Why didn't Woodrow and David kill Georges at Versailles?

Yes, after a brief ‘holiday’ I’m back with my new old best friends, Georges, Woodrow and David at Versailles where we are all helping to draw up the peace treaty that will settle the problems of Europe for ever.  (Yeah, fat chance!)  Well, I’m not exactly helping, of course, but I have returned to Margaret MacMillan’s superb history of the problems these three men grappled with at the end of WWI.  I needed a break not because Prof. MacMillan’s text isn’t as clear as crystal, it was just that my brain began to ache as we slugged our way through the endless arguments over reparations.

The main question which kept returning to me again and again was why Woodrow and David didn’t kill Georges?  I refer, of course, to Georges Clemenceau, a man who seemed to contain within him everything that was the best and worst of France.  In other words, he nearly drove the other two nuts!  But then, they too had their faults.  And, when I think about it, who else would have done any better?  In fact, as I read further and further, reluctantly, my admiration for the three of them grows apace.  Apart from the fact that they had all managed to climb the slippery pole of political ambition, they were ordinary, middle-class, professional men and the monstrously huge problems they faced and which awaited their joint decision were so complicated, so riven, so roiled in history and warfare and population movements that they defied any reasonable solution.

That these three ‘ordinary’ men did, in fact, come to some sort of decision on so many convoluted situations is quite remarkable.  That they made mistakes comes as no surprise.  That their efforts were swept away by a force upon which none of them could have reckoned, is a pity but, hey, that’s life – and death!

 

Comments

[Cuffleyburgers]

Hi David

I too have been reading a book, Liberal Fascism by J. Goldberg; and he has a long section about Wilson's performance in the first WW. In this he names him as the first of the liberal fascists, his creation of an essentially natioanlist socialised war economy with the deliberate intention of using the war as a launch pad for national renewal presaged Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler and later Che Guavara and all the rest (Goldberg's words not mine).

To the extent it is true it quite changes everything I thought I knew about the US entry into the war and as a result the motivations for Wilson's performance at Versailles.

Anyway keep up the good work Duffy old boy, I absolutely love your blog.

(that's enough adulation, back to work)

[David Duff]

"I absolutely love your blog" - ah, 'Cuffers', you say that to all the girls!

As to your main point, I should make clear that admiration for the trio (quartet, really, but the Italian doesn't count) is limited to their huge efforts to try and sort out some order from total chaos. All three of them were, of course, products of their different backgrounds. They did so with the usual mixture of idealism and self-interest in which the former outweighed the latter only when no self interest was involved! But even so, I doubt if any three other politicians would have done better, not least because so many of the problems were intractable. Innumerable books have been written by 'wiseacres' after the event criticising their efforts but whatever settlement had been reached, Herr Hitler would have swept it aside with contempt.

Or put it this way, how do you think Obama, Cameron and Hollande would have managed? Quelle horreure!

[missred]

"how do you think Obama, Cameron and Hollande would have managed?" Is that the beginning of a really bad joke, dear duffers?

[JK]

Noticed David, something might be of interest;

http://warontherocks.com/2015/03/warchives-rescuing-tommy/

[David Duff]

Ah, you guessed, Miss Red, you see, there was this American - sort of, Englishman and Frenchman and they had to sort out the problems of the world . . . yeeeeees, quite!

Thanks, JK, and as it happens the sacrifices of the Indian army on the Western Front has never received the publicity it deserves.