The Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded in 1923 or 1924. In 1925 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Austen Chamberlain, of the United Kingdom, for work on the Locarno Treaties and Charles G. Dawes, of the United States, for work on the Dawes Plan for German reparations which was seen as having provided the economic underpinning of the Locarno Pact of 1925. Chamberlain’s rationale for the Locarno Pact was that once France had abandoned its allies in Eastern Europe as the price of better relations with the Reich, the Poles and Czechoslovaks, with no Great Power ally to protect them, would be forced to adjust to German demands. Chamberlain believed that they would peacefully hand over the territories claimed by Germany such as the Sudetenland, the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig. He was wrong.
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes created by the Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel. Since 1901 it has been awarded annually (with some exceptions) to those who have “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses” Over the next few months we’ll be introducing you to the past Nobel laureates, leading up to the award of the 2016 prize in October.
