Editing Maxime Weygand (section)

==== Paris Peace Conference ====
[[File:1 FI 1 28 - Le maréchal Foch, les généraux Weygand et Gouraud au garde à vous, place Broglie. 21 novembre 1920.jpg|thumb|Marshal Foch with Generals Weygand and Gouraud at the [[Place Broglie]] on 21 November 1920]]

Weygand agreed with Foch that French security – the consequences of which were impressed during a tour of the liberated German-occupied zones in late 1918 – required territorial expansion to the [[River Rhine]] as a [[buffer zone]]. Their dislike of politicians, who they viewed as having little understanding of war realities or military issues, intensified when the French political class ruled out creating a French client state in the [[Rhineland]]. They similarly agreed that the then-proposed [[League of Nations]] would do little to ensure peace and that the planned alliances between France, Britain, and the United States would be insufficient to guarantee French security.{{sfn|Clayton|2015|pp=45–46}}

Foch's untactful expression of his views unnerved the [[Big Four (World War I)|Big Four]] civilian leaders at the peace conference: American president [[Woodrow Wilson]], British prime minister [[David Lloyd George]], French president [[Georges Clemenceau]], and Italian prime minister [[Vittorio Emanuele Orlando]].{{sfn|Clayton|2015|p=46}} Weygand harboured similar disdain, calling them in a diary "the four old men". Because of Foch's popularity as victor of the war, he could not be easily criticised. Attacks therefore fell on Weygand who was conspiratorially accused, by among others Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd George, as driving Foch's radical positions.{{sfn|Clayton|2015|pp=46–47. "Portrayed as Foch's evil genius[,] Wilson demanded his removal. Lloyd George noted at meeting Weygand would whisper in Foch's ear... Wilson now claimed that Weygand was using Foch to further his own personal political aims"}}