Transcripts For CSPAN3 1919 Paris Peace Conference 20240712

Really a terrific event we have had so far and thank you for being with us. I know there is a lot of excitement, as there ought be about this evenings conversation, so thank you for taking time to be here. We are so delighted to have professor Margaret Mcmillan with us. Thank you so much for traveling to be with us. Who else but to help us with that is better equipped than Margaret Mcmillan, emmert as professor of history at the university of toronto. She serves in many and varied roles. Trustee at the Central University and more recently at the Imperial War Museum. Might i offer that we are second only here at the National World war i museum to the Imperial War Museum in terms of history. They began collecting in 1917. We began collecting in 1920. We are further delighted they are having their world war ii galleries reinstalled by the gallery designers of the National World war i museum and memorial. They are very wise i might say. Margarets research specializes in British Imperial history and the International History of the 19th and 20th centuries. She has written many publications and books. I do not want to list those. One of which is particularly pertinent to the topic tonight, paris 1919 6 months that changed the world. Which puts her in a position of authority to have the conversation with us this evening. She has been awarded with many distinguished prizes and awards. Gave the bbcs 2018 lectures on war and humidity, which explored the tangled history and complicated feelings toward it and those who fight. Which is short to say that ladies and gentlemen, we are in the presence of an historical rockstar tonight. [laughter] from 1975 to 2002, she was a member of the History Department at the university of toronto where she served as chair. She serves on various boards and editorial groups that focus on history and world war i studies. Honorary fellow at saint held his college at oxford and has received recognition from a number of academic institutions may being awarded honorary doctorates. In 2006, professor mcmillan was invested as an officer in the order of king order of canada. For americans, that is a very distinguished award. She was appointed as companion of the order of canada. 2018, the queens new years honest list. Appointed the companion of honor for service to Higher Education and history and international affairs. Sort of a big deal. [laughter] after professor mcmillan has given her lecture, there will be an opportunity for question and answers. Laura will facilitate that. We have some microphones. We invite you to move to those and frame your questions. If you would prefer to ask from where you were, indicate so and laura will help facilitate that. It was almost five years ago we had the honor of welcoming dr. Mcmillan to our auditorium stage. Once again, we have the opportunity to do so again and we could not be more pleased. The excitement is evident when you started together. It is palpable. If you have not read paris 1919 6 months that changed world, we encourage you to do so. The bookstore tomorrow will be open. You might want to take a copy with you. Tonight, she will expand on that topic, on the research she has undertaken and present the thesis of her argument. Please join with me in welcoming our keynote speaker, dr. Margaret mcmillan. [applause] that was extremely kind. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think that is an example of the commonwealth sticking together. It was much too kind. Thank you very much for that introduction. Many thanks to the war museum for inviting me back. This is my third visit here. I have enjoyed everyone. I tell everyone they must come to kansas city and see your museum and your beautiful city. It is almost becoming a family thing. I gathered my nephew was here last fall. The rest of the family might be following along. We have both been so enthusiastic. This is a good time 100 years later. Anniversaries can be useful for looking back. What happened at the end of the first First World War is something that has shaped the history of the 20th century and the world in which we live. I think it is useful to use anniversaries to think about what that means, what those great events of the past meant and what they might mean for us today. I think it is quite right in your title you put 1919 peace, question mark. There is a view widely shared that what happened in paris 1919, this was the great peace conference. To try to set a structure for a lasting peace after 1919. What happened in paris after 1919 has often been blamed for the outbreak of the Second World War. There is a simple version of history, which is that the statesman and they were all pretty much men in those days, they met in paris in 1919. Made such a mess of things that europe moved down a tramway with no escape to 1939. I myself find that much too simple. My short answer to people who say, doesnt 1919 lead directly to 1939 is, what was everyone doing in those 20 years . An awful lot can happen in 20 years. Europe and the world face an awful lot of choices. Perhaps the most influential book in creating that view of 1919 as the doomed peace attempt that set in motion the it events of the events of 1939 is the book of john maynard keynes. Was not well known and a very confident. I should point out he went to cambridge university. [laughter] so we are not surprised by that. He was in paris as an Economic Advisor to the british delegation. He got fed up with what he felt were the mistakes they were making. He was also going through something of a personal crisis in his life. He went back to england in the summer of 1919 and wrote a book, which took him six weeks. It is a polemic it is a a polemic. It is a successful polemic and has been translated into many languages. It has a. Rather dull title. It is called the economic consequences of the peace. If you read the book, it is condemning everything going on in paris. Let me read you a little bit of it to give you the flavor. Paris was a nightmare and everyone there was morbid. A sense of impending catastrophe overhung the frivolous scene. The futility and smallness of man for the great event confronting him. The mingled insignificance and unreality of the decisions. Levity, blindness, confused crying without. All the elements of ancient tragedy where there. The statesman, he claimed in this book, were hypocritical or subtle and dangerous spellbinder is engaged in empty intrigue. The treaty of versailles, a treaty with germany, which was probably the most difficult to negotiate and helped to set the template for other treaties, the treaty of versailles was imbecile greed, oppression, dishonorable, ridiculous and injurious. He wrote devastating portraits of the three key statesman who were at the center of the decisions they made in paris. The french Prime Minister pretrade he portrayed as an angry ape who sat in his chair thinking only of revenge on germany. Woodrow wilson he pretrade as a booby he portrayed as a booby. In england, they call a blind mans bluff. You put a scarf around someones eyes and they do not know which direction they are going. This is how he described wilson. Naive and foolish, being spun around by the devious europeans. The british Prime Minister he portrayed as half man and half goat who came out of the welsh myths with. No moral sense whatsoever his mother made him take some of the ruder passages out. This was a powerful piece of work. It helped to set a picture of what happened in paris as being futile and dangerous, condemning europe and the world to a Second World War. I will not deny that not all the decisions in paris were good. They did make mistakes in their division of the arab territories in the middle east and the treatment of the Ottoman Empire. They showed a carelessness and shortsightedness, which has really caused problems from much of the 20th century. I do not want to defend everything that happened, but i want to say that we need to understand what it was they were dealing with. When we write history and when we look at history, we must ask ourselves, what would we do if we were in that situation . What would we be facing . It is all very well and say, they