Editing Georges Clemenceau (section)

==Paris Peace Conference==
To settle the international political issues left over from the conclusion of World War I, it was decided that a peace conference would be held in Paris, France. Famously, the [[Treaty of Versailles]] between Germany and the Allied Powers to conclude the conflict was signed in the [[Palace of Versailles]], but the deliberations on which it was based were conducted in Paris, hence the name given to the meeting of the victorious heads of state that produced the treaties signed with the defeated powers: the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference]] of 1919. On 13 December 1918, United States president [[Woodrow Wilson]] received an enthusiastic welcome in France. His [[Fourteen Points]] and the concept of a [[League of Nations]] had made a big impact on the war-weary French. At their first meeting, Clemenceau realized that Wilson was a man of principle and conscience.

The powers agreed that since the conference was being held in France, Clemenceau would be the most appropriate president. Also, he spoke both English and French, the official languages of the conference. Clemenceau had an unassailable position of full control of the French delegation. Parliament gave him a vote of confidence on 30 December 1918, by a vote of 398 to 93. The rules of the conference allowed France five [[plenipotentiaries]]. They became Clemenceau and four others who were his pawns. He excluded all military men, especially Foch. He excluded the president of France, Raymond Poincaré, keeping him in the dark on the progress of negotiations. He excluded all parliamentary deputies, saying he would negotiate the treaty and it would be parliament's duty to vote it up or down, after it was finished.<ref>{{Cite journal | url=https://doi.org/10.1177/0968344516640827 | doi=10.1177/0968344516640827 | title=Marshal Ferdinand Foch versus Georges Clemenceau in 1919 | year=2017 | last1=Greenhalgh | first1=Elizabeth | journal=War in History | volume=24 | issue=4 | pages=458–497 | s2cid=157123715 | access-date=26 August 2020 | archive-date=28 October 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231028202735/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0968344516640827 | url-status=live }}</ref>

The progress at the conference was much slower than anticipated and decisions were being tabled constantly. {{citation needed|date=February 2021}} It was this slow pace that induced Clemenceau to give an interview showing his irritation to an American journalist.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} He said he believed that Germany had won the war industrially and commercially as its factories were intact and soon its debts would be overcome through "manipulation".{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} In a short time, he believed, the German economy would once again be much stronger than the French.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

France's leverage was jeopardized repeatedly by Clemenceau's mistrust of Wilson and [[David Lloyd George]], as well as his intense dislike of President Poincaré. When negotiations reached a stalemate, Clemenceau had a habit of shouting at the other heads of state and storming out of the room rather than participating in further discussion.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

===Attempted assassination===
On 19 February 1919, as Clemenceau was leaving his apartment, a man fired several shots at the car. Clemenceau's assailant, anarchist [[Émile Cottin]], was nearly lynched. Clemenceau's assistant found him pale, but conscious. "They shot me in the back", Clemenceau told him. "They didn't even dare to attack me from the front."<ref>Margaret MacMillan, ''Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World'' (2003) p. 150</ref> One bullet hit Clemenceau between the ribs, just missing his vital organs. Too dangerous to remove, the bullet remained with him for the rest of his life.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Millington |first=Chris |title=The invention of terrorism in France, 1904-1939 |date=2024 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-1-5036-3676-7 |location=Stanford, California |pages=59}}</ref>

Clemenceau often joked about the "assassin's" bad marksmanship – "We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target six out of seven times at point-blank range. Of course this fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship. I suggest that he be locked up for eight years, with intensive training in a shooting gallery."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18546869.spotlight-ironic-fallout-treaty-versailles/ |website=The Herald |access-date=12 September 2023 |title=Spotlight: The ironic fallout from the Treaty of Versailles |date=28 June 2020 |archive-date=3 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210303003322/https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18546869.spotlight-ironic-fallout-treaty-versailles/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Rhineland and the Saar===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2004-1110-502, Georges Clemenceau.jpg|thumb|300x300px|Clemenceau in his office, 1929]]
When Clemenceau returned to the Council of Ten on 1 March, he found that little had changed.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} One issue that had not changed at all was the long-running dispute over France's eastern frontier and control of the German [[Rhineland]]. Clemenceau believed that Germany's possession of this territory left France without a natural frontier in the east and thus, was vulnerable to invasion. The British ambassador reported in December 1918 on Clemenceau's views on the future of the Rhineland: "He said that the Rhine was a natural boundary of Gaul and Germany and that it ought to be made the German boundary now, the territory between the Rhine and the French frontier being made into an Independent State whose neutrality should be guaranteed by the great powers."<ref>Watson, p. 337.</ref>

