This work is all about the treaty that brought World War One to a close. It's also takes a detailed look at the various, (and often, "nefarious"), world leaders who were the principals in fleshing out that final agreement which, by the way, was never ratified by the U.S, Congress.

I especially liked the book because it's sort of an unvarnished mini-biography of Woodrow Wilson. I came away seeing Wilson as both incompetent and a bit of a loser. The book also verified what I already knew about governments in general: they're NOT there to help you and their leaders harbor personal power agendas that are rarely, if ever, in the public interest.

A lot of countries got screwed (I couldn't think of a more appropriate term!) as a result of the Versailles Treaty and, perhaps, I differ a bit in my personal conclusions about this from the author and the conclusions she has drawn. Still, the book itself arms one with all the facts, and there's not much editorializing, and for that I praise Macmillan.

I doubt that there is a better documentation of this period and place anywhere. Macmillan was very thorough in her research and it's a fine book. I most enjoyed the discussion of "Lawrence of Arabia" and his dillemma.

If I have a complaint about the book it's simply that, even accounting for the fact that it's non-fiction, I didn't find that it was a very fluid read. This was a book that I had to make myself finish and, after the fact, I'm pleased that I did.

I've read some great history books before, including 1776 and America's Longest War. But this is the best. It shows in astonishing detail that the greatest errors made in 1919 by President Wilson were not in allowing the British and French to impose overly punitive reparations on Germany (though that is partly true, this familiar thesis is turns out to be overblown -- the greater error with respect to Germany was not following the young Keynes's advice and starting the EEC in 1919). Even worse, Wilson gave into American and European racists who could not tolerate Japan's proposed "racial equality clause" and thus had to accept Japan's demand for a slice of Chinese territory -- thus weakening the League's moral credibility, embolding Japanise colonialism, and driving betrayed Chinese intellectuals into the hands of Lenin. This is not your 11th grade history textbook: this is what really happened, with incredible detail about the tangle of problems in region after region -- Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the new Yugoslavia, Italy's attempted land grabs, Greece's ambitions and their terrible consequences, the disasterous policies in the middle east. The cast of major characters are painted in vivid detail; I almost feel I know these men after reading this amazing book. Through it all, the tragedy of Wilson's humanitarian dream comes through keenly -- compromised away in efforts to save the League of Nations that only ended up making it worthless. Here is a thought for the future: Henry Cabot Lodge and his Republican opponents of the League would have accepted a league that only included democracies. But Wilson would not compromise were it would have helped, only where is harmed, it seems. Perhaps we should go back to Lodge's idea now and consider a new Federation of Democratic Nations to replace the defunct U.N. -- and try to revive Wilson's lost dream.

In assessing the 20th Century I tell people the pivotal event was the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand that touched off the first world war. Granted, if that had not happened something else probably would have caused the war sometime within that timeframe but such was not the case.

The assassination and the resulting catastrophic war eventually led to a cessation of hostilities in November 1918 when the Germans and the Axis Powers were more exhausted than the exhausted Allies. As the victors, the Allies met in Paris to establish the terms for surrender. The Allies also decided to set the terms for not just peace but a lasting peace in Europe specifically and the world generally.

However, the main architects of what was to be the Treaty of Versailles (Clemenceau of France, Lloyd George of England, and Woodrow Wilson of the US) were also humans prone to many human faults. For one thing, they were political leaders susceptible to political pressures. While Wilson was more sympathetic to the losing side of the war the British and French -- especially the French who hosted the western front for four miserable years -- were not sympathetic. The Russians were invited even though their new Bolshevic Government had withdrawn in early 1918 but the invitation was more of an obligation than an actual desire to have them in Paris to make things more difficult. To the relief of the Allies, the Russians chose not to participate.

When I first got the book I thumbed through it and my immediate thought was that it was going to be boring. Once I got into the book it was anything but boring. The interactions between the leaders and their staffs and their different agenda was fascinating and gave a clearer understanding as to why their efforts to redraw the boundaries of Europe and the world -- nobel as they were -- were probably doomed to failure. Perhaps the world would have been better off without the Paris negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles and the resulting League of Nations. But in 1919 the victorious leaders could not look ahead to see that their efforts to redraw Europe and the world was a mistake.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The author does an exceptional job of writing an easily read and understood book about a very complex part of history. Getting past the easily taken road of blaming the Paris Peace Conference for many of the ills the world has experience since, the author provides what I believe to be a very balanced look at the events in Paris in 1919. Although readily admitting that many mistakes were made by the peacemakers, some that could have been avoided, the author does an excellent job of considering the many factors that made many of the decisions seem more resonable when they are considered. Some of these factors include: rising and competing nationalist feelings, strategic security and economic considerations, the circumstances of the "peacemakers" (primarily the U.S., England, France, and Italy) at the end of WWI - especially their economic and military situations, perceived future threats to the international community, and the desires of the people whose futures were being decided.
Bottom line - a wonderful book and highly recommend to anyone looking for a single book describing this time in history.

The author does an exceptional job of writing an easily read and understood book about a very complex part of history. Getting past the easily taken road of blaming the Paris Peace Conference for many of the ills the world has experience since, the author provides what I believe to be a very balanced look at the events in Paris in 1919. Although readily admitting that many mistakes were made by the peacemakers, some that could have been avoided, the author does an excellent job of considering the many factors that made many of the decisions seem more resonable when they are considered. Some of these factors include: rising and competing nationalist feelings, strategic security and economic considerations, the circumstances of the countries involved in the war - especially the economic and military conditions of these nations, perceived future threats to the international community, and the desires of the people whose futures were being decided.
Bottom line - a wonderful book and highly recommend to anyone looking for a single book describing this time in history.

In the aftermath of the Great War decisions were made in Paris that decided the history of the world for the next century. MacMillan does a creditable job of making sense the negotiations that took place in 1919 to divide up the planet after the total collapse of the Central Powers and the Russian Empire. She addresses dozens of issues involved in the meetings and committees of the Versailles conference and the politics involved amongst the victorious allies. Millions were taken from their Ottoman and German colonial masters and given over to the French and British. The United States was offered a Mandate over the Kurds but refused it as Wilson did not want to get involved in middle east colonialism. The existence of new states was recognized and the colonial authority of France, Britain and, ominously, Japan was reinforced.