should have known there was a young german corporal called adolf hitler who was going to seize on the treaty of versailles and help him and his nazi party get into power. What we always have to remember when we write history and we think about history is what people had to deal with at the time. How much power did they have, what constraints did they have, what is it that they were dealing with . I think we need to look at the paris peace conference, which came at the end of a great catastrophe and try to understand what the circumstances were. What i would like to do is make a few general points about wars. Ending wars is never easy, especially if those wars have been great and the level of destruction has been very high. Apart from anything else, the greater the war, the greater the expectations and the greater the desire someone or something should pay for what happened. This was certainly the case at the end of the First World War. The war had shocked europe and had shocked most of the world partly because the 19th century had been such a good century for europe. Europe had known terrible wars in its history. Most centuries had been marked a wars in europe. The 19th century was one of the most peaceful and prosperous and progressive centuries in european history. Perhaps the most peaceful, prosperous and progressive europe had ever known. There had been a number of short wars in the 19th century after the napoleonic wars ended in 1915. 1815. Those wars were short. They were usually fought between two countries like the francoprussian war or the war between prussia and austria. The usually resulted in a clear result and peace was reestablished. Europeans had come to think by the beginning of the 20th century they had somehow changed and they were going to go on living in a Peaceful World and they were going to go on building peaceful and progressive and prosperous societies. That this piece and progress was going to spread around the world. We look back and say helpful how foolish that was, but this is something any people were thinking before 1914, which made the shock of the First World War all the more greater. A war they had hoped would be sure and decisive, after four years of a dreadful war, a look at the lives that had gone. 9 million men, possibly more. Mostly it was meant in the First World War it was men in the First World War. The loss of human potential, the loss of human talent, money that had been gone, the empires that had gone. Three great empires disappeared as a result of the First World War. Russia, which was an empire as well as the state fell to pieces in the course of the russian revolution. Austriahungary, the huge multinational empire at the center of europe, which had created stability toward the centuries, fell to pieces. Germany, which had been an empire. Many polish lands fell. To pieces in the months just after, the Ottoman Empire was going to fall to pieces and disappear as well. It was a very different political and social landscape the europeans looked at in 1918 than they had seen in 1914. They had also shaken their position in the world. Before 1914, europe had been the most powerful part of the world. Directly or indirectly, European Countries had controlled most of the world. European finance was what you needed a few wanted to build anything. If you wanted money, you came to europe. If you wanted fashion ideas, you came to europe. By 1918, the europeans no longer had that sense that their civilization was superior. In addition to all the other things it had done, the warhead the war had shaken european confidence. The great french writer and thinker said something is broken and we will never be quite the same again. Will be like those other empires of the past that disappeared. Names now that mean nothing like babylon. Lee know what it is going to be like to go into the abyss of history. When that war ended, with, ended, there is the sense of doom and a worry that the war was ended but the fighting had not ended. As we heard this afternoon, fighting went on in the center of europe and much of the middle east till the mid1920s. There was also the fear the social upheavals, which had taken place in russia, will going to spread westwards and that european societies will going to be swept away. That was part of the atmosphere in which the peace conference met. What also affected the decisions of those put tremendous pressure on the peacemakers because they worried unless they sorted things out soon, things might get much worse. Unless they dealt with some of the pressing issues in europe, they would see more of people. More. What also put pressure on the peacemakers was their own public. This was a conference engaged in by democratic powers. They were having to think of the next election. At the congress of vienna, which had taken place 100 years previously, to wind up the napoleonic wars, that is not something the peacemakers had to worry about. They represented on it represented oligarchies and monarchies and had fewer people to answer to. The pressure was much less than they were going to be in paris. What the public wanted was not always compatible. The public wanted someone to pay and someone to take responsibility for the war. The french felt strongly about this. Often in the literature it is said how unreasonable the french were. We need to remember the french had been invaded twice by German Forces in the lifetimes of many people. In 1870, the German Confederation had invaded france. Nasty battles had been fought on french soil. France had been defeated had to pay a large fine. Germany had declared war on france. And invaded france in 1914. The french did not start the First World War with germany. The german started it with france. Most of the war on the western front was fought on french soil or belgian soil. The war was not for on german soil. The damage that was done by that were and i am sure many of you have been to the western front where you can see that damage. The damage had been done to belgium and france. Done to their economies. Belgium was stripped bare. Much of its agriculture and wealth. Belgian historians will tell you belgium has never really recovered from the german occupation. The war in france was far in would have been the most industrialized parts of france. French factories were destroyed. So like 40 of french Production Capacity was destroyed in the fighting in the First World War. French mines, french bridges. You can understand why the public looked over at germany, which was largely unscathed by the war, which the infrastructure and not suffer that damage and said, they can y should we pay why should we pay them as done plot to do the demo published to pay for the damage which germany has done to us . The British Public felt much the same. So did the american public. Woodrow wilson was worried about what he felt to be the antigerman feeling among the american public. The pressure he felt to inflict a harsh peace on germany. Allies wanted someone to pay. Oneone they thought germany was the proper government. Payoff to hungry to pay austriahungary had fallen to pieces. Only kind of walk. It was noit was longer in. It was no longer an empire line, only a tiny austria. Countries that did not see themselves as being on the losing side. The Ottoman Empire was not able to pay anything. Bulgaria was not able to pay. Germany was. There was a desire on the part of the public, which put real pressure on statesmen in paris to get something out of germany. You also had a willingness and a longing. It was not just allied publics. It was also in the wider world. It was in asia, africa, north america. A desire that out of this dreadful war which had caused such suffering, whose consequences were so momentous, that out of this war, Something Better should come. What allied publics and other publics wanted was a new world. A new peaceful order. Some sort of institutions or ways of doing things that would prevent the world from having a war like this ever again. Statesmen had been pushed in different directions. They had to think of their own national interest. It is a commonplace letter and important one that at the end of coalition wars, the coalitions tend to fall apart once peace is