Paris Peace Conference

Japan

China

Greece

Ottoman Empire

Mesopotamia & Syria

Palestine

Ataturk

Treaty of Versailles

The birth of nations:

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Mapmaking that reflected European interests and rivalries rather than indigenous interests and rivalries has been behind much subsequent misery.

They sensed their limitations and the possibly disastrous consequences of their decisions but had not the leadership capacity to grapple with the problems they were leaving for the future.

  Several once-great European empires were shattered and others were fatally weakened. The fall of empires opened opportunities for previously subject peoples and small nations throughout Europe and the Middle East. The conflict was ended at a Peace Conference in Paris that, like the conflict itself, was fatally flawed and sowed the seeds of much subsequent misery.
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  In his Forward, Richard Holbrooke mentions some of the resulting problems that remain intractable into the 21st century. Mapmaking that reflected European interests and rivalries rather than indigenous interests and rivalries has been behind four Balkan wars in the 1990s, the rule by terror that characterizes the governance by dominant groups over subject groups throughout much of the Middle East and Africa, "and the endless struggle between Arabs and Jews over land that each thought had been promised to them." The world leaders at the Peace Conference proved as equally incompetent in peacemaking as they had been in war-making.

  "But facing domestic pressures, events they could not control, and conflicting claims they could not reconcile," Holbrooke explains, "the negotiators were, in the end, simply overwhelmed -- and made deals and compromises that would echo down through history."

  In fact, the Big Three - Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George, and Georges Clemenceau - all failed even to achieve their own top priorities at the Peace Conference.

• Wilson staked all on the establishment of a League of Nations that could resolve international problems and preserve the peace. This was and remains an impossible dream.

• Lloyd George sought to preserve and strengthen the British Empire and Britain's naval predominance. However, WW-I had undermined British financial strength and welfare state economics rendered both goals impossible.

• Clemenceau sought to permanently weaken Germany, surround it with French allies, and above all cement the French alliance with Britain and the United States that was France's primary defense against its far larger neighbor. Germany would revive, the new nations of Central Europe would prove to be weak reeds, the U.S. would fail to come to France's aid, and British support would be weak.

  These men - undoubtedly the world's most powerful leaders - became personally absorbed at the Peace Conference in long hours of earnest even passionate endeavor. With respect to Europe, there was nothing casual about it. Nevertheless, so extensive and complex was the task that numerous decisions were delayed until finally hastily resolved with little regard for future implications. They indeed sensed their limitations and the possibly disastrous consequences of their decisions but had not the leadership capacity to grapple with the problems they were leaving for the future.
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These men of narrow 19th century backgrounds were literally dividing up the 20th century world.

  Where do you begin to explain such a failure of diplomatic leadership and its vast disastrous consequences? Margaret MacMillan, in "Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World," begins sensibly with a series of illustrative maps showing the geographic results. Next, she introduces the primary participants - the Big Three and their few closest advisors. These men of narrow 19th century backgrounds were literally dividing up the 20th century world.
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  MacMillan then covers Bolshevism and Bolshevik Russia which was a ghostly presence at the Peace Conference. Next she covers deliberations over the League of Nations Covenant. She then proceeds through each of the nations subject to the deliberations of the peacemakers, weaving a rich tapestry of personalities and events. She portrays their prior history and contemporary claims, explaining what each nation received from the Peace Conference, and briefly setting forth the subsequent results. At various times she explains the evolving procedures at the Peace Conference and the overall environment in Paris. Only the outlines are presented in this review. See, MacMillan, "Paris 1919," Part I, "The Reordering of Europe."

Japan:

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With the exception of a naval squadron in the Mediterranean in 1917, Japan had contributed nothing to the conflict in the west.

The question Japan faced was whether it should cooperate with a hopefully peaceful world order or look after its own interests.

