After expending the greatest effort and suffering the greatest sacrifices in blood in all history,

we must not compromise the results of our victory.

If the League of Nations cannot buttress its orders with military sanctions, we must find this sanction elsewhere.

I beg you to understand my state of mind,

just as I am trying to understand yours. America is far away and protected by the ocean.

England could not be reached by Napoleon himself. You are sheltered, both of you. We are not.

French Prime Minister Georges Clamonsoe, speaking at the Paris Peace Conference.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music century. The century. Episode 175, the Paris Peace Conference

Canadian historian Margaret McMillan

in the opening pages of her book,

Paris 1919, six months that changed the world,

argues that the closest our divided and conflicted little planet ever came to having a unified world

government was in the first half of the year 1919. Its capital was Paris. It consisted of an executive council of four national

leaders and a Supreme Court of the same four leaders. These four took on no less a task

than arbitrating all outstanding international disputes and laying out a set of rules for how the

nations of the world would henceforth conduct their relations with one another.

I should note that Paris 1919 was a major resource for this episode and for several more to come.

I should also mention that McMillan's book,

The War That Ended Peace,

her account of the events that led to the Great War,

was also a valuable resource to me

...