Really a terrific event we have had so far and thank you for being with us. I know there is a lot of excitement, as there ought be about this evenings conversation, so thank you for taking time to be here. We are so delighted to have professor Margaret Mcmillan with us. Thank you so much for traveling to be with us. Who else but to help us with that is better equipped than Margaret Mcmillan, emmert as professor of history at the university of toronto. She serves in many and varied roles. Trustee at the Central University and more recently at the Imperial War Museum. Might i offer that we are second only here at the National World war i museum to the Imperial War Museum in terms of history. They began collecting in 1917. We began collecting in 1920. We are further delighted they are having their world war ii galleries reinstalled by the gallery designers of the National World war i museum and memorial. They are very wise i might say. Margarets research specializes in British Imperial history and the International History of the 19th and 20th centuries. She has written many publications and books. I do not want to list those. One of which is particularly pertinent to the topic tonight, paris 1919 6 months that changed the world. Which puts her in a position of authority to have the conversation with us this evening. She has been awarded with many distinguished prizes and awards. Gave the bbcs 2018 lectures on war and humidity, which explored the tangled history and complicated feelings toward it and those who fight. Which is short to say that ladies and gentlemen, we are in the presence of an historical rockstar tonight. [laughter] from 1975 to 2002, she was a member of the History Department at the university of toronto where she served as chair. She serves on various boards and editorial groups that focus on history and world war i studies. Honorary fellow at saint held his college at oxford and has received recognition from a number of academic institutions may being awarded honorary doctorates. In 2006, professor mcmillan was invested as an officer in the order of king order of canada. For americans, that is a very distinguished award. She was appointed as companion of the order of canada. 2018, the queens new years honest list. Appointed the companion of honor for service to Higher Education and history and international affairs. Sort of a big deal. [laughter] after professor mcmillan has given her lecture, there will be an opportunity for question and answers. Laura will facilitate that. We have some microphones. We invite you to move to those and frame your questions. If you would prefer to ask from where you were, indicate so and laura will help facilitate that. It was almost five years ago we had the honor of welcoming dr. Mcmillan to our auditorium stage. Once again, we have the opportunity to do so again and we could not be more pleased. The excitement is evident when you started together. It is palpable. If you have not read paris 1919 6 months that changed world, we encourage you to do so. The bookstore tomorrow will be open. You might want to take a copy with you. Tonight, she will expand on that topic, on the research she has undertaken and present the thesis of her argument. Please join with me in welcoming our keynote speaker, dr. Margaret mcmillan. [applause] that was extremely kind. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think that is an example of the commonwealth sticking together. It was much too kind. Thank you very much for that introduction. Many thanks to the war museum for inviting me back. This is my third visit here. I have enjoyed everyone. I tell everyone they must come to kansas city and see your museum and your beautiful city. It is almost becoming a family thing. I gathered my nephew was here last fall. The rest of the family might be following along. We have both been so enthusiastic. This is a good time 100 years later. Anniversaries can be useful for looking back. What happened at the end of the first First World War is something that has shaped the history of the 20th century and the world in which we live. I think it is useful to use anniversaries to think about what that means, what those great events of the past meant and what they might mean for us today. I think it is quite right in your title you put 1919 peace, question mark. There is a view widely shared that what happened in paris 1919, this was the great peace conference. To try to set a structure for a lasting peace after 1919. What happened in paris after 1919 has often been blamed for the outbreak of the Second World War. There is a simple version of history, which is that the statesman and they were all pretty much men in those days, they met in paris in 1919. Made such a mess of things that europe moved down a tramway with no escape to 1939. I myself find that much too simple. My short answer to people who say, doesnt 1919 lead directly to 1939 is, what was everyone doing in those 20 years . An awful lot can happen in 20 years. Europe and the world face an awful lot of choices. Perhaps the most influential book in creating that view of 1919 as the doomed peace attempt that set in motion the it events of the events of 1939 is the book of john maynard keynes. Was not well known and a very confident. I should point out he went to cambridge university. [laughter] so we are not surprised by that. He was in paris as an Economic Advisor to the british delegation. He got fed up with what he felt were the mistakes they were making. He was also going through something of a personal crisis in his life. He went back to england in the summer of 1919 and wrote a book, which took him six weeks. It is a polemic it is a a polemic. It is a successful polemic and has been translated into many languages. It has a. Rather dull title. It is called the economic consequences of the peace. If you read the book, it is condemning everything