1 The Verdicts on the Treaty
The Treaty of Versailles has over many years had a bad press. From shortly after its signing, authors, politicians, journalists, commentators and historians argued that the terms of the Treaty had been excessively severe and later that the Treaty had been the prelude to the Second World War. Certainly, the proximate cause of war in 1939 was Hitlerâs invasion of Poland in order to correct the allocation of 2 million or so Germans to Polish rule in order the meet President Wilsonâs demand in the Fourteen Points (Point 13) for an independent Poland with a secure access to the sea. The âPolish Corridorâ was a source of friction between Germany, Poland and the rest of Europe from the beginning of the inter-war period to its end. The Second World War was indeed, at least as its immediate cause, âwar for Danzigâ (Taylor 1961: Chapter 11). A. J. P. Taylorâs final verdict is interesting:
In this curious way the French, who had preached resistance to Germany for twenty years appeared to be dragged into war by the British who had for twenty years preached conciliation. Both countries went to war for that part of the peace settlement which they had long regarded as least defensible. (ibid.: 277â278)
The âPolish Corridorâ had indeed been an irritant throughout the inter-war years, but the wider failure to defend and implement the Treaty of Versailles had more extensive origins.
Almost as soon as the ink was dry on the Treaty of Versailles, its justice and fairness were called into question by influential commentators, most notably J. M. Keynes, who had resigned from the Treasury section of the British Delegation because he was appalled by the overall severity of the Treaty. He told Prime Minister Lloyd George that âI ought to let you know that on Saturday I am slipping away this scene of nightmare. I can do no more good hereâ (Harrod 1953: 253). He retreated to Cambridge and there proceeded to write a book which was to have huge and severe consequences for the future of the âVersailles Systemâ and indeed did much to discourage respect for the terms of the Treaty and to dissuade the former Alliesâ willingness from implementing them. Nonetheless, the âVersailles Systemâ did work for a while but was eventually overwhelmed by the unresolved defects of the Treaty and the calamity that hit first the USA, then Europe and the world after October 1929.
Keynesâs rapidly written book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, was published towards the end of 1919 and caused an immediate storm of reaction in Britain and elsewhere. Zara Steiner (2005: 67) described it as âpernicious but brilliantâ and argues that âthe reverberations of Keynesâs arguments were still to be heard after Hitler took power. They are still heard todayâ. Although historians as well as others who were present at the Conference have argued for years that Keynesâs interpretation of the âBig Fourâ and the making of the Treaty were in important respects wrong (see Headlam-Morley 1972; Nicolson 1964 edition; Mantoux 1946; Sharp 1991; Elcock 1972; Macmillan 2001 and others), these arguments have not been heeded by ministers, civil servants, US Senators and news media reporters who have been influenced by Keynesâs book rather than the scholars and others who have challenged his interpretation. This is indeed a classic example of the gulf that exists, especially in Britain between academic students of history and politics on the one hand and the ministers and civil servants who make government decisions on the other. Policy-makers and journalists but not academic historians were mesmerised by Keynesâs accusations, which were a significant cause of Wilsonâs failure to secure the ratification of the Treaty by the Senate and in the longer term to the appeasement of Hitler.
Keynesâs criticism related not only to the content of the Treaty but also to the characters of the three principal statesmen responsible for drafting it: Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, and the American President Thomas Woodrow Wilson, of all of whom he painted vivid but erroneous pictures, to be discussed shortly. Keynesâs work can be examined from two directions. The early chapters discuss the process by which the Treaty was drafted and the personal attributes of the three statesmen who were responsible for its contents. They were advised by numerous commissions of experts, as well as holding hearings with the authorities from the various states that wished to make territorial or financial claims on the defeated Germans and their allies. The final decisions were originally to be taken in the Council of Ten, which consisted of the Heads of Government and Foreign Ministers of the five principal Allied and Associated Powers: the British Empire, France, the USA, Italy and Japan, attended and advised by numerous officials from each delegation. However, this body was plagued by leaks to the Press corps gathered around the hotels and government buildings in Paris where the clauses of the Treaty were being drafted and decisions made about them. In consequence, the principal statesmen Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George and the Italian Prime Minister, Vittorio Orlando, decided in early March to meet as the Council of Four. This decision led to the intimate atmosphere that Keynes attached so much importance to in his account of the personalities of the âBig Threeâ and their interaction (he had little to say about Orlando). His account included vivid descriptions of the physical characteristics of the three men. Here, our concern is to outlineKeynesâs opinions of the three statesmen; assessing their validity is a task for the next chapter.
2 The Statesmen
First up is the 78-year-old Prime Minister of France, Georges Clemenceau. For Keynes, Clemenceau âfelt about France what Pericles felt of Athens â unique value in her, nothing else mattering. He had one illusion â France â and one disillusion â mankind, including Frenchmen and his colleagues not leastâ (Keynes 1919: 29). He goes on, âIn the first place, he was a foremost believer in the view that the German understands and can understand nothing but intimidation, that he is without generosity or remorse in negotiationâ (ibid.). Clemenceauâs vision of the future was pessimistic: âEuropean history is to be a perpetual prize-fight of which France has won this round but of which this round is certainly not the lastâ (ibid.: 31). Keynes uses Clemenceauâs long-standing nickname, âthe Tigerâ, to summarise his view of Clemenceau: obstinate in his defence of French interests and his determination to secure guarantees for her future safety, especially by weakening Germany as much as possible: âThis is the policy of an old man, whose most vivid impressions and most lively imagination are of the past and not of the future. He sees the issue in terms of France and Germany, not of humanity and of European civilisation struggling forwards to a new orderâ (ibid.: 31). Earlier in the chapter, Keynes pronounced his damning verdict on Clemenceau: âOne could not despite Clemenceau or dislike him but only take a different view as to the nature of civilised man, or at least indulge a different hopeâ (ibid.: 26). Nonetheless, Keynes took the view that Clemenceauâs policies largely prevailed in the writing of the Treaty.
