Treaty of Versailles and The Carthaginian Peace

This book will interest historians of the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles, 1919. It reconsiders them against Keynes' verdict in The Economic Consequences of the Peace -'the Carthaginian peace of Monsieur Clemenceau'. This powerful myth influenced the generation between the wars and later. The Introduction attributes Keynes' lasting appeal chiefly to his literary brilliance and mordant portraits of Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson.Part 1 ('Peacemaking') draws on a range of sources to retrace the personalities, problems, pressures and progress of the Conference as a disorganised, long drawn-out, hard-won struggle. The result -a set of inter-Allied compromises imposed on Germany for lack of room to manoeuvre. Part 2 ('Mythmaking') highlights the mythology of Germany's 'destruction' by a treaty imposed without face-to-face discussion perceived by a society in shock, baulked of victory, in denial about defeat, enraged by the 'war-guilt clause' and unreconciled to the 'Diktat' of Versailles.