A good book and the best I've seen on the subject.

Unfortunately it is no accident I think, that Margaret Macmillan is the great grand daughter of Lloyd George. This book essentially reflects a British interpretation of the treaty of Versailles, and not least, a more positive view of David Lloyd George. It strikes me as more of an op ed piece than sound history. In my opinion readers should be forewarned that this is a piece more closely akin to World War I British propaganda than anything else. With this in mind,the book is interesting and the manifold details are fascinating, albeit misleading. It is well worth reading with a big pinch of salt. It is "a page turner" alright. Nonetheless,I would advise them to look elsewhere for a history of the Versailles treaty,its creation and creators, and its effects. The biases are quite subtle and even clever, but they are there.

Much has been written about world war one, when the western world lost its innocence, but not so much about the peace conference. Woodrow Wilson rode into the conference like Mr. Deeds going to town. His intentions were above reproach, though on the racial issue he had feet of clay. His gospel of self-determination excited the peoples of eastern Europe and the former Austro-Hungarian empire and created the first version of the United Nations-- then known as the League of Nations. The interaction at the conference of Wilson with Lloyd George, Clemenceau and the others is brilliantly described,with judicious amounts of humor and compassion. As a historian and a Canadian mindful of what happened not only as a consequence of the peace conference but also of World War Two and its aftermath, she is sufficiently detached but does not omit moral judgments. I started with the parts that interested me, but could not put the book down and read it in one gulp.

Highly biased, highly apologetic, MacMillan tries to win over the readership by using an approach totally oblivious to balancing historical facts.
One example: She paints Keynes as "A very clever, rather ugly young man" [181]... What the appearance of a man has to do with his criticism of the 'Versailles Treaty' MacMillan fails to explain!

MacMillan is one descendant of unlucky Lloyd George and it seems as if she uncritically set out to defend her Great grandfather's work in order to relieve a burden the rather unfair treaty might have caused to herself understanding. All in all one rather un-historical attempt and poor effort.

If she had been one of my students, I would have asked her to re-write entire chapters by putting aside personal jingoism and tainted language.
The entire book is so germanophobic in tone and in collected facts, it is rather sad to notice. If I had not been forced to read it as part of my profession, I would have preferred to close it for good after crawling through the first 50 pages.

MacMillan's omissions are most telling and her one-sidedness is grossly distasteful and leaves out to explain why this treaty has been the smelly furuncle which would lay the grounds for even worse tragedies throughout the twentieth century world. This is a non-read fit to impress an audience untouched by historical knowledge of any standard, but it is not a book I could recommend to a student other than those studying national bias.

Not so, Professor MacMillan, you get a 'failed'! Go back to the drawing board and study the methods of writing un-biased history. You're approach is disgustingly damaging and disgraceful to our profession!

Paris 1919 is a good book that looks at the "peace" effort that was forced on the World by the victors of the Great War. It is a good overall look at the competing interest and political difficulties that left the world divided and led to the almost endless struggles in Europe, the Middle East, and in other far off regions.

Margaret Macmillan's Paris 1919 is a masterful work that shows the complexity of the negotiations after World War One and just how enormous the task at hand truly was. There is no blame for what happened, or what didn't happen. She does not blame the future on this treaty. her approach is fresh and inspiring. Her writing style is fast-paced yet she clearly understands her subject.

For many it is easy to follow earlier accounts and say that World War Two had its origin in Paris in 1919. Contemporaries of Wilson, Clemanceau, and Lloyd George used such predictions to drive home their point. When the Second World War erupted, many looked to these critics of Versailles and agreed. For some, these critics appear as prophets.

Not so, says Macmillan. It is an easy cop out to avoid responsibility to place blame, throw up one's hands and say there is nothing they can do, then brood. True, if the Council of Four (Three) had had a better grasp of their world they might not have made the decisions they did, but one cannot blame the past for the future. There were plenty of stubborn decisions at Paris, but the participants had their own hands tied by earlier secret deals and the like. None in Paris blamed the past that led to those secret deals for the quandry they found themselves in, so why should future generations blame the Paris negotiators?

This treaty is so vast, and so complex, it is a wonder Macmillan was able to cover it in just under 500 pages of text. She is a first rate author and a first rate scholar. It will take quite a feat to write a better account of the Versailles Treaty.

This book gives an excellant example of what can happen when people try to make a better world and let too much of the old world invade and frustrate what you are trying accomplish. It shows how when the Allies sat down after the Armistace was signed to create a peace that would last, too many of the promises and treaties signed during the war came back to haunt those same nations that had made them.

The format is interesting in each chapter zeroes in on a specific area of the conference. It is helpful in that all the informaton for say Poland is in one area, but kind of makes you lose the chronological flow of the conference where so many of these things were happening at the same time. It makes for a good reference in that you can look up a certain topic without having to skim through the whole chronological timeline to find it. A chronological scheme of events would have been even harder to accomplish since several topics were handled on the same day at the conference and the reader would have been lost in all the detail.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in WW1 and how the Treaty of Versailles was drawn up. It shows how all of the participants were human with flaws and strengths. It also shows how different nations can view the same idea differently and how you can end up with less than you hoped for when all is said and done.

1919 masses a vast amount of information about the critical period of the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles and tangential treaties that ended the Great War. At its best, 1919 ties it all together to draw relevance to today's world.

Macmillan charges through a dense web of diplomatic doings but livens the mix with vivid personalities and dramatic conversations. TE Lawrence, Kemal Ataturk, Bratianu of Romania, D'Annunzio of Italy. Macmillan strikes a neutral view overall, but one detects a sense of favor to Lloyd George, her great-grandfather. She teases him about his sense of geography, but generally he seems to rise above Wilson and Clemenceau in the telling. Woodrow Wilson is depicted as a sad and frustrated old man.

Each nation altered by the peacemakers is treated in turn. Ironically, Germany gets the least depth of treatment. Macmillan seems to say "you know the rest of that story" but still connects the dots to the next conflict. More focus is on the less told stories of how Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman empires were carved up and new nations formed.