  Like Italy, Japan had certain goals and little interest in anything else. Japan joined the Allies to grab German possessions in China and the Pacific that Germany could no longer protect. By November 1919, it had them all - the Marshalls, the Carolines, the Marianas, and concessions in China's Shantung Peninsula. It had previously grabbed Korea and had established dominant influence in southern Manchuria and eastern Mongolia. With the exception of a naval squadron in the Mediterranean in 1917, it had contributed nothing to the conflict in the west.
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  Japan made white Europe anxious, knew it, and feared it would be ganged up on. It sought a clause on racial equality in the League Covenant. The question it faced was whether it should cooperate with a hopefully peaceful world order or look after its own interests.
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  The Panama Canal had recently been completed, the U.S. had annexed Hawaii and taken control of Guam and the Philippines, and had built a large two ocean navy. The U.S. had jingoistic "yellow peril" scare stories in its press. They were matched by "white peril" scare stories in Japan. Naval planners in Britain, the U.S. and Japan naturally began considering future conflicts between the three remaining naval powers.
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For the British and U.S. delegations, the racial equality clause was an unwelcome hot potato. Wilson, wary of losing the essential support of West Coast political leaders for the Covenant, rejected even a watered down compromise.

  Japan was acutely aware of discrimination against Japanese and other Asian immigrants in the U.S. and other western nations. (Japan allowed no immigrants at all.) Its diplomats had often been slighted. The racial equality clause for the League Covenant was therefore of great importance. However, Australia and New Zealand were adamantly opposed, and Asian immigration was being strenuously opposed in the U.S. Since the racial equality clause was being rejected, a religious liberty clause had to be excluded also.
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  For the British and U.S. delegations, the racial equality clause was an unwelcome hot potato. Wilson was wary of losing the essential support of West Coast political leaders for the Covenant, so he rejected even a watered down compromise. There was bitter disappointment in Japan and the rejection became grist for the nationalist propaganda mill.
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  As a result, Wilson felt constrained to accept Japan's claims in China. The Polish Corridor and the Tyrol were other blatant examples of where Wilson found reasons to ignore self-determination. Any principle was negotiable to save the League Covenant.
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Prohibitions against militarization proved unenforceable like so many other conditions in the mandates.

China:

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The Shantung Peninsula with its port and railroad was an artery for the extension of Japanese influence into the interior of China.

  Japan's maneuverings in China had aroused widespread suspicions and even hostility in Western government circles. By the end of the war, there was much sympathy for China in the U.S. There was already much concern over the Japanese ambition to dominate East Asia. Both China and Japan realized that the Shantung Peninsula with its port and railroad was an artery for the extension of Japanese influence into the interior of China.
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  However, there was also a keen appreciation in the U.S. of the need to get along with an increasingly powerful Japan. A vengeful Japan could be a threat to the Philippines and even to Hawaii. And China looked like a hopeless case. Its government officials were divided among its factions, and some were already under Japanese influence.
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  Secret treaty agreements with Japan had been signed by Chinese officials. Principles of self determination and territorial integrity had already been compromised at the Peace Conference on several occasions. More important to Wilson was Japanese agreement on the League Covenant.
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  "If the League was the best hope of the world, then perhaps the sacrifice of a small piece of China was worth it." And Japan also had that embarrassing "racial equality" clause as a disposable bargaining chip. In April 1919, with Italy walking out of the Peace Conference and the German treaty and much else coming to a head, China's interests in the Shantung Peninsula seemed a minor irritant to be pushed aside.
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  The Western powers decided to rule in favor of the existing Chinese/Japanese treaties that favored Japanese interests. They limited the award to the German concessions and included assurances that the port and facilities would be open to the commerce of other nations.
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China turned in various directions, all decisively away from the West.

  The award to Japan was a shattering blow to China. There was deep disillusionment with Western ideals of democracy. Western high principles and rule of law were revealed as a sham. Wilson was distraught. He insisted on drafting Japan's rights in Shantung as narrowly as possible. There was passionate dissension within the U.S. delegation. Several junior members resigned. Not for the last time, Republicans opportunistically accused a Democratic president of betraying China.
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  China turned in various directions, all decisively away from the West. Both nationalism and communism were soon flourishing and at war with each other. The Chinese Communist Party was formed one year later. China did not sign a peace treaty with Germany until September 1919.
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Greece:

Greece's grandiose claims constituted a disaster for the Greek settlements in Turkey and assured the enmity of Turkey to this day.

