We explain what the peace treaties of World War II were, as well as their characteristics and consequences.
One of the major peace conferences was held in Paris in 1946.
What were the peace treaties of World War II?
The peace treaties of World War II were the post-war agreements signed between the victorious countries (i.e. the Allies led by the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and China) and the defeated countries (the Axis powers and their satellite states).
In general, the victorious armies kept the defeated countries occupied until the treaties were signed, which They decided on new borders and conditions for peaceThe general principle was to return to the 1937 borders, but in some cases this was not fulfilled. In addition, the signing of the treaties soon became entangled with the conflicts of interest that gave rise to the Cold War.
The main treaties were signed in Paris in 1947. and decided on the borders and war reparations of Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland, Italy and Romania. Since Germany was divided into two states, the final treaty with this nation was not concluded until 1990 (when reunification took place).
The San Francisco Treaty between the United States and Japan was signed in 1951. and made official the reduction of Japanese territory.
The process that led to the peace treaties
Before winning the war, the Allies had already stipulated post-war agreements.
The negative results of the peace treaties signed after the First World War, added to the obvious fact (at least since 1943) that the Allies were going to win the Second World War motivated that, even Before the war ended, the future victors began to build a legal framework to design the post-war world.
The main documents and commitments adopted by the Allies were the following:
- The Atlantic Charter. It was signed on August 14, 1941 by Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the United States). This document expressed the rejection of territorial ambitions and proposed international cooperation and respect for the forms of government chosen by the people. It was included in the Declaration of the United Nations adopted on January 1, 1942.
- The minutes of the various conferences held throughout the warThey collected the decisions taken by the “Big Three” (i.e. the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom): Moscow (October 1943), Tehran (December 1943), Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July and August 1945). Also the minutes of the Cairo conference (November 1943), held by the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and China.
- The Charter of the United Nations. Its first draft was drawn up at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference (August 1944), and it was finally approved at the San Francisco Conference on June 26, 1945.
- The Acts of Unconditional Surrender signed by Germany on 7 and 8 May 1945 and by Japan on 2 September 1945.
These agreements created two institutions which were to be responsible for ensuring peace in the post-war world:
- The Big Three Directory. It was born at the Moscow Conference in October 1943, when the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union committed themselves to maintaining unity of action to maintain international peace and security through the so-called Council of Foreign Ministers, based in London, which was to bring together the foreign ministers of the victorious countries. This commitment was reaffirmed at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences.
- The United Nations Organization (UN). It was born at the San Francisco Conference in June 1945. This international organization, which came to replace the failed League of Nations created in 1919, set the objective of guaranteeing the peace and security of nations based on the principle of international cooperation.
This legal apparatus developed by the victors for the organization of peace encountered an obstacle when, After the war ended, unity on the Allied side broke down and the Cold War began..
Who were the losers and the winners in World War II?
The losers
In Europe, the losers in World War II were Germany, Italy, Finland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. The immediate result, before the signing of peace treaties, was generally the military occupation of these countries:
- Germany It was occupied by the three victorious powers (the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union), which were joined by France.
- Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria were occupied by the Soviet Union.
- Italy It was occupied by the United States and the United Kingdom.
- Finlandafter signing the armistice with the Soviet Union in 1944, was not occupied militarily.
The case of Austria. A special case was that of Austria. At the Potsdam Conference it was agreed that, Despite being considered a victim of Nazism and having its independence recognized, the country was to be occupied by the Allies under an Allied commission. Legislative elections were held in November 1945, but the country remained divided into occupation zones and the Allied commission continued to be in charge of various functions (such as denazification) until the final signing of a treaty (which took place ten years later).
In Asia, the losers were Japan and Thailand (Siam):
- Japan was occupied by the Americans.
- Thailand was occupied by the British.
- Korea, Formerly a territory dominated by the Empire of Japan, it was divided into two occupation zones: the Soviets in the north and the Americans in the south.
About former European colonies in Asiawhich had fallen under Japanese rule and were now freed from such domination, multiple situations occurred: The Soviet Union occupied Manchuriain addition to northern Korea, and The former French Indochina was occupied to the north of the 16th parallel by China and to the south by the United Kingdom..
The Chinese civil war and the communist victory in 1949 further complicated the situation.and both France and the Netherlands had great difficulty in regaining control of their former colonial territories in Indochina (which finally expelled the French in 1954) and Indonesia (which saw its independence from the Netherlands recognized in 1949).
The winners
The victors in World War II were the Allies: the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and China..
The first four countries occupied Germany and Austriawhich in the post-war period remained divided into two large areas, one under the control of the Western powers and the other under Soviet control).
The allies They also occupied other defeated countries for a time, both in Europe (Italy and some Eastern European countries) as in Asia (Japan, Thailand, Korea and other territories linked to the defunct Empire of Japan).
China was able to recover some territories previously occupied by Japan (such as Taiwan), But soon civil war broke out again between the Nationalist army and the military forces of the Chinese Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong, which culminated in the communist victory in 1949.
The Treaties of Paris (1947)
In September 1945, after the end of World War II, the foreign ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and China met Permanent Council and, as stipulated by the Potsdam conference, They met in London to draft peace treaties with the defeated.
The meeting was a failure, leading to a new meeting in Moscow in December, this time of the foreign ministers of the United States (James F. Byrnes), the Soviet Union (Vyacheslav Molotov) and the United Kingdom (Ernest Bevin). There The procedures for drafting peace treaties were agreed upon.
In 1946, a conference of the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States and France was held in Paris. Subsequently, from July to October 1946, a conference was held The Paris Peace Conference attended by representatives of the twenty-one member states of the United Nations which had actually fought in the war against the Axis: the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, France, China, Belgium, Greece, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Brazil, Ethiopia, Belarus and Ukraine (these two Soviet republics were recognized individually).
The process culminated in Europe with the signing of the Paris Treaties on February 10, 1947. between the victors and the satellite countries of Nazi Germany (Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland).
The Treaty of San Francisco (1951) and the Austrian State Treaty (1955)
The reduction of Japanese territory was ratified with the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco.
In the case of the peace treaty with Japanthe triumph of the communist revolution in China in 1949 and the rise to power of Mao Zedong complicated the process, which It culminated only with the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951.This treaty was signed by Japan and forty-eight Allied countries (led by the United States but without the participation of the Soviet Union, India and China), and reduced Japan to its 1854 borders.
The so-called Moscow Declaration of 1956, signed by the prime ministers of Japan and the Soviet Union, ended the state of war that still officially existed between the two states.
In 1955, the Treaty was signed in Vienna Austrian State Treaty, which ended the Allied occupation of Austria. This country regained its independence for the first time since the Anschluss (German annexation of Austria) in 1938. Also in 1955, the Allies abandoned the Federal Republic of Germany and it regained its sovereignty.
The partition of Germany (1949) and the 2+4 Treaty (1990)
In Germanythe unconditional surrender of May 7 and 8, 1945 and the occupation of its territory by the Allied powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union) were followed by significant territorial losses and the payment of reparations. However, the outbreak of the Cold War led to results that the Allies had not anticipated.
In 1949, the partition of Germany into two states at war with each other, each aligned with one of the two victorious superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union), It was made official with the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). This situation Yoprevented the signing of a peace treaty between the victors and…