Finally, the issue was resolved when Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson guaranteed immediate military assistance if Germany attacked without provocation.<ref>Watson, p. 347.</ref> It also was decided that the allies would occupy the territory for fifteen years, and that Germany could never rearm the area.<ref>Watson, p. 350.</ref> Lloyd George insisted on a clause allowing for the early withdrawal of allied troops if the Germans fulfilled the treaty; Clemenceau inserted Article 429 into the treaty that permitted allied occupation beyond the fifteen years if adequate guarantees for allied security against unprovoked aggression were not met. This was in case the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the [[Treaty of Guarantee (proposed)|Treaty of Guarantee]], thereby making null and void the British guarantee as well, since that was dependent on the Americans being part of it. This is, in fact, what did occur. Article 429 ensured that a refusal of the U.S. Senate to ratify the treaties of guarantee would not weaken them.<ref>Watson, p. 351.</ref>

President Poincaré and Marshal [[Ferdinand Foch]] both pressed repeatedly for an autonomous Rhineland state. Foch thought the Treaty of Versailles was too lenient on Germany, stating "This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years."<ref>Spencer Tucker and Priscilla Mary Roberts, eds. ''World War I: Encyclopedia'' (2005) 1:426</ref> At a cabinet meeting on 25 April Foch spoke against the deal Clemenceau had brokered and pushed for a separate Rhineland. On 28 April Poincaré sent Clemenceau a long letter detailing why he thought allied occupation should continue until Germany had paid all her reparations. Clemenceau replied that the alliance with America and Britain was of more value than an isolated France that held onto the Rhineland: "In fifteen years I will be dead, but if you do me the honour of visiting my tomb, you will be able to say that the Germans have not fulfilled all the clauses of the treaty, and that we are still on the Rhine."<ref>Watson, pp. 351–352.</ref> Clemenceau said to Lloyd George in June, "We need a barrier behind which, in the years to come, our people can work in security to rebuild its ruins. The barrier is the Rhine. I must take national feelings into account. That does not mean that I am afraid of losing office. I am quite indifferent on that point. But I will not, by giving up the occupation, do something which will break the willpower of our people."<ref>Watson, p. 352.</ref> Later, he said to Jean Martel, "The policy of Foch and Poincaré was bad in principle. It was a policy no Frenchman, no republican Frenchman could accept for a moment, except in the hope of obtaining other guarantees, other advantages. We leave that sort of thing to [[Otto von Bismarck|Bismarck]]."<ref>Watson, p. 353.</ref><ref>"Marshal Ferdinand Foch versus Georges Clemenceau in 1919". pp 458-497</ref>

There was increasing discontent among Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson about slow progress and information leaks surrounding the Council of Ten. They began to meet in a smaller group, called the Council of Four, [[Vittorio Orlando]] of Italy being the fourth, although less weighty, member. This offered greater privacy and security and increased the efficiency of the decision-making process. Another major issue that the Council of Four discussed was the future of the German [[Saar (League of Nations)|Saar]] region. Clemenceau believed that France was entitled to the region and its coal mines after Germany deliberately damaged the coal mines in northern France. Wilson, however, resisted the French claim so firmly that Clemenceau accused him of being "pro-German". Lloyd George came to a compromise; the coal mines were given to France and the territory placed under French administration for 15 years, after which a vote would determine whether the region would rejoin Germany.<ref>Watson, pp. 349–350.</ref>

Although Clemenceau had little knowledge of the defunct Austrian-Hungarian empire, he supported the causes of its smaller ethnic groups and his adamant stance led to the stringent terms in the [[Treaty of Trianon]] that dismantled Hungary. Rather than recognizing territories of the Austrian-Hungarian empire solely within the principles of self-determination, Clemenceau sought to weaken Hungary, just as Germany was, and to remove the threat of such a large power within Central Europe. The entire Czechoslovakian state was seen a potential buffer from Communism and this encompassed majority Hungarian territories.