achieved. Nations will come together in a great cause to save themselves from destruction or defeat an enemy or conquer other nations, once they have achieved those goals, they tend to think of their own interests and the coalitions begin to fall to pieces. We saw that clearly at the end of the First World War and the end of the Second World War. Inevitably, the powers in paris began to think of their own interest. The french were thing of their own security. If you are french, you knew germany was still strong. It was on the other site of your borders. There were more germans being born every year than there were french, which meant there were more german soldiers. You wanted protection as much as you wanted germany to pay for the war damage. What the british wanted was an end to the german fleet, which had caused so much concern before the First World War. They had already got that by the time the conference met. When the germans signed the armistice, they had surrounded their fleet and the submarine fleet. Britishe in riches ports. The parts of the British Empire had wanted german colonies and had gotten hold of those before the peace conference started. The british unlike the french could come to the peace conference not really asking for all that much for themselves and were able to betray themselves as less selfish and less grasping than the french were. And then you had the United States. The night states has not come into this war to fight for itself. It very pointedly called itself an associate and not an ally to show it was somehow different from the european powers. What the United States was a better world. I think United States was also conscious of its new economic and financial and military power and wanted a greater say in world affairs. And so you get Different National goals and national interests. I also think what was putting pressure on the peacemakers was this sense that time was not on their side. That if they were not careful, time was going to run out. This very real sense of revolution simply spreading through. They had worrying evidence. Hungary had its communist government for six month in 1919. There were leftwing insurrections, armed and violent insurrections in italy, the center of europe. There was a strike in winnipeg of all places. Canadians tend not to get involved in revolutionary activity, but we had a general a lot ofhich concerned people because it had very radical rhetoric and was inspired by what was happening in russia. There was a fear that the world was on the edge of revolution. Another pressure that the peacemakers faced was that they were on the edge of starvation or parts were. They found themselves having to act as a world government in ways they had not intended because conditions in the center of europe were disastrous. When austriahungary and other empires fell to pieces, economics fell to pieces. Vienna, which used to get coal from the north, used to get wheat from the east, suddenly found there were barriers now poland orwas czechoslovakia. New borders were put up. There was a much larger romania and independent hungary. It was more difficult to get the sorts of things the viennese economy needed. And the red cross, which was doing relief in vienna in the winter of 1918, said people were starving. They were seeing illnesses among children they never expected to see in europe, illnesses caused by lack of food. Things like rickets, which they associated with poorer countries. There was this sense that they had to take on responsibilities. They had to move quickly. What was also happening is they were dealing with very powerful forces. The First World War did not end and not suddenly result in peace. In addition to revolutionary socialism, which were very strong. These were forces people would fight and die for. They were difficult to contain. The other force they were dealing with as we heard this afternoon was nationalism. Nationalism, ethnic nationalism in particular in the center of europe was beginning to spread through the middle east with emotions and feelings people are prepared to die for and fight for. The fall of the empire is meant the different ethnic groups, which had been pushing for greater autonomy suddenly saw the prison doors had opened and they could establish their own countries. What a lot of these different groups thought, if we do not do it now, things will calm down and we will not have a chance to get our own countries. You had ferocious ethnic nationalism trying to mark themselves on the map. Poland was reconstituting itself. People often talk as if the peace conference recreated poland and made czechoslovakia and yugoslavia. They were making themselves on the ground often through fighting with their neighbors because one of the difficulties of the ethnic nationalisms began appearing was that their claims overlapped. They based their claims so often on history. Country borders had come and gone in the past and that meant of the borders. We would often be choosing borders that Incorporated Land someone else wanted. In poland, there was a debate between those who said we should settle for a reasonably sized poland such as what we had at the end of the 18th century and there were those who said lets go back to the polish with the commonwealth. This caused trouble. It was going to be the source of a number of wars that were going to break out. You can imagine what a country such as greece did. Greece and italy went back into the classical age. The greeks looked at their maps from the classical age and said, we once controlled the coast of asia minor. All of those islands istanbul, constantinople. We control the whole swath around the black sea. That is what was happening in 1919 as people began to see the possibility of expanding their borders. The final thing and there were many other things, with the final thing we have to remember when we think of what those statesmen were trying to deal with was that their own power was shrinking. These were representing very powerful countries. Some of the most powerful countries in the world were in paris. Japan was there. China was there. Thailand was there appeared a china thailand was there. A number of latin american countries. Other European Countries. Countries which were really coming independent within the British Empire like my own country, canada. The real power was with britain , france, and the United States. Italy and japan were seen as slightly jr. Partners. That represented a lot of power. It wasnt unlimited. There is always a danger that powerful nations have. They look at their own power and think they can do what they want. They think they can reach out and adjust the pieces on the maps. Those pieces will stay put and of course they dont. The power the allies had was shrinking. They had built massive armies and navies and the beginnings of air forces to fight the war. Once the war ended and as far as allied publics were concerned, it ended in november 1918. Soldiers who had survived the war did not want to go on fighting. They did not want to be sent to places they had never heard of to fight the series of wars that were breaking out. Their families did not want them there. The treasuries did not want them there. The publics didnt want them there. The allies knew that they could not afford to keep these forces in the field. They could not depend on them. There were a number of mutinies as soldiers and sailors said, we want to go home. We do not see any point of staying here anymore. The capacity of the allies to influence what was happening was diminishing month by month as the peace conference dragged on. By june 1919, when the question of the german treaty came up whether or not germany would sign it, the allies and military advisors were concerned about whether or not they would be able to enforce the treaty on germany if germany refused to sign it. They found increasingly that their capacity to do what they wanted was limited. The famous occasion when large lord george was sitting around and there was fighting, between poland and railwayovakia over junctions and coal mines and so on. Poland and czechoslovakia were starting to fight about it. Lloyd george said this is dreadful. They called in the supreme allied