A tour de force in historical narrative. Fascinating.

What an incredibly powerful point in history. The ending of an era of dynasties lasting centuries and monarchy for several countries along with the evolution of communism. The personalities of the leaders and how they related in the process is fascinating. The process of breaking up the Austrian-Hungary empire as well as the Ottoman empire and the ramifications resulting are worth the read.
I enjoyed the cultural differences outlined between the French, English, American and Italian as well, not to mention the German, Japanese, Chinese, Greek and others. The evolution of America and the American position on foreign affairs is also worthy of note.
There is much complex material and much history of the areas in question but I recommend this book highly.

Gave me good insite into history & politics of the times. Well ritten

Interesting to those who wish to understand the maneuvering during the six month in 1919. The College/University I graduated from had a member of President Wilson's staff teaching there, Ms. Hampton, who I believe was in secretly in love with Wilson. DR. Hampton was particularly taken by Wilson's 14 Points and insisted a paper be written on one of the 14 points. Each student was to choose the point to write a paper on, she almost swooned when Point Six was chosen, i.e. Self Determination.
College/University - University of Central Oklahoma - Graduated Summer 1958. My Father was a World War I veteran, dead at 48 in 1945, Veterans Hospital in Amarrilo, Texas - Death contributed to gas during training.

a brilliant exposition and a detailed description of how the 1919 Peace conference was involved in drawing the numerous different national boundaries that arose in Europe after world war 1. Also interesting info on the personalities involved; sheds a different light on Woodrow Wilson than that described by John Maynard Keynes.
Also highly recommended:
there is one CD set in either of the 2 series, Modern Scholar or Portable Professor in which one can actually hear Margaret MacMillan discuss, in a more informal and off hand manor, of what is in the book.
The leading title of the CD's is
"Six Months That changed the World"
Macmillan's voice is crisp and clear and her insights fascinating. If you enjoyed the book you will definitly enjoy the CD's

Ms. MacMillan has done a good job of presenting WWI and its aftermath in a global context. This is necessary for understanding the world-wide implications of a war that is often seen as a merely European conflict. She breaks down the Paris Peace Conference into the many issues that stemmed from it. For instance, she talks about the efforts to create viable nation-states out of the ruins of Austria-Hungary, going into detail about each national group and its demands. Moreover, she explores how China and Japan each sought to use their connection to the Allied powers to their advantage. In addition, she looks at how various colonial populations throughout Africa and Asia began to question European rule. I particularly enjoyed the contrast that Ms. MacMillan presents between U.S. President Woodrow Wilson (and his endless rhetoric about international morality) and his European counterparts (who were jockeying for national gain from the spoils of war).

Ms. MacMillan has done a good job of presenting WWI and its aftermath in a global context. This is necessary for understanding the world-wide implications of a war that is often seen as a merely European conflict. She breaks down the Paris Peace Conference into the many issues that stemmed from it. For instance, she talks about the efforts to create viable nation-states out of the ruins of Austria-Hungary, going into detail about each national group and its demands. Moreover, she explores how China and Japan each sought to use their connection to the Allied powers to their advantage. In addition, she looks at how various colonial populations throughout Africa and Asia began to question European rule. I particularly enjoyed the contrast that Ms. MacMillan presents between U.S. President Woodrow Wilson (and his endless rhetoric about international morality) and his European counterparts (who were jockeying for national gain from the spoils of war).

The Big Three deserve a revised judgment from historians. When you consider the state of the world in 1919 and the conflicting pressures between expectations and realities, the decisions made then which are still reverberating around us today were the best that could be made by fallible human beings. Rather than decry the results of the Versailles Conference and the peacemakers' attempts to make a better world, it would be more fitting to criticize the next generation (or what was left of it) which failed to pursue what the peacemakers had envisioned.

A very good analysis of the so called peace process following the end of WWI--it sets out with great clarity all the deals and compromises which have been haunting us ever since--no politician should be allowed to board a plane to go off to play at foreign affairs/diplomacy before reading and preferably being tested on an adequate level of comprehension of this excellent book.

Although I'm still in the process of reading "Paris 1919," it has already given me a good understanding of the causes of WWI, perhaps even better than "The Guns of August," which is an incredible, well-written book.

The book is lively and moves along bringing in the different personalities, issues, and problems encountered when ending the "war to end all wars."

One has the privilege of hindsight when reading about the settlements of WWI, especially with respect to national borders, knowing that much of this will be the cause for WWII, just as surely "as night follows day."

America now is involved in yet another controversial war. This simply demonstrates that mankind has not truly learned the lessons of the past changed. The casuses of war: nationalism, hubris, fear, imperialistic attitudes, leadership, prejudices, natural resources, hate and contempt, "lebensraum--living room," ethnicity, racial differences, etc. have always been the genesis of wars.

Perhaps someday mankind will learn the lessons of the past and sit down across a table to discuss problems rather than being firmly ensconced in trenches shooting through a no-man's land of hate and fear.

Read the book, and let us hope!

Woodrow Wilson siezes the opportunity. Three men sit in a room for six months making deals and maps. America emerges as the dominant and wealthiest world power. The world continues to pay for their perhaps misguided, perhaps greed driven idealism? Got oil?

Interesting behind the scenes look at the famous meeting in Versailles. Good insight into the very large egos that made decisions that shaped the world we live in today. Nothing earth shattering, and it was a slow read but still held my interest.

I believe I was misled by other reviews into believe this book is something it was not. I wanted to clarify a little bit about this book.

First off what it was. This book IS an excellect collection of history involving the major players at the Paris peace conference. It also goes very in depth into the problems facing each of the delegations involved. How to deal with the Balkan states, Russia, Germany et cetera.

This book is MOST DEFINETLY NOT a book that debunks the myth of Versailles ushering in the Nazi era in Germany. She spends less than a page towards the end of the book dedicated to this subject. While it is true that Germany more or less forfeited on the reparations they were to pay, they were still saddled with the war guilt clause. Margaret MacMillan claims that Hitler still would have sought conquest in the 30's and 40's despite the Versailles treaty's clauses. We could agree with this idea if we assume that Hitler could have still assumed power in a Germany less damaged by a more lenient peace.