  However, Greeks lived in ancient settlements in southern Albania and all around the Aegean and the southern shore of the Black Sea. With a population of just 5 million, poor and politically faction-ridden, dreams of a Greater Greece nevertheless extended to them all. Temporarily, that excluded Istanbul/Constantinople, then occupied by the British. These grandiose claims constituted a disaster for the Greek settlements in Turkey and assured the enmity of Turkey to this day.

  "As in the dreams of the other Balkan countries, the glories of the past compensated for the imperfections of the present."

The Albanians claimed Kosovo, arguing that their would be trouble if the Albanian population in Kosovo was subjected to Serb rule.

  The Allied political leaders were enthusiastic towards the Greek claims. There was great popular support. Greece would be a friendly presence in the eastern Mediterranean. However, the British military understood the reality of Greek weakness and the danger of enraging a reviving Turkey.
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  Of course, Italy was opposed - not just to Greek claims in Albania but to anything that might strengthen Greece. Albania - a prewar left over from the Ottoman collapse - was a collection of feuding tribes of mixed religious beliefs that didn't register as a weighty concern in the Peace Conference's Greek affairs commission. Albania was instantly the plaything of Serb, Italian and Greek intrigue, and by the end of the war, they each occupied a portion of it. Even the French had a slice of the interior.
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  The Albanian delegation had no hope other than Wilson and his principles. They claimed Kosovo, arguing that their would be trouble if the Albanian population in Kosovo was subjected to Serb rule. Kosovo bounced into Albanian hands during WW-II, was grabbed by Tito afterwards, and after much bloodletting, is now breaking free.
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  The Peace Conference had bigger fish to fry, so they put off consideration of this Balkans mess. With the advent of the new more accommodating Italian government, Greece and Italy tried to divide the spoils themselves. However, Wilson objected. By this time, his League Covenant had been rejected by Congress, so he decided to support his principles with respect to Albania. The Albanians got themselves together and rose against their occupiers. They kicked Italy out and the others withdrew, leaving Albania practically with its original borders.
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  The U.S. military withdrawal from Europe by the summer of 1919 left Wilson with little influence. Over Wilson's objections, Greece was given almost all Thrace, despite a Turkish majority and large Bulgarian minority in its western portion. But Turkey and Bulgaria had been opponents of the Allies and Greece had been an ally. It was settled with the Treaty of Nevilly with Bulgaria in November 1919.
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The Ottoman Empire:

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  Istanbul/Constantinople was a cosmopolitan city where Muslims made up less than half the population. The tides of history had washed ashore Armenians, Sephardic Jews, Poles, Rumanians, Albanians and Greeks in significant numbers. Europeans ran the major industries, Greeks dominated commerce. By treaty, most of these foreigners enjoyed special legal status.
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  In the decade before WW-I, the Ottoman Empire had lost Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and part of Thrace, including the port of Salonika. At the end of WW-I, the Empire was bankrupt. Refugees - mainly Russians, Armenians and Turks - poured into Istanbul/Constantinople - perhaps as many as 100,000 sleeping in the streets. Allied forces moved in and divided up the administration of what remained of the nation. The Sultan was a helpless incompetent who sought only to placate the Allies.
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  Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and the Arabian Peninsula had to be politically organized, and it all had to be done fast. The Allies had a million troops spread across Ottoman territory, and the expense was overwhelming. The newly independent peoples were suddenly loose to fly at each other to avenge centuries of periodic domination and outrageous acts. Nevertheless, the Peace Conference had bigger fish to fry, and kept postponing consideration of the Ottoman territories.
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There were no Allied troops in or near the Caucasus, and no way for the peacemakers to enforce their will in that region.

