Imagine you have a group of friends and sometimes you argue about who gets to play with what toy. One day you all decide that it’s better to share the toys and not fight about it. That’s kind of what happened with the Locarno Treaties!
Back in the 1920s and 30s, after World War I, many countries wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be another big war like that again. So they came up with a bunch of agreements called treaties, which basically said “hey, we promise to be nice to each other and not fight”.
The Locarno Treaties were a group of agreements made in Switzerland in 1925 between Germany and other European countries. Germany had been blamed for starting World War I, so it was important for them to show they were now peaceful and wanted to be a good neighbor.
The treaties said that Germany, France, and Belgium would respect each other’s borders and not invade each other. Germany also agreed to respect the independence of other countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland. Everyone promised to stay peaceful and not fight.
The Locarno Treaties were seen as a big step towards peace in Europe, but unfortunately they didn’t completely prevent World War II from starting a few years later. Still, they helped to bring some stability to the region and showed that countries could work together to avoid conflict.