The syllabus content to be assessed will be drawn from:

Survey
● An overview of the peace treaties which ended World War I and their consequences
1. Armistice - 11th November, 1918
Armistice requested by the German Supreme Command. Commander of the Allied Forces,
Marshall Foch, requires the Germans to withdraw from France, Belgium, and Alsace-Lorraine
and to surrender vast amounts of war materials and weapons.
2. Treaty of Versailles - 28th June, 1919
● France (Georges Clemenceau → Prime Minister)
- Wanted to keep Germany militarily and economically weak
● Britain (David Lloyd George → Prime Minister)
- Wanted to punish Germany (election promise to ‘make Germany pay’)
● USA (Woodrow Wilson, President)
- Wilson wished to prevent further war and create a world ‘safe for democracy’
- He also formulated article 14 which proposed the creation of the League of
Nations
German Treaty Terms
- German Army reduced to 100, 000 soldiers
- All overseas territories given up
- 6.6 billions pounds of reparations to be paid
- Belgium and France receive raw materials, infrastructure and manchinery
- Under Clause 231, German leaders tried as war criminals
- Germany excluded from League of Nations

Further Consequences
- Japan → quest for racial equality clause outright rejected
- Italy → disappointed with lack of new territory, particularly Adriatic Port of Fiume and
Turkish and German Colonial possessions
- Hungary (Trianon), Austria, Bulgaria (Nevilly) and Turkey all had to sign separate treaties
- Outside Germany → East Prussia separated
→ 3.5 mill Germans in Sudentenland in Czechoslovakia
Aims of Treaty
- Restoration and creation of independent nations
- Reward and compensation for victors (Allies)
- Destruction of German militarism
- A system of peace and security in future
● Ultimately treaty led to new dictatorships and militarism

Historiography of the Versailles Treaty

- Marshall Foch, a WWI French Soldier said of the Polish Corridor ‘There lies the root of
the next war’
Focus of Study
The rise of dictatorships after World War I
● The conditions that enabled dictators to rise to power in the interwar period

Post War Constitutional and Political Processes

- Most constitutions contained provisions for proportional representation
- This lead to a multitude of political parties winning seats in every election → There were
nasty power grabs and compromise for coalitions
- In 1929, 19 parties gained seats in the Czech parliament
- This had two results
1. Effective governance was extremely difficult
2. Public perception of democracy was that it served only those in the political game
and wished for something to transcend it
Economics
● In 1926, an agricultural depression caused by an oversupply of agricultural products
greatly affected European nations
● The Great Depression caused by Stock Market crash (24th Oct, 1929) was terrible
● In 1933, 6 million workers in Germany were unemployed, about ⅓ of the workforce
 ● An overview of the features of the dictatorships that emerged in Russia, Italy, Japan
Common Features of the Dictatorships
- A single ruler
● Joseph Stalin (Russia), Benito Mussolini (Italy), and Hirohito/Emperor Showa
(Japan)
- One party state
● Facist State (Italy), Communist State (Russia), Constitutional
Monarchy/Aristocratic and Military Oligarchy (Japan)
- Planned economy
Russia
● Collectivisation: seized privately owned factories and farms (from people like
Kulaks)
- Propaganda and censorship
Italy
● Newspapers were effectively controlled by the Facist Party by 1926, when the
government decreed that permission was needed to publish. Film was also
controlled, with the Istituto Luce set up in 1924 to create newsreels to show
before films.
● In 1934, the Direzone Generale per la Cinema was set up to censor films that
could be harmful to the facist government.
● However, the regime was never very successful at creating propaganda films,
and would mostly focus on censorship.
● About 20% of education in school was devoted to learning about Facism.
- Ideology
● Italian Facism, Soviet Communism and Japanese Religious and Military Values
- System of terror and repression
Italy
● Establishment of the secret police called the OVRA in 1927
● At the end of WW2 and the fall of fascist Italy, it was found that the OVRA had
case files on approximately 130,000 individuals
- Absence of individual liberty
- Nationalism
Japan
● Since the Meiji period, Japan had been a constitutional monarchy ruled by
Hirohoto who was greatly revered by the people. Leading to WW2, they had an
emperor based ideology
● Focused on opposition to Western influence
- Militarism
Japan
● 6 Million strong military
● Japan had evolved from a totally closed-in society, to an extremely militarily
aggressive nation, with their modern industrialization allowing for the
manufacturing of weapons, vehicles, ships and ammunition at an unprecedented
rate.
The Nazi regime to 1939
● The rise of the Nazi party and Hitler in Germany and the collapse of the Weimar
Republic
Event Date

Hitler sent to spy on the DAP, the German Workers Party. Fascinated 1919
by their ideology so joins.

