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Paris 1919 ---salesmen for leaders

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by jberie (U1767537) on Thursday, 29th December 2005

  Just finished reading "Paris 1919" by Margaret Macmillan.
  
  I have a lot to digest after this tome.
  
  Great chunks of the world were divided up like cake at the end of the war. It seems as if the leaders--L. George, Wilson, Clemenceau--were good politicans but not great thinkers (intelligent, but not thoughtful)
  
  It is a shame that in democracies the leaders are not scholars, but salesmen.

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Lord Ball (U1767246) on Friday, 30th December 2005

  At that time, the phrase "To the Victors, the spoils" was pretty much what dictated Peace Treaties.

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Eliza6Beth (U2637732) on Friday, 30th December 2005

  "Squeeze them till the pips squeak" was the general national cry in the then equivalent of the Sun/Daily Mail etc - everyone was so furious with Germany for having started the war (actually, the Austrians started it, by refusing to accept the capitulation of the Serbs)(so The Great War narrator Michael Redgrave says), that they wanted Germany punished and imposed huge reparations.
  
  Germany promptly felt ill done by, and resentful, hence the rise of Hitler etc.
  
  Also, hence the Marshall Plan after WWII, as the 'alternative' to squeezing pips. I've never understood why reparations weren't exacted from Germany once the econonic miracle had happened.
  
  Eliza.

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