I don't know that I have ever gotten more information from a book. And not only did I learn a ton but it was incredibly relevant to understanding the origin of many contemporary problems. That having been said I found the presentation dry and pretty much had to force myself to get through it.

This book is another fine narrative history in same vein as Robert Massey's Dreadnought, and Alistair Horne's The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. If you have an interest in the Great War and want history to come alive on the page, this book is one for you.

In the introduction Professor MacMillan says; "For six months in 1919, Paris was the capital of the world. The Peace Conference was the world's most important business, the peacemakers its most important people." The six-month session in Paris that took place between January and June1919 and involved representatives of 29 countries drew many of the boundaries of Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans that exist to this day, recreated Poland, set the terms by which the major powers would attempt to live with one another and forged the model for the future United Nations, among many other things.

MacMillan tells the story by getting under the skins of the three primary actors, Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau. She presents them with all their flaws and qualities and does not judge whether they were good men or evil fools as they struggled with a task of monumental difficulty as best they could.

In the end, the author is writing what we may call a revisionist history of the subject. It has long been felt that the Peace Conference was a miserable failure, that narrow national and partisan interests ruled the peacemakers, that the terms offered to Germany were too harsh and contained within them the seeds of the next war. Wilson, George and Clemenceau have been excoriated over the years but Professor MacMillan holds that they have unfairly been made the scapegoats for the mistakes of those who came later. She refutes received ideas about the path from Versailles to World War II and debunks the widely accepted notion that reparations imposed on the Germans were in large part responsible for the Second World War. "Hitler did not wage war because of the Treaty of Versailles," MacMillan writes in her concluding chapter. Even if Germany had retained everything that was taken from it at Versailles, he would have wanted more: "the destruction of Poland, control of Czechoslovakia, above all the conquest of the Soviet Union" as well of course as the annihilation of the Jews.

This is true but it is incomplete. The issue isn't whether Hitler would have been less cruel and bloodthirsty if Versailles had been more equitable, but whether he and his maniacal regime would have come to power at all.

Margaret MacMillan is professor of history at the University of Toronto and the great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George.

This is a must read for those who want to understand our world and the reasons for Balkan and Middle Eastern turmoil. Well written and enough detail to enlighten without being tedious.

Margaret MacMillan has written an excellent book about the decisions made by the "Big Three," British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, American President Woodrow Wilson, and French Premier Georges Clemenceau at the end of World War I.

Their decision, made over a period of 6 months in 1919 in Paris, helped shape the post-war world. Some would argue that those decisions also helped to set the table for increasing radicalism in Germany (eventuating in Adolf Hitler's rise to power) and the origins of World War II.

In the Foreword, Richard Holbrooke says that (page vii): "In diplomacy, as in life itself, one often learns more from failures than from successes. . . . [M]easured against the judgment of history and consequences, it is a study of flawed decisions with terrible consequences, many of which haunt us to this day."

The three leaders are portrayed in enough detail that the reader can understand where they were coming from and the tense dynamics among them. They, and other negotiators, had to address a new world order (e.g., a League of Nations, mandates, etc.), the future of the Balkans, how to punish (and maybe rehabilitate?) Germany, what to do with Central Europe (the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), and other issues (Italy, Japan, Greece, the Middle East).

Many decisions made; many with concequences, as Holbrooke notes in his Foreword. All in all, an important and well done historical analysis of the aftereffects of the First World War.

This book really opened my eyes as to how the world was organized after the first World War. The author did an incredible job of making this history and the personalities come alive - someone should make a mini-series from it. The best thing is that you don't have to have a lot of knowledge of WWI to enjoy it.

This is truly one of the greatest books on the Post World War 1 and how it developed into World War 2. This book goes section by section through the world and talks about the effects of peace on the east, Middle East, Africa, and Europe. It redraws the borders, shows the alienation of Italy as well as the harshness of German reparations. The failure of the League of Nations is coached in this treaty and these six months were a catastrophe for the world. It is done in amazing detail. This is an essential book for any World War 1 or World War 2 historian.

This is an amazing book, full of detailed research and much information that this reader wasn't fully aware of before. But, unless you are really a history buff and into this type of reading, this might be a tough go. It's wonderfully written and full of an amazing amount of information, too much information to be absorbed easily. I read this book as a class assignment - not a credit class, but a continuing education class - and even with a good instructor and a bunch of intelligent classmates, it was still a hard go. But now that I have finished it, I'm so glad to be aware of all that happened then. It does explain a lot of what is happening in the world today and why it is happening. On the whole, I loved it, even though it was a lot to absorb.

Margaret Macmillan deserves infinite kudos for her research and ability to make history come alive. I came away from reading this book feeling as if I actually knew the key characters personally. Her revelations regarding the personalities, objectives, agendas, and beliefs of Clemenceau, Wilson, Lloyd George, and Orlando were well documented and extremely informative. This book reveals how 1919 made WW II inevitable.

After reading this book the I gained a keen insight into the turmoil in Iraq,the recent Yugoslavian revolutions and the troubled middle east. These contries were unrealistically cobbled together after World War I at the peace talks in Paris. None of these areas stood a chance of a peaceful existence. They were doomed to failure from the start. An extraordinary book

WWI !!! .... The war to end all wars!!

David Lloyd George (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - Chancellor of the Exchequer), Georges Clemenceau (France's President of the Council and Minister of war - doctor and journalist) and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (Prime Minister of Italy - Professor of Law)


Lloyd George also found in WWI England's outlet to avoid in house rebellion against possible autonomy for Ireland.
During that period schism ruled the country threatening to expand to the rest of the British Empire.
LG talked `about the gravest issue raised in this country since the days of the Stuarts', the words `civil war' and `rebellion' was mentioned to describe the grave situation in Ireland.
As Exchequer LG was afraid that post war period would breakdown the whole credit system with London, as world power, at its centre. A wave of financial panic that had started in New York engulfed the main Capitals all over Europe.
At Versailles, Lloyd George had good ear for melodrama, and at 56 by 1919 he looked years older.

