would guarantee the French border against future German aggression. Wilson agreed and treaties to that effect were drawn up. Foch had stated: "If we do not hold the Rhine permanently there is no neutralization, no disarmament, no written clause of any nature, which can prevent Germany from breaking out across it and gaining the upper hand. No aid could arrive in time from England or America to save France from complete defeat".

Rejection

In return for abandoning the Rhine, Clemenceau accepted solemn guarantees of his country's frontier from his two great allies. Both houses of the

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

approved the Treaty of Guarantee in July 1919 under the condition of its ratification by the United States. However, the

US Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...

refused to approve either it or the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

, which nullified the British assent. Clemenceau had been promised that aid in return for giving up the security of the Rhine that his generals had demanded. It was believed that Germany would not have invaded France if it known by Germans that to the British and the Americans would oppose the invasion by military force.Shirer p146 The rejection made Clemenceau unpopular and so ended his political career.

References

*'' The Collapse of the Third Republic'' by

William L. Shirer William Lawrence Shirer (; February 23, 1904 – December 28, 1993) was an American journalist and war correspondent. He wrote ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'', a history of Nazi Germany that has been read by many and cited in scholarly w ...

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Treaty Of Guarantee (Proposed) Treaties concluded in 1919 Proposed treaties France–United Kingdom relations France–United States relations Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920)