The Paris Peace Conference: everything you wanted to know | History Extra
"‘Particular attention was given to the American President Woodrow Wilson. This is the first time that an American president in had that actually left the shores of the United States… the peace conference delegations, many of them were huge, the American one was over 100, the British one was also very big. Other countries were much smaller. But there was obviously a very important social side, if you like. It was Paris after all. So there was a lot of there was dancing, there was wining visit, visits out to those countryside around Paris. And because there were so many Allied leaders and powerful men there for so long, and unable to go back home, of course, they couldn't Skype home at that stage, and they couldn't get on an aeroplane and get back to United States in eight hours, they had to go on a ship. So they were in effect, they were marooned there. Though Wilson does go back for a month in February and March of 1919. And, but they were able to act as some ways as a kind of world government. They were making executive decisions about the problems that the world was facing at a very turbulent time, as well as if you like acting as legislators and drawing up the peace treaties. So they're having to decide what to do about near starvation conditions in Germany, in large parts of Europe, about Russian Civil War, and so on. So I think that that gives you some some idea of that huge size and complexity of this event...
‘How proportional in comparison to similar treaties such as the Brest-Litovsk treaty, was it viewed at the time?’
‘It wasn't as harsh as the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, which is the treaty that the Germans and their partners the Austrians imposed on Soviet Russia in March of 1918. Don't forget that in Eastern Europe, the Germans and Austrians actually won the war. They defeated the Russian Empire, the old Tsarist Russian regime was overthrown. So they signed a peace treaty, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Bolsheviks in March of 1918. This involved about 1/3 of European Russian territory being handed over. Not annexed by Austria and Germany, but turned into buffer states under German and Austrian control. For example, in the Ukraine, which we already mentioned, in Poland, the Baltic states, what's now Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and down in the Caucasus region as well, in Georgia. And so there, not only was a large amount of territory handed over, but so were Russia’s, many of Russia's richest agricultural lands in the Ukraine. And its, its coal, it's coal producing areas and its most important oil field in Baku, so that, that was actually, whether you look at it economically or demographically, that was a harsher resettlement, than was imposed on Germany in 1919. And there were also substantial reparations imposed on Russia, but they weren't called reparations. That, that treaty remained remains in force until it's overthrown by the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War. And the Allies intervened in Russia after the war, but, but in the end, the intervention was abandoned. The treaty of Brest-Litovsk, its terms were public, they're well known.
There was another very harsh treaty signed by the Central Powers with Romania, in Bucharest in May of 1918, which places the Romanian oil fields and much of their cereal production, their cereal harvest under the control of the Central Powers. These precedents were public, they were well known about. And they were used by Allied spokespersons to say that the Treaty of Versailles terms were not actually all that harsh in comparison, comparative perspective... Once you get into the detail of the treaty and read the clauses carefully, you see that it's actually much more flexible than is commonly supposed. For example, I've mentioned that the Rhineland occupation could be either prolonged beyond 15 years or shortened to less than 15 years depending on Germany's compliance with it. So if the, if the Germans behaved themselves, putting it from the allied perspective, then the treaty could be moderated. And Woodrow Wilson was particularly concerned to give a large role in the treaty to the League of Nations, the League of Nations could have a revising role and make it more moderate if the Germans became, like a reliable partner of the Western, Western Atlantic democracies...
The Treaty of Versailles terms are largely implemented in the 1920s. And there's enough in them to make it impossible for Germany to start another major war, particularly the disarmament clauses, those are absolutely crucial, which limit Germany to an army of 100,000 men, no conscription, no air force, no u-boats, no tanks, no poison gas, no general staff, so they can't produce another war plan, like the Schlieffen Plan. And that's mostly put into effect in the 1920s. In addition, there's an Allied occupation of the Rhineland, and the Germans are permanently prevented from garrisoning or fortifying the Rhineland, their western border, so their main industrial area around the Ruhr, Essen with its crook [sp?] armaments works and so on. All of that is potentially exposed to allied attack. So there's enough in the treaty to make it impossible for Germany to start another European war. Hitler is aware of that when he becomes German chancellor in 1933. He doubts if Germany can even raise, face a war against Poland, let alone against Britain or France or Soviet Russia. So that's one answer, that there's, the problem is in other words, that the Treaty of Versailles is not enforced, that the disarmament clauses are challenged by the Germans and the Germans are in effect, break out of them in the early 1930s...
