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for war, who had come over from London the night before, joined the meeting. Smuts made an impassioned speech. The peace terms “would produce political and economic chaos in Europe for a generation and in the long run it would be the British Empire which would have to pay the penalty.” There was, he added, “far too much of the French demands in that settlement.” There was a general murmur of agreement. “The hatred of France for Germany,” said Churchill, “was something more than human.” General Botha, the prime minister of South Africa, who rarely spoke, reminded them that it was the anniversary of the day, seventeen years ago, when he and Lord Milner had signed the peace that ended the Boer War. “On that occasion it was moderation which had saved South Africa for the British Empire, and he hoped on this occasion that it would be moderation which would save the world.” The meeting unanimously authorized Lloyd George to go back to the Council of Four and ask for modifications of the terms on Germany’s frontiers with Poland, on reparations, on the Rhineland occupation and on the scores of smaller but irritating “pin pricks.” In addition, he would request a promise to Germany that it could enter the League of Nations soon.27

The following day Lloyd George told the Council of Four that his colleagues would not authorize him to sign the treaty in its present form; nor would they agree to having the British army march into Germany or the British navy resume the blockade. Wilson and Clemenceau were horrified at the prospect of redoing the work that had been so painfully accomplished. Both concluded that Lloyd George had lost his nerve. “It makes me a little tired,” Wilson told the American delegation, “for people to come and say now that they are afraid the Germans won’t sign, and their fear is based upon things that they insisted upon at the time of the writing of the treaty.” Privately, he said that Lloyd George appeared “to have no principles whatever of his own, that he reacted according to the advice of the last person who had talked with him: that expediency was his sole guiding star.” Wilson, for all his earlier reservations, was not now prepared to budge. Clemenceau would give way only on minor matters. As he pointed out in the Council of Four, he had fought his own people to get to this point; if he made any further concessions his government would fall. Lloyd George’s view, at least as he reported it in his memoirs, was that he was not suggesting major changes, only ones to bring the treaty more into line with Wilson’s own principles.28

Two weeks of frequently acrimonious discussions followed. (At one point Wilson is reported to have said to Lloyd George, “You make me sick!”) In the end, Lloyd George got one substantial concession: it was agreed that the people of Upper Silesia would decide by plebiscite whether to stay with Germany or join Poland. Otherwise, he achieved little beyond irritating his allies. On the Rhineland occupation, which he proposed to shorten, he faced the implacable opposition of Clemenceau, who, as he told House, would not agree to even fourteen years and 364 days. Eventually some small changes were made to minimize friction between the occupying forces and the German administration and civilians. On the League, the Allies merely assured Germany that they would admit it when they thought that it was behaving properly.29

Lloyd George made very little headway on the reparations clauses, partly because he himself still did not know just what he wanted. He had argued strenuously in the past against putting a fixed sum in the treaty. Now he hesitated. Possibly some sort of amount could be mentioned to cover pensions and so on, and the Germans could undertake to repair the damage to Belgium and France. Or perhaps the Germans could say how much the repairs would cost and then the Allies could tell them if it was not enough. He thought at least they should look into it again. Wilson, who had only given way on the fixed sum in the face of opposition from the French and the British, exclaimed to Baker,