Eastern Europe: Cordon Sanitaire or Powder-Keg?

Abstract

As a result of the war and the subsequent peace settlement Scandinavia, eastern Europe and the Balkans emerged as a cordon sanitaire through which it was hoped a resurgence of German, Russian and Turkish power would be checked. The Baltic States, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Roumania, Italy and Yugoslavia formed a politically unstable and divided ring bordering the defeated Central Powers of Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria. Along with Scandinavia, they also served as a politicomilitary firebreak against the spread of Bolshevism from Russia. The European states which emerged as a result of the war were anti-Bolshevik and had their own territorial ambitions on the lands of the former Russian Empire. They eyed one another with a mixture of jealousy and suspicion which made eastern Europe a new breeding ground for war. In the Far East Japan, Britainx’s ally since 1902, acted as a further element in the cordon, which was complemented by the British presence in Iraq, Persia, India, and in 1919 in the Trans-Caspian and Trans-Caucasian regions.