Renamed Nationalist Socialist DAP ‘Nazis’ 1920

Hitler Becomes chairman 1922

Beer Hall Pusch 1923

- Hold 3 Key Bavarian Officials + 1000 other officials hostage in
Beer Hall in Munich as a coup/power grab
- Coup is crushed by police, Hitler sent to jail

Hitler writes ‘Mein Kampf’ while in prison 1924

Golden Years of Weimar Republic 1924→1929

Reichstag election, 18% of the vote for Nazi’s 1930

Hitler wins 35% of presidential vote, two parliamentary elections with 1932
no majority coalition

President Hindenburg Appoints Hitler as Chancellor 1933

● The initial consolidation of Nazi power 1933 - 1934

Event Date What happened?

The Reichstag Fire 27 February, 1933 The Reichstag was set on fire.

Decree for the Protection of 28 February, 1933 Enabled the incarceration of all
People and State (Reichstag political opposition without trial)
Fire Decree)

The Enabling Act 23 March, 1933 An act which allowed the Reich
government to pass legislation without
consent from the Reichstag and
President.

Law against the July 14th, 1933 Non-Nazi parties dissolved or went
establishment of new parties into an underground framework.

Law for the abolition of the 14th February 1934 The Reichstrat is abolished.
Reichsrat
 Law concerning the Head of 1st August 1934 The offices of president and
State chancellor are merged into the Furhrer
after the death of Hindenburg.

Oath taken by the members 2nd August 1934 All members of the social service and
of the armed forces armed forces are forced to swear
allegiance to Hitler.

The Night of the Long Knives 30th June 1934 Mass political killings conducte with 85
people dying and over 1000 political
arrests made.

● The nature of Nazi ideology

Key Nazi Terms
Liebensraum
- Living Space for the Germans needs to be conquered.
Gleichschaltung
- Centralisation of Nazi and political structures
Volksgenmeinschaft
- ‘People’s Community’ - united people working together to reduce the class difference,
wealth inequality and standards of living
- A united society with no social inequality is a key part of Nazi propaganda
Fuhreprinzip
- All authority placed in Hitler's hands.
The role of prominent individuals in the Nazi state
Joseph Goebbels
- Minister for Propaganda 1933 - used radio, TV and censorship
Rudolf Hess
- Deputy Fuhrer from 1933-1941
- Politician and leading member of the Nazi party in it’s intial rise.
- Passed several legislations to consolidate Nazi power

Heinrich Himmler
- In 1929, he was appointed the Reichsführer-SS by Hitler
- Over the next 16 years, he developed the organisation from a 290-man battalion to a
million-strong paramilitary unit
- The SS set up and controlled Nazi Concentration Camps
- In 1943, he became both the Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior,
overseeing all police forces including the Gestapo
- As overseer of the Nazi genocide programs, Himmler directed the killings of 6 million
Jews and between 200,000 and 500,000 Romanis

Joachim von Ribbentrop

- Foreign affairs minister from 1938 and established relationship between Italy and Russia
to maintain diplomatic relationships.
Ernst Rohm
- Leads the SA
- Responsible for the intimidation of Nazi opponents in the lead up to 1933
- After Nazi rise, he and the SA were seen to have too much agency outside of Nazi
operations. He has subsequently killed in the Night of the Long Knives

