The Weimar Assembly convened on this day 100 years ago, beginning a process which contained so much high hopes and ambitions for Germany's first flirtation with democracy. Between February 1919 and June 1920, Germany would be in flux as a new constitution was developed, governments came and went, and Friedrich Ebert stood above them all... *************** The Versailles Anniversary Project is possible because of your support and interest - make sure to spread the word, engage with the debate, an...
Feb 06, 2019•43 min
What happens when the Czechs, Romanians and Yugoslavs all try to make their voices heard, as the Big Five attempt to do their best to seem interested? What you get is this episode! A deliciously detailed examination of each of the cases made by the individual national leaders, in addition to a curious detour where we look at maps could be fudged to suit an argument! All this and more in your latest episode of the Versailles Anniversary Project! *********** The Versailles Anniversary Project is p...
Feb 05, 2019•52 min
Poland's experience at the Paris Peace Conference contained its fair share of ups and downs, and nowhere was this more apparent in the early phases of the conference when its case was first presented. Poland was facing into a power vacuum and with that came great opportunities, but also grave challenges. How could Poland balance the rivalry of its major figures, Paderewski, Pilsudski and Dmowski? How could Poles balance the rivalry of its neighbours? Could Poland push back Bolshevism? Could Euro...
Feb 03, 2019•1 hr
As the Hotel Twamley fills with guests, nobody could have imagined what happened next. A combination of factors, certainly not aided by the strong drink on tap, led to an explosion the likes of which Paris had never seen before, or imagined possible. The consequences would be fatal, but also had the effect of changing the narrative, and making compromise more palatable to some of the more stubborn delegates. From the most tragic of events did the greatest triumphs seem to emerge... ********* The...
Feb 02, 2019•53 min
VERSAILLES_EPISODE_29_OUT_NOW! On this day 100 years ago, the world was getting to grips with the concept of mandates, also known as Empire 2.0. Several different opinions existed regarding the concept, but something which was becoming increasingly obvious was that Woodrow Wilson wanted to wait before defining it, until the League of Nations was good and ready, David Lloyd George wanted to get on with things and at least make provisional decisions, and Georges Clemenceau sat awkwardly in the mid...
Jan 30, 2019•48 min
In our 28th installment, we attempt to explain mandates - that surprisingly elusive concept which it was the task of those assembled in Paris to understand. Once they understood it and got to grips with how mandates would fit into the international system, it was hoped that then, this new mandates system would usher in a new era of freedom and prosperity for the formerly colonial peoples...but not all formerly colonial peoples...just those of the vanquished powers. In a prime example of 'one rul...
Jan 27, 2019•45 min
Maybe following the REAL story of Versailles makes you feel glum. If so, why not follow a different tale - that of 37 delegates doing their part to have their own way and achieve their goals...by making a really big historical mess! As the League of Nations stood ready for presenting to the Plenary Conference in Paris, there was much going on in the Hotel Twamley... In the second episode the DG, we follow the fate of Lloyd George, as he attempted to confront the man responsible for imagining a p...
Jan 25, 2019•53 min
ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 25TH JANUARY 1919 The first steps of the League of Nations were taken on this day a century ago, as the world learned exactly what Woodrow Wilson's idea meant for them and the future relations of so many states. What kind of principles would be adhered to, and which ones would be abandoned? How could Wilson traverse the objections, cynicism and scepticism of his friends and rivals? What did other people who were present at the time have to say about this second plenary c...
Jan 25, 2019•36 min
Before the League of Nations could be presented to the world, it was necessary to build up to that great and seismic event by examining...Russia? That didn't sound quite right, and yet the Council of Ten or Supreme Council worked through the 20-24 January as though the League of Extraordinary Nations which they were about to chair was weeks, rather than days away. In these circumstances, how could a coherent proposal for reimagining international relations be prepared on time? Mercifully, the co...
Jan 24, 2019•1 hr 6 min
The Irish problem had not solved itself. Ever since the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, the neighbouring island had provided troubling signs of a future catastrophe, and with the proclamation of the Dáil or Irish assembly coinciding with an attack launched on Royal Irish Constabulary policemen, the catastrophe seemed to have arrived. The conflict which followed did not erupt evenly across the island. Instead it took the form of several ripples; a murder here, a robbery there, a high profile assass...
