Were there any attempts to achieve peace in WW1 before 1918?
score:10
Just to mention, as he was not from "great powers", the Pope Benedict XV made several attempts to make both sides sign peace.
Ratzinger chose the pontifical name Benedict, which comes from the Latin word meaning "the blessed", in honour of both Pope Benedict XV and Saint Benedict of Nursia. Pope Benedict XV was pope during the First World War, during which time he passionately pursued peace between the warring nations.(...) The Pope explained his choice of name during his first General Audience in St. Peter's Square, on 27 April 2005:
Filled with sentiments of awe and thanksgiving, I wish to speak of why I chose the name Benedict. Firstly, I remember Pope Benedict XV, that courageous prophet of peace, who guided the Church through turbulent times of war. In his footsteps I place my ministry in the service of reconciliation and harmony between peoples. (...)
Now going back to the main subject.
The last Austrian-Hungarian emperor Charles I wanted to sign peace:
In 1917, Charles secretly entered into peace negotiations with France. He employed his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma, an officer in the Belgian Army, as intermediary.
He was then beatificated by Catholic Church for his efforts:
Pope John Paul II declared Charles "Blessed" in a beatification ceremony held on 3 October 2004, and stated:
The decisive task of Christians consists in seeking, recognizing and following God's will in all things. The Christian statesman, Charles of Austria, confronted this challenge every day. To his eyes, war appeared as "something appalling". Amid the tumult of the First World War, he strove to promote the peace initiative of my Predecessor, Benedict XV.
The US President, Woodrow Wilson also made some peace attempts before 1917:
He offered to be a mediator, but neither the Allies nor the Central Powers took his requests seriously. Republicans, led by Theodore Roosevelt, strongly criticized Wilson's refusal to build up the U.S. Army in anticipation of the threat of war. Wilson won the support of the peace element (especially women and churches) by arguing that an army buildup would provoke war. (...)
On December 18, 1916, Wilson unsuccessfully offered to mediate peace. As a preliminary, he asked both sides to state their minimum terms necessary for future security. The Central Powers replied that victory was certain, and the Allies required the dismemberment of their enemies' empires. No desire for peace or common ground existed, and the offer lapsed.
Upvote:5
Yes there were. There were many both public and private, some by quasi non governmental organisations, countries still outside the conflict and concerned citizens. I can recommend http://archive.org/ as a source of material on this subject especially the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which has a number of original documents on this subject. "Official communications and speeches relating to peace proposals" from Brigham Young University illuminates but does not enlighten.
A peace treaty would have been very difficult in 1914, impossibly hard in 1915 and unreachable thereafter. All the warring parties had lost too much, had unreachable goals of winning and were stuck in a mental morass of their own choosing.
An interesting published set of proposals from the German Social Democrats is worth mentioning. In exchange for peace, the British would disarm their fleet, accept German garrisons in the channel ports, allow Belgium to be neutral with German oversight and the French to pay for it all. This is, of course , from the socialist side of German life who , whilst initially opposed the war, voted tax credits to pay for it and marched off to war[1].
None of the proposals, President Wilson's was the best shot on this although 'Freedom of the Seas' is such a relative term.
[1] Churchill . A history of the English speaking peoples.
More post
- 📝 Were there any well known royal dynasties that did not in some way cite religious mandate for their rule?
- 📝 How many people worked to build one Liberty ship?
- 📝 What was "Greek fire"?
- 📝 What is the spiral-looking device shown in this wall painting?
- 📝 What are the primary sources for the Mongol sack of Baghdad?
- 📝 Statistics on pre-revolutionary Russian education
- 📝 Who attributed to King George II the quote "Will someone please remove these infernal chains?"
- 📝 When did the Polovtsy convert to Islam?
- 📝 How does Louise Bryant's assessment of how the Soviet Union would fall hold up at the beginning of the 21st century?
- 📝 How were wars financed under Islamic empires?
- 📝 What would a Roman education include in the years 77 - 85?