Orlando headed the Cabinet after humiliating defeat of Italy's armed forces at Caporetto (Slovenia) on the Austro-Italian front when Austro-Hungarian troops supported (of course) by German units, routed the Italian army and immediately broke the entire Italian front.
The word `Caperetto' gained its defeating resonance in the Italian parlance. (Even Mussolini used it later to describe - and dismiss - any sense of defeatism in the Army - or anywhere within his administration)
Orlando rebelled furiously at such `stigma' and at Versailles demanded (begged) to know if Italy were to be treated as `subordinate' - a point that caused lots of frictions within Italy - or enjoy the spoils of war with proper amenities.
Acting as Catholic chaplain he relied on the Holy See to convey the gratifying news that Italy, although vanquished and tired to the bones, deserved just and fair treatment. His paroxysm of passion burst him into tears many times.
At Versailles, Vittorio Orlando was 59 and came to the meeting overwrought, pale cheeked and white faced; he too looked years older.

Doctor Georges Clemenceau - the Tiger of France - was deluged several times before the WWI broke that Germany was premobilizing its forces at times France was utterly unprepared. (Some French troops were carried to their HQ by taxis)
GC was also obsessed by the civil strife that engulfed Paris in 1914 - when many foreigners suspected of being German spies were arrested and troops came in to control the situation - The events developed violent temper in GC, on several occasions he was heard uttering words like `an idiot ...' `fire the guy...' `He should be torn to ribbons....'.
At the terrible cost of draining French manpower, CG knew well that was an error that would never be repaired. The culprits were the Germans. The wrongdoers were the Germans; the greed came from Germany, expansionism was Germanic. To put an end to this deadlock, Germany ought to be penalized.
At Versailles, George Clemenceau was 79 by 1919 he acted much younger than his age.

The three didn't listen to Woodrow Wilson 14 points; a formidable man of principles, Wilson puritanically attached to neutrality, criticized the Treaty of Versailles that they drafted based on `Revenge. Hate. Fear. Desperation'
It is strange how the three musketeers couldn't perceive how war stifles reforms - greatness at the world stage had been their aim.

After four years of unprecedented slaughter, victors and supplicants gathered in Paris in 1919 to determine a peace that would truly `end all wars.' Wilson's wildly popular Fourteen Points promised fair and open redress of grievances, and a world born anew under a League of Nations. Delegates from nearly every point on the globe were drawn to present their case in a process that took six months.

MacMillan describes the process in an entertaining, masterful account. Motives of victors, vanquished, and hopeful envoys are lucidly and impartially examined. Portraits of Lloyd-George, Wilson, Clemenceau, Balfour, Curzon, Churchill, TE. Lawrence, Feisal, Weizmann, Keynes, Hoover, Clémentel, and many others emerge. Given the text, the reader can decide if the Treaty of Versailles made war inevitable twenty years later (a popular interpretation).

Highly recommended. You decide.

Also suggested: Alstair Horne: The Price of Glory (Verdun 1916); Ian Kershaw's `Making Friends With Hitler' (Lord Londonderry and post-WW1 appeasement); Hitler: Hubris (1889-1939), and Hitler: Nemesis (1939-45).

Macmillan paints a clear picture of how all the hopes that were envisaged for the Paris Peace Conference --self determination, open door diplomacy, and a new world order based on genuine cooperation of nations-- never came to pass. Instead what happened was more of the same old closed-door deals, redrawing of of borders, and reshuffling of people without their consent--all of which were responsible for the war in the first place.

This book is essential for anyone who wants to thoroughly understand what is happening in the world today. Pick any zone of conflict throughout the world and it's orgins can be, at least partially, traced to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Examples include Kosovo, Iraq and Palestine.

I do have one main criricism of the book. Macmillan neglected to mention the fact that Montenegro was the only Allied power to lose its independence after the war. Point XI of Wilson's terms for peace stipulated that the territorial integrity of the Balkan States be respected. Because the Big Four were pre-occupied with more important concerns, Montenegro had to pay the ultimate price by losing its independence.

This is important because it illustrates the fact that promises made by the Allies as well as the 14 Points of Wilson's peace terms were appliled when they were convenient, and discarded when they were not. As a result, millions of people throughout the world were left with a deep sense of mistrust, resentment, and the desire to fight for their political goals-- this explains why almost every act of the Paris Peace Conference has been undone.

This is an excellent book. The writer expresses herself exstrodinarily well and she has great command of the material. The fact that she is the great grandaughter of Lloyd George helps to make her observations based on believable "reality" not hypothetical fantasy.

Were there ever six months like these?

Present at the creation - and barely after the deluge - Britain's David Loyd George, France's George Clemenceau, and the emerging American empire's idealistic Woodrow Wilson gathered to shape the world that was to be. Loyd George's great-grandaughter, the Oxford historian Margaret Macmillan has given us a colorful description of those titans laying with nations in the drawing rooms of post-war Paris.

The book's cover photo of the three victorious leaders is worth a chapter or two on its own.

What were these man thinking?, one might be tempted to ask. Fate has shoved in to their laps prerrogatives that few national leaders could covet, and each of them seized them with the utmost urgency. There were colonial rights to be asserted and defended. Wilson was upfront about the peoples' right to self-determination, though Macmillan makes justifiable hay with how little he had considered the forces this would bring into play.

Mostly they squabbled, and refereed the squabbles of others. It was exhausting work, made up on the fly by men whose minds could not possibly comprehend the implications of decisions made on tired afternoons, then reversed - or almost - when a competing notion was presented next morning with persuasive zeal.

Psychologically, Macmillan's analysis is riveting. Conceptually, she is harsh on Wilson's Principles and - in grammar that has become familiar in transatlantic discourse - Wilson's arrogant idealism. Indeed, he was a long way from Princeton University's presidential office. She diminished the role assigned by conventional wisdom to the Versaille Treaty and its irritating and ultimately provocative influence on the rise of Hitler's Reich.

