But when War was over, when it was peace that had to be ensured, no one could be less fitted for the work.  He saw nothing beyond his hatred for Germany, the necessity for destroying the enemy, sweeping away every bit of his activity, bringing him into subjection.  On account of his age he could not visualize the problems of the future; he could only see one thing necessary, and that was immediate, to destroy the enemy and either destroy or confiscate all his means of development.  He was not nationalist or imperialist like his collaborators, but before all and above all one idea lived in him, hatred for Germany; she must be rendered barren, disembowelled, annihilated.

He had said in the French Parliament that treaties of peace were nothing more than a way of going on with war, and in September, 1920, in his preface to M. Tardieu’s book, he said that France must get reparation for Waterloo and Sedan.  Even Waterloo:  Waterloo et Sedan, pour ne pas remonter plus haut, nous imposaient d’abord les douloureux soucis d’une politique de reparation.

Tardieu noted, as we have seen, that there were only three people in the Conference:  Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George.  Orlando, he remarks, spoke little, and Italy had no importance.  With subtle irony he notes that Wilson talked like a University don criticizing an essay with the didactic logic of the professor.  The truth is that after having made the mistake of staying in the Conference he did not see that his whole edifice was tumbling down, and he let mistakes accumulate one after the other, with the result that treaties were framed which, as already pointed out, actually destroyed all the principles he had declared to the world.

Things being as they were in Paris, Clemenceau’s temperament, the pressure of French industry and of the newspapers, the real anxiety to make the future safe, and the desire on that account to exterminate the enemy, France naturally demanded, through its representatives, the severest sanctions.  England, given the realistic nature of its representatives and the calm clear vision of Lloyd George, always favoured in general the more moderate solutions as those which were more likely to be carried out and would least disturb the equilibrium of Europe.  So it came about that the decisions seemed to be a compromise, but were, on the other hand, actually so hard and so stern that they were impossible of execution.

Without committing any indiscretion it is possible to see now from the publications of the French representatives at the Conference themselves what France’s claims were.

Let us try to sum them up.

As regards disarmament and control there could have been and there ought to have been no difficulty about agreement.  I am in favour of the reduction of all armaments, but I regard it as a perfectly legitimate claim that the country principally responsible for the War, and in general the conquered countries, should be obliged to disarm.