● The various methods used by the Nazi regime to exercise control, including
- Laws
In the Space Above
- Censorship and Propaganda
- Censorship and propaganda played a key role in the Nazi poscess of
Gleichschaltung
- Joseph Geobbels (appointed in 13th March 1933) controlled media and arts in
his position as Minister for popular Enlightenment and propaganda
● Created the Reich Chamber of Culture in September 1933, which regulated the
press, radio, theatre, film, literature and the visual arts
● Individuals had to apply for membership in relevant associations to continue
● 10th May 1933, Goebbels organises 20, 000 books burnt near Uni of Berlin
● 2500 writers/poets left Germany between 1933-45
- Maz Armann, took control of the Reich Press Chamber in November 1933
● By 1936, he had banned or taken control of 213 of newspapers
● All news agencies merged into German News Agency
- Radio was a crucial tool in propaganda
● People’s Reciecer 301 Radio was massed produced and dsitributed and by
1939, 70% of households owned one
- Film was also a popular propaganda tool although not as effective
- Rallies and demonstrations were also a popular propaganda tool
● Annual Nuremburg Rallies

- Terror and Repression

The SS (Schutzstaffel)
- Begun in 1925 as Hitler’s personal bodyguard within SA
- 1929, Heinrich Himler is appointed head and develops into a disciplined, elitist force
- Members had to meet high education, racial and physical standards
- It became very much a state within a state, responsible only to Hitler, free of laws and
other restraints
- June 1934 during Night of Long Knives SA leader Ernst Rohm is assassinated
- June 1936, Himmler is appointed Chief of the German Police (Gestapo + SS + Police)
- SS also carried out police functions and dealt with internal opponents of regime
- Responsible for
● Deportation of conquered territories
● Enslavement of foreign labour and use of POWs
● Ran both concentration camps and extermination camps
Gestapo
- Secret State police, set up in 1933, 30th November
- April, 1934 Himmler appointed to lead it
- Responsible for internal security of Reich → Made up of police forces
- Charged to ‘investigate and suppress all antistate activities;
- They had the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings
- Could be arrested for minor things like ‘refusal to work’ or ‘defeatist stateents’
- However, Gestapo were mostly administrative as with a 69 million population of
Germany with 15000 Gestapo officers by 1939
- Most of their cases came from denunciations from civilians (60 to 90 90%)
- By WW2, only 45, 000 people in Gestapo
Concentration Camps
- First camps in 1933 days after Hitler comes to power (Dachau)
- Run by SA
- After purge of SA, in 1934, SS took over with centralised system
- Between 1934 and 1939 more than 200 000 people passed through the camps
Kristellnacht
- On the night of Nov 9th, 1938, violent anti-Jewish demonstrations broke out across
Germany, Australia and the Sudetenland region
- About 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses, homes and schools were plunderd and 91 Jews
were arrested
- About 30, 000 Jewish men were taken to concentration camps
- The Nazi’s blamed the Jewish for the Riots, and a fine of one billion reichmarks was
imposed on the Jewish Community

- Cult of Personality
- The Cult of Personality, or Fuhrer Myth, was manufactured by Joseph Goebbels and
benefitted greatly from censorship and propaganda
- A range of positive characteristics were attributed to Hitler
● Compassionate, heroic and charismatic
- He was viewed as being above the greed and corruption of the Nazi Party, whose
officials were blamed fro any mistakes made
- Speeches and rallies emphasised such as in Triumph of the Will
The impact of the Nazi regime on life in Germany, including cultural expression, religion,
workers, youth, women, minorities including Jews

Category Impact

Cultural Control
Expression - Synchronisation of culture to Nazi Ideology
- Nazi control and censorship of all film, art and music
- Glorification of ‘peasantry’ lifestyle, ‘Aryan’ race, heroism of war
- Achieving ‘total culture’
Literature
- 1933: Nazi activists and National Socialist Students’ Organisation organise a
nationwide book burning of any literature considered ‘un-German’ (Brecht,
Mann, Remarque) or from Jewish authors (Werfel, Feuchtwanger)
- forces German civilians to only be able read texts approved by the Nazi
party
Film
- Leni Riefenstahl - documentary films of the 1930s dramatizing the power and
pageantry of the Nazi movement.
Art
- Modern art movements such as abstractism labelled as ‘Degenerate art’
- Realistically painted artworks were favoured over abstract art unless the art
was approved by Hitler. Typically for these types of artwork to be approved,
they would have to display symbolism that represents the Nazi ideology.
Music
- Promotion of classical ‘Germanic’ composers (e.g. Johann Sebastian Bach,
Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Bruckner, and Richard Wagner)
- Performances of ‘non-aryan’ composers were banned

