Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [128]
By the end of March, Lloyd George was seriously concerned about the way the German terms were shaping up. The French were insisting on elaborate controls of the Rhineland and annexation of the Saar. In the east, Poland was getting territory that included not only some three million Germans but also the huge coalfields in Silesia. His own public opinion appeared to be moving in favor of a rapid, reasonably moderate, peace. His military and financial experts were warning him about the costs of having large forces scattered about the globe. He was worried about labor unrest at home and about revolution in Europe. On March 21 word came in that communists had seized power in Hungary. The next day Lloyd George and several of his closest advisers, including Kerr, Hankey and Henry Wilson, took a break from negotiations over the German treaty to spend the weekend at the Hôtel de France et d’Angleterre in the charming Paris suburb of Fontainebleau. The party visited the palace with its lovely park, but its real purpose was to take a fresh look at the whole treaty and to come up with something Britain, France and the United States could accept.
That afternoon, Lloyd George called his team into his private sitting room and assigned each a role, as an ally or an enemy. As far as we know, no one played the United States. Hankey, who took Britain, argued that Germany deserved punishment and should certainly lose its colonies. The Allies, however, must not be vindictive, or they would deliver the center of Europe to the dreadful peril of Bolshevism. For the sake of Europe and its own people, Germany must be rehabilitated. It must become part of the League of Nations. This was in Britain’s interest, since it did not want to keep troops on the Continent permanently. Hankey also reminded his audience that yet again the British navy had saved the country; they must look out for any threats to their seapower.
Henry Wilson threw himself into his two roles with enthusiasm. First, he turned his military cap back to front to play a German officer. “I explained my present situation, and my wish to come to an agreement with England and France, but saw no hope, for I read into the crushing terms they were imposing on me a determination on their part to kill me outright. As I could not stand alone I would turn to Russia, and in course of time would help that distracted country to recover law and order, and then make an alliance with her.” Then he became a Frenchwoman, the significant factor, he said, in shaping French opinion. He painted a moving picture of “the losses of so many of their husbands, sons and men folk, the unbearable anxiety and long separations, the financial losses, and the desperate struggle and overwork to keep their homes going.” Of course they wanted revenge and restitution from Germany, and they wanted assurance that Germany could never hurt them again.5
Lloyd George listened carefully and then gave his own views. His main point was that the peace terms must not destroy Germany. As the discussions continued, Kerr was given the job of making sense out of all this. By Monday morning, he had typed out a final draft—the Fontainebleau Memorandum. Lloyd George arrived back in Paris full of energy. “He means business this week,” reported Frances Stevenson. “He will stand no more nonsense either from French or Americans.