going on in paris. Let me read you a little bit of it to give you the flavor. Paris was a nightmare and everyone there was morbid. A sense of impending catastrophe overhung the frivolous scene. The futility and smallness of man for the great event confronting him. The mingled insignificance and unreality of the decisions. Levity, blindness, confused crying without. All the elements of ancient tragedy where there. The statesman, he claimed in this book, were hypocritical or subtle and dangerous spellbinder is engaged in empty intrigue. The treaty of versailles, a treaty with germany, which was probably the most difficult to negotiate and helped to set the template for other treaties, the treaty of versailles was imbecile greed, oppression, dishonorable, ridiculous and injurious. He wrote devastating portraits of the three key statesman who were at the center of the decisions they made in paris. The french Prime Minister pretrade he portrayed as an angry ape who sat in his chair thinking only of revenge on germany. Woodrow wilson he pretrade as a booby he portrayed as a booby. In england, they call a blind mans bluff. You put a scarf around someones eyes and they do not know which direction they are going. This is how he described wilson. Naive and foolish, being spun around by the devious europeans. The british Prime Minister he portrayed as half man and half goat who came out of the welsh myths with. No moral sense whatsoever his mother made him take some of the ruder passages out. This was a powerful piece of work. It helped to set a picture of what happened in paris as being futile and dangerous, condemning europe and the world to a Second World War. I will not deny that not all the decisions in paris were good. They did make mistakes in their division of the arab territories in the middle east and the treatment of the Ottoman Empire. They showed a carelessness and shortsightedness, which has really caused problems from much of the 20th century. I do not want to defend everything that happened, but i want to say that we need to understand what it was they were dealing with. When we write history and when we look at history, we must ask ourselves, what would we do if we were in that situation . What would we be facing . It is all very well and say, they should have known there was a young german corporal called adolf hitler who was going to seize on the treaty of versailles and help him and his nazi party get into power. What we always have to remember when we write history and we think about history is what people had to deal with at the time. How much power did they have, what constraints did they have, what is it that they were dealing with . I think we need to look at the paris peace conference, which came at the end of a great catastrophe and try to understand what the circumstances were. What i would like to do is make a few general points about wars. Ending wars is never easy, especially if those wars have been great and the level of destruction has been very high. Apart from anything else, the greater the war, the greater the expectations and the greater the desire someone or something should pay for what happened. This was certainly the case at the end of the First World War. The war had shocked europe and had shocked most of the world partly because the 19th century had been such a good century for europe. Europe had known terrible wars in its history. Most centuries had been marked a wars in europe. The 19th century was one of the most peaceful and prosperous and progressive centuries in european history. Perhaps the most peaceful, prosperous and progressive europe had ever known. There had been a number of short wars in the 19th century after the napoleonic wars ended in 1915. 1815. Those wars were short. They were usually fought between two countries like the francoprussian war or the war between prussia and austria. The usually resulted in a clear result and peace was reestablished. Europeans had come to think by the beginning of the 20th century they had somehow changed and they were going to go on living in a Peaceful World and they were going to go on building peaceful and progressive and prosperous societies. That this piece and progress was going to spread around the world. We look back and say helpful how foolish that was, but this is something any people were thinking before 1914, which made the shock of the First World War all the more greater. A war they had hoped would be sure and decisive, after four years of a dreadful war, a look at the lives that had gone. 9 million men, possibly more. Mostly it was meant in the First World War it was men in the First World War. The loss of human potential, the loss of human talent, money that had been gone, the empires that had gone. Three great empires disappeared as a result of the First World War. Russia, which was an empire as well as the state fell to pieces in the course of the russian revolution. Austriahungary, the huge multinational empire at the center of europe, which had created stability toward the centuries, fell to pieces. Germany, which had been an empire. Many polish lands fell. To pieces in the months just after, the Ottoman Empire was going to fall to pieces and disappear as well. It was a very different political and social landscape the europeans looked at in 1918 than they had seen in 1914. They had also shaken their position in the world. Before 1914, europe had been the most powerful part of the world. Directly or indirectly, European Countries had controlled most of the world. European finance was what you needed a few wanted to build anything. If you wanted money, you came to europe. If you wanted fashion ideas, you came to europe. By 1918, the europeans no longer had that sense that their civilization was superior. In addition to all the other things it had done, the warhead the war had shaken european confidence. The great french writer and