commander and said, we have got to do something. He said, i will follow orders. Just tell me what to do, which is what he tended to say. They said you have to get troops over and stop the fighting. He said absolutely, but i do not think i can do it. The railways are not running and theres no way i can get troops over there. Theyll look at each other in consternation. George said, i have it. They turned with a certain amount of hope and said, we will send both sides extremely strong telegrams. [laughter] im just trying to get a sense give a sense of what it was they were dealing with in the context they were dealing with and the world in which they were dealing. This was not a world that was easy to settle. Things were changing very quickly. It was a world in which you had these forces, forces of revolutionary socialism. Forces of ethnic nationalism. Publics which were putting , terrific pressure on their governments, which were pressured to do contradictory things. They were dealing with a many great things at once. Many of the books written on the paris peace conference tend to assume assume it is the only way they can do it let there this polishe was question before the peacemakers. They were dealing with 10 Different Things a day. They were constantly getting petitions and demands coming in plus pressures from home to get a settlement quickly. I think if they made mistakes and of course they made mistakes it can at least partly be explained by the pressures under which they were dealing in the range of problems they were dealing. The congress of vienna was much quieter by comparison and they had a very clear agenda and they were able to sit down with the defeated nations. This is one of the great problems with the paris peace conference and one of the reasons the germans came to resent it. There was no negotiation between the winners and the losers in a paris. There was meant to be. The allies thought they would have a piece conference on the peace conference on the lines of the congress of vienna. They thought what they would do is they would meet weekly in paris in january 1919. They called it a preliminary peace conference until they realized they had slipped into the real thing. They would come up with some agreed terms which they would offer germany. They would all sit down as they had done in vienna and hammer out a settlement. It took them from january to may to get agreement on peace terms. There were so many issues and difficulties and so many moments when the peace conference looked to be breaking up. The italians were walking out. They were not getting everything they wanted. The chinese threatened to not sign the treaty and did not. The japanese were threatening to walk out. The belgians were saying they might walk out. By the time the allies agreed on the peace terms, they did not dare sit down with germany and reopen the discussions. It was to be something germany resented bitterly. From the allied point of view, it had been so difficult to get to this point they did not risk doing it. But they did is they cobbled together by may a peace treaty. There is the treaty of versailles and is probably the most difficult one other the treaty with the Ottoman Empire was going to be difficult. The treaty of versailles is the one most people remember and formed a template for the others. It is a very odd treaty. It is Something Like 440 causes. It was put together and no one actually read it through for before they sent it to the printers. What you get is everything from a very grand scheme. The first part of the treaty is the league of nations. That was something Woodrow Wilson had insisted upon and others had supported him. The first part of the treaty is the covenant. The founding document of the league of nations, which sets out how it is to be set up. Then you get a whole section on reparations germany was to pay. A whole section on disarmament which germany was meant to undertake. You also get some various other things about trying those who were. Guilty of starting the war. There was talk about trying the kaiser. There was talk about sending him into exile like they had done with napoleon. The british offered the falkland islands, which would have been interesting if he had gone there. In the end, that did not happen. It was a treaty that encompassed a vision for a better world that better world, but also the punishment and attempts to limit the power of germany in the future. But it also contained specific clauses. There was one clause about how the German Ethnographic Museum in berlin must handbag the skull of an african chief. It was a sort of grab bag into which foreign offices through things they had been brooding about for some time. It was understandable the germans were not going to be pleased by the process whereby the process or by the treaty they got. The attempt to build a better world was a genuine one. As has often been said that Woodrow Wilson came with his vision of the league of nations to europe bearing this gift of the promise of better world and the europeans simply spurned it. That is simply not how it was. Many europeans supported the league of nations. They knew very well what a war. What a war had done. You could see if you chose to, you could take a day trip north of paris to see what war had meant and see the destruction of war. A lot of europeans supported the league of nations every bit as much as americans did. Many of the ideas in the league of nations came from things europeans and others had been talking about before 1914, an attempt to build international law, an attempt for free trade, and attempt to form a league of nations. That would provide Selective Security for each other. These things had been mentioned as far back as 150 years previously. Immanuel kant had talked about a league of nations that would Work Together to make war impossible. I think the league was very real in the support that it gained. It was not a treaty that was going to satisfy germany. There were a number of reasons for this. I do not think it was that some of the treaty was unfair. There were things that germany rightly resented. It was supposed to stay in treaty setting up a league of nations, which it was not going to be allowed to join. It was not given a chance to negotiate the treaty. They handed the terms in late may 1919 and said, you have two weeks to look at it. You can put any reservations in writing. There will be no negotiations. That, i think, the germans resented. If you look at what germany lost in that treaty, it did lose its fleet, it did lose its colonies. They had already lost those by the time of the peace conference. It did lose territory in europe. Mostly territory inhabited by nongerman speakers. You could argue that germany did not lose all that much. You could also argue that germany came out of the First World War germans did not feel this but if you look back, you can see it. That germany came out in a stronger strategic position than it had before the First World War. After the First World War ended, there was no more common border between russia and germany. There was poland in between them. There was no austriahungary, which had been a rival to germany and had been an uncertain ally. It had fallen to pieces. What had once worried the german high command and with reason, which was the capacity of russia increasingly to move troops to the common border, that now had a barrier between germany and russia. Russia itself was plunged into a civil war. Part of the russian threat had been removed and instead of an austriahungary, there were a series of small nations. It was relatively easy for germany to playoff one against the other. It did not feel like that to germany at the time. What always matters is perception. I think the germans were not going to accept any treaty they were going to have to sign in 1919. In the end, of course they did sign it. They did not feel they had lost the war. Increasingly, they came to feel they had not started it either. Perception is very important in Human Affairs and international relations. The germans surrendered in 1918. If you look at the terms of the armistice of november the 11th, 1918, it is more than a ceasefire. It is more than conventional armistices. Germany