“[There shall be a] Surrender in good condition by the German armies of the following war material: Five thousand guns (2,500 heavy, and 2,500 field), 25,000 machine guns, 3,000 minenwerfer, 1,700 airplanes (fighters, bombers - firstly, all of the D 7'S and all the night bombing machines). The above to be delivered in situ to the allied and United States troops in accordance with the detailed conditions laid down in the note (annexure No. 1) drawn up at the moment of the signing of the armistice … ”
– Armistice of 11 November 1918, following World War One
This film is more journalistic than historical, and seems to lack a coherent narrative …
In 1964, the BBC made a landmark documentary called “The Great War.” It may still be the definitive television history of World War One. This is because it interviewed some of the veterans of this war, and is one of the greatest history documentaries ever made. But it had one major weakness, which was that it stopped at virtually the moment of the Armistice. Thus, it contains nothing – and I mean nothing – about what happened after it. Although this has been covered by some other documentaries (notably the CBS television history of World War One), the definitive television history by the BBC contains nothing about it. Thus, I've long been interested to see something about the effects of the war, and the Paris Peace Conference following the war's end. This seemed like a reasonably good introduction to it, so I got a copy of this documentary for Christmas. I found that it was a good production – made by the National Film Board of Canada, incidentally. But it was not the definitive coverage that I expected it to be. Its style seems to be more journalistic than historical, and seems to lack a coherent narrative.
Do they strike the appropriate balance between real footage and re-enactments? (Mostly, yes … )
The factual accuracy of the storytelling actually seems to be quite good. It includes a scene about the attempted assassination of French prime minister Georges Clemenceau right before the conference. As I expected, their version turned out to be true, including the part about how he was actually shot (but still survived). But this doesn't go much into the important details of the territorial changes in the peace treaty. Rather, the emphasis is on the dialogue, and on re-creating the words of this time – including those from the letters of that time. In fairness, this film is a reasonably good balance of real footage and re-enactments, which balances the two in a (mostly) appropriate way. But I think the filmmakers would have liked to do something that was entirely re-enactments-based, and only used this real footage to cut their costs down. Some of the real footage actually shows huge crowds of people gathering in Paris to see Woodrow Wilson. I'm sure that these crowds would have been very expensive to re-enact. But I would prefer to see something that was more real footage and photographs, and less reliant on re-enactments. I should acknowledge that in fairness, none of this conference was ever filmed, and there are no audio-recordings of any part of it. (Although there are a few photographs, which they use to great effect.) Nonetheless, their re-enactments focus too much on the dialogue involved here, and too little on the facts. A few judicious maps could have dramatized the territorial changes imposed in the Treaty of Versailles, but most of the focus is on the “reparations” that the Allies imposed upon the Germans. This is a worthy subject, but they cover it to the near-exclusion of everything else, including the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East (one of the treaty's most important effects).
“The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors,” by Sir William Orpen
This film lacks talking heads in its main feature, but has great ones in its special features …
The film also lacks talking head segments in its main feature. Thus, its main feature is somewhat lacking in analysis from historians. In a topic like this, analysis of this kind would have been very helpful in making sense of what happened there. But it is not always clear from the dialogue what the final results were. Too much time is spent showing how they got to certain specific results, and directing these scenes in an artistic manner. Too little time is spent on the results themselves, many of which are neglected entirely in this feature. But in fairness, they do include some talking head segments in the special features of this DVD. There is an interview with author Margaret MacMillan there, whose book this film was based on. Her comments thus seem to shed far more light on what happened at that conference than anything in the main feature. They help you to understand both the results themselves, and how they were achieved. She notes – in fairness to the conference itself – that it was more ambitious than anything before it (some would say overly ambitious). It had so many nations at the negotiating table that the process of formal dialogue between them became needlessly complicated. This is true, even if they were primarily driven by five of the Allied nations – namely, the United States, the British Empire delegation, France, Italy, and Japan. Ironically, the Italians and Japanese would later fight on the German side in World War Two, but they had fought on the Allied side during World War One. Italy had been offered a better deal by the Allied side in that war, but was flirting with Mussolini's brand of fascism even while the conference was still going on. Obviously, it would soon succumb to fascism in the 1920's, and thus be allied with Hitler's Nazi state during World War Two.
