David Lloyd George Quotes
Please refresh my memory. Is it Upper or Lower Silesia that we are giving away?
1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor
David Lloyd George, 1863-1945, British Prime Minister (Liberal), Question asked of an aide during the negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles, 1919
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Germans pretended to maintain the treaty and when the French totally evacuated the Rhineland, Hitler started his preparation for WWII and a little later invaded France. Clemenceau had been snookered.
Nicolson was an eyewitness to the proceedings.
In the history of diplomacy and peace treaty negotiations, the various national representative would meet in secret, negotiate treaties and add secret clauses. Then the treaty was finally made public for approbal or ratification in the different countries no one would be told of the secret clauses. Each side would have a written secret copy of these clauses, but the publics of the country would never know. For example, the agreements about various WWII issues that were secret have not yet been made public in the United States or England. Wilson wanted to put an end to that diplomatic ploy and wanted all the peace treaty clauses to be public with nothing secret. He also wanted the deliberations to made in public woth press access. He had little support for the idea in most European nations.
This illustrates one of the reasons that the Israeli Arab conflict has been unsolvable over the years. A thousand years ago, the Arabs were a leading intellectual and military power in the world. The rest of the world has moved ahead and they have actually retrogressed. So the Arabs seek dignity which is very elusive. They have never wanted to negotiate terms with Israel when they have been weak and feel defeated. So the pattern has been that they feel they cannot negotiate for justice as they are too week. So periodically they attack Israel which has always defeated them and hoped that after the Arab defeat, permanent negotiations for peace could take place. But the Arabs were feeling too weak. So they just repeated all their extreme demands. After a few years, they would try another attack, lose again and the cycle would repeat. The Israelis fear that if the Arabs every won a war, the Arab moderates might be willing to reasonably negotiate, the extremists would want to continue the fighting and “drive the Israelis into the sea” as they have so often threatened.
He had little difficulty until he and the British Government announced the plan to grant independence to India. At that point the Muslim League came up with the notion of Partition of India which polarized the Indian politicians mostly along religious lines, and much of India was "up for grabs". No one wanted to concede anything to the other side as this might strengthen the other side's image of its power and just encourage them to go for more. Wavell's job became impossible.
The German designs for Polish destruction began long before World War II. Poland, created by the Treaty of Versailles, was seen be fanatic Germans as an example of French Hegemony.
The Senate debate on the ratification of the Versailles Peace Treaty was difficult for President Wilson, who wanted the treaty ratified without reservations or exceptions:. Wilson would accept no reservations and the treaty was never ratified.
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, OM, PC was a Welsh statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was the final Liberal to hold the post of prime minister, but his support increasingly came from the Conservatives who finally dropped him.