  The Armenians hoped for a Greater Armenia - and also American protection from their fierce neighbors. Hundreds of thousands of them had been wiped out when the Empire sought to remove them from an area vulnerable to Russian attack, and there was much Western sympathy for their plight. All the Allies were committed to Armenian independence. However, there were no Allied troops in or near the Caucasus, and no way for the peacemakers to enforce their will in that region. "Help was far away, but Armenia's enemies were close at hand."
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  Wilson had slipped so far into unreality as to consider assuming responsibility for a mandate covering a huge slice of the Middle East running from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean - including Armenia. Such an undertaking, fortunately, was subject to Senate approval. The chief of the British Imperial General Staff knew that the western Allies' writ did not run in Turkey or Armenia or elsewhere in Central Asia. (Today, Georgia is learning the hard way that that is still the case.)
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The Arab Middle East:

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Instead of bluntly dividing the imperial loot, the British and French were bringing civilization and efficient administration to peoples long oppressed by the Ottomans.

  There were wartime agreements - often conflicting - made with Arabs and Jews and Italians and Russians, but the Bolshevik revolution fortunately eliminated the Russians from consideration. Italy's major interests lay elsewhere. Wilson was distracted by the League Covenant.
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  MacMillan goes at some length into the conflicting imperial interests in the region. Advocacy of all of these interests was quickly put into the language of Wilson's 14 points to mollify the Americans. Instead of bluntly dividing the imperial loot, the British and French were bringing civilization and efficient administration to peoples long oppressed by the Ottomans. The ultimate objective was establishing self governance among the Arabs.
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  However, it had been only a quarter century since the British and French had been imperial adversaries, and suddenly they again didn't trust each other. Moreover, Arab nationalists were taking Wilson's words seriously.
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The British appointed Feisal the chief administrative officer of Syria - but unfortunately that territory had been promised to France during the war as part of the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement.

  Arab interests were represented by Feisal, a Hashemite leader who with British support had led a revolt against the Turks. Supporting his claims was the British liaison officer. T. E. Lawrence. The British appointed Feisal the chief administrative officer of Syria - but unfortunately that territory had been promised to France during the war as part of the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement. This created an instant conflict between the French and the Arabs.
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  Feisal needed British support. He was thus willing to sign documents in London that omitted Palestine and Lebanon from his claims in Syria and included recognition of Jewish interests in Palestine. He was told he might have to accept French overlordship in Syria.
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  Faced with conflicting claims and obligations, the British did what they do best - they dithered. Troops were kept in Syria although Syria was to be turned over to others. They used the time in maneuvering against French claims. Lloyd George flip-flopped over various settlement schemes. Relations with France were in peril. By May 21, 1919, Clemenceau expressed complete opposition to British plans.
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  And the Arab nationalist pot - practically nonexistent before the war - was rapidly coming to a boil. Wilson's principles were oil poured on the fire. In March, there were disruptions in Egypt. By 1922, Egypt was independent with British control limited to the Suez Canal.
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  Muslims in India became incensed over the fate of the Ottoman Sultan who also happened to be the head of the Muslim Caliphate. As agitation increased, Mohandas Gandhi decided to support the Indian Muslims in an effort to bind India's Muslims and Hindus together. Huge demonstrations and a general strike broke out that spring. There inevitably was a shooting incident - the Amritsar Massacre. There was war in Afghanistan and a puritanical Islamic force led by Ibn Saud was sweeping across the Arabian Peninsula.
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The oil of Mesopotamia was divided 75% to 25% in favor of Britain with pipelines running through Syria.

The local Arabs overwhelmingly favored independence and a unified Syria including Lebanon and Palestine.

The French ultimately left a Syria that still grieves over the loss of Lebanon and Palestine and western Iraq. It maintains a belief in its right to rule those territories as a Greater Syria.