Religion Pre-Nazi Germany

- Christian Churches were in decline in the 1920s and 1930s, weakened by WWI
and Secular Values
- Church rolls from 1932 show that 186,000 Germans stopped attending
Christian churches that year
- However, vast numbers of people still identified as Christians, as in 1933, 52%
of people identified themselves as Protestant and 33% of people identified
themselves as Catholic
Hitler’s Perspectives on Religion
- In public, Hitler showed strong support for Christianity
- Hitler also believed the core values of Nazism – nationalism, obedience and
loyalty to the state – were contradicted by religious teachings. He feared the
political influence of churches might undermine his own agenda.
Persecution
- Anti Jehovah's-Witness campaigns throughout 1933, 15,000 believers refused
to swear loyalty to Hitler or participate in military service.
- Jehovah’s-Witness being formally banned in most of Germany
- A large number of Jehovah’s Witnesses were detained in concentration camps
in which a quarter died.
 Reichskirche
- This was a movement which the churches of Germany to form a state church
which would be supportive of the Nazis and be subordinate to the Nazis
- The largest group of churches who pushed for this were called the Deutsche
Kristen
- There were also Anti-Semitic views held by the church
- The Nazis centralise the Protestant sects of Christianity through the Reich
Church in 1933.

Workers - Trade unions were dissolved on 2 May 1933

- Middle-class workers got a higher standard of living
- This is because Nazi ideology and the 25-point plan were biased in their
favour
- Workers were mainly lower class, the changes to political and economic
structure helped them
- Hitler conducted expansionary fiscal policy, with a bunch of
infrastructure programs such as hospitals, roads and schools being
made, which created jobs, leading to more money and better lives for
workers.
- Strength through joy
- A leisure organisation part of the German labour front
- The Creation of the People’s car (Volkswagen)
- The Nazi party manufactured an affordable car for the german populace
- Expanded the car industry in Germany

Youth Hitler Youth

- A youth organisation focused on making boys into effective soldiers and girls
into effective mothers
- Membership of 100,000 in 1932 → 3.5 million in 1934 → compulsory enrolment
by 1939 (total population of German youth)
Doctrine
- Youth viewed as ensuring the future of Nazi Germany
- Therefore needed to be indoctrinated into Nazi ideologies
- Similar in style to the boy scouts (which were banned in 1935)
- Camping, hiking.
- Over time, changed to focus more on militaristic activities.
- Weapons training
- Assault course circuits
- Basic tactics
Boys:
- Hitler youth at 14 (aged 14 to 18)
- German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth was the separate section for boys aged
10 to 13 of the Hitler Youth organisation in Nazi Germany. Through a
programme of outdoor activities, parades and sports, it aimed to indoctrinate its
young members in the tenets of Nazi ideology.
- 18+ post hitler youth → military/ labour service
Girls:
- League of German Girls or Band of German Maidens (Bund Deutscher Madel)
- Were encouraged through Nazi ideology to be trained for motherhood and
beliefs of the regime
 - Only legal female youth organisation conducted by the Nazi’s
- Compulsory membership for all young women, except for those excluded for
“racial reasons”.
- Activities used to indoctrinate girls within the Nazi belief system included
‘campfire romanticism, summer camps, folklorism, tradition, and sports’.
- Also to train them for their roles in German society

Women The Three K’s

- Kinder - Children
- Kuche - Kitchen
- Kirche - Church

The Lebensborn program

- The Lebensborn program was created by the SS in late 1935 in order to
promote and support the growth of Germany’s healthy “Aryan” population.
- The program offered the mothers financial support and adoption services
- Mothers would be denied if they had a family history of physical, mental, or
psychiatric disabilities
- The Lebensborn homes were designed to be pleasant spaces where women
could live comfortably as they received prenatal care, delivered their babies,
and recovered from labour

- 6 months of social work for women aged 19-29.

Minorities - Jews were seen as the main enemies of the Reich.