===Reparations===
Clemenceau was not experienced in the fields of economics or finance, and as [[John Maynard Keynes]] pointed out, "he did not trouble his head to understand either the Indemnity or [France's] overwhelming financial difficulties",<ref>Keynes, John, Maynard, The Economic Consequences of Peace, Cosimo, Inc., 2005, {{ISBN|9781596052222}}, p.150</ref> but he was under strong public and parliamentary pressure to make Germany's [[World War I reparations|reparations]] bill as large as possible. Generally, it was agreed that Germany should not pay more than it could afford, but the estimates of what it could afford varied greatly. Figures ranged between £2,000&nbsp;million and £20,000&nbsp;million. Clemenceau realised that any compromise would anger both the French and British citizens and that the only option was to establish a reparations commission that would examine Germany's capacity for reparations. This meant that the French government was not directly involved in the issue of reparations.

===Defence of the treaty===
The [[Treaty of Versailles]] was signed on 28 June 1919. Clemenceau now had to defend the treaty against critics who viewed the compromises he had negotiated as inadequate for French national interests. The French Parliament debated the treaty and [[Louis Barthou]] on 24 September claimed that the [[U.S. Senate]] would not vote for the Treaty of Guarantee or the [[Treaty of Versailles]] and therefore, it would have been wiser to have the [[Rhine]] as a frontier. Clemenceau replied that he was sure the Senate would ratify both and that he had inserted Article 429 into the treaty, providing for "new arrangements concerning the Rhine". This interpretation of Article 429 was disputed by Barthou.<ref>Watson, p. 360.</ref>

Clemenceau's main speech on the treaty was delivered on 25 September. He said that he knew the treaty was not perfect, but that the war had been fought by a coalition and therefore, the treaty would express the lowest common denominator of those involved. He claimed criticisms of the details of the treaty were misleading; that critics should look at the treaty as a whole and see how they could benefit from it:

<blockquote>The treaty, with all its complex clauses, will only be worth what you are worth; it will be what you make it&nbsp;... What you are going to vote to-day is not even a beginning, it is a beginning of a beginning. The ideas it contains will grow and bear fruit. You have won the power to impose them on a defeated Germany. We are told that she will revive. All the more reason not to show her that we fear her&nbsp;... M. Marin went to the heart of the question, when he turned to us and said in despairing tones, "You have reduced us to a policy of vigilance." Yes, M. Marin, do you think that one could make a treaty which would do away with the need for vigilance among the nations of Europe who only yesterday were pouring out their blood in battle? Life is a perpetual struggle in war, as in peace&nbsp;... That struggle cannot be avoided. Yes, we must have vigilance, we must have a great deal of vigilance. I cannot say for how many years, perhaps I should say for how many centuries, the crisis which has begun will continue. Yes, this treaty will bring us burdens, troubles, miseries, difficulties, and that will continue for long years.<ref>Watson, p. 361.</ref></blockquote>

The Chamber of Deputies ratified the treaty by 372 votes to 53, with the Senate voting unanimously for its ratification. On 11 October Clemenceau gave his last parliamentary speech, addressed to the Senate. He said that any attempt to partition Germany would be self-defeating and that France must find a way of living with sixty million Germans. He also said that the bourgeoisie, like the aristocracy before them in the ''ancien régime'', had failed as a ruling class. It was now the turn of the working class to rule. He advocated national unity and a demographic revolution: "The treaty does not state that France will have many children, but it is the first thing that should have been written there. For if France does not have large families, it will be in vain that you put all the finest clauses in the treaty, that you take away all the Germans guns, France will be lost because there will be no more French".<ref>Watson, p. 362.</ref>