THE POST-WAR SETTLEMENTS
The roles and different goals of the ‘Big Three’
When the Big Three world leaders (Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George and
Georges Clemenceau) met at the end of World War One to draw up the peace treaties
that would follow, they had widely differing goals.
Wilson
American President Woodrow Wilson was convinced that future conflicts in Europe
would only be prevented if a just peace was implemented. To this end, he drew up his
so-called ‘Fourteen Points’. The main elements of the peace he proposed were:
 Secret treaties between nations should be abolished, thereby reducing suspicion
and misunderstanding on the international stage.
 Nations should reduce their armaments, thereby reducing their capacity to make
war.
 There should be national self-determination, thereby removing nationalism as a
cause of war.
 A League of Nations should be established, to implement a system of collective
security.
In addition, Wilson was opposed to a harsh peace with Germany. He feared that
Germany was in no position to make heavy reparations payments, and that such a
burden would only generate hatred towards the victors.
Clemenceau
French prime minister Georges Clemenceau had a view which was diametrically the
opposite of Wilson’s. During the war, 1,400,000 Frenchmen had lost their lives, with
another 2,500,000 wounded. The Germans had done an enormous amount of physical
damage to the country, and the people of France wanted revenge. Their leader
reflected this view. In Clemenceau’s view:
 Germany should have to pay heavy reparations, to help France recover from the
war.
 Germany should lost part of its territory, and all of its colonies.
 The Rhineland should be occupied by French troops, to prevent another attack.
 Germany should be disarmed.
Clemenceau was confident that such policies would ensure that Germany would
never again be in a position to wage war on France.
Lloyd George
For British prime minister David Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson’s position made
more sense that Clemenceau’s. He wanted to avoid fostering resentment in Germany,
and encourage her new democratic government to rejoin the family of nations.
Lloyd George was also concerned to maintain and expand the British Empire, so he
was very keen to gain control of Germany’s and Turkey’s colonial possessions. This
meant parts of Africa and much of the Middle East.
Public opinion in Britain following the war
Public opinion in Britain was opposed to an easy peace with Germany. This was
because people had been fed on anti-German propaganda for years, and wanted to
punish their enemy. 750,000 British soliders had been killed in the war and another
1,500,000 wounded. In addition, the war had cost Britain nine billion pounds, a huge
amount, so public opinion favoured reparations. Given that Lloyd George had to face
an election soon, he was forced to insist on a harsh peace settlement.
The Treaty of Versailles
The main clauses of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) were:
 Germany was stripped territory, and split in two.
 Germany lost all of its overseas territories.
 The country was effectively disarmed, its army limited to 100,000 soldiers. It was
not permitted to have an air force or any submarines, and was limited to just six
battleships.
 The Rhineland (Germany’s border with France) was demilitarised, and part of it
occupied by French soliders.
 Germany was forbidden from uniting with Austria.
 Germany was made to take the blame for starting the war (Clause 231).
 Germany had to pay heavy reparations (US$32 billion), mainly to France.
The League of Nations
American President Woodrow Wilson got his way on at least one of his Fourteen
Points: the League of Nations was established, to maintain international peace.
There are four traditional methods used to prevent war internationally:
 Hegemony, in which one nation is so powerful that it can enforce peace by
intimidating others.
 A great power consortium, in which the most powerful nations get together and
enforce peace of everyone else, usually to their own advantage.
 Rival alliances, to deter nations from attacking each other. This occurred in the
lead up to World War One.
 Collective security, in which all nations act together to keep the peace, by
punishing aggressors.
The League of Nations was to be a system of collective security. All sovereign
nations would become members of the League, and the organisation would have the
power to oblige its members to punish any nation which broke the peace.
Unfortunately, the League largely failed because some of the most powerful
countries in the world were not members, or chose to leave. The United States, for
example, did not join because the Congress did not wish to become involved in more
European wars. (The League’s rules would have required it to participate in any
policing actions against aggressors.) Similarly, Russia was not a member, despite
being one of the most powerful nations in Europe. This was because it had turned
communist, and was not invited to join by the non-communist nations which
dominated the League. Finally, Germany was not allowed to be a member of the
League, as part of its punishment for starting the war.