This leads directly to the issue of President Wilson, whose Fourteen Points had been the basis on which the Germans had sought an armistice in November 1918 and which many participants in the Conference as well as the wider publics of Europe and America supposed would form the ethical and practical basis of the Peace Treaty. Hence, âWhen President Wilson left Washington he enjoyed a prestige and a moral influence throughout the world unequalled in historyâ (ibid.: 34). He went on, âWith what curiosity, anxiety and hope we sought a glimpse of the features and bearing of the man of destiny who, coming from the West, was to bring healing to the wounds of the ancient parent of his civilisation and lay for us the foundations of the futureâ (ibid.: 35). For Keynes, then the essential question was why Wilson betrayed his principles and allowed the creation of a Carthaginian peace treaty. His explanation was that Wilson was badly prepared for the negotiations and unable to comprehend, let alone respond to the devices and desires of his British and French colleagues: âNever could a man have stepped into the parlour a more perfect and predestined victim to the finished accomplishments of the Prime Minister (Lloyd George)â (ibid.: 38). More severe criticism in the same vein follows: â⊠the Old Worldâs heart of stone might blunt the sharpest blade of the bravest knight-errant. But this blind and deaf Don Quixote was entering a cavern where the swift and glittering blade was in the hands of his adversaryâ (ibid.: 38). Keynes characterised Wilson as being âlike a Nonconformist minister, perhaps a Presbyterian. His thought and his temperament were essential theological, not intellectual âŠâ (ibid.: 38). To make matters worse, âin fact the President had thought out nothing; when it came to practice his ideas were nebulous and incomplete. He had no plan, no scheme, no constructive ideas whatever for clothing with the flesh of life the commandments which he had thundered from the White Houseâ (ibid.: 39). Hence âhe was liable to defeat by the mere swiftness, apprehension and agility of a Lloyd Georgeâ (ibid.: 40). He also failed to make appropriate use of his advisers in the American Delegation: âCaught up in the toils of the Old World, he stood in great need for sympathy, of moral support, of the enthusiasm of the masses. But buried in the Conference, stifled in the hot and poisoned air of Paris no echo reached him from the outer worldâ (ibid.: 45). Keynes also argued that Wilson had often been deceived by clever drafting, âsophistry and Jesuitical exegesisâ (ibid.: 47) that caused Wilson to be persuaded that his principles were being honoured when in practice they were not. The other statesmen bamboozled him into thinking that his principles had been honoured and when Lloyd George tried to modify the Treaty in early June, âit was harder to de-bamboozle the old Presbyterian than it had been to bamboozle him ⊠So in the last act the President stood for stubbornness and a refusal of conciliationâ (ibid.: 50); in reality, Keynes argued, the result was a bad Treaty.
Of the British participant in the deliberations of the Council of Four, Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Keynes said relatively little in The Economic Consequences of the Peace except to refer to his quickness of mind and his flexibility in responding to the successive issues that arose during the Council of Fourâs discussions. However, in a later publication Keynes issued a similarly damning verdict on Lloyd George (Keynes 1933), which he had hesitated to publish in the earlier volume because he retained a certain regard for the Prime Minister. He saw Lloyd George as an unprincipled operator who simply sought an agreement as sympathetic as possible to British interests; otherwise, he did what seemed best at the moment:
Lloyd George is rooted in nothing: he is void and without content; he lives and feeds on his immediate surroundings; he is an instrument and a player at the same time which plays on the company and is played on by them too; he is a prism, as I have heard him described, which collects light and distorts it and is most brilliant if the light comes from many quarters at once; a vampire and a medium in one. (Keynes 1933: 37)
In this piece, Keynes likened Lloyd George to a Welsh witch; his charm and flexibility were for Keynes feminine qualities: âHow can I convey to the reader who does not know him any just impression of this extraordinary figure of our time, this syren, this goat-footed bard, this half-human visitor to our age from the hag-ridden, magic and enchanted woods of Celtic antiquity?â (ibid.: 36). It was with these wiles, according to Keynes, that Lloyd George was able to persuade the President to forego his ideals and sign up to a severe Treaty that in many ways ran counter to the Fourteen Points. In this essay, Keynes presents a portrait of Lloyd George that combines savage criticism with a certain admiration for his subject.
3 The Council of Four
Like Keynesâs other portraits of the major statesmen at Paris, this picture is inaccurate, as we shall see in Chapter 2, but for the meantime, there is one more issue to note, the nature of which Keynes describes with considerable insight: the relations that developed between the participants in the Council of Four. Indeed, he regarded this pattern of relationships...