  The Ottoman territories were divided up at the San Remo Conference in April, 1920. Britain took mandates over Mesopotamia and Palestine, France took Syria. An American commission found that the local Arabs overwhelmingly favored independence and a unified Syria including Lebanon and Palestine. It was ignored, and Arab leaders have never forgotten or forgiven this betrayal.
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  Revolts quickly broke out throughout the region, but Britain and France played the divide and conquer game. The Arab factions had mutual hatreds running back into antiquity. The revolts were ruthlessly suppressed, but the costs were substantial. The British and French created puppet governments - but the strings were quickly loosened and then cut.
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  Lebanon was created under Christian control - only to predictably come unglued in the 1970s. Feisal was established in Iraq as one of several Hashemite rulers supported by the British. By 1932, he had established his independence and Iraq had joined the League of Nations. His grandson was killed in a coup in 1958. Ibn Saud pushed another Hashemite out of the Hejaz and founded Saudi Arabia. Only in Jordan does the Hashemite dynasty still rule.
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  Palestine was the tar baby Britain could not get rid of and remains disputed to this day. The French ultimately left a Syria that still grieves over the loss of Lebanon and Palestine and western Iraq. It maintains a belief in its right to rule those territories as a Greater Syria. Meanwhile, it rules by terror over the subject groups within its existing territory.
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Palestine:

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  But what was to become of the indigenous peoples,  including 700,000 Palestinian Arabs? Lloyd George raised this embarrassing question. Edwin Montague, Sec. of State for India, was aghast at the implications for British relations with Muslim peoples and for the status of Jewish diplomats like himself and Jews living in the Middle East.
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  The relationship between Zionist Chaim Weizman and the aristocratic Balfour is covered at some length by MacMillan. In October 1917, objections were swept aside, and Britain was committed in the Balfour Declaration to the facilitation of a "national home" in Palestine for Jews. There was no commitment to a state. However, public comment immediately focused on a Jewish state as the ultimate result. Weizman artfully played his weak hand and retained British support as a fractious Jewish population began growing in Palestine.
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   Palestine was debated at the Peace Conference, but it was one of the many subsidiary matters put off for later resolution. "As so often happened in Paris, an issue that was to cause increasing trouble over the years was scarcely considered at all."
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  Unease and nationalism were already stirring among the Palestinian Arabs. Weizman attempted to establish cordial and cooperative relations with the Arabs and had meetings with Feisal in Palestine and London. They signed an agreement of cooperation on January 3, 1919. Feisal would support Jewish immigration to Palestine while the Zionists would support the independent Arab state presumably to be set up at the Peace Conference. Both the agreement and the independent Arab state vanished together.
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The commission reported back in September 1919 that the local Arabs were in emphatic opposition to the plans for a Jewish entity in their midst. The commission was ignored.

  Wilson viewed Zionist hopes favorably. He accepted a variety of rationalizations for not applying the principle of self-determination. However, he insisted on including Palestine in the jurisdiction of the American Middle Eastern commission. Inconveniently, it reported back in September 1919 that the local Arabs were in emphatic opposition to the plans for a Jewish entity in their midst. The commission was ignored.
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  At San Remo in April 1920, Britain and France settled the borders of Palestine and the British mandate along with so much else in the Ottoman territories. The Palestinian Arabs had not been represented, but they had made their objections known in riots against Jews two weeks earlier. The Zionists, too, had dreams of a Greater Israel. However, they were not given immigration rights into the territories west of the Jordan River - called "Transjordan" - which was given to Feisal's brother Abdullah.
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  As Arab opposition increased, many in Britain were having second thoughts. Britain had increasingly important interests to protect in the Middle East. The Royal Navy ran on Middle Eastern oil, and the routes to India ran through Suez. The struggle between Jews and Arabs in Palestine had begun.
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Atatürk:

Greece was clearly too small to defend all its claims.

The principle of self determination apparently didn't apply in the Middle East.

