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In fact, France and its Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau insisted on dismembering Germany after World War I. In the fundamental work of Vladimir Potemkin, The History of Diplomacy, published in the USSR in 1945, read:
“The French imperialists dreamed of dismembering Germany. They really wanted to throw Germany back to the position that it had before the Frankfurt Peace. It is not without reason that Clemenceau himself, in speeches and remarks, constantly returned to the Frankfurt Peace, not without gloatingly recalling that he had refused to sign it at one time. But the most aggressive elements in France demanded a Germany re-cut after the Peace of Westphalia of 1648.
What were the true intentions of France, can be judged by the secret agreement concluded between France and tsarist Russia in February 1917, literally on the eve of the overthrow of tsarism. Russia agreed to the French plan to establish borders with Germany on the condition that France satisfied the desire of tsarist Russia to obtain Constantinople and the straits and recognized Russia’s complete freedom in establishing its western borders. Under this secret agreement, France received Alsace-Lorraine and the entire coal-mining basin of the Saar valley. The German border ran along the Rhine. German territories along the left bank of the Rhine were separated from Germany and constituted autonomous and neutral states. France occupied these states with her troops until Germany finally satisfied all the conditions and guarantees that would be included in the peace treaty. In a veiled form, it was almost an eternal occupation, for it was always possible to find proof that Germany had “not completely” satisfied all the conditions. “
The American position implied a much softer attitude towards defeated Germany. The same book by Potemkin says:
“The US position also had its own strengths. Formally, the peace treaty was built on the basis of Wilson’s 14 points – at least both warring coalitions officially announced this. <…>
In general, Wilson skillfully and persistently used the strong positions of the United States and achieved a number of serious successes at the conference, despite the fact that he met very experienced diplomatic rivals in the person of Clemenceau and Lloyd George. <…>
Wilson’s diplomatic successes include, first of all, the conclusion of a truce on the basis of 14 points, the inclusion of the charter of the League of Nations in the peace treaty, and Italy’s refusal of its claims. But the president’s diplomacy also had its weaknesses. <...> Wilson’s vulnerable side was his desire to prevent the complete defeat of Germany, which actually meant the preservation of her economic and political opportunities to prepare for a new war. “
But during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, where the victorious powers were discussing the terms of a future peace treaty, the US President fell ill with the Spanish flu; the then pandemic was one of the biggest catastrophes in the history of mankind. The disease was difficult, and, according to one of the versions, it was because of it that Wilson could not show due persistence at the conference, and Clemenceau managed to insist on the harsh conditions of the post-war world. Columbia University Journalism Dean Steve Call in Woodrow Wilson’s Flu Case: How a Pandemic Could Change History wrote:
“He fell ill at a crucial moment, and the virus became an insidious protagonist in one of the most significant episodes of great power diplomacy in the 20th century. <…>
Days before he contracted the infection, Wilson had a heated argument with French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George over the territorial losses and reparations Germany would have to pay as the aggressor. Wilson believed that the Allies should be wary of the young post-war republic and give priority to his idealistic, ahead of its time project – the League of Nations – and the enlightened principles of self-determination of peoples that he promoted. But France had twice experienced German occupation in the previous half century, and Clemenceau was striving for what the French public considered a fair and reasonable solution: tens of billions of dollars to rebuild France, plus buffer zones on the country’s eastern border, including the occupation of Germany’s Rhineland by French troops. By April, the discussion between Wilson and Clemenceau was deadlocked. When Clemenceau found out that Wilson was ill, he asked Lloyd George: “Do you know his doctor? Could you get close to him and bribe him? ” <…>
Wilson, who was isolated during his recovery in the Hôtel du Prince Murat, an elegant townhouse in the eighth arrondissement, soon appears to have changed after the outbreak of the flu. He became obsessed with “funny things,” as the assistant put it. He became obsessed with the furniture in the house and concluded that he was surrounded by French spies. “We could only assume that something weird was going on in his head,” said Irwin Hoover, the president’s chief aide. “One thing is for sure: he was never the same after this little period of illness.” Hoover’s remarks are summarized by historian John Barry in The Great Flu, his magnificent account of the 1918 and 1919 pandemic. Barry notes that Wilson’s disorientation can be a complication of severe flu. <…>
During the second week of April, a haggard Wilson abandoned most of the demands he made on Clemenceau. The President agreed to the demilitarization of the Rhineland and its occupation by France for at least fifteen years, as well as to the indefinite process of calculating Germany’s reparations account. According to Margaret Macmillan, author of the authoritative account of the post-war negotiations Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, Clemenceau suddenly discovered that he had “made the best deal for France.” Alas, it is known that his victory was Pyrrhic. The Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, which consolidated Wilson’s concessions, turned out to be such a tough and burdensome agreement for the Germans that it provoked a revival of German nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s and, ultimately, became the reason for the popularity of Adolf Hitler. “
The role of Edward House in the adoption of the tough version of the peace treaty is not traced. In early 1919, he helped Wilson formulate “14 points” – the concept of the post-war world – and wrote an official commentary on this document (which, by the way, speaks of independence for the peoples of Poland, Finland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries, but at the same time about the desirability of a single government for Great Russia and Siberia), and then negotiated in Paris with French and British representatives about possible compromises. But Wilson considered that House in the negotiations agreed with the proposals unacceptable to the United States, and pushed aside him into the background, and this happened back in March, before the president’s illness, which happened in April. After the conclusion of the Paris Conference, Wilson did not meet with House once. Thus, it is unlikely that House could persuade the ailing president to do something.
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