Taking time to be here we are so delighted to have professor Margaret Mcmillon with us today. It really is a delight. Thank you so much for traveling to be with us on this important conversation and who will help us with that is better equipped than Margaret Mcmillon, americas Professor International history at oxford, professor of history at the university of toronto, she serves in a many and varied roles. Trustee of the Central European university and more recently, at the Imperial War Museum. We are second only here at the National WorldWar One Museum and memorial to the Imperial War Museum in terms of history. They began collecting a 1917 and we began collecting in 1920. We are further delighted that they are having their world war ii gatherings reinstalled by the gallery designs over the World War One Museum so they are very wise, i might say. Margarets research specializes in British Imperial history and the International History of the 19th and 20th centuries and she is written many publications and books. I dont want to list those but one of which is particularly pertinent to the conversation tonight, paris, 1919, six months to change the world. Which really puts her in a position of authority to have the conversation with us this evening. She is of course been awarded with many distinguished prizes and awards, gave the bbcs 2018 brief lectures on war and humanity which explored the tangled history of war and society a complicated feelings toward it and those who fight. Which is short to say of course that ladies and gentlemen we are in the presence of a historical rock star. Tonight. From 75 to 2002, dr. Mcmillon was the member of the History Department at robertson university in toronto, where she also served as chair. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of literature, serves on various boards an editorial groups that focus on history and world war i studies, honourary fellows and college at oxford, she has received recognition from a number of academic institutions by being awarded honourary doctorates. In 2006, professor mcmillon was invested as an officer in the order of canada. Which is four americans, that sort of the very distinguished award. And in 2016, she was appointed as companion of the order of canada. The 2008, the queens new years honors list was appointed her the companion of honors for service to Higher Education history and international affairs, which in countries are sort of a big deal. After professor mcmillon has given her lecture, there will be an opportunity for questions and answers and laurel facilitate that. We have some microphones and we would invite you as you have another sessions to move to those and bring your questions. Or if you would prefer to ask from where you are, just indicate and laura will help facilitate that. We it was almost five years ago that we had the honor of welcoming dr. Mcmillon to our auditorium stage. Once again, we have the opportunity to do so and as i say, we couldnt be more pleased. The excitement surrounding her keynote is evident, when you started to gather here and its really palpable. If you havent read paris 1919, six months to change the world, wed really encourage you to do so and move it to the top of your queue. In fact, the books till tomorrow will be open you might want to take a coffee with you. Tonight, shell expand on that topic and the research that she has undertaken and present a thesis of her arguments. Ladies and gentlemen, please join with me in welcoming our esteemed keynote speaker, dr. Margarets mcmillon. applause that was extremely kind. Thank you. Thank you very much i think that is the example of the commonwealth sticking together. It was much to kind, thank you very much for that introduction. Many thanks to the war museum for inviting me back. Ive enjoyed everyone and i tell everyone that they must come to kansas city and Senior Museum and also see your beautiful city. Its almost becoming a family thing, i gather my deputy dense snow was here last fall. Talking, be careful, 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 taking stock and looking back. And what happened at the end of the First World War as the whole of the First World War is something that is shaped the history of this 20th century and also shape the world in which we live. And so i think its quite useful to use anniversaries to think about what that means, with those great events of the past meant and what they might mean for us today. I think it is quite right that in your title, you put 1919, peace, question mark. Because there is a view widely shared that what happened in paris in 1919, this is the great peace conference that was summoned to wind up in the First World War and try and set a structure for a lasting peace. And the world after 1919. What happened in paris in 1919 has been blamed for the outbreak of the Second World War. There is a very simple version of history, which is that the statesman and there were all pretty much met in those days, the statesman met in paris in 1919. They made such a mess of things that europe simply moved down a tram way with no escape to 1939. I myself find that much to simple. My short answer to people who say doesnt 1919 leads directly to 1939 . Is what was everyone doing at those 20 years . An awful lot can happen in 20 years. I think europe and the world faced many choices in that period. Perhaps the most single influential book in creating that view of 1919 as the doomed piece attempt that set in motion the events that led to 1939 is the book by john maynard keynes, the great economist. Who in 1919 was not yet so well known. But he was very arrogant and very self confident young man. I should point out he went to cambridge university. Well so we are not surprised by that. He was in paris as an economic adviser to the british delegation and he got fed up with what he felt were the mistakes they were making. He was also, i think, going through something of a personal crisis in his life. At any rate, he threw out the job in paris, 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 very successful polemic and it is been imprints ever since and translated into many languages. For such an exciting little book, it has a rather dull title, its called the economic consequences of the peace. But if you read the book, and im sure some of you have, it is condemning everything that was going on in paris. Let me just 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 significance and on reality of the decisions. Levity, blindness, insolence, confused cries from without. All the elements of ancient tragedy where there. The statesman, he claimed in this book, were hypocritical or subtle and dangerous spell binders, engaged in empty and arit intrigue. The treaty oversight, the treaty with germany which was probably the most difficult one of all to go sheet and which helps to set the template for the other treaties, the treaty of versailles it was imbecile greed, oppression, dishonourable, ridiculous and injurious. He wrote devastating portraits of the three key states men who were at the center of the decisions that they made in paris. Clemenceau, the French Foreign minister, he portrayed as an ancient ape fasten to his chair thinking only of revenge on germany. Wilson, the american president , he portrayed as a booby. Like in one of those games were Children Play were in