  The commission on Greek and Italian affairs declined to support either the Italian or the Greek claims along the Adriatic coast. On May 6, 1919, just before the Italians returned to the Peace Conference, the Big Three nevertheless authorized the Greeks to land troops in Smyrna. Henry Wilson, a British military expert, thought the whole idea mad. Pres. Wilson had come to dislike the Italians so much that he raised no objections. The principle of self determination apparently didn't apply in the Middle East.
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  When Greek troops landed on May 15, violent clashes quickly broke out between Greeks and Turks in the city and the surrounding countryside. Hundreds were killed. It was a disaster. Atatürk left Istanbul/Constantinople for the interior to organize the remnant of the Turkish army for resistance. Italians and Greeks were landing on the coast, Kurdish and Armenian slices were being carved out of western Turkey, Allied armies were rapidly demobilizing, and Atatürk's forces feeding off aroused Turkish nationalism soon were growing rapidly.
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  At first, the Allies knew nothing of what was going on deep in the Anatolian Plateau. On May 15, 1919, they continued their horse-trading - drawing lines on maps of hypothetical mandates. With Wilson's acquiescence, Turkey was partitioned.
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  Now it was Balfour who was aghast. So were Churchill, Montague and the British military. Lord Curzon sent one memo after another warning that the whole Muslim world - including Muslims in India - would rise against them. On May 19, Wilson and Lloyd George had second thoughts - not just about Italian and Greek claims but about French claims as well. The rupture between Lloyd George and Clemenceau was dramatic but short lived. The treaty with Germany was more important and diverted their attention.
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  Wilson was tiring of the whole peacemaking enterprise and the sorting out of absurd claims put forth by puny states. However, he had accepted the notion that the U.S. should accept responsibility for some key mandates in the Middle East. Of course, these would have been for some of the nastier areas - Constantinople, the Armenian region, and perhaps even Palestine - all without a drop of oil.
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The British concentrated their efforts on the basics: protecting their position in Mesopotamia. That's where the oil was.

  When Wilson returned to the U.S., he failed to gain ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and the League Covenant and fell ill. The U.S. mandates were nonstarters in any event. They were rejected by the U.S. Senate in May, 1920. Atatürk and the nationalists controlled much of the interior from a capital at Ankara by the beginning of 1920. Soon, Italy and even France became more interested in relations with Turkey and possible business opportunities than mandates. They started collaborating with the Turks.
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  Lord Curzon was anxious to establish relations with Atatürk, but Lloyd George dithered. An incoherent British military effort in the Caucasus was withdrawn as Bolshevik forces pushed south. The small Caucasian states - Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan - were left to their fate in their dangerous neighborhood. They continued squabbling with each other even as the Bolsheviks approached.
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  The Turks began cooperating with the Bolsheviks and soon reclaimed their Armenian and Kurdish regions. They established the border with the Bolsheviks that remains the border today. Joseph Stalin negotiated for the Bolsheviks. The British concentrated their efforts on the basics: protecting their position in Mesopotamia. That's where the oil was.
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  The Turks in Ankara derisively rejected the agreements signed at San Remo in April 1920, and kept building their forces. Despite strenuous warnings from the foreign office and almost every British official in Turkey, Lloyd George persisted in backing the Greeks in Smyrna. In June 1920, he supported a Greek offensive into the interior.
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By September, 1922, Atatürk was in Smyrna, and more than a million Greeks from ancient settlements all around Turkey became refugees.

  The Greek army penetrated 250 miles into the interior by August, and had successes in Thrace. The allies signed the Treaty of Sevres with the old Sultan in Istanbul/Constantinople, but he had no influence anywhere anymore. Allied military advisors estimated that it would take 27 divisions to enforce the treaty.
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  Kurdish tribes decided that they preferred the Turks to the British. His northern and eastern flanks secure, Atatürk turned on the Greeks to the west and the French to the south. In October, 1921, the French signed a treaty with Atatürk and withdrew from Turkey. In August, 1922, Atatürk shattered the Greek forces that by that time were incredibly stretched 400 miles inland.
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  The grandiose dream of a Greater Greece was revealed to be a disaster for the Greeks. By September, 1922, Atatürk was in Smyrna, and more than a million Greeks from ancient settlements all around Turkey became refugees. Many who were forced back to Greece no longer spoke Greek. Greek Smyrna disappeared, along with the dreams of a Greater Greece. The enmity between Greece and Turkey remains to this day.
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  The British found no Allied support for holding on to Istanbul/Constantinople and the Straits. The Greek government had already fallen, and in November 1922 it was the turn of the Lloyd George government. Bonar Law became Prime Minister and sent Curzon to negotiate peace with the Turks at Lausanne. Mussolini represented the Italians, and this time there was a representative from the Bolsheviks. Inönü Ismet represented the Turks. Ismet simply insisted on full sovereignty. Now it was the Turks that had an army in Turkey and the Allies that had none. In July 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne gave him what he wanted. 

