Locarno Convention

A treaty that established collective security in the Rhineland and eased international tensions after World War I.

French Foreign Minister Briand, who took office in April 1925, actively took up the draft treaty that German Foreign Minister Stresemann had presented on February 9. British Foreign Secretary Chamberlain, who placed importance on the balance of power between Germany and France and the stability of the European market, agreed to provide guarantees together with Italian Prime Minister Mussolini. The treaty was provisionally signed on October 16 in Locarno, Switzerland, and officially signed on December 1 in London. Of the Locarno Treaties, the quintet treaty between Germany, Belgium, France, the UK, and Italy (the Rhine Treaty) collectively guaranteed the maintenance of the status quo, inviolability, and demilitarization of the Rhineland, prohibited war in principle, and obligated the peaceful settlement of disputes. In addition, the four arbitration treaties between Germany and France, Belgium, Poland, and Czechoslovakia clarified the manner of peaceful settlement for both issues in which the parties disputed rights and issues that could not be resolved through court proceedings.

As a result of the establishment of this treaty, France was restricted in its security occupation of the Rhineland, and the status of small Eastern European countries was destabilized by clarifying the qualitative difference between Germany's eastern and western borders, and it became virtually impossible for French troops to pass through German territory to aid Eastern Europe, which dealt a serious blow to the plan to link the security occupation with the Eastern European alliance network. On the other hand, Germany, which had been isolated by tying itself to the Soviet Union under the Treaty of Lapallo, joined the League of Nations as a permanent member in September 1926, which was a condition for the Locarno Treaty to come into effect, and it escaped from its status as a defeated nation and returned to Western Europe as a great power. Europe had obtained a political foundation for economic recovery through the Dawes Plan, but the Great Depression dealt a heavy blow to this structure, and on March 7, 1936, Hitler announced the abolition of the Locarno Treaty and occupied the Rhineland, which the contracting parties were unable to deal with effectively, and this marked the end of the Locarno Treaty.

[Manabu Hamaguchi]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

ラインラントに集団安全保障体制を確立し、第一次世界大戦後の国際緊張を緩和した条約。

　1925年4月に就任したフランス外相ブリアンは、ドイツ外相シュトレーゼマンが2月9日に提示していた条約案を積極的に取り上げた。独仏の勢力均衡と欧州市場安定を重視したイギリス外相チェンバレンはイタリア首相ムッソリーニとともに保障供与に応じた。条約は10月16日スイスのロカルノLocarnoで仮調印され、12月1日ロンドンで本調印された。ロカルノ条約のうち、ドイツ、ベルギー、フランス、イギリス、イタリア五か国間条約（ライン協定）は、ラインラントの現状維持、不可侵、非武装地帯化を集団的に保障し、原則として戦争を禁止し、紛争の平和的処理を義務づけた。また、ドイツとフランス、ベルギー、ポーランド、チェコスロバキアの四つの仲裁裁判条約は、当事国が権利を争う問題と裁判による解決が不可能な問題の両面にわたり、平和的処理の態様を明示した。

　この条約が成立した結果、フランスはラインラント保障占領に制限を加えられ、ドイツ東部国境と西部国境の質的差異の明確化によって東欧小国の地位は不安定化し、東欧援助に赴くフランス軍のドイツ領土通過が事実上不可能となったため、保障占領と東欧同盟網を連動させる構想に深刻な打撃を受けた。他方、ラパロ条約でソ連と結び孤立化していたドイツは、ロカルノ条約発効の条件である国際連盟加入を1926年9月に常任理事国として実現し、敗戦国の地位を脱し、大国として西欧の一員に復帰した。ヨーロッパは、ドーズ案による経済復興の政治的基盤を獲得したが、世界恐慌はこの構造を痛打し、さらに36年3月7日ヒトラーのロカルノ条約廃棄宣言とラインラント進駐に、締約国は有効に対処しえず、ここにロカルノ条約は終焉(しゅうえん)を告げた。

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