The book offers all manner of occasional insights into modern conflicts in the Balkans and the Middle East. Indeed, it is difficult not to find new light into the twin impulses of America's isolationism and her imperialism. How many high school, college students, and news analysts have any sense for how difficult it has been to drag America into Europe's wars and reconciliations? And how troubled the results have proven to be, dragging accomplished?

The Paris Peace Conference off 1919 is one of those historical events that many people seem to have a notion and opinion but no particularly detailed knowledge about. Peacemakers, for anyone interested in this fascinating and monumentally important topic, provides an excellent way to fill in the details and obtain a good view of the events. Margaret MacMillan has taken a fresh look at the conference and simply given the reader the story of what happened.

Given that so much history flowed out of the aftermath of the First World War, it's not surprising that this is a politically charged topic. MacMillan, however, does not seem to have written with an agenda in mind beyond simply fleshing out the details of this bit of diplomatic history. She introduces us to all the world leaders present and to what their background and goals are. The national backgrounds of the participating countries are covered as well. Of the patchwork of countries that were redefined or created fresh in the aftermath of the war, she gives nearly each one its own chapter. From the rebirth of Poland to the construction of Yugoslavia to the shattering of the Ottoman Empire MacMillan guides us through the major claims and aspirations of each and often follows through with a few years worth of events that follow. The birth of the League of Nations is covered. War reparations and future relations among combatants are covered. Throughout MacMillan keeps the reader's attention focused back in Paris and the events within the conference itself. The interplay among the major and minor delegates is played out on these pages, complete with the rivalries and alliances that sprung up and faded away with each issue.

Overall, the topic here is the conference and its place in world affairs, both then and since. For all that effort, history has not been kind to the conference or to its participants. It is not terribly unjustified for history to make this judgment, but to judge in ignorance is a disservice to a monumental and hardly irrelevant achievement of the time.

It's unfortunate that a book with such considerable potential to enlighten turned out to be such a deadening historical experience. The author seems so enamored with her own voice that you have to wonder if the portraits she draws and the conclusions she reaches are more a product of her own biases than of the textured historical record. For example, Woodrow Wilson emerges as a caricature, a toy for her personal dislike, someone far less complex than what more sophisticated historians have portrayed. Lloyd George comes off as much more of a hero than history merits -- but I guess this is to be expected, given that the author is related to him, which of course makes her analysis immediately suspect. To me, the author seems like she always has something to prove, as if she wants to show how clever and smart she really is. Better writers have no need to prove themselves this way. In the end, she overstays her welcome with the reader, which is really too bad because it's such an important subject.

MacMillan wrote a masterful study --- one that puts into perspective the post-WWI politics with the subsequent disasters in Europe. I was somewhat concerned in the first chapters that the work might be disjointed, but MacMillan sorted things out extremely well and went on to follow the necessary threads. Her points --- that the post-WWI ideals of Wilson potentiated the disasters of WWII Europe --- become a cautionary tale. While ideals of self-determination sounded good, the practice of nationalizing every determination (or ignoring them when they became too overwhelming) led to horrors even beyond those experienced in WWI. We see little long term good from 1919 --- Nazi Germany, militaristic Japan, the rampage of a disenfranchised Bolshevik Russia, a Stalin aligned with Turkey to subvert Armenia, a mid-east situation that plagues us to this day, a League of Nations doomed to failure. Rather than securing the peace, Paris 1919 simply lit a fuse for a bomb far larger than anything the world could imagine.
MacMillan does an excellent job. The only shortcoming I found in the book (and it was minor), was the paucity of explanation for Wilson's metamorphosis from War time leader to control freak in Paris. While this was not a "nationalist" thread, it would have helped explain Wilson's psyschological collaboration with the failure of the Versailles treaty. I know there are other studies on this, but a little more meat would have helped.
This book is well worth reading.

I read this book for a graduate course in history and enjoyed Macmillan's presentation. She tends to be biased against Wilson, but that was not necessarily unwarranted, he did have a Messiah complex. She can pick on the French, but I can't blame her given the history and fear they had concerning Germany.

My issue with Paris 1919 is in the conclusion. Macmillan fails to connect the rise of Hitler and Mussolini with Paris 1919 much less the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Vietnam War or other events in the Balkans and Africa. "Hitler did not wage war because of the Treaty of Versailles, although he found it a godsend for his propaganda." (P 493) His entire thesis was the stab in the back theory and the harshness of Versailles. Read Joachim Fest or Alan Bullock to confirm these facts. Moreover, she states in her conclusion that "The Allied victory had not been decisive enough and Germany remained to strong." (P 486) This comment totally disregards the harshness of the Treaty which was pushed so ruthlessly by the French. Remember the British and Americans did not want to punish Germany too harshly for fear of what happened. While the victory was technically incomplete, the Allies never marched into Berlin, Germany was in shambles before the mid 30's.

I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the era, but also caution readers against the inaccuracies in the conclusion.

I read this book for a graduate corse in history and enjoyed Macmillan's presentation. She tends to be biased against Wilson, but that was not necessarily unwarranted, he did have a Messiah complex. She can pick on the French, but I can't blame her given the history and fear they had concerning Germany.

My issue with Paris 1919 is in the conclusion. Macmillan fails to connect the rise of Hitler and Mussolini with Paris 1919 much less the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Vietnam War or other events in the Balkans and Africa. "Hitler did not wage war because of the Treaty of Versailles, although he found it a godsend for his propaganda." (P 493) His entire thesis was the stab in the back theory and the harshness of Versailles. Read Joachim Fest or Alan Bullock to confirm these facts. Moreover, she states in her conclusion that "The Allied victory had not been decisive enough and Germany remained to strong." (P 486) This comment totally disregards the harshness of the Treaty which was pushed so ruthlessly by the French. Remember the British and Americans did not want to punish Germany to harshly for fear of what happened. While the victory was tecnically incomplete, the Allies never marched into Berlin, Germany was in shambles before the mid 30's.

I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the era, but also caution readers against the inaccuracies in the conclusion.

