Shaping British Foreign and Defence Policy in the Twentieth Century
Shaping British Foreign and Defence Policy in the Twentieth Century
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塑造二十世纪英国外交和国防政策
DOI：
10.1057/9781137431493_7
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发表时间：
2014
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Waddington G
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Waddington G
在两次世界大战期间困扰英国外交部的所有困境中，没有一个比被载入史册的“德国问题”更为严峻和持久。这个词本身就是失败的不幸回响，它不断提醒人们，英国在 1914-18 年战争期间付出如此惊人的牺牲所追求的主要目标尚未实现。诚然，德国帝国的失败消除了一个危险的海军竞争对手和商业对手，但和平条约显然未能实现大陆平衡，而这种平衡被认为对祖国的安全和促进英国在全球的利益至关重要。事实上，和平解决的明显缺陷、法国在大陆上的统治地位、东欧和中欧新兴国家之间持续激烈的争端，以及最重要的是德国的严重衰弱，造成了一种在某种意义上比 1914 年之前英国所面临的更具挑战性的局面。他们很可能希望“治愈战争的创伤，反对欧洲法律的深远改变，恢复正常”1，尤其是在考虑到这一点时。但伦敦当局很快意识到，德国的复兴本身并非完全不可取的偶然事件，即使仅从经济角度来看，也只是时间问题。
Of all the dilemmas that plagued the British Foreign Office during the interwar years none was more onerous or enduring than that which has passed into the history books as the ‘German problem’, The term itself was an unfortunate echo of failure, a nagging reminder that the primary objective that the British had pursued at such appalling sacrifice during the war of 1914-18 had not been realised. To be sure, the defeat of theKaiserreichhad eliminated a dangerous naval competitor and commercial rival, but the peace treaties had signally failed to deliver that continental equilibrium which was considered vital to the safety of the homeland and the promotion of British interests across the globe. Indeed, the manifest shortcomings of the peace settlement, the continental dominance of France, the disputes which continued to rage between the newly emerged states of Eastern and Central Europe and, most importantly, the severe weakening of Germany had created a situation which was in some senses even more challenging than that which had confronted the British before 1914. Well might they have wished to ‘heal the wounds of war, to oppose far-reaching alterations in the law of Europe, to return to normal’,1not least in view of their pressing domestic concerns and new imperial burdens, but the authorities in London were quick to appreciate that a German revival, a contingency not entirely undesirable in itself, if only from an economic point of view, was merely a question of time.