2009 Europaeum Lecture: Margaret MacMillan discusses “90 Years On – Lessons for Peacemakers from 1919?”

The 2009 Europaeum Lecture was held this evening, in the Auditorium Jacques-Freymond, at 18h30. IHP Professor Jussi Hanhimäki delivered opening remarks, among which was the exciting news that Professor Davide Rodogno (also IHP) is launching the League of Nations Century Project with Margaret MacMillan as co-chair. While official details were not released, one can assume this will follow in the steps paved by the United Nations Intellectual History Project and the ILO Century Project.

This years’ Europaeum speaker, Margaret Macmillan, is a world-renowned international historian. Currently Professor at and Warden of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, Dr. MacMillan has written several works familiar to us: “Paris 1919,” “Nixon in China,” and most recently, “The Uses and Abuses in History.” Dr. MacMillian began her remarks by noting this was her first visit to Geneva (which she was quite enjoying), but it would not be her last. Our location even prompted her to let us in on the fact that Woodrow Wilson and David Lloyd George (who also happens to be her great-grandfather!) originally wished to hold the peace conference in Geneva, believing tempers to be too high in Paris, but in the end, Paris it was.

The topic of the lecture was “90 Years On – Lesson for Peacemakers from 1919?”, and Dr. MacMillan did not disappoint in offering possible answers. However, before delving in, she warned against believing history has “lessons” to be “learned.” For her, such “lessons” necessitate skepticism if they are employed in a definite way (“History teaches us…”); such beliefs can force decision-makers into taking erroneous decisions. On the other hand, historical “lessons” are useful in the sense that they provide policymakers with a range of possible options to act with. In sum, she synthesized her most recent work: history can be a dangerous tool, but it is the only one we have.

Are there lessons to be pulled from the Paris Peace Conference of 1919?

First, Dr. MacMillan pointed out, the context is quite different. In 1919, leaders of the Great Powers came together for 6 months to come up with a settlement. Today, such a meeting would be impossible and impractical. Meetings such as the G7 or G8 tend to only last two days! In a related vein, Dr. MacMillan observed it is no longer the “fashion” to have large international conferences to deal with several issues at once; nowadays we tend towards issue-specific conferences (ex. the Dayton Conference to deal with Bosnia).

Dr. MacMillan pointed out that the prevailing view of the “six months that changed the world” in 1919 is that the settlement was a complete disaster, directly causing World War II 20 years later. She would beg to differ: not all of it was a failure, nor did it lead directly to World War II. The politicians meeting in Paris did the best they could in very difficult circumstances, an observation often ignored with our benefit of hindsight. As she went on to explain, in 1919, conditions were not favorable for peace. The world, postwar, was in turmoil, suffering from a huge loss of life: to paraphrase, society went through enormous tremors. The prevailing belief was that World War I was to be followed by a revolution (in the vein of the Bolshevik Revolution) which would turn European society on its head. But in the end, this was not the case.

Slightly off topic, but interesting nevertheless, Dr. MacMillan addressed the misconception that the Treaty of Versailles “created” Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia out of nothing. As she sees it, empires were disintegrating and the people which had been part of it were demanding states, homelands of their own. Therefore, it is more accurate to say the constituent groups of (soon-to-be) countries like Czechoslovakia dreamed them up, with the Treaty of Versailles merely solidifying the borders.

Returning to the central question of what lessons can be learned, Dr. MacMillan suggested that the means to enforce the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles were lacking, inherently suggesting that modern-day peacemakers should not try to devise settlements they cannot uphold.

Another “lesson” would be that leaders should be realistic in explaining to their publics what they can and cannot expect from a peace settlement. Politicians who pander to the ballot box will end up disappointing. For example, David Lloyd George ran his Winter 1918 election on the platform of seeking revenge on Germany, and this was fulfilled by the enormous German reparations bill. However the actual wording of the reparations bill split the payments into three, whereby the first part would have to be paid before the bill for the second part was issued – leaving Germany with no incentive to pay the first part (who wants to get further bills?). In reality, the amount of reparations paid by Germany was likely less than that paid by France after the Franco-Prussian War. But given the rhetoric surrounding the reparations payments, the German people had the impression they had paid too much.

Another caveat for modern peacemakers would be the need to consult those affected by potential divisions. At the Paris Peace Conference, the British delegation created Iraq – essentially they threw portions of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire together, believing their advanced technology, combined with a complacent local ruler, would suffice to give them power. However this did not turn out as planned.

Dr. MacMillan also noted that human mistakes are made, even in situations like these. A prime example was Woodrow Wilson’s stubbornness to compromise on terms of accession to the League of Nations. The bill approving membership in the League was subjected to joinders, small concessions, as it passed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. While it is clear that David Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau would have accepted American membership with some concessions – they were quite keen to have the US on board – Wilson was so stubborn about the alterations that he even convinced his own party to vote against the bill.

Dr. MacMillan offered some general instructions to us historians: we should cut some slack to the politicians present at the negotiations in 1919 – there was no way they could predict the Great Depression, nor could they predict the rise of Germany under Adolf Hitler. In more general terms, in history, never dismiss the defeated, and never assume anything in history is permanent.

In closing, events like the Paris Peace Conference show that unintended consequences were much greater than the intended ones.