CANNES, CONFERENCE OF (Jan. 6-13, 1922), a meet ing of the Supreme Council of the Allies with the primary object of considering the Anglo-French suggestions for reparations, drafted at the preliminary Conference of London on Dec. 18-22, 192I (see LONDON, CONFERENCE OF). The conference opened with a criticism of the Anglo-French suggestions by the French Minister of Finance, who was supported by the Belgian repre sentative. After long and complicated discussions this resulted in a modification of the London suggestions, and representatives of Germany, as well as the Reparation Commission, were sum moned to Cannes to make proposals on the basis of the agree ment finally reached between the Allies.
But wider questions of security and reconstruction were broached by Mr. Lloyd George in a memorandum submitted to M. Briand on Jan. 4, which declared that the three problems of reparations, security, and reconstruction were inter-related, and that any general scheme for European reconstruction must in clude Russia; and in which he offered to conclude an agreement by which Great Britain would pledge herself to assist France with all her forces in the event of unprovoked German aggression upon French soil. Mr. Lloyd George warned M. Briand that the British Empire would not be willing to incur military commit ments in Central and Eastern Europe.
On Jan. 6 Mr. Lloyd George proposed the summoning of a general Reconstruction conference to which both Soviet Russia and the United States were to be invited, and this proposal was adopted by the Supreme Council, together with an outline agenda. Meanwhile M. Briand had been making counter-proposals re specting the Anglo-French pact. The guarantee must be recip rocal, and supplemented by a technical military convention. This second condition would probably have proved an insuperable ob stacle from the British point of view, but M. Briand was violently attacked in the French Senate and Chamber in the belief that he was giving way unduly to Mr. Lloyd George. As a conse quence he resigned on Jan. 12, and therewith the Conference came to a premature close. Its main results were the provision for the Genoa Conference and the avoidance of a deadlock over Reparations.
See British White Paper, Resolutions adopted by the Supreme Council at Cannes, Jan. 1922, as the basis of the Genoa Conference (Cmd. 1621 of 1922) ; A. J. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 1920-23