- In November 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were passed which deprived Jews of
including
citizenship and forbade relationships between Jews and Aryans.
Jews - Rights for minorities were essentially eliminated by the Nazis
- Jewish civil servants were excluded from government employment
- Nazi eugenics program - breeding out of those who they deemed “inhuman”
- Doctors were instructed to euthanize children who were not fit to
reproduce and not of pure enough blood
- Social Darwinism:
- An evolutionary view of race
- The Jewish race was placed at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder
- As an attempt to purify the populace of Germany, the Nazis
imprisoned people deemed socially unfit, like homosexuals,
jehovahs witnesses, Jews, Gypsies, religious dissenters,
alcoholics and “drifters”
- The Nazis also imprisoned political enemies, such as socialists,
communists and general critics of the party
Opposition to the Nazi regime
The Army
- There was very limited opposition from the army, especially after the removal of the SA
and Rohm in the Night of the Long Knives
- The purge of Defence Minister Blomberg and Army Chief Fritsch in 1938 ended any
potential army opposistion
The Churches
- Church opposition was largely ineffectual, as Germans had significant support amongst
Protestants
- The Roman Catholic Church had been bought off by the Concordat of July 1933,
although some Catholic leaders did speak out against the Nazi euthanasia policy
The Left
- The German left was effectively neutralised during the period fo Gliechschaltung as the
KPD, the SPD and the TUs were banned, and there were only opponents in exile
- In the elections of March 1933, the two parties of the left, the SPD and the KPD gained
almost 12 million votes to the Nazi total of 17 million
Conservatives
- The influence of right-wing cabinet members such as Hugenburg quickly ended as
right-wing parties dissolved themselves by mid-1933
Working Class
- The working-class youth opposition group the Edelweiss Pirates rebelled against the
rigidity and discipline of the hitler youth movement
- The White Rose group of Hans and Sophie Scholl also organised anti-nazi opposition
Swing Kids
- Middle-class youths known as the swing kids were not so much opposed to the Nazis as
they were indifferent to them, as their interest focused on swing and jazz music in dance
clubs
- However, the Nazis hated this non-conformity
The search for peace and security in the world
● an overview of the search for peace and security 1919–1946:
– the ambitions of Germany in Europe and Japan in the Asia-Pacific
Germany
- Germany’s ambition in Europe was based on the idea of Lebensraum, which called for
expansion into Eastern Europe
- Hitler had four clear goals while in power
1. To revise the Treaty of Versailles
2. To rearm Germany
3. To return to the fatherland and German-speaking areas that had been taken
under the Treaty of Versailles, creating Gross Deutschland
4. To have a reckoning with France
Key Dates
Event Date

Germany leaves the League of Nations and withdraws from the October 1933
Disarmament Conference

Conscription is reintroduced and Germany’s army grows to 550,000 March 1935

Hitler sends troops into the Rhineland region, an act forbidden by the March 1936
Treaty of Versailles

Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact November 1936

Italy joins the Anti-Comintern Pact September 1937

Germany granted the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in the September 1938

Munich Conference, invades the rest of Czechslokia the following year

Germany and Russia sign a non-aggression pact August 1939

Japan
- Economic need, politics and ideology conbind to form the basis of Japanese ambitions in
the Asia-Pacific region
- The Depression had hurt Japan, and as its poulation steadily increased it desperately
needed new lands to provide raw materials, markets, food and a place to send its
surplus population
- Western embargoes placed on Japan in the late 1930s exacerbated Japan’s economic
situation, and Japan’s need for reliable oil supplies had become acute by the late 1930s,
made worse by the US oil embargo in August 1941
- Japan’s ambitions in Asia were presented by its leaders as an idealistic attempt to free
Asia of western imperialist domination
- Japan was not happy that the Racial Equality Clause they included in the Treaty of
Versailles was removed
 Event Date

Japanese troops attack Manchuria nad they have control of the September 1931
province by November

Japan attacks Shanghai January 1933

Japan leaves the League of Nations February 1933

Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact November 1936

Japan begins an invasion of China, and by late 1938, Japan controls July 1937
Shanghai, Nanking and most of China’s coastline

Japan signs the Tripartite pact with Germany and Italy September 1940

Japan signs a Neutrality Pact with the Soviet Union April 1941

– the intentions and authority of the League of Nations and the UN

League of Nations United Nations

Duration (years in existence) ● It was formed on ● 72+ years

January 10th, 1920 ● Formed in 1945
and officially
disbanded on the 19th
of April, 1946
● It lasted 26 years

