Versailles #6: George Clemenceau Profile Part 1/2
When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
Zack Twamley
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 23 November 2018
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
France, that critically important cog in the machine of the Paris Peace Conference, had scores to settle and plenty to feel sorry about. The war had ripped through her people and country, bringing with it a plague of devastation unmatched in living memory. The flower of her youth lay dead, a demographic fact which she never truly recovered from. The final year of the war had been a trying and at times, gloomy one for France. Could Germany ever be defeated, was the question which seemed to surface at the beginning of every year, when some new general would propose a new offensive, only to be ground down again. All the while, the man on the ground would suffer.
By late 1917, the country was nearing despair. It needed tough, resolute and defiant leaders if the anticipated harshness of the year to come were to be endured. In response, France sent forth two men, Marshal Ferdinand Foch to head up the Supreme Allied Command on the Western Front, and Georges Clemenceau, a veteran statesman of the radical persuasion who held one goal above all - defeating Germany and inflicting a peace upon her which would save France from another trauma like the Great War.
Here, we meet Clemenceau, as we place him in his proper context, and examine the haunting aftermath of so many years of war, and the impact it had on a wounded French Republic. As we move through the relevant powers, we build a picture of the different cast of the Treaty of Versailles which is vital for us to appreciate if we are to have any hope understanding what happened next. Make sure you join me!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, history friends. You're about to listen to the latest episode of the Versailles |
| 0:04.6 | Anniversary Project, but before you do, you should know that this is episode six, so if you haven't |
| 0:09.9 | listened to the other episodes, maybe do that, maybe listen to the introduction episodes too |
| 0:13.8 | so that you know what's going on. Maybe though you're a glutton for punishment, or maybe you just |
| 0:17.7 | really want to know about George Clemens-e, so in which case, listen on. |
| 0:22.3 | Before we actually start this episode, though, I should let you know that it is brought to you by |
| 0:26.5 | the Delegation Game. The Delegation Game is a game, as the name suggests, but it is invented by me, |
| 0:34.4 | and it is probably one of the craziest things I've ever thought of. My wife actually asked me, |
| 0:39.9 | how on earth did you think of this? And I'm not really sure why. It was a result of several days of, |
| 0:45.8 | well, thinking about how to get the most out of the Paris Peace Conference, the Treaty of Versailles, |
| 0:50.6 | this whole anniversary project thing we're doing, and I decided what better way to get |
| 0:54.2 | the most out of it, then to ask my listeners if they want to take part. No, seriously, to send |
| 0:59.5 | them to Paris and see how they get on. You should know, of course, that if you want more |
| 1:03.4 | information, there's a dedicated section of the website explaining absolutely everything. |
| 1:07.8 | But here's the short version. You invent an avatar, you send him or her to |
| 1:13.2 | Paris, and by cooperating with your fellow delegates online and voting in polls and responding to |
| 1:19.6 | challenges, etc. You get to shape how exactly the Paris Peace Conference went down. By the end of it, |
| 1:25.5 | and we will be following the Paris Peace Conference throughout like the 24 weeks of its existence, but by the end of it, and we will be following the Paris Peace Conference |
| 1:27.6 | throughout like the 24 weeks of its existence, but by the end of that whole process, well, |
| 1:32.6 | we'll have reached something that is probably going to look slightly messy, but it should be |
| 1:37.0 | really fun as well, and I'm really looking forward to starting it. Long and short of it is that |
| 1:41.7 | if you sign up now before we start off in the 18th of January |
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