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| 1921, Nov. 12–1922, Feb. 6 |
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| The WASHINGTON CONFERENCE, which met at the invitation of the U.S. government to consider naval armaments and East Asian questions. Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, China, Japan, and Portugal were represented. Soviet Russia, not yet recognized by the U.S., was not invited, despite its major interests in East Asia. The conference resulted in (1) the four-power Pacific Treaty, Dec. 13 (the U.S., Great Britain, France, and Japan), by which the signatories guaranteed each other's rights in insular possessions in the Pacific and promised to consult if their rights were threatened. The Anglo-Japanese alliance came to an end; (2) the Shantung Treaty (Feb. 4), by which Japan returned Kiaochow to China; (3) two nine-power treaties (Feb. 6), guaranteeing the territorial integrity and administrative independence of China and reiterating the principle of the “Open Door”; (4) the naval armaments treaty (Feb. 6), providing for a ten-year naval holiday during which no new capital ships (defined as ships over 10,000 tons with guns larger than eight-inch) were to be built, and establishing a ratio for capital ships of 5–5–3–1.67–1.67. This meant that Great Britain and the U.S. were each allowed 525,000 tons, Japan 315,000, and France and Italy each 175,000. Total tonnage of aircraft carriers was restricted and a maximum size fixed for capital ships, aircraft carriers, and cruisers. | 1 |
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| 1922, Feb. 15 |
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| The Permanent Court of International Justice was opened at The Hague. | 2 |
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| April 10–May 19 |
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| Genoa Conference, including Germany and Russia, called to consider the Russian problem and the general economic questions of the world. The conference broke down on the insistence of France that Russia recognize its prewar debt. | 3 |
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| April 16 |
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| Rapallo Treaty of alliance between Germany and Soviet Russia in which both renounced reparations (See April 16). | 4 |
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| June 30 |
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| The new Danube statute went into effect. | 5 |
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| Aug. 1 |
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| Lord Balfour, the British foreign secretary, sent a note to the Allied powers indebted to Great Britain offering to abandon all further claims to payment and all claims to reparations, provided a general settlement could be made that would end the “economic injury inflicted on the world by the present state of things.” If the U.S., which had not demanded a share of reparations payments, should refuse to cancel the debts owed by European governments, then Great Britain would have to insist on receiving enough from its debtors to pay its own obligations to the U.S. The American attitude was that reparations and interallied debts were not connected problems, so that German default on reparations would not excuse default on Allied payments to the U.S. | 6 |
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| Aug. 7–14 |
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| London Conference. Poincaré demanded, as conditions for a moratorium, a series of “productive guarantees,” among them appropriation of 60 percent of the capital of the German dyestuff factories on the left bank of the Rhine, and exploitation and contingent expropriation of the state mines in the Ruhr. The British rejected Poincaré's scheme, and Poincaré refused to grant a moratorium. | 7 |
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