lost all of its heavy equipment. They lost its submarine fleet. They lost its aircraft. It lost its submarine fleet. It lost its field artillery. As one said, could you please leave us a few machine gun. . We may need them in the revolution. It lost its capacity to make equipment. Obliged to move back into germany. As time went by, the high commander and others, supporters, began to argue germany had not lost and should not have signed the armistice. The background is that the high command had effectively established a military dictatorship by 1918. They had kept the german the civilian government and the german public in the dark about how germany was doing on the battlefield. It was beginning to fall back. German troops were increasingly finding it difficult to fight because they did not have the equipment they needed. There were desperate pleas from german officers in the field for generals german officers in the field for things like fuel, ammunition, guns. German regiments, battalions were understrength. Their numbers were being filled out by very young or quite old men. Germany was not able to fight on. The german armies after the august 8, 1918 were retreating back and back. There was a series of defeats. The high command suddenly turned to the civilian government and said, by the way, they never admitted they were wrong but they said things are not going that well. Can you get an armistice immediately. Please appealed to the american president. At the time, the german high command recognized it was being defeated and wanted to salvage something out of this. The civilian government appealed to Woodrow Wilson. He publicly with an exchange of notes, they came to an agreement for an armistice. The armistice was signed. The high command switched its tune and said we could have fought on. It was the civilian government that did not want to fight on. The same of ludendorff who had panicked and fled to sweden disguised in a funny hat and came back and said they are traitors at home. We could have fought on. Very ominously, he began and others of his supporters said that germany was stabbed in the back. It could have fought on at that had not been for this a billion but thoseilians civilians demonstrating against an increasingly futile war. Those enemies who had stabbed the in the back where were the socialists, the liberals and the jews. If you do not think you have lost the war, then you not think the treaty is going to be fair. Does anyone know someone who has gone to civil litigation in a court and came out saying the judge was absolutely fair. It was right that i lost and that i would have to pay fine. Germany, like anyone who loses who does not feel they should have lost, did not feel they had lost the war. What also began to happen was increasingly, germany and others began to feel germany had not started the war. The allies were clear in their own minds in paris in 1919 germany and its allies had started the war. It does begin to creep in in the englishspeaking countries that germany may be not really started the war. Maybe the war has been an accident or maybe the french had egged the russians on. The German Foreign ministry set up a special unit and funded organizations to attack the prevailing view germany had started the war. They invited academics, american academics in particular to look at archives that were carefully selected to show that germany had wanted peace. By the end of the 1920s, the view certainly in the englishspeaking countries was the war had not been germanys fault. It had been something that had happened in europe. It had been no ones fault or everyones fault. That undermined the treaty. It undermined the validity of the treaty. If germany had not started the war and had not lost of the war, why should it be paying reparations . Why should it be paying any form of recompense for the war . And so you get a treaty the party that signs it does not. Does not want to sign it. You get the allies who should have been enforcing it not wanting to enforce it. That is what helped to make the situation so difficult. What you also got were allies who felt they did not get everything they had wanted. The italians who had joined on the allied side came to call the peace the mutilated piece because they felt that they had not gotten what they wanted. That helped to fuel mussolinis rise to power. The peace settlements made in left behind a great deal of resentment and a great deal of satisfaction. The british, french and americans were going there separate ways. States did not ratify the treaty and did not join the league of nations and turned away from europe and began to preoccupy itself with what was going on in its own hemisphere and what was going on with japan and asia. The british turned to their empire and began to turn their backs on europe. That left the french feeling defenseless and worried about their security. They tried to find allies on the other side of germany in some of these new states, made germany feel surrounded and tended to reinforce the nationalistic feeling in germany. Having said that, that left all sorts of bitterness behind it, i think we can also look at the 1920s and see there were signs of hope. We have too much seen the 1920s as a brief breathing space before the disaster of the 1930s and the slide down to the Second World War. If you look at the if they had 1920s, lasted longer, i think you could see real signs of hope. Europe did get back on to an even footing. Revolution was contained. Democracy proved to be more resilient. By 1925, european production was back. Europeans were beginning to live reasonable and prosperous lives again. It did not mean in every country, and in germany, there were memories of the inflation. That proved to affect german Public Opinion. The league of nations did come into existence. It did not have the United States as a member. Nevertheless, it got up and running. It began to set up a number of institutions, which did do something to improve the international environment. The International Labor organization, International Health organization, International Organizations to deal with human slavery, many of which are still with us today. And did begin to make a good deal of progress. There was a lot of support for the league of nations around the world. In the united kingdom, there was a league of Nations Society which had Something Like 25 million members. There was something that people put a good deal of hope in. The lake also sponsored other countries sponsored disarmament conferences. There seemed to be progress in 1920s toward dealing with some of the things people felt had helped to cause the world war. The Washington Naval conference was very important in averting a naval conflict. They agreed voluntarily not to fortify certain islands. The league of nations sponsored disarmament conferences in geneva, which people hoped would lead toward getting rid of some of the weapons. It was in 1928, seen as a great sign of hope that United States and france came together to create the pact of paris named after the two men who created it in which those who signed on and eventually some 61 countries promised not to use war as an instrument of state. People thought we are making progress to setting up International Organizations, dealing with the scourge of arms races and too many weapons and trying to move beyond that and outlaw war. Germany settled down and became a participant in the international community. In 1925, it signed a series of agreements agreeing it would not change its borders in the west by force. Russia began to behave like an ordinary power. If you look around the world you , could see signs that things were getting back to some more stable order and that maybe the world was moving beyond what had existed in 1914. I think the real problem is that in 1929, you had the beginnings of the Great Depression. Without the Great Depression, without those years where production fell off, where world trade dwindled, where thousands of millions of people were thrown out of work, 25 or more of the American Labor force were thrown out of work. What those years did was shake peoples faith in capitalism and democracy and turned in countries toward more radical