Author: Justin Podur

The story of Greece’s negotiator Eleutherios Venizelos, and how his success at negotiating sowed the seeds of future disasters.

Japan takes a stand on the principle of racial equality, but it’s a non-starter with the white powers. The Japanese insist, and ultimately yield so they can take a piece of China.

Italy joined the allies late and wanted a lot of Yugoslavia. The dress rehearsal for Mussolini, Gabriele d’Annunzio, gathers Argonauts and makes a big move. Another seed of the next war planted at the conference in Paris 1919.

Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary’s fates are decided at the conference in Paris in 1919.

The Anglo-Americans blamed the Germans for World War I, and won. Now they would impose terms. But if they sought too high an indemnity, Germany’s economy would collapse and they would never pay. If they helped Germany rebuild, what kind of punishment would that be? In the end, the Allies chose a path that guaranteed the next war.

The Balkans are where the Great War began; there were two Balkan wars before the Great War and there was a Balkan war in the Great War. In Paris, delegations from the region made their cases, the Great Powers made their dispensations. New countries formed and new borders drawn, which would be changed again in the next war.

The biggest player at the peace conference, Woodrow Wilson, wants a League of Nations, which in the age of imperialism, is a rather underdeveloped idea. The other problem is, how to continue colonialism but with a nicer name? And so were invented the Mandates.