The problem is the Treaty of Versailles isn't enforced. So we need to look at why that happens. And part of a large part of the responsibility actually lies with Britain… the British hoped even in 1919, that they wouldn't have a long term military commitment on the continent of Europe. That's something that very powerfully influences David Lloyd George and the British delegation, the peace conference, that they they're worried, for example, they might have to have permanent conscription in Britain, which would be very unpopular. Remember conscription had been a big and very contentious issue during World War One.
They're also worried about the cost. All of the allied countries except America and Japan, end the World War with with huge balance of payments deficits and budget deficits. So they're worried about the financial costs and the conscription costs, and whether the British public will continue to sustain such a commitment. That's one of the fundamental reasons for the difference between the British and the French. That the French accept that they’re going to have to have a long term commitment to keep Germany weak, that the treaty, the Germans are not going to voluntarily accept the treaty, the, you will have to have a continuing element of coercion. The French understand that very well, the British don't, the British perception was that you might be able to moderate the treaty to a point where the Germans could voluntarily accept it. In that case you wouldn't need to keep, if you like imposing your will, and insisting on the Germans staying disarmed and keep keep troops in their Rhineland, and so on… one of the key issues here is that the Americans retreat back into isolationism…
The Americans don't give the British and French the economic and financial help the British and French had also been hoping for us and the Russians, of course, with reasons we've seen, if anything to cooperate with Germany in the 1920s, the Italians and Japanese get antagonized from the Allied leaders at the Peace Conference, the Americans retreat back into isolationism. This means whether the treaty is going to be enforced depends very largely on Britain and France. And the British feel like their heart isn't in it from the beginning. The British, very, very quickly, the view develops in Britain that the problem is the French. that the French are insisting on too harsh demands. And this is this is causing a continuing inflammation of German nationalism and making it impossible for Europe to settle down and become stable. So if you like the French have to make the concessions. That's that's, I think, is the prevailing influence and view, the shapes British foreign policy for much of the 1920s and goes on, of course, in an enhanced form continued after the end of the Weimar Republic’...
‘Did the peacemakers or the Allied powers after 1945 learn any lessons from what had happened with the Paris Peace Conference?’
‘They tried to. For example, reparations. After 1945 or Soviets in a similar position to the one that the French had occupied after 1918, and so it's the ones have been invaded and devastated. a huge loss of life. So the Soviets want high reparations to be imposed on Germany after 1946. The Americans, one of the American delegates, American experts says that this will be like a cow where the Americans are feeding Germany from the western end, and the Russians are milking it from the eastern end. So there's a similar disagreement actually, between the Americans who wanted low reparations after World War One disagreed with the French about that, and with the British. After World War Two, again, the French want lower reparations. And that time around, of course, there's simply a breakdown on the whole question of reparations, which is one of the reasons why there is no German peace treaty in 1946, or 1947. But the victorious powers just can't agree on it.
What happens instead, and I think here, the Americans are learning if you like more constructive lessons is the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan provides the sort of aid package that the Dawes plan and Young plan in the 1920s had not done. This is from the American state, American federal government. It's not from American private lenders. So it's not dependent on what happens at Wall Street... the other thing to say, we don't know the full details of this. But the key difference, after 1945 in many ways is the Soviets are able to provide on their own the long term coercion of Germany for 40 years, until 1989, the Soviets keep, keep Germany divided. Keep it occupied, military forces in the middle of Germany, and Berlin, of course, separated from the rest of Western Germany. Germany, if you like is kept down and kept weak and impossible for it to start a new war until the point where the Germans have actually changed. Where the German mentality changes in a way that it never did in the 1920s. And we hope permanently. That situation is created in which there's a stable German, rely, reliable German partner, for both for both the western side and the eastern side, which is one of the reasons why in the end, Gorbachev feels he could take the risk of allowing Germany to be reunified.'"