parties, which promised painless solution. It turned them toward the local the radical parties of the left and right. To look at the paris peace conference as something to go back to my original point that led directly to the Second World War, we need to look at what actually happened. We need to look at what happened in the 1920s and what happened with the Great Depression. We had a Second World War as we know. Even more dreadful and more farreaching in its effects than the First World War. After that work, we did get a after that war we did get a , sort of peace. We had no comprehensive settlement. You could argue that big piece conferences are the problem. After the Second World War the , defeated nations were treated even worse than they retreated then after the First World War. Germany and japan were obliged to surrender unconditionally. That was largely because the allies did not want any doubts about who lost and why. Did not want any doubts about who had lost and why. We do not hear complaints about the settlements at the end of the Second World War. We seemed to have moved on. What happened at the end of the First World War is seen as a bad example. I will not defend it all. I would like to leave you with a question. Are we any better at making peace today . Thank you. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, i know that youre used to a 10 minute period of q a, but you will notice it is a bit longer than that. I am not going to keep to my normal prussian scheduling. You know there are two microphones down here. It is firstcome, firstserved. Were looking forward to this continued conversation. On the prussian note, do want to say a few words on bavarian separatist movement . Did it have a chance at all . It is a good question. Bavarians feel themselves to be different from the rest of germany. The seven states that went into making up modern germany did not come in willingly. Prussia was the dominant one. It had the biggest and most dominant army. It was the dominant political and economic force. They felt they had little choice but to join in. Germany was formed in 1871. Those states did not come in willingly, but they felt they had no alternative. There was talk among the allies of reducing germany to its component states after 1918. 1919. The french thought this would be a good idea. Lloyd george, the british Prime Minister, and i think Woodrow Wilson agreed with them, said we had german nationalism caused turmoil in europe before germany finally became united. If we divide germany up, we will see the same thing happening again. German nationalism was a strong force. Even though you got a bavarian separate feeling, there was a strong german nationalism. I do not think bavarian separatism was that much of a force. The bavarians feel themselves to be different, but that is not the same as wanting to be independent again. German nationalism was a powerful force which affected all parts of germany. Wonderful talk. Thank you. I was wondering, i think it is a good point you make about the Great Depression being a turning point in the evolution of thought in europe and elsewhere about peace and war and everything. Im wondering, in our own era, we have seen trump. We have seen boris johnson. We have seen a turn toward nationalism and isolationism. I do not see a big earth shattering event like the Great Depression. I was wondering what you attribute this latest round of 1930s style nationalism and isolationism. We had something which could have been earth shattering. That was the 2008 financial crisis. Catastrophe was averted partly because governments had learned from the Great Depression. I think it is interesting that ben bernanke who played such a part in trying to negotiate the bailout of the banks had written his thesis on the Great Depression. It seems to me a good example of where history can be helpful. What they understood was they could not allow bankruptcy to take place. Brothers theyan , realized the whole situation. They realized it had to be international. What went wrong with the Great Depression is that governments adopted National Policies and any attempt to get an International Agreement to deal with the Great Depression failed. That made it much worse. What governments did is protect their own industries and agriculture, they put up tariff barriers, which meant world trade dropped off sharply and everyone suffered. What i think we are seeing today is what was happening before the war, perhaps a different thing and that is globalization. The period of the first world of was a great period isolation. Communications expanded enormously. Trade moved around the world. We think the internet is something extraordinary. Think what telegraphs meant. Suddenly you could find out what was happening on the other side of the world instantaneously. Lovely maps of telegraph lines joining the world. It is extraordinary. It was like a spiders web around the world. It was important. What it meant and i think this is what has happening with globalization today, as consumers, we benefit because we get cheaper goods. Those who made the goods in the past suddenly find they do not have jobs. In vienna, small shopkeepers were thrown out. Businesses fail because of Big Department stores. People liked going to Big Department stores. The goods were cheaper. And those and tailors who made things by hand could not work. Their livelihoods became meaningless and their skills became meaningless. What happened in vienna was happening elsewhere. A lot of those people dispossessed by globalization and changes in joined antisemitic parties. Production antisemitic parties. The jews in europe got blamed for being either too rich or too poor. They couldnt win. They were too poor and took our jobs or they were too rich. They were handy scapegoats. It is the same way we are blaming immigrants today without understanding they may not be the source of why these jobs are disappearing. Jobs were also disappearing through mechanization and changes in technology as they are doing today. Collectively, the world failed to realize that there is a great deal of public unhappiness. Globalization was not good for everyone. In the rust belt, which includes parts of southern ontario, people who had looked forward to satisfying jobs the rest of their life suddenly did not have them anymore and was scrambling to make ends meet. This was happening in europe before the First World War and what is happening now. When that happens, and it happened in the depression, people come along with solutions are welcomed. Nothing worse than having people say it is complicated and we cant watch. It is disheartening. People who come along with solutions tend to get support. Those solutions are often simplistic and are not going to work terribly well. But they seem to offer hope and and the messages that people like mussolini were offering gave them hope. They seemed energetic. It was very dangerous and in the case of hitler and this is where the individual does matter in history. This is a very longwinded answer. If hitlers had been killed in the trenches in the First World War, the nazi party wouldve been different. What happened to the nazi party when they got to power wouldve been different. He still didnt have to get into power. We should remember this in our own times. The nazi share of the popular vote was going down by 1932 and they never had an outright majority. He was invited into power by right wing industrialists who thought they could use him. They thought he was someone who did not know much about anything. It was a class thing. He was a corporal and they were from noble families and had been generals. They thought they would use them support and they invited him to become chancellor. They did not know what they were dealing with. I think the parallel with our own times are never exact but the reaction to globalization is rather like what happened before the First World War. The looking for Simple Solutions and the blaming of others, we all find it easier to say yes, i blame you for my problems rather than to say, it is a complicated situation. That is what is dangerous about the present time. Not very cheery. [laughter] thank you. I Teach High School