Six years of Perpetual Peace

The oldest-known peace accord was concluded between Pharaoh Ramesses II and King Ḫattušiliš III around 1259 BCE. In the 14th and 13th centuries BCE Egypt was experiencing an economic and cultural boom and its influence stretched all the way to the Near East. At the same time the Hittites, whose empire corresponded largely to modern-day Turkey, were also expanding their territories with the aim of weakening Egypt’s preeminence in the region. The borders of the two empires met at present-day Lebanon and border skirmishes were inevitable. The situation escalated with the Battle of Kadesh, one of the best-documented battles in Antiquity. However, neither of the two sides emerged victorious. Fifteen years passed before the Hittites found themselves threatened by a third party, the Assyrians, which induced King Ḫattušiliš III to offer Ramesses II a peace accord and an alliance agreement. Written testimony to this agreement has survived to the present day.

In the Peace of Nuremberg dating from July 23, 1532, Emperor Charles V and the Protestants agreed, for the first time, to a mutual guarantee of peace under the rule of law. This represented an end to the persecution of the Protestants, thus making it possible for the Reformation to spread unhindered. The thinking behind this accord was purely strategic. Emperor Charles V needed free rein in the Holy Roman Empire in order to repel the Turks, who had occupied Hungary. However, the Protestant princes, who had banded together in the Schmalkaldic League, wanted to secure their political and economic interests and extend their power base by means of state-church rule, something which effectively meant that the power of ecclesiastic governance would also be invested in them as territorial sovereigns. Seven years after the Peace of Nuremberg, the Treaty of Frankfurt was signed, again safeguarding the relationship between Protestants and Catholics within the Empire.

The Treaty of Versailles was one of five treaties drawn up subsequent to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference which formally ended World War I. These treaties were drawn up by the Allied Powers and had to be signed by the representatives of the defeated nations. They also included the statutes of the newly established League of Nations. In the Treaty of Versailles sole responsibility for the outbreak of World War I was attributed to Germany, the country was obliged to make territorial concessions, disarm and pay reparations. Even some contemporaries such as British economist John Maynard Keynes considered the treaty too hard on Germany and some observers recognized even then the dangers of a destabilized and isolated German economy, which would inevitably lead to social instability. Many historians see in the Treaty of Versailles key contributing factors to the rise of Nazism.

In 1995, an end was put to three and a half years of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Dayton, Ohio. The relevant peace agreement was drawn up on November 21 and signed in Paris by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, Croatian President Franjo Tuđman and President of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović. The peace agreement was brokered by the United States with the participation of the European Union; the peace talks were chaired by then US President Bill Clinton. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of a series of wars connected with the breakup of Yugoslavia. The memory of this war is still with us today, particularly because of the massacre of Srebrenica in which up to 8,000 people, mainly men and boys, were killed despite the presence of UN Blue Berets. Even today, why the UN soldiers failed in their mission has never been explained in full.