The Treaty of Versailles:

The "stab in the back" myth was beginning its noxious career.

  German disillusion with Wilson and his 14 points was instant and extensive. Even though Germany had transformed itself into a republic, it was to bear the blame for starting the war, pay vast as yet undetermined reparations, lose its colonies and 13% of its territory and 10% of its population and most of its merchant fleet. Germany would initially be left out of the League of Nations. The Saar, the Rhineland, the Polish Corridor, German disarmament and many other restrictive provisions vexed them.
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  Already, Germans were questioning whether they had really lost the war or had actually been lured into an Armistice under the false pretense that the peace treaty would be based on Wilson's 14 points. The "stab in the back" myth was beginning its noxious career.
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  The infamous "war guilt" clause was a standard clause accepted without objection by Austria and Hungary, MacMillan points out. Its purpose was technical - to establish German liability for reparations. But Germany interpreted it in broader terms and strenuously disputed it. However, the Allies were committed to it as the basis for reparations.

  "And so Article 231, a clause that the young John Foster Dulles helped to draft as a compromise over reparations, became the great symbol of the unfairness and injustice of the Treaty of Versailles in Weimar Germany, in much subsequent history -- and in the English-speaking world."

  Hoover, Keynes and Smuts, discussing the Treaty in a chance meeting, all agreed that the Treaty would be a disaster. Sec of State Lansing vehemently declared it "immeasurably harsh and humiliating" with many terms "incapable of performance." A dozen young members of the American delegation resigned, calling the Treaty a violation of Wilson's principles. Their objections were submitted to the press. There were similar feelings in the British delegation and second thoughts were spreading in the English population.
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The French feared that, without the Rhine as a defensible border, Germans would soon again by advancing across France.

A weak and possibly revolutionary Germany in Central Europe was not in British interests. 

  The Germans sent a detailed reply based on the 14 points. Lloyd George, too, was having second thoughts. A weak and possibly revolutionary Germany in Central Europe was not in British interests. The British public would not support too harsh a treaty. At a meeting with Smuts, Austen Chamberlain, Churchill and Montague among several others, Lloyd George was urged to make drastic  changes in the Treaty. "It was moderation that saved South Africa for the British Empire" after the Boer War, he was reminded by Gen. Botha.
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  But Clemenceau would not - indeed politically could not - budge, and Wilson was dismayed at the thought of making major revisions at this late date. Wilson was anxious to end the Conference and get home. He, too, would not budge. The one major concession was to determine the fate of upper Silesia by plebiscite. Except for some other minor changes, the terms remained unchanged. The Germans departed without signing the Treaty.
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The nationalists in the assembly agreed on a resolution recognizing the patriotism of the new hastily formed government.

  General Foch prepared to send 42 divisions crashing into central Germany. The British prepared to renew their blockade. On June 21, the German admiral in charge of the fleet delivered to Scapa Flow scuttled his ships, sending 400,000 tons to the bottom. A divided German cabinet resigned. The head of the German delegation - Brockdorff-Rantzou of illustrious lineage - resigned. As ambassador to Moscow in 1922, he would arrange close ties between Germany and the Soviet Union.
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  However, Pres. Ebert was persuaded to stay on. An onslaught from vengeful French and Polish armies along two fronts would ravage the German economy and possibly shatter the nation into its constituent parts. The German army, too, feared the consequences. The nationalists in the assembly agreed on a resolution recognizing the patriotism of the new hastily formed government. At the last moment, Germany accepted the Treaty of Versailles as written. The protocol on the administration of the Rhineland and the treaty with Poland were signed at the same time.
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  There were celebrations throughout Paris. The German nationalists would soon forget their resolution and attack the patriotism of the government.
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  To MacMillan, the Treaty was a mixed bag. The peacemakers "had to deal with reality, not with what might have been." Their power to influence the future was quite limited. The leaders of the future would have much more to say about the course of events than they.

