Notes For Versailles Presentation Notes

Four Opinions - one Enormous Task The conference has been seen in terms of the personalities and influence of the major figures of Orlando, Clemenceau, Wilson and Lloyd George. The task was far from simple: to reshape the world, the nature of states and international relations into a new image. ITALY Orlando didn't know how to speak English. Orlando walked out of the conference in protest over Wilson's resistance to Italian territorial claims. An example of how the powers' aims never translated into success is Britain: Britain wanted maintenance of the balance of power in Europe, maintenance of weak power in the Low Countries, and the maintenance of British maritime supremacy * "Lloyd George cared nothing about the idea of a League" -FP Walters. In 1935 Britain effectively withdrew from the Treaty with the signing of the AngloGerman Naval Agreement. Again, we ask ourselves, was Britain committed to the League, or was the whole post-war settlement merely an illusion? * Lloyd George and the British government tolerated the results of the League of Nations Commission so long as British and Imperial objectives in other spheres were not frustrated. Between America and Britain there had been bitter infighting with regard to the second clause, freedom of the seas. When the new American naval plan threatened British naval policies, Lloyd George ultimately froze negotiations on the league question. * Powerful realists including the Morning Post within Britain rejected the idea that the League of Nations and a system of "collective security" could provide peace and an alternative path to post-war British security. *the countries on low-lying land around the delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse (Maas) rivers. THE GERMAN QUESTION 3 different opinions: * America was keen on seeing democratic and reformist capitalism working out in Germany, with Germany becoming an industrial and economic giant that could peacefully be accommodated into a European structure. Germany would ultimately be able to serve as a good trading partner for the US. As punishment 

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