1. IGCSE International Relations
1919-39
1 Were the Peace Treaties of 1919-23 fair?
What were the motives and aims of the Big 3?
LO: To identify and explain areas of agreement
and disagreement.

5. Lloyd George GB
• Lloyd George was the youngest of the
three, a cheerful rosy-faced man with
startling blue eyes and a shock of white
hair. (‘Hullo!’, a little girl once asked him,
‘Are you Charlie Chaplin?’ –Margaret
MacMillan

7. Clemenceau France
Clemenceau was also extraordinarily brave
and stubborn. When the Germans
advanced on Paris in 1914, the French
parliament debated leaving. Clemenceau
agreed: ‘Yes, we are too far from the
front.’ –Margaret MacMillan

9. Woodrow Wilson -USA
• The French ambassador in Washington
saw ‘a man who, had he lived a couple of
centuries ago, would have been the
greatest tyrant in the world, because he
does not seem to have the slightest
conception that he can ever be wrong’.-
Margaret MacMillan

10. Key Facts- France
“A quarter of French men between eighteen and thirty
had died in the war, over 1.3 million altogether out
of a pre-war population of 40 million. France lost a
higher proportion of its population than any other of
the belligerents. Twice as many again of its soldiers
had been wounded. In the north great stretches of
land were pitted with shell holes, criss-crossed by
trenches, marked with row upon row of crosses.
Around the fortress of Verdun, site of the worst
French battle, not a living thing grew, not a bird
sang. The coal-mines on which the French economy
depended for its power were flooded; the factories
they would have supplied had been razed to the
ground or carted away into Germany.”

11. Q1 What is the most complete way
of describing the French aims at
Paris?
A) To cripple Germany as much as possible
B) To rebuild the global economy
C) They want land, and reparations and economic
aid to rebuild France
D) To reduce the German military
E) To make the French militarily stronger
F) Something else

12. Key Facts-UK
• “Britain had already got much of what it wanted. The German fleet,
which had challenged British power around the world, was safely in
British hands, the surface ships in Scapa Flow and most of the
submarines in Harwich. Its coaling stations, harbours and telegraph
stations had been taken by Japan or the British empire. ‘If you had told
the British people twelve months ago’, Lloyd George said in Paris, ‘that
they would have secured what they have, they would have laughed you
to scorn. The German Navy has been handed over; the German
mercantile shipping has been handed over, and the German colonies
have been given up. One of our chief trade competitors has been most
seriously crippled and our Allies are about to become her biggest
creditors. That is no small achievement.’ There was more: ‘We have
destroyed the menace to our Indian possessions.’ Russia, whose
southward push throughout the nineteenth century had so worried
generations of British statesmen, was finished as a power, at least in the
short run, and all along its southern boundaries, in Persia and the
Caucasus, were British forces and British influence. Communications
with India were more secure than ever. “ –Margaret MacMillan

13. Q2 Describe Lloyd George’s aims
at the Paris Peace Conference
A) Punish Germany to appease voters (but not too much);
build Germany back up; ward off Communism; secure
German overseas colonies
B) Reduce German military might; especially the navy;
Prevention of a second War
C) Keep the French happy by making sure they felt safe
e.g.: Rhineland
D) Ensure Germany would continue as a trading partner
(Britain was a trade based empire)
E) Protect the empire (especially India)
F) All of the above

14. Key Facts-USA
• “In concentrating on the League, Wilson allowed much
else to go by at the Peace Conference. He did not fight
decisions that, by his lights, were wrong: the award of
the German-speaking Tyrol to Italy, or the placing of
millions of Germans under Czechoslovak or Polish rule.
Such settlements once made were surprisingly durable,
at least until the next war started. It would have been
difficult in any case for the League to act, because its
rules insisted on unanimity in virtually all decisions. His
other equally dangerous assumption was that he had the
support to get the League through Congress.”
-Macmillan

15. Q3 Describe Wilson’s aims at the
Paris Peace Conference
A) Punish

16. The Roleplay
• At the actual peace conference Lloyd
George asked his staffers to take on the
role of each of the main nations and
debate from that perspective. He did this
to prepare for the conference and the
debates.
• Try it! In small groups, allocate roles and
try and debate from that point of view.