history. U. S. History mostly. Something i have noticed american textbooks focus on is the war guilt clause. First, how unprecedented that was for a treaty like that. How much of an impact it had on germany. I think the textbooks and the way it is taught seems like that is the thing that created i was wondering your opinion. It lies in the controversy about the treaty of versailles. Article 231 said germany accepts and its allies accepts responsibility for starting the war. The germans named it the war guilt clause. The allies were implying guilt. It never said it anywhere. The other treaties contain similar clauses. Those nations chose not to make much about it. The clause was written by a Young American lawyer who wanted to establish a legal basis for claiming reparations from germany. John foster dulles was the young lawyer. Second clause which comes in article says germanys payments 232, will depend on its capacity to pay. The absolute figure was not set in the treaty which is something germany resented. The argument was that they could not set a figure for german reparations until they had done a survey of all the damage. American engineers and others francen the north of how do you count the damage . How much do you count a ruined village . How much is a ruined cathedral worth . How do uss all that . That . Do you assess all that took them two years. They had to work out how the payments could be made. The real reason they did not want to put a figure in the treaty is because they did not want to let their own public know they would not get that much. I think they knew if they drove germany into economic misery by trying to squeeze resources, it would hurt the whole european economy. There were people in britain who said, lets get trade going again. The war is over. We may not like the germans but we have to trade with them. It was a fudge. What the reparations were meant to do was pay for more damage. War damage. There was an argument among the allies about how you define war damage. The french and the belgians had suffered the most damage and the british realized this was not good for them because they would not get as much. The british needed some funds it gets very complicated. Because they lent a lot of money to the french and the italians and russians and they borrowed a lot of money from the americans. They had to pay back the money to the americans. No point on leaning on the russians. They had a revolution and were not going to pay anything. The british put pressure on the french and italians and smaller allies to pay their war debts. This meant the french and belgians needed the reparations from germany even more. In the end, there was an arrangement by which the u. S. Lent money to germany which paid reparations to french and belgium, which paid to britain, which paid war debts to the u. S. The American Point of view, you borrowed the money, you pay it back. You can understand. The idea that a defeated nation should pay something is not new at all. In fact if you look through , history, defeated nations have often paid huge fines. Cap the treasures in the louvre work carried off in france in the wars. It was expected. When the french were defeated by the German Confederation in 1871, france had to pay an indemnity. It was not a fine than reparations, because french the french hadnt done much damage. The french had to pay a huge amount. They had to pay the cost of the german army occupation. Under one estimate, the french may have paid more proportionately than the germans ever paid in reparations. The germans did not want to pay reparations because they felt the treaty was illegitimate. As more and more people in germany came to think they had not started the war and had not lost it, why should they be paying for more damage . Four war damage . . For war damage reparations were very unpopular in germany across the political spectrum and there was no willingness to pay them. They were resented. An english journalist was traveling in germany and she met two old sisters who lived and they said to her, before the war, we could send our laundry out every week and now we have to do it every two weeks. It is all those reparations. It became a thing that the germans resented. They did not think it was fair and didnt think they should be paying them. End, germany never paid all that much. It paid enough. It paid in three tranches. The first bit, they paid in kind. That was the smallest bit. And in the figure was set in the next bit, they would have to pay by bonds issued by the german government, backed by the german government, and that was not that big of a slice. The much bigger slice was the which theyche, didnt pay until they pay the second one. You can imagine what happened. They dragged their feet, and they did not pay. In 1924, the total amount was negotiated down with the help of american statesmen and bankers. And then it was negotiated down in 1929. When hitlers him into power, he canceled the whole lot. That was it. Britain continued to pay from the First World War to the u. S. Until 1980. The idea of canceling the whole lot was a good one but impossible. Did germany and greece start paying the reparations . Never. After the Second World War, it took things out of germany and germany paid reparations to israel for the holocaust. That never caused any there was no political outcry about that in germany. The attempt to get money out of germany was something in retrospect, it would have been much better to focus on getting concentrate on getting european economy growing again. The key was the United States. Most of the lending was private. It was a Big Consortium of banks. The americans did not see why they should not get their funds. In retrospect, it is easy to say it would have been much more statesmanlike to get europes economy going again and avoid the misery of the 1920s and resentment. Like most of the clauses in the treaty, germany really was not prepared to adhere to them simply because it did not see why it should. Thank you. Sorry, it was a rather long answer it is such a tricky. [inaudible] take as long as you want for the answer. Dont encourage me. That is very dangerous. You spoke about one of the pressures of the big three during the process being the public. What is your perspective on the Public Opinion on the allied , american, and commonwealth sides on the major components of the treaty . Such that the public knew much about them. Did the general public appreciate the major components of the treaty . Did that satisfy them very much . It depends very much on the country. The french felt the treaty probably could have been harsher. There were those in france that wanted to take the whole of the rhineland. They wanted to attach the whole from germany and make it part of france. They tried to certainly there were plots within the German Military and german right wing im sorry, French Military and french rightwing parties. They stirred up sentiment in the rhineland. There was a lot of ridiculous there was a wonderful thing i read by a french officer that said, people live in the rhineland are really french. They may speak german but they have joie de vivre and a love of wine, which the germans dont have. There were french who felt strongly about germany. You can understand it. It was memory of the past and fear of the future. The french Prime Minister had been a young man when the germans besieged paris. He asked to be buried when he standing up facing germany. He became Prime Minister in the dark days of the First World War when it looked like france might be defeated. They knew that germany remained a real threat to French Security because it was not much more powerful and had a bigger population, bigger potential armed forces. That was a very real fear. In france, the treaty was not, never came to be seen as a legitimate. What happened in the englishspeaking countries, there was a lack of sympathy for france, which was unfair. You also got a sense that the germans were right, the treaty wasnt fair. Why should they have to pay this penalty . Why dont we just get on with things . It helped to divide the allies. I think, in france, you will probably get a feeling that the treaty was not that bad. I dont know if that