SIX MONTHS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
BY MARGARET MACMILLAN
A great source of information for history buffs interested in the personalities and the decisions they made in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919
5 stars out of 5 stars
After the "War to end all Wars" ended with the defeat of the Central Powers in November 1918, leaders of the Entente Powers gathered in early 1919 in Paris to develop a Treaty with Germany, and to devise an international order which would ensure world peace. This book, “Paris 1919”, is a detailed account of the six months of this process that changed the world. To follow the details, one needs to have a high interest in late 19th and early 20th history as well as some knowledge of the geographies of Europe, the Balkans, Asia minor, and the Middle East.
The author begins with introducing the readers to the backgrounds and characters of the main representatives in the Paris talks, particularly those of Britain (Lloyd George), France (Georges Clemenceau), and the United States (Woodrow Wilson), including quoted remarks which are amusing yet illuminating:
The French ambassador in Washington saw in Woodrow Wilson “a man who, had he lived a couple of centuries ago, would have been the greatest tyrant in the world, because he does not seem to have the slightest conception that he can ever be wrong.”
Lloyd George once said of Clemenceau: “He loved France but hated all Frenchmen.” “A disagreeable and rather bad-tempered old savage.” He noticed, he said, in Clemenceau’s large head “there was no dome of benevolence, reverence, or kindliness.”
Clemenceau found Lloyd George shockingly ignorant, both of Europe and the United States.
Italy was represented at the Paris Conference by Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. When it could not get the territories it claimed, Italy withdrew on April 24, 1919, but returned 11 days later. Germany was not invited to participate.
The problems which the peace makers needed to find solutions were numerous and enormous. They included reparations they wanted Germany to pay, taking away and assigning Germany’s prewar colonies, dividing up the vast territories of the fallen Ottoman Empire, to name just a few. Clearly, it was an impossible task to satisfy everyone’s claims.
Before the Conference, President Woodrow Wilson, in a speech to the U.S. Congress on January 8, 1918, outlined his fourteen points as a statement of principles for peace. The speech took many domestic progressive ideas and translated them into foreign policy (free trade, open agreements, democracy and self-determination). Perhaps the most important of the 14 was the creation of the League of Nations to handle international cooperation and disputes.
However, Wilson’s main Allied colleagues (Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy) were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism.
After several months of negotiations, the peace makers produced the Treaty of Versailles, a document of 240 pages. It included Article 231, often known as the War Guilt Clause, which states that "The Allied and Associated Governments affirm. and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."
On May 6, 1919, a plenary session was called to vote on the terms of the Treaty. At this session, Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France asked to be heard. He made the last plea for the Rhine as a barrier between Germany and France. When the plea was unsuccessful, he said to the New York Times that “The next time, remember, the Germans will make no mistake. They will break through into Northern France and seize the Channel ports as a base of operation against England.” Fortunately, perhaps, he was dead by the time Hitler did precisely that twenty years later.
The Treaty was signed on June 28,1919 by the Allied Powers and Germany, in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. The delegation comprised of Georges Clémenceau for France, Woodrow Wilson for the USA, David Lloyd George for Great Britain, Vittorio Orlando for Italy, and Hermann Müller, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as the jurist Doctor Bell from Germany. Historians are still debating the impact of the Treaty.
A glaring example of President Wilson forsaking his 14 point principle was agreeing to give Shantung peninsula in China, occupied by Germany before the War, to Japan. China was deeply disappointed with Western democracies, especially Wilson, for this betrayal. Around this time, a revolution and a new form of government, communism, just took place in Russia, which became the Soviet Union. The betray of China in the Paris Conference likely contributed to the rise of support for communism in China. China, represented by Wellington Koo 顧維鈞, did not sign the Treaty of Versailles.
The League of Nations, a brainchild of Woodrow Wilson, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, was duly formed in January 1920. However, the United States never joined the League. What an irony!
Twenty years after the Treaty was signed, World War II started, again by Germany. While there is a school of thought that blames the harsh treatment of Germany in the Treaty as responsible, the author of the book did not agree. In her opinion, the peace negotiators had to grappled with huge and difficult questions: How can the irrational passions of nationalism or religion be contained before they do more damage? How can we outlaw war? We are still asking those questions.
The author cites another opinion: the mistake the Allies made was that they should have defeated Germany thoroughly before ending the war. As it was, the great majority of Germans never experienced their country’s defeat at first hand. “Except in the Rhineland, they did not see occupying troops. The Allies did not march in triumph into Berlin, as the Germans had done in Paris in 1871. In 1918, German soldiers marched home in good order, with crowds cheering their way; in Berlin, Friedrich Ebert, the new president, greeted them with ‘No enemy has conquered you!’ The new democratic republic in Germany was shaky, but it survived, thanks partly to grudging support from what was left of the Germany army. The Allied advantage over Germany began to melt.”
Finally, the serious nature of the subject of the book did not exclude the inclusion of some interesting/amusing anecdotes:
- Clemenceau and Lloyd George got into a furious argument about the division of not just Turkey but the whole of the Middle East. “Both lost their tempers violently and made the most absurd accusations. At one point, so it has been claimed, Clemenceau, who after all had considerable experience in such matters, offered Lloyd George a choice of pistols or swords.”
- Franklin Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the Navy, persuaded his superiors that he had to supervise the sale of American naval property in Europe and arrived in Paris; a resentful and unhappy Eleanor in tow. She found him too attractive to the Parisian women.
- Woodrow Wilson lived to 1924. Mrs. Wilson survived to go to JFK inauguration in 1961.
- The Kaiser lived on until 1941, writing his memoirs, reading P. G. Wodehouse, drinking English tea, walking his dogs.
- Clemenceau was a great friend of Claude Monet. In Paris, he frequently dropped in to see the great panels of the water lilies. He could not bear Renoir’s paintings.
In conclusion, a great source of information for history buffs interested in the personalities and the decisions they made in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
Link to Amazon Review:
From left to right: Lloyd George, of Great Britain, Vittorio Orlando, of Italy, Georges Clemenceau, of France, and Woodrow Wilson, United States President (Source: Wikipedia)
Signing of the Treaty in the Hall of Mirrors inside the Palace of Versailles (Source: Wikipedia)
Comentários