- 📝 How stable was the Middle East under Ottoman rule?
- 📝 What percentage of the population in the Thirteen Colonies in 1776 were first/second generation immigrants?
- 📝 Why didn't SW Virginia join West Virginia?
- 📝 Why were nomadic tribes (like the Mongols) from the Eurasian steppes a much reduced threat from the 15th century onwards?
- 📝 Is the word God (or it's equivalent) always as old as the civilization's earliest written texts?
- 📝 How did encasillado work?
- 📝 How rich were carpenters in Roman Galilee in the 1st century AD?
- 📝 Was Russo-Polish of 1919-1920 a war of independence?
- 📝 1959 Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) report (on Concorde)
- 📝 How many Old Bolsheviks outlived Stalin?
- 📝 How were/are days subdivided in non-Gregorian calendars?
- 📝 How did schoolgirls dress in Japan in the 1930s/40s?
- 📝 What was the first school in Santa Cruz, California?
- 📝 How did the Palace of Poitiers change from its depiction in Tres Riches Heures to now?
- 📝 Did a fallen-out red signal lens ever cause a railway accident?
- 📝 Did Henry VIII have his bedroom bricked up every night?
- 📝 More cases of visiting politicians having their own entourage/followers beat up protesters?
- 📝 During WW2, what B-29 crew role did the abbreviation EMG mean?
- 📝 Are there equivalents of the Domesday Book for other (French or German) duchies?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Were there any attempts to achieve peace in WW1 before 1918?
- 📝 Were there any drunk driving laws before the automobile?
- 📝 Were there any attempts to assassinate Joseph Stalin?
- 📝 Were there any successful attempts by the Allies to "turn" groups of Axis soldiers?
- 📝 Were there any assassinations of high-profile Austrian officials before that of the Archduke Ferdinand?
- 📝 Were there any non-Afrikaner apartheid supporters in South Africa before 1994?
- 📝 Were there any Austrians in Nazi Germany's government before the Anschluss?
- 📝 Were there any attempts at a federation or commonwealth to save Austria-Hungary from breaking up after ww1?
- 📝 What were paper airplanes called before there were real airplanes? (i.e. untethered winged flyers, not kites or balloons)
- 📝 In the "Christmas truce" of 1914 were there any football (soccer) matches between British and German troops?
- 📝 Were there any travel restrictions during the Black Death pandemic?
- 📝 Were there any Germans in Japan after the surrender of Germany in May, 1945 and if so, what happened to them?
- 📝 Were there any high-ranking female soldiers during the Middle ages?
- 📝 Are there any documented examples of wooden ships which were in active service for 100 years or more? If not, what is the longest?
- 📝 Were there any conquests that Ancient Rome undertook explicitly to gain control of a natural resource?
- 📝 Is there any documentation that indicates the Aztecs were as violent as they are made out?
- 📝 Was there a pre-determined arrangement for the division of Germany in case it surrendered before any Soviet forces entered its territory?
- 📝 Were there any crops and livestock common to both the Old and New Worlds prior to the Columbian exchange?
- 📝 Were there ever any farming societies without a calendar?
- 📝 Were there ever any libraries in medieval villages?
- 📝 Were there any wars in ancient Greece where religion played a major part?
- 📝 Were there any well known royal dynasties that did not in some way cite religious mandate for their rule?
- 📝 Were there any war movies made during WW2 that were well regarded by front-line American soldiers?
- 📝 Are there any historians who believe that the crusades were not motivated as a distraction from internal conflicts?
- 📝 Were there any pilots that declined to carry out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 Were there any Roman villas in Britain which were used rather than destroyed after the Romans left?
- 📝 Were there any westerners who entered the soviet bloc to escape capitalism?
- 📝 In Europe, why were there few portraits showing a real likeness of the subject before the 15th century?
- 📝 Were there any German operations to destroy supply routes in the Persian corridor in WWII?
- 📝 Were there any Chinese expeditions to explore the world? If not, why not?