england they call it blends bluff. Where you put a scarf around someones eyes and pin them around and then they dont know which direction theyre going in. And this is how he described wilson, being spun around, naive and foolish, being spun around by the devious europeans. And david loyd george, the british prime minister, he portrayed as half man and half g. O. A. T. Who came out of the welsh myth with no moral sense whatsoever and his mother actually made him take some of the router passages out. But this was a very powerful piece of work. It helps to set a picture ever since, of what happened in paris is being futile and worse than futile, dangerous, condemning europe in the world to a Second World War. I will not deny that not all the decisions in paris were good. They did make mistakes i think, in their division of the arab territories of the middle east and their treatment of the Ottoman Empire for example. The powers showed carelessness in the shortsightedness for much of the 20th century so not only did and i want to defend everything that happened there, but i want to say that what we need to do is try to understand what it was they were dealing with i think what we must do is ask ourselves what would we do if we were in that position . What would we be facing its all good to look back in the past and say they shouldve done this, or that, they should have known that there was a young german corporal called adolf hitler coming along who was going to seize on the treaty of versailles and use that to help him in his nazi party get into power. Of course they didnt know that, but we always have to remember when you rewrite history when is what people actually had to work on at the time. What concerns did they have . What obstacles they face . What is it that they were actually dealing with . I think we need to look at the paris peace conference and the conference which came at the end of a great catastrophe and try to understand just with the circumstances of that conference were. What i would like to do is make a few general points about wars because ending wars is never easy. Especially if those wars have been great and the level of destruction of been very high. Apart from anything else, the greater the war, the rate of the expectation, and the greater the desire that someone or something should pay for what happened. And this was certainly the case at the end of the First World War. The war had shocked europe and indeed it shocked most of the world. Partly because the 19th century had been such a very good century for europe. Europe had known terrible wars, its history. Most centuries have been marked by dreadful wars and europe in the 19th century was actually one of the most peaceful and prosperous and progressive centuries in european history. Perhaps the most peaceful prosperous and progressive that europe had ever known. There had been a number of very short wars in the 19th century after the Napoleon Nick wars and it in 1815, but those wars were short, they were usually fought between two countries like for example, the frank oppression war the war between pressure and austria. And they usually resulted in a clear result and in peace was reestablished. And so europeans had come to think, by the beginning of the 20th century, that they had somehow changed and that there will to change, and that 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 peace and prosperity and progress was going to spread around the world. We look back and say how foolish that was, but this is something that many people were thinking in europe before 1914, which made the shock of the First World War all the greater. Europeans had four years of war, a war which they had hoped wrongly, would be short and decisive, after four years of a dreadful war, they look back and they look at the lies that gone. 9 million men, possibly more. We will never know. Mostly it was men in the First World War. The loss of human potential, the loss of human talent, the money that had gone, the destruction that had gone, the empires that had gone. Three great empires disappeared as a result of the First World War. Force disappeared shortly afterwards. Russia, which was an empire as well as the state fell to pieces in the course of the russian revolution. Austria hungry, that huge multinational empire at the center of europe, which for better or worse, i created a sort of stability toward the centuries, felt pieces as the war was ending. In germany, which had been an empire including many polish lance also fell to pieces as an empire at the end of the First World War. And then in the months just after, the Ottoman Empire was going to fall to pieces and disappear as well. And so it was a very different political and social landscape that the europeans looked at in 1918, they had seen a 1914. And they had done something more to themselves, 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 controls most of the surface of the world. European finance was what you needed if you wanted to build anything, if you want technology came to europe, if you wanted money if you wanted education you came to europe. If you wanted fashion, if you wanted ideas you came to europe. And by 1918 the europeans also had that sent. Their civilization was in some way superior. The war in addition to all the other things that had done, had shaken european confidence in themselves tremendously. Paula valerie, the great french writer said something is broken and we will never be quite the same again. It will be like those other empires the disappeared, names now that mean nothing to us like babylon, we now know what its going to be like to go into the abyss of history. When that were ended then, there is a sense of doom since of apprehension and also worry that the war has ended but fighting hadnt ended this afternoon much to get a least 1920s, theres also fear it take them with russia the european societies are simply going to be swept away and so that was part of the atmosphere in which the peace conference met. What also i think affected the decisions of those and that puts tremendous pressure on the peacemakers because they worried they sort of things out soon and things would get much worse. Some of the pressing issues there would see resolution also i think, it was their own public. This was a conference that was mostly engaged in by powers and politicians what their publics wanted, with the publics demand it. And of course were having to think about the next elections. At the Congress Just taken place, napoleon a course, that is not something that the peacemakers had to worry about, they have to answer to new people. They were going to what the publics wanted, the public with the public wants it was not always compatible. What they want to currently on the winning side someone to pay, someone to pay and some of the take responsibility for the war. The french, they felt very strongly about this, often, and the literature later, its not how unreasonable the french were, but i think we need to remember that the french had been invaded twice by German Forces in the lifetimes of many people including clinton so himself. In 1870 the German Confederation had invaded france and very nasty battles had been fought on french soil and fence had been defeated and have had to pay very large fine indeed and suffer German Occupation. Germany had declared war on france