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By Root 786 0

had to think of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. “Self-determination” was the watchword, but this was not a help in choosing among competing nationalisms. The peacemakers had to act as policemen and they had to feed the hungry. If they could, they had to create an international order that would make another Great War impossible. And, of course, they had to draw up the treaties. Clearly Germany had to be dealt with, penalized for starting the war (or was it just for losing, as many suspected?), its future set on more pacific lines, its boundaries adjusted to compensate France in the West and the new nations in the East. Bulgaria had to have its treaty. So did the Ottoman empire. Austria-Hungary presented a particular problem, for it no longer existed. All that was left was a tiny Austria and a shaky Hungary, with most of their territory gone to new nations. The expectations of the Peace Conference were enormous; the risk of disappointment correspondingly great.

The peacemakers also represented their own countries, and since most of these were democracies, they had to heed their public opinion. They were bound to think ahead to the next election and to weigh the costs of appeasing or alienating important sections of opinion. They were thus not completely free agents. It was also a time to bring out the old demands and the new ones. Clemenceau complained to a colleague: “It is much easier to make war than peace.”4

In their months in Paris the peacemakers were to achieve much: a peace treaty with Germany and the bases for peace with Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria. They drew new borders through the middle of Europe and the Middle East. Much of their work, it is true, did not last. People said at the time, as they have ever since, that the peacemakers took too long and that they got it wrong. It has become a commonplace to say that the peace settlements of 1919 were a failure, that they led directly to the Second World War. That is to overestimate their power.

There were two realities in the world of 1919, and they did not always mesh. One was in Paris and the other was on the ground, where people were making their own decisions and fighting their own battles. True, the peacemakers had armies and navies, but where there were few railways, roads or ports, as in the interior of Asia Minor or the Caucasus, moving their forces was slow and laborious. The new aircraft were not yet big enough or strong enough to fill that gap. In the center of Europe, where the tracks were already laid, the collapse of order meant that even if tracks, engines and cars were available, the fuel was not. “It really is no use abusing this or that small state,” Henry Wilson, one of the cleverest of the British generals, told Lloyd George. “The root of evil is that the Paris writ does not run.”5

Power involves will, as the United States and the world are discovering today: the will to spend, whether money or lives. In 1919 that will had been spent in Europe. The leaders of France, Britain and Italy no longer had the capacity to order their peoples to pay a high price for power. Their armed forces were shrinking day by day and they could not rely on the soldiers and sailors who were left. Their taxpayers wanted an end to expensive foreign adventures. The United States alone had the capacity to act, but it did not see itself as having that role, and its power was not yet great enough. It is tempting to say that the United States lost an opportunity to bend Europe to its will before the competing ideologies of fascism and communism could take hold. That is to read back into the past what we know about American power after another great war. In 1945, the United States was a superpower and the European nations were much weakened. In 1919, however, the United States was not yet significantly stronger than the other powers. The Europeans could ignore its wishes, and they did.

Armies, navies, railways, economies, ideologies, history: all these are important in understanding the Paris Peace Conference. But so, too, are individuals because, in the end, people