Jan 21, 2019•39 min
Welcome delegates, to the first proper episode of the Delegation Game! Here we see everyone in the few hours before the plenary conference opened, and the Paris Peace Conference as we know it began. There was much to do, there was scheming aplenty and a great deal of opportunistic handshaking going on, as the delegations and the lonely delegates alike scoped out Hotel Twamley which would host them for the next six months. I am so incredibly excited and proud to present this to you guys - an idea...
Jan 18, 2019•44 min
OTD IN HISTORY - 18TH JANUARY 1919 - THE PEACE CONFERENCE OPENS! We finally made it, to the point of a new beginning for the world, in the war torn locations where so many foreign faces were travelling, and upon which so much hope had been places. There was a lot riding on the Paris Peace Conference, and those present on its very first plenary session, attended by all delegates then available in Paris, and a gigantic press corps, could not hide their excitement or positivity. It seemed as though...
Jan 18, 2019•27 min
I am SO EXCITED to bring you all this episode. This is exactly what this project is all about - a comprehensive examination of primary sources, left to us by those that were in place and charged with TAKING charge a century ago. Here we cover the period of 13-17 January 1919, using the minutes of the Paris Peace Conference, provided by the US Foreign Relations papers series as our guide. I am super keen to hear what you all thought, but read on if you want to know more about this very chunky epi...
Jan 15, 2019•50 min
ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 12th January 1919 - David Lloyd George arrives in Paris for the preliminary peace talks. Before the Paris Peace Conference opened, it was important for all sides to meet and talk together. As all three men spoke English well, Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George could be expected to do the bulk of the negotiating personally. However, the initial set up of the Conference did not allow this personal arrangement, so the three men took advantage of that precious week before t...
Jan 12, 2019•37 min
With the launch of the Delegation Game only a week away (on 18th Jan 2019) I thought it'd be beneficial to set out some detail about this fantastic explosion of nerdiness, and what you need to do in order to take part. We look at some tools which the game will avail of, investigate what kind of impact your scheming can have on the proceedings, outline the structure of each episode going forward, and close the episode with some FAQ's, so that we're all on the same page. The Delegation Game is a s...
Jan 11, 2019•24 min
ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 10th January 1919 - the Spartacist Uprising reaches its apex - before it is brutally crushed in Berlin. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were the most prolific casualties, but much more was going on beneath the surface than simply the execution of Germany's communist extremists. The establishment of organisations like the Freikorps, and the struggle for order and law in this defeated, depressed country, contain more than enough stories all by themselves. In this episod...
Jan 10, 2019•33 min
Germany was in dire straits by the time revolutionaries began taking over the streets in early 1919. Bolshevism was spreading westwards, but perhaps the most potent ingredient in this spread was the lack of available food, and the endless opportunities this gave rabble rousers to cause anarchy and chaos on an unimaginable scale. Hunger was a more powerful weapon than any political message, and the combination of this desperation for a solution and the despair at the lack of aid - not to mention ...
Jan 08, 2019•35 min
OVER_THIS_PERIOD_IN_HISTORY - the first week of January 1919 - Woodrow Wilson begins his tour of Italy! In Italy, as in France, the citizens of that exhausted country were excited indeed to received the American President, and for six days until his departure on 6th January, Wilson travelled across Italy meeting everyone from the Pope to the King to the Premier. His mission was one of networking and publicity, and it went well, even if the Italians, deep down, did not gel particularly well with ...
Jan 03, 2019•34 min
ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 26th December 1918 - Woodrow Wilson meets David Lloyd George in London! Hope you're all not TOO full of foodstuffs, because we have an important little bulletin to bring to you! The US President's visit to London in late 1918 was significant for a myriad of reasons - not least of which was the sight of an American President getting a horse and carriage ride through the city's streets! Who would ever have imagined that such displays were possible between former colony and...
Dec 26, 2018•33 min
Here we conclude this incredible and early podcast Christmas present, which is 2/3 alternative history and 1/3 a breakdown of whether I believe this makes sense and why I went with what I did. How plausible was it all? You decide. This could be a very fun topic to have a number of debates on, but here we look at the opening phases of the war and what went right/wrong for each side. Irish troubles? Of course they are ever present! I hope you've enjoyed a different path instead of the dire one we ...