thinker said something is broken and we will never be quite the same again. Will be like those other empires of the past that disappeared. Names now that mean nothing like babylon. Lee know what it is going to be like to go into the abyss of history. When that war ended, with, ended, there is the sense of doom and a worry that the war was ended but the fighting had not ended. As we heard this afternoon, fighting went on in the center of europe and much of the middle east till the mid1920s. There was also the fear the social upheavals, which had taken place in russia, will going to spread westwards and that european societies will going to be swept away. That was part of the atmosphere in which the peace conference met. What also affected the decisions of those put tremendous pressure on the peacemakers because they worried unless they sorted things out soon, things might get much worse. Unless they dealt with some of the pressing issues in europe, they would see more of people. More. What also put pressure on the peacemakers was their own public. This was a conference engaged in by democratic powers. They were having to think of the next election. At the congress of vienna, which had taken place 100 years previously, to wind up the napoleonic wars, that is not something the peacemakers had to worry about. They represented on it represented oligarchies and monarchies and had fewer people to answer to. The pressure was much less than they were going to be in paris. What the public wanted was not always compatible. The public wanted someone to pay and someone to take responsibility for the war. The french felt strongly about this. Often in the literature it is said how unreasonable the french were. We need to remember the french had been invaded twice by German Forces in the lifetimes of many people. In 1870, the German Confederation had invaded france. Nasty battles had been fought on french soil. France had been defeated had to pay a large fine. Germany had declared war on france. And invaded france in 1914. The french did not start the First World War with germany. The german started it with france. Most of the war on the western front was fought on french soil or belgian soil. The war was not for on german soil. The damage that was done by that were and i am sure many of you have been to the western front where you can see that damage. The damage had been done to belgium and france. Done to their economies. Belgium was stripped bare. Much of its agriculture and wealth. Belgian historians will tell you belgium has never really recovered from the german occupation. The war in france was far in would have been the most industrialized parts of france. French factories were destroyed. So like 40 of french Production Capacity was destroyed in the fighting in the First World War. French mines, french bridges. You can understand why the public looked over at germany, which was largely unscathed by the war, which the infrastructure and not suffer that damage and said, they can y should we pay why should we pay them as done plot to do the demo published to pay for the damage which germany has done to us . The British Public felt much the same. So did the american public. Woodrow wilson was worried about what he felt to be the antigerman feeling among the american public. The pressure he felt to inflict a harsh peace on germany. Allies wanted someone to pay. Oneone they thought germany was the proper government. Payoff to hungry to pay austriahungary had fallen to pieces. Only kind of walk. It was noit was longer in. It was no longer an empire line, only a tiny austria. Countries that did not see themselves as being on the losing side. The Ottoman Empire was not able to pay anything. Bulgaria was not able to pay. Germany was. There was a desire on the part of the public, which put real pressure on statesmen in paris to get something out of germany. You also had a willingness and a longing. It was not just allied publics. It was also in the wider world. It was in asia, africa, north america. A desire that out of this dreadful war which had caused such suffering, whose consequences were so momentous, that out of this war, Something Better should come. What allied publics and other publics wanted was a new world. A new peaceful order. Some sort of institutions or ways of doing things that would prevent the world from having a war like this ever again. Statesmen had been pushed in different directions. They had to think of their own national interest. It is a commonplace letter and important one that at the end of coalition wars, the coalitions tend to fall apart once peace is achieved. Nations will come together in a great cause to save themselves from destruction or defeat an enemy or conquer other nations, once they have achieved those goals, they tend to think of their own interests and the coalitions begin to fall to pieces. We saw that clearly at the end of the First World War and the end of the Second World War. Inevitably, the powers in paris began to think of their own interest. The french were thing of their own security. If you are french, you knew germany was still strong. It was on the other site of your borders. There were more germans being born every year than there were french, which meant there were more german soldiers. You wanted protection as much as you wanted germany to pay for the war damage. What the british wanted was an end to the german fleet, which had caused so much concern before the First World War. They had already got that by the time the conference met. When the germans signed the armistice, they had surrounded their fleet and the submarine fleet. Britishe in riches ports. The parts of the British Empire had wanted german colonies and had gotten hold of those before the peace conference started. The british unlike the french could come to the peace conference not really asking for all that much for themselv