• No matter how moderate the Treaty terms, Hitler would have been no less ambitious and vicious, MacMillan correctly points out..

  More moderate terms might have left the Weimar government economically and politically stronger. Even as it was, Hitler's political victory was no sure thing. An economically successful Germany would probably not have fallen prey to Hitler. However, the trade war initiated by the U.S. during the 1920s probably did more damage to the German economy than the Treaty of Versailles.

• The reparations were never so onerous as asserted, and half were expressly subject to German ability to pay.

  The trade war initiated by the U.S. in 1922 made it impossible for Germany and the dollar debtors in Europe to earn the wherewithal to pay their regular dollar debts, much less make reparations payments. Germany was not the only European nation to experience severe financial difficulties in the 1920s. See, James, "End of Globalization."

• Germany was ready to impose far harsher terms on its conquests than were imposed on Germany.

  True - but irrelevant to the question of what should have been done - for the best long run interests of the Allies themselves. The massive benefits of magnanimity towards defeated adversaries was proven by the U.S. in its treatment of Germany and Japan after WW-II. At tremendous cost, the U.S. had learned some essential lessons.

  The peacemakers actually accomplished a great deal in Europe. Most of the new states came into existence by people creating facts on the ground that the peacemakers perforce had to recognize. However, the peacemakers successfully imposed boundaries on them and blocked many of their grander ambitions. Treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Turks were produced. Many of the borders established remain to this day despite continuing disagreement on all sides with the results.
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  There were many loose ends, of course, especially around the ill defined borders of the Soviet Union. The decisions concerning the Ottoman Empire came apart quickly with respect to Turkey - especially with the disastrous decision to permit the Greek incursion. The borders of the mandates in the Middle East and Africa became the borders of modern states and a source of much trouble and misery for subject peoples. The groups that grabbed control were often minorities themselves and used the power of state government to rule by terror over subject groups.

  Amazingly, most of these borders still remain in effect - improbably withstanding the test of time. For each nation's dominant group, they automatically satisfy the desire for a "Greater" polity.

  Among Wilson's 14 points were several not even partially addressed.

• Freedom of navigation even during wartime: This would have taken away Britain's strategic advantage and was a nonstarter. It epitomizes the unreality of much of Wilson's thinking.
• Free trade: British free trade policies, joined by a farsighted Wilson administration, were essential for world prosperity and peace. Free trade policies have been an essential component of the highly successful post-WW-II policies of the U.S. However, Wilson's free trade policy was heedlessly thrown away by the protectionist Republican Congresses of the 1920s. While the Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the tariffs, they did little to remove them during the New Deal of the 1930s. Tariff levels had declined by about 20% by 1940, but primarily because of the impact of inflation on the nominal tariffs. The reciprocal trade agreements had had minimal impact.
• Arms reduced and limited to the needs of domestic safety: This is more proof of the extent to which several of Wilson's ideals were divorced from reality. It takes scores of nations to make peace, it only takes one to make war.
• Colonialist administration constrained by what is in the best interests of the subject peoples. This was an ideal a couple of generations ahead of its time.
• Sovereignty for the Turks and autonomy for the subject peoples within the Ottoman Empire:  Turkey would have to win its sovereignty by force of its arms. "Autonomous development" for other Ottoman Empire peoples would not be furthered by the Peace Conference.

  Wilson's other points have been referred to in the body of this review. See, MacMillan, "Paris 1919" Part I, "Reordering Europe," and Keynes, "The Consequences of the Peace," to be reviewed in November.