Purpose and aims ● Resolve international ● Maintain peace and

disputes security
● Administer world ● Maintain Sovereign
justice equality
● Avoid future conflict ● Adminitster world
justice
● To promote and foster
friendly relations
among nations
● To assist nations to
work together to
improve the lives of
poor people,
overcome poverty and
illiteracy
● Encourage protection
of rights and freedoms
● To act as a centre for
harmonising the
actions of nations to
 achieve these goals

Organisation ● The Council ● General Assembly

● The Assembly ● Security Council
● The Secretariat ● International Court of
● Court of International Justice
Justice ● Secretariat
● International Labour ● International Criminal
Organisation Court
● Economic and Social
Council

Main Members ● Britain, France, Japan ● Great Britain, Russia

and Italy (Italy and and the USA initially
Japan leave later but later China and
however) France were added

Authority ● The Treaty of ● Power rests with

Versailles gave the Security Council
League of Nations its
authority

Strengths ● The concept of ● It includes the most

‘collective security’ (in powerful countries
theory anyway) who all support it

Weaknesses ● The League never ● Permanent Security

reflected the true Council members can
balance of World veto measures
Powers ● Members often do not
● The dominant powers ratify UN declarations
were Britain and ● The UN has little
France authority to actually
● The idea of stop acts of
internationalism was aggression
in conflict with ● Extremely expensive
dominant nationalism
ideas of different
nations
● The League had
limited military forces

Supporters ● Woodrow Wilson ● It is supported

universally

Critics ● The US Senate and ● Non-Members

Republicans in
particular
● Japan, Germany and
Italy were also critics
Major Successes ● Ending Yugoslavia’s ● Universal Declaration
invasion of Albania in of Human Right and
1921 the World Health
● Creating the Organisation
International Labour ● Madieated an
Organisation armistice to end the
Korean War 1950 - 53
● In 1956, organised a
ceasefire between
Israel and Egypt
● In 1968, Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons
● And many other
things

Major Failures ● Manchuria in 1931-33 ● The Rwandan

where Japan invaded genocide
China ● The US invasion of
● The invasion of Iraq in 2003
Abyssinia by Italy in
1935-36
● The Spanish Civil War
from 1936-39
● Germany, Japan and
Italy
Treaties
The Naval Conferences
The Washington Naval Conference
- In 1921-22 representatives from Great Britain, The US, Japan, France and Italy met in
Washington to work to reduce naval capacities
- In the Five Power Treaty, the UK, US and Japan agreed to accept a limitatin on capital
ships in the ratio of 5:5:3 and France and Italy were restricted to 1.75 each
- A limit was placed on the tonnage of warships and calibre of gunships
- It banned the expansion of pre-existing naval bases in the Asia-Pacific region
- The Four Power Treaty signed by France, UK, US and Japan meant that they agreed to
respect one anothers rights in the Asia-Pacific region
The Geneva Naval Conference
- In 1927, US President Calvin Coolidge invited the other four nations from the 1922
Five-Power Treaty to meet and discuss extending the agreement to include other
classes of vessels
- Italy and France did not attend this new conference
- The conference talks between Japan, UK and the US broke down and the conference
ended with no new treaty

The London Naval Treaty

- A conference was held in London in 1930 with the aim of reviewing and possibly
extending the 1922 Washington treates
- After three months of negotiations, the five nations came to an agreement on the
regulation of submarine warfare and a five-year suspension on the construction of capital
ships
- However, because France and Italy refused to sing a treaty which limited battleship
tonnage, the conference led to an increase of shipbuilding

Locarno Treaties
- The German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann suggested that representatives from
Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy meet in the Swiss town of Locarno to formally
recognise the frontier between Germany and France-Belgium as set out by the Treaty of
Versailles, including the transfer of Alsace-Lorraine and the demilitaristion of the
Rhineland
- There was no guarantee about the Eastern borders
- The following year Germany was accepted into the League of Nations

Kellogg-Briand Pact
- This was signed on the 27th of August 1928 by almost every country in the world after it
was symbolically intialled in Paris and co-sponserd by the US
- By signing, each nation condemned recourse to war for the solution of international
controversis and renounced war ‘as an instrumnet of national policily
- They also committed to resolve any potential disputes with the use of force