The Economic Consequences of the Peace

In the third chapter, Keynes asserts that the Big Four leaders’ personalities, communication styles, and constraints played an important role at the Paris Peace Conference and in creating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. He examines the dynamics between US President Woodrow Wilson, French premier Georges Clemenceau, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando, and the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

According to Keynes, “the complex struggle of human will and purpose” is important to political events. In early 1919, these four key individuals became “the microcosm of mankind” (17). In this chapter, Keynes returns to his philosophical tone, which he uses to make richly detailed descriptions of the conference based on his personal observations.

First, Keynes describes Clemenceau: “The figure and bearing of Clemenceau are universally familiar […] by far the most eminent member of the Council of Four” (17). Keynes even focuses on Clemenceau’s clothing: his “gray suede gloves,” his boots made of “thick black leather,” and his “square-tailed coat of very good, thick black broadcloth” (17). At the same time, he appeared tired, like “a very old man conserving his strength for important occasions” (17). Keynes argues that Clemenceau was the only member of the group who had specific ideas about the Treaty of Versailles, and he examined them to their logical conclusion.

Keynes relays his “most vivid impression” (18) of these statesmen interacting. He makes comparisons between them and great historic figures: Clemenceau “felt about France what Pericles felt of Athens” (18), which was a patriotic belief in the country’s uniqueness and importance on the world stage. At the same time, Clemenceau’s political theory was Bismarckian—focused on balance-of-power relations and diplomatic solutions.

Keynes examines the leaders’ character and psychology. For example, he attributes to Clemenceau the type of generalizing and, at times, xenophobic, belief in a country’s national character. Clemenceau thought his understanding of “German psychology” would benefit him in negotiations (18). He believed that the Germans “can understand nothing but intimidation” and that they are “without honor, pride, or mercy” (18). These generalizations, especially attributing negative character traits to an entire ethno-cultural group of people, reflects the racialist theories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This type of thinking undermines negotiations and leads to dictating to one’s opponent, which precludes a diplomatic conversation.

The author also brings up the historical competition between Germany and France, in which Germany outpaced France in many categories—from population size to manufacturing and technology—as Clemenceau’s motivation to punish Germany. Keynes describes such European relations as a “perpetual prize-fight” (19). Clemenceau’s policies would “to set the clock back and to undo what, since 1870, the progress of Germany had accomplished” (19). This type of thinking underpinned the unfair provisions in the treaty that harmed Germany and Europe at large.

Keynes fundamentally disagrees with the French policy: “My purpose […] is to show that the Carthaginian Peace is not practically right or possible” (19). He compares the Treaty of Versailles to the time when Rome imposed harsh peace terms on its rival Carthage, after the Punic Wars, to destroy it.

Woodrow Wilson receives significant attention in this chapter. The US president “enjoyed a prestige and a moral influence throughout the world unequaled in history” (20). The adoring public in Europe saw Wilson as “the man of destiny, who, coming to the West, was to bring healing to the wounds of the ancient parent of his civilization” (20). The relationship between the Old World and the New World is one of the book’s main themes: “The Old World was tough in wickedness anyhow; the Old World’s heart of stone might blunt the sharpest blade of the bravest knight-errant” (21). In appearance, Wilson’s “features were finely cut and exactly like his photographs” (21).

Keynes believes that Wilson was a “generously intentioned man” in a position of power, sharing many personality flaws of ordinary humans (20). He compares Wilson to Don Quixote, the chivalrous but misguided 17th-century protagonist of the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes’s novel Don Quixote. Keynes uses this comparison to contrast Wilson with the British leader Lloyd George, whom he describes as “almost medium-like” (21). It was as if George had “six or seven senses not available to ordinary men” (21). Yet again, Keynes uses literary comparisons to create a break from the numbers- and statistics-heavy chapters about the economic content of the treaty. Such comparisons are also in line with his previously described perception of the Spirit of History acting through these leaders in a way that seems predestined.

Wilson’s Fourteen Points displayed chivalry but lacked detail: “He had no plan, no scheme, no constructive ideas” (21-22). Keynes argues that Wilson was ignorant of the situation on the ground in Europe, both present and historic. His ignorance of these conditions matched his obstinance, “digging his toes and refusing to budge” (22). Keynes attributes this behavior to Wilson’s “Presbyterian temperament” and finds it “dangerous” (24); specifically, Wilson’s general stubbornness and his inability to compromise on the agreement.

After this, Keynes quotes the famous scene, Act 1, Scene 1, featuring the three witches in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair / Hover through the fog and filthy air” (25). These lines highlight the deceptive nature of appearances. Keynes describes “the witches of all Paris” who could “clothe with insincerity the language and substance of the whole Treaty” (24). Examples of deceptive language at the conference include forcing Germany to recognize Austria’s independence rather than explicitly prohibiting Germany from uniting with German-speaking Austria. Keynes considers language to be of “historical importance” (26). He uses the language barrier between leaders as a metaphor for greater errors in communication. For example, Wilson and Orlando could not communicate with each other without an interpreter because Orlando only knew French as a foreign language, and Wilson only spoke English.