Dec 22, 2018•1 hr 12 min
Welcome history friends, as we launch into a little sideshow I cooked up for you all. This is the first in a chunky 2-parter series on alternative history, where we build a different world in the style you're used to, having asked the question - what would have happened if Gavrilo Princip missed, rather than actually successfully assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand? Using all I've gathered in my years studying the First World War and the July Crisis in particular, I give you my an...
Dec 22, 2018•1 hr 7 min
You've been introduced to the Big Three of Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George - you know their aims, their backstories and their fears. What happens though when these men gather together in the same room? Could they possibly cooperate? Could their varied viewpoints and aims be reconciled? Before the Paris Peace Conference opened, I feel it'd be useful to take each of the three men under our microscope again, and refresh ourselves on what they wanted, what they did NOT want, and that grey area w...
Dec 20, 2018•26 min
ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 14th December 1918 - The Coupon Election secures Lloyd George's Coalition Government. It had long been expected that Lloyd George would call for an election at the end of the war, to beat off challenges to his position from both sides of the political spectrum, and to secure his mandate for the looming peace conference. Much was said about punishing Germany during the campaign trail, and making her pay what she owed to Britain and everyone else. The British electorate we...
Dec 14, 2018•32 min
ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 13th December 1918 - US President Woodrow Wilson lands in France. Woodrow Wilson had a vital role to play in the Treaty of Versailles, and was certainly the most dynamic actor in the Paris Peace Conference. Apparently immune to the old trappings of statecraft, intrigue and power, Wilson represented something new and promising for those French citizens and Europeans who were sick of war and who longed for something better. Wilson's rapturous welcome convinced him that he ...
Dec 13, 2018•28 min
David Lloyd George's assent to the top of the greasy pole came at a difficult time for Britain and the allied war effort. The war did not appear near its end after all; instead the bloody stalemate had begun to tell, on all sides, and 1916 had been a year of crushing disappointments. Faced with a crisis in confidence, PM Asquith made way for the last Liberal Prime Minister of the age, Lloyd George, who ensured by early 1917 that he had the support of his colleagues in the wartime coalition to co...
Dec 12, 2018•54 min
David Lloyd George, the unlikely Prime Minister, and the only PM in history to have spoken Welsh fluently, comes under our microscope in the final of our profiler episode couplets. Lloyd George's childhood and upbringing, his experience of life in Wales, his love of country, of justice and of independence - these were all important building blocks of a character which would soon serve Britain at its most critical time. We open our account of Lloyd George with an anecdote from Harold Nicolson, a ...
Dec 10, 2018•1 hr
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points are an integral part of what made the end of the First World War so fascinating, but also so confusing. Did the President want to go easy on Germans for the sake of it, or did he have more ambitious goals in mind? Was he as determined to remake the post-war order as we are often told, or were these fourteen points simply a smokescreen for the imperialistic policies which the president wished to pursue? The answers to these questions are not clear cut, but join us...
Dec 05, 2018•42 min
Welcome to Woodrow Wilson's United States of America. As we build towards a key concept, the Fourteen Points, here we set some background and ask some pertinent questions, such as - why did the US intervene in the war, and why did Wilson wait so long before doing so? Woodrow Wilson is a character we must understand if we are to grasp the nuances of the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles which that created. Wilson was an integral part of what made the end Treaty so significant, b...
Dec 04, 2018•1 hr 16 min
ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 1st December 1918 - The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is proclaimed by Prince Regent Alexander of Serbia This kingdom, known to history as Yugoslavia, was to have a tumultuous birth, life cycle and death, but even its very name was contentious! Serbs wanted the state to indicate the greater Serb role in its administration and creation; non Serbs wanted to maintain the facade that all were equal under the new kingdom, and that it was more a union or federation...
Dec 01, 2018•17 min
If finding a solution to Western Europe was difficult, then untangling the morass which was Eastern Europe seemed like mission impossible. Thankfully for those flocking to Paris, Eastern Europeans had taken it upon themselves to do the legwork for them. Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavs and Romanians had all taken advantage of the power vacuums left by the vanished empires, and had staked their claims to land, people and resources while those in Paris gathered. Some leaders, like Edvard Benes (pictured) ...
Nov 30, 2018•56 min
