Versailles #84: Big Four, Exit Stage
When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
Zack Twamley
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 5 July 2019
⏱️ 96 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Vittorio Orlando, George Clemenceau, David Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson. Four men, who over the last eight months, had been more central to the development of the peace, and thus the development of the 20th century, than any other figures. In this episode, we remember each man and his story during this eight month period. What struggles did each face, what triumphs did they enjoy, and what has history come to say about each of them? Can any one of them truly claim to have succeeded? If all had some qualms with the Treaty, was that Treaty even worth anything? A century later, how do explain the behaviour of these men, and what does it tell us about the Treaty which emerged afterwards?
Was there a good guy and a bad guy? Not quite, and just like in 1914, there was no smoking gun. The big four were four men in a sea of others, who tried their best to change the narrative, and to make something new. Each man differed as to exactly what he wanted, but all were united on one thing - a desire to avoid at all costs, a repeat of the Great War. Unfortunately, it is impossible now to avoid the conclusion that they failed, but as we've also learned, not a single one of them went down without a fight. In fact, for a few, the struggle which followed the Treaty truly was a matter of life and death.
Track down the song Whirlwinds of Danger which we used in our intermission by clicking here
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there. Oh no, please. Please don't run away. I promise I'm nearly finished with Versailles. I promise even though this episode is super, super long, you actually will enjoy it if you're interested in this era. |
| 0:11.1 | Seriously, I know we're 84 episodes in and you may be wondering whether the end is in fact in sight. Am I going to go all the way up to 1939? Sure. No, of course I'm not. |
| 0:21.6 | I'm not going to do that. |
| 0:23.6 | We are nearly at the end of this monster. |
| 0:26.3 | After all the time we've spent with our main protagonists, |
| 0:29.3 | so I felt it would be wrong to just leave them as they are. |
| 0:31.7 | So I'm going to give them their proper swan song, |
| 0:33.4 | their proper send-off in this episode. |
| 0:42.7 | The reason why I'm able to send you such enormous episodes like these is because you guys support this podcast so wonderfully well on Patreon. |
| 0:50.4 | So if you'd like to go and do that, if you would like to support this show and get some pretty sweet rewards in return, then head on over to patreon.com for slash blah blah blah blah when diplomacy fails. |
| 0:53.6 | You know the story by now what you probably |
| 0:55.7 | don't know or what you may not be aware of is that i'm starting a phd in september which means |
| 1:00.7 | that if you're very sick of my voice don't worry because we'll be entering a more kind of regular |
| 1:06.0 | normal schedule from september 30 years war will be starting up and will also be starting up something called Poland |
| 1:12.6 | is not yet lost. I'm really looking forward |
| 1:14.6 | to this change of pace. I would be lying |
| 1:16.7 | if I said I wasn't a little bit exhausted |
| 1:18.8 | with this whole era, but we are |
| 1:20.5 | nearly reached the end here and I |
| 1:22.6 | am happy with how this whole |
| 1:24.8 | thing went. I hope you've enjoyed this |
| 1:26.6 | project as well and I hope that in the future, |
... |
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