The fact that Margaret Mac Millian is the Great-grandaughter of David Lloyd George has not been mentioned in any of the reviews that I have read, but it is on the book cover. Her access to her famous ancestors personal letters bring a fresh perspective to how President Wilson was viewed by his opposite, the Prime Minister of Great Britian.

My original perspective of Wilson based on high school and college texts was that he was above politics and demonstrated his willingness to fight prejudice as evidenced by his "lberalization" of the eating clubs at Princetown. I also viewed his efforts to bring the US into the League of Nations as a noble and focused effort that was thwarted by the evil Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.

After reading MacMillian's book, my impression of Wilson changed. She descibes him as a naive politician who to be kind could be called an angolphile. While others might call him a bigot towards anyone not of White Northern European stock, and that would include anyone of Germanic, Slavic or Southern European roots. His attitude towards Japan, one of our allies, was distinctly prejudiced.

Mac Millian writes that Wilson never understood that the Germans had agreed to an Armistance under the terms of his famous 14 points. He never seemed to understand that the terms being forced on the Germans ignored the reasons for calling a cease fire. He was blind to his own prejudices, and swallowed up by politicians such as her ancestor and other leading Allies who wanted to punish and profit from the war at Germany's expense.

I found this to be a thorough, cogent rendering of the events at the Paris peace conference of 1919, but I was left wanting when it came to analysis and wit. Ultimately, I learned a lot of facts, but didn't get much insight from Macmillan and there were times where I doubted her objectivity. For example, she seems to have a serious dislike of John Maynard Keynes (she would slide in insults every time she mentioned his name). Also, she showed a familial respect for Lloyd George (who not surprisingly is a direct relation), going rather easy on a man many blame for the Greek and Middle Eastern fiascos after the war. These moments didn't ruin the book and at the end of the day, it serves its purpose in furthering the readers understanding, if not always in the most compelling way.

This book covers the peace conference held in Paris by the winners of World War I and the various decisions and processes by which they worked. Like most people I had a vague understanding of the ending of WW1: I, of course, remembered the Versailles treaty, the abortive League of Nations, the German reparations, etc. But, I had not realized that these were the products of a six month process. I picked up this book hoping to learn more about what happened and what the thinking was. I was both enlightened and disappointed.

On the positive side, I was amazed to read of the hundreds - even thousands - of delegates who came and presented their cases for the various concessions they were looking for. It was interesting to read about how Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and other countries came into being. (Iraq, for instance, was designed the way it is because the British wanted the oil-rich province of Mosul kept away from the French and so they annexed it to the two provinces of Basra and Baghdad which were ruled by an extremely capable British consul) Detailed and exhaustive descriptions of the various debates that occupied everyone about the borders in Europe are also illuminating.

On the negative side, the book is written in a very dry manner. This is history as it is taught in High School in all its negative implications. There is an endless parade of people and place names (sometimes presented in two or even three different ways, brief historical sketches - including endless dates - of what constituted each people's glory times. The author delights in painting the Italians, Greeks, and French as being greedy and over-reaching, and painting the Americans as being distracted, disengaged, and wanting to leave the mess behind them. Only the British get a modicum of sympathetic coverage. the book could have been enlightened by the addition of various humurous anecdotes that surely happened during that time or by presenting more descriptions of the actual people rather than having them look like automatons.

The book's organization almost leaves me cold. Sandwiched between an introductory and a concluding chapters are many, many chapters that are all similarly constructed. Each chapter focuses on one region or country and tells the story of the decisions made about them. Each chapter starts with a description of the people involved and their historical connection to the land. Then there is a brief sketch of each of their main delegates to the conference. This is followed by a description of what the arguments may have been for the countries and/or regions that were discussed. Finally, the chapter ends, at times, with a paragraph that brings the story of that region to present times - especially in the cases where conflict continued in that area over the intervening 90 years. One of the ways in which this construction fails is that it appears to me that each chapter was written independently and minimal editing occured. This results in much repetition like: the allies being concerned with the German treaty so XXX was heard with impatience; Then the Italian conflict raged so XXX was left to cool his heals. Wilson not caring about this or that unless it affected the League of Nations. Wilson willing to compromise his principles in this case because he was focused on the League of Nations, etc. This became quite distracting.

Something else that is pointed out repeatedly which was a revelation to me was that the conference was essentially irrelevant in many cases. Case after case is presented where the conference merely rubber stamped actions that had already taken place. The book points these out like the cases of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugosalvia etc. In that case, I ask, what was the point? The conference merely accepted what was already done in most cases.

The final, dark, thought that I had was about the futility of much of what took place. While the conference tried to put different ethnic groups in their own countries, they did not enforce these in areas where there was much intermingling. As the book points out, this created many of the seeds of the terrible atrocities of World War 2. Projecting that into our world of today, could it be that the only way to have successful countries is to make sure that they either follow the old American "melting pot" theory, or enforce a rigid assimilation of the various people into one, officially recognized ethnicity?

The author is the great granddaughter of the British PM David Lloyd George. Presumably it's just a coincidence, but the book gives a sanitized portrayal of LG's role in shaping the post-WWI peace. David Fromkin's masterful "A Peace to End All Peace" relates how LG blundered by pursuing what Churchill called a "vendetta against the Turks," in which the large Greek minority then living in Anatolia (Asian Turkey) were LG's pawns, and ultimately, his unintended victims.

The worst aspect of Macmillan's book, however, is its biased treatment of what is today the most controversial aspect of the peace of 1919. Macmillan's version of adheres religiously to the liberal-chique view that the Arabs were victims of a 1919-1920 "disaster" inflicted upon them by the western democracies. The chief "example of Western perfidity" was the support extended by the triumphant democracies toward Zionism, i.e., the establishment of a "national home" (in the words of the Balfour Declaration) for Jews within Palestine. "The Arab world as a whole never forgot its betrayal."

Ms. Mcmillan seems to overlook the fact that before the western democracies intervened, admittedly for self-serving reasons, there was not even one independent Arab nation in the region. The entire region had been ruled by the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire.

