Versailles #45: William Bullitt's Mission
When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
Zack Twamley
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2019
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In episode 45 of the Versailles Anniversary Project, we examine the lesser known mission of William C. Bullitt, Philadelphia aristocrat and Ivy League prodigy – at least according to his mother – who was selected to lead a top secret American delegation to Soviet Russia. Bullitt’s aims were multi-layered, and he didn’t quite understand the limits of this mission or of his own capabilities, but that won’t stop us analysing the fortunes of this very interesting statesman. Bullitt would find a Russia starving and demoralised, yet he couldn’t help but be impressed by Lenin or by the potential of this regime.
Return the food and withdraw the soldiers, Bullitt believed, and the Russian people would eject the more extreme Bolsheviks, and the West wouldn’t have to lift a finger. When Bullitt returned to Paris with these incredibly optimistic ideas, he found that everything had changed in the two and a half weeks since he had been gone. Compromise and Bolshevism were now impossible partners, and Bullitt himself had become persona non-grata in the allied consciousness. Bullitt, predictably enough, did not take this change in circumstances well…
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, history friend. My name is Zach Twomley and you are listening to the latest episode of when diplomacy fails, specifically the Versailles Anniversary Project. |
| 0:09.5 | This is episode 45, which is kind of ridiculous. But it doesn't mean that if you haven't listened to 44 previous episodes, you'll probably won't know what's going on. |
| 0:18.9 | If you just arrived here and you don't know who we are or what we're all about, then the Versailles Anniversary Project is tasked with |
| 0:25.2 | examining where the Treaty of Versailles came from. And the very, very long process, which |
| 0:30.1 | led to its creation a century ago, is something that we've been talking about for the last |
| 0:34.3 | several months since the Armistice actually was created, which was the 11th of |
| 0:39.4 | November. So yeah, we've kind of been delving very deeply into this era for a very long time now, |
| 0:44.7 | but we're by no means finished yet, or story doesn't finish until the 28th of June, and even |
| 0:48.7 | then there's some outstanding articles still to look at. But if you're wondering if this |
| 0:53.0 | podcast is for you, if you're wondering if this podcast is for you, if you're |
| 0:54.2 | wondering if this series is for you, and he might be asking yourself that question, if you've been |
| 0:58.4 | staying with us all this time, maybe you feel like the story's never going to end. But it is, |
| 1:02.5 | and there's interesting tidbits along the way. Tidbits like these, the story of William Bullitt and |
| 1:08.0 | his journey to Russia in March. It's pretty much unknown unless you actually know the story of William Bullitt and his journey to Russia in March. It's pretty much unknown unless you |
| 1:12.8 | actually know the story of the Paris Peace Conference well. Most of the time we just imagine Russia |
| 1:18.4 | as this far-off being that no one ever went to, but William Bullitt went there and we have the |
| 1:23.1 | records to prove it. And you would be justified in asking, well, what podcast on earth would go to this |
| 1:28.6 | much trouble to try and dig up stories that I might not have heard of about things that happened a |
| 1:32.6 | century ago? This one right here, dear history friend. We've been doing it for so many years now, |
| 1:37.5 | but we've especially been doing it ever since we joined Patreon. Because we have joined Patreon, |
| 1:43.0 | we have, well, been bowled over by the generosity of |
| 1:46.6 | our history friends. And it really doesn't show any signs of slowing down any time soon. |
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