answers your question. Given the fact that there were treaties of mutual assistance between britain and france and britain and belgium and the serbs and the russians, did that contribute to the inevitability of world war i . This might be a little off your subject. I can talk about the origins of the First World War until the cows come home. Used to be said that the Alliance System, the notion of a balance of power where you had to balance powers as a way of keeping the peace. Alliance systems created the First World War. It meant if any two nations the , balance of power is inherently unstable. A tight aligned system meant that if you got into a dispute, it would drag in a trail all the allied nations. I dont think that really is the case myself. I think the alliances before the First World War were looser than they have been portrayed. They were defensive alliances and in the case of the triple entente, which was britain, france, and russia, the only defensive alliance was between russia and france. You do not have to go to war unless your partner is attacked. The british never signed an alliance. It was looser than it might appear. The triple alliance, which was austriahungary, italy, and germany. The thing about alliances is who enforces them. The italians got out of they avoided their obligations to go to war when austriahungary and germany went to war. The defensive alliance does not work. I thought the Alliance System was much looser than it might appear and people said it was. I dont think it did cause the First World War. I think other things did. I dont think the alliances were the chief culprit. In view of the fact that we are involved with nato, with the demise of the soviet union, you see a continued role for nato . You are getting far ahead of my field. I always wondered at the end of the cold war whether nato should not have been wound up. It was a cold War Institution to provide collective security for the members of nato. It redefined itself and began to move further afield. Afghanistan was a natal operation. I always wondered about that. On the other hand, i think something nato was designed partly to contain the soviet union and it seems to me that russia needs containing. Having Something Like nato, in which nations do cooperate and share military planning and so on is not about idea. Is not a bad idea. The last two questions will come from the other side of the auditorium. I think we all sympathize with the difficulty of ironing out this piece. Can you talk about one or two things they could have or should have done better . Perhaps, they should have been more direct with their own publics about reparations and should have explained they would not get everything they wanted and been promised, but they would do their best to get the european economy going again. Politically, that wouldve been very difficult. We make disapprove of it, but democratic politicians have to think of getting reelected and sometimes coming clean with your own people is not a good idea. Possibly, certainly, britain could have. The evidence is, and this was before Public Opinion polls. The evidence says the british opinion was getting much less vehement against germany than it had nine months previously and it might well of been the case that, we are really going to go easy on the reparations or give more to france. If the british had been prepared to give more to france, that might have done it. It was politically difficult. I am not sure they could have done much more with germany. I think they felt germany had lost. They felt they had every right to punish it. They also looked my mother always told me two wrongs do not make a right. They did look at what germany had done to france. They looked at what germany had done to russia in march 1818. 1918. If you want to look at punitive and savage treaty that one was , savaged. It detached huge chunks of russia, including ukraine. The bolsheviks had to pay what they had in gold. I think there was a sense that germany should have paid some penalty. The trouble was the treaty was neither harsh enough or soft enough and in the end, if britain had been prepared to be really tough to make it clear to the germans who had lost. Few germansery except in the rhineland had ever that sense of having lost the war was never properly was not born in on the germans, which certainly was not the case after 1945. Or if they had been prepared to do that, it may have been better or if they had met prepared to really say to their own publics, the war was a catastrophe all around and we will not make the catastrophe worse by trying to extract reparations from germany. Their political choices were limited by their own Public Opinion. It was i think ending wars which can end these expectations is a great problem. We might not have ended the Second World War so successfully. If the United States and soviet union had not all and out, there are many ifs and but, and one of the reasons they were committed to the revival of europe and to world trade and investment generally after the Second World War was prepared to put money into it was because of fear of the soviet union. , itr the First World War didnt have that feeling, nor should it have done. I dont think we were good at making peace in 1919. What they could have done things better was in the middle east. But i another subject think the british and the french, who were responsible, simply behave like oldstyle imperialist powers and carved it up to suit themselves and treated the people of the middle east as if they were negligible and i think they could have done a lot better. I think they did very badly indeed, actually. Thank you very much for your presentation. We know about the hardships france suffered and how the americans fared at the end of the war. What kind of hardships did Great Britain face at the end of the that influence what they brought to the table . They had not come close to bankruptcy, but they lost enormous ground economically. About 1916 that the lending power in the world had moved from london to new york. The United States has become the worlds creditor nation, so Great Britain had lost power as a world power and they were aware of that and spent more than they could possibly afford to spend and they expanded the empire as a result of the First World War. They were really finding the burden of empire beginning to weigh heavily by the 1920s. What the british also lost was a i mentioned earlier european civilization was improving. The french lost the most men of military age in europe, except in proportion to the man in front. More than anyone except serbia and i think germany came a close third. Meant, the people who might have got married, the children, was something that was going to go on reverberating through the generation and there were going to be lots of children who never knew their fathers or had fathers who came home from the war who were never capable of being parents because they were so psychologically damaged. I think the women lost a lot as well. Society damaged by the First World War and a country that was not not impoverished, thats too strong a word, but economically constrained. It marked the beginning of the end of the British Empire, even though britains empire was bigger, their capacity to manage it was getting less and the empire was less willing to be part of the empire. Increasingly, the british were dealing with people who wanted to rule themselves. In india, gandhi had taken the middle class independent movement and mood and turned into a mass movement. The british had an uneasy feeling that the world was becoming very difficult, as it was. Impact andrational continued impact of 1919 on today was appropriate would you please join with me in dr. Margaret mcmillan. You are watching cspan three. In july of 1948, the World Health Organization held its First Assembly meeting in geneva, switzerland. Up next, as the who makes news amid the coronavirus pandemic, we present the United Nations film made in the organizations founding year. After documenting the history of human diseases and Health Problems created by an increase of world travel, the film describes how the who plans to ordinate global efforts to prevent and fight diseases