The western democracies took land from defeated Germany for the reestablishment of Poland, from Russia for Poland and four other newly reborn Baltic nations, and from Austria for the new Czechoslovakia, etc. All of these peoples have always been profoundly grateful for their gifts of national liberation courtesy of the 1919 peace process, even though none werre granted as much land as they desired. But somehow the Arabs (who by the way never contributed in any significant way to the winning of the war) are seen as victims of "perfidy" and "betrayal," because when their polulace was liberated, a relatively tiny sliver of their claimed land was designated as open for immigration to another previously nationless populace that traced its roots to the land in question.

Mcmillan's telling of this "disaster" story is so thoroughly one-sided, I cannot recommend her book to anyone except as a case study in the moral bankrupcy of modern liberal relativism, which insists that all -isms, from Christianity to secular humanism to Islamism and its corollary, terrorism, are equal in terms of validity and value.

I finally finished MacMillan's book yesterday and I'm sad that I've done so. Such an engaging, thoughtful, well-written, and enlightening book is hard to finally close. The subject is the Paris Peace Conference which followed the end of World War I. As I've told a few friends of mine, I've been on a World War I kick for about the last year or so. The Great War, as it was known in the inter-war period, was a cataclysmic event. It marked the end of era in history, and signaled the beginning of the modern and post-modern world not only in global politics, but in Western culture in general. It set the stage for the Second World War, for the Arab-Israeli conflict, for the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq (Iraq was created in the aftermath of the war). The great empires that had held their world order in place for centuries were either destroyed, in the cases of Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans, or shaken to their cores, as the British and French were. The resulting chaos left the peacemakers, Lloyd George of Great Britain, Clemenceau of France, Woodrow Wilson, and Orlando of Italy with the Herculean task of creating a new Europe, a new Middle East, a new world. It was a task to which perhaps no 4 men in the history of civilization have ever been equal. Given the forces arrayed against them -- the stunning ascent of Bolshevism in Russia, the unexpected collapses of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires and the rekindling of long suppressed nationalist sentiments among their subject peoples, the tension between China and Japan over territory and favor with the West, and of course, the question of how to deal with a defeated Germany -- the peacemakers cobbled together a peace that most certainly could have been better, but as MacMillan argues, could have been a whole lot worse.

Arguably, Wilson threw a giant wrench into the works by publishing his 14 Points before the Conference began. A visionary plan for a new world order it was, a blueprint for an eventual peace it was not. Wilson's closely held ideal of self-determination -- that subject peoples should decide their political and national future -- was greeted around the world with enthusiasm, optimism, and in some cases, near reverence. The 14 Points gave the world (including Germany) the hope that with peace would come renewed dignity and international cooperation, reconstruction and not revenge. Representatives from all over Europe, Asia, and Africa went to Paris to seek the blessing and aid of the Conference for their particular political struggle. Sadly, those who received attention were mostly those who were of strategic importance (location, natural resources, etc) to the peacemakers or to whom they were particularly sympathetic. Wilson compromised on self-determination in the face of pressure from Britain and France to secure what was necessary to their security and advantage (for Britain - to keep its empire alive; for France: to rebuild its shattered country and make sure that the Germans would never be able to threaten them again).

The war also ushered in a new day in the United States. For, while his internationalist policies were ultimately repudiated in his own country, and in his own right he had neither the political savvy nor the power to bring his ideas to life, Woodrow Wilson conceived the idea of America the World Power, the World Policeman, the World Leader. It was an idea that would not be given birth until after the Second World War, and with which we are still grappling today.

This was a fascinating book and an excellent introduction to the world we live in today. So many questions answered, so many dots connected... MacMillan doesn't write with the plodding style typical of too many historians. She is brisk, engaging and witty.

The seemingly unsolvable tribal conflicts of the world that periodically monopolize so much newsprint - Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Palestine, etc. - are so intractable that any one of them would cause the Deity himself to weep with frustration. With that image in mind, PARIS 1919 becomes all that more amazing; you couldn't make up a story of an endeavor the success of which was so likely improbable.

Margaret MacMillan's historical narrative is a richly detailed masterpiece of popular history in which she deftly teases apart the plethora of problems facing the World War I victors - Britain, France, the U.S., Italy, and Japan - that gathered in Paris in the first half of 1919 to craft a treaty to end global war forever and, indeed, construct a new world order. The tasks facing the winners seemed, and sometimes proved to be, insurmountable: the treaties and reparations to be imposed upon the losers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey), the drawing of new national borders in western, central, eastern, and southern Europe, the assignment of mandates in the Middle and Far East, the call for various national plebiscites, and the establishment of the League of Nations. One can only marvel at the chutzpah of those national leaders - principally Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Orlando - who truly believed they could pull it off in the face of the tribal agendas that existed even among themselves.

MacMillan's style bears some similarity to that of Barbara Tuchman, though without the pervasive wry humor. But even Margaret has her giddy moments, as when she recounts:

" ... (Canadian delegate) Biggar wrote to his wife in Canada, (that) he was having a wonderful time: ... (including) the music halls where he was struck ... by the beauty of the prostitutes. ... When his wife immediately suggested that she come from Canada to join him, Biggar had serious reservations. Of course, he wanted to see her but even now the flats in Paris were terribly expensive, and they had appalling bathrooms. And that he had been told, by a senior politician, that revolution was about to sweep across Germany and possibly into France. There would be serious shortages of food and fuel. The lights would go out, the taps would run dry. 'You must, however, make up your own mind to discomfort with, very remotely, danger.' Mrs. Biggar remained in Canada."

Seems like it was a close run thing for Mr. Biggar.

PARIS 1919 is supplemented by very useful maps showing the multitude of regions and national boundaries under contention in Europe, Africa, and the Middle and Far East, as well as an extensive photo section, which manages to include most of those in attendance of any great significance to the overall story. There's also a two-page appendix that quotes verbatim Wilson's exercise in idealism, the Fourteen Points.

The opinion is widespread that the rise of Hitler and the Second World War had their roots in a vengeful Treaty of Versailles, which, among other odious terms, exacted exorbitant reparation payments from Germany. MacMillan provides evidence that this is an oversimplification, or just plain untrue. Rather, the failure to keep Germany on the straight and narrow in the 20s and 30s stemmed from the indecisiveness of European leaders whose