“The Big Four” – from left to right, David Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow Wilson of the United States
The peace conference sowed the seeds of World War Two, but so did the Great Depression …
And a word about what this peace conference has to do with World War Two: It would be an oversimplification to say that the peace conference “caused” World War Two, but it really did sow the seeds of it. There were a number of mistakes at this conference that pushed the world further in that direction. For one, the “reparations” money that the Germans were then paying created great anger amongst the Germans between the wars, not to mention crippling poverty and severe hardship. Perhaps partially because of this, they led to the eventual dismantling of the Treaty of Versailles. For another, the lack of any kind of an “unconditional surrender” from the Germans allowed them to (eventually) slide back into despotism. It made them vulnerable to the rantings and ravings of a demagogue like Adolf Hitler. As author Margaret MacMillan argues in the special features for this DVD, World War Two has more to do with the Great Depression than with the Paris Peace Conference, but the peace conference is nonetheless relevant to what happened there. People suffering from great poverty are vulnerable to utopian fantasies like the kind falsely promised by Hitler. Thus, the poverty of the Great Depression had much to do with Hitler's rise to power. But a better peace treaty at the end of the war might have been able to prevent World War Two, even if there were still opportunities to prevent it after the peace conference ended in 1919. There's a notable line from David Lloyd George in this film that he feared a weak Germany as much as he feared a “strong and belligerent” Germany, because a weak Germany would soon be an angry Germany (with motivation to become “strong and belligerent”).
Hitler addressing the Reichstag, 1933
How did the Treaty of Versailles affect the Middle East? (The special features help to answer this question … )
The interview clips with author Margaret MacMillan also help to shed some light on what happened in the Middle East, as a result of this treaty. The map of the Middle East was virtually re-drawn by the Treaty of Versailles, and by some other peace treaties that soon followed it in the coming months. Many of the contemporary borders in the Middle East are a result of what happened in these treaties, and are still largely the same as they were at this time. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire seems to have been the most direct cause of this, because the Ottoman Empire was one of the powers that had lost World War One. It had been allied with the Kaiser's Germany during the Great War, and had been badly beaten by the British and their Arab allies during that conflict. The Arab revolt (later dramatized by “Lawrence of Arabia” in 1962) thus led to the Ottoman Empire being carved up into several Arab states at this time. Many of these states still survive to this day. The Treaty of Versailles may thus be as controversial in the Middle East as it is in the Western world. This is partly because it created several different Arab states, rather than a single unified Arab state, as some of them would have liked. This would be worth an entire post in and of itself, and it would be impossible to do justice to it in a post of this kind. But suffice it to say for our purposes here that this treaty is still debated today. Thus, the legacy of this conference is a matter of global (and even worldwide) controversy even today.
British Foreign Office memorandum summarizing the wartime agreements between Britain, France, Italy and Russia regarding Ottoman territory
Conclusion: The main feature is a mixed bag, but some of the special features are really good
The main feature of this film doesn't really do justice to these topics, and only hints at the major territorial changes in many parts of the world. (Including Africa and Asia, which I have not mentioned up until now.) But these interview clips with author Margaret MacMillan are worth the price of the DVD all by themselves. They help to compensate for the lack of talking heads within the film itself. The film is valuable for what it does offer here, which is a fascinating look at some of the debates and personalities of the Paris Peace Conference, even if directed a bit too artistically for my tastes. But don't expect its main feature to be terribly solid on the information, even if the information that it does give has tended (mostly) to be accurate. Something else is needed to give a deeper understanding of this subject, such as the special feature with author Margaret MacMillan. This special feature is highly recommended to those who really want to understand what happened there. Frankly, I could listen to her for two more hours.
Footnote to this blog post:
The Treaty of Versailles ended World War One, but it also sowed the seeds of World War Two (as mentioned earlier). One of its most provocative clauses said that “The Allied and Associated Governments, however, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers and to their property during the period of the belligerency of each” (Source: Part VIII, Article 232). These “reparations,” as mentioned earlier, created great anger amongst the Germans. Some of that anger was responsible for the German aggressions of World War Two, and may have helped to cause them.
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If you liked this post, you might also like:
Yes, Woodrow Wilson predicted World War II – but so did John Maynard Keynes
A review of PBS's “Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle for the Arab World” (World War One)
A review of PBS's “The Great War” (American experience of World War One)
A review of “The Great War” (1964 comprehensive miniseries about World War One)
A review of the BBC's “The Road to War” (how World War Two began)
A review of Ken Burns' “The War” (American experience of World War Two)
A review of “Canada at War” (Canadian experience of World War Two)
A review of “ANZAC: Australians at War in World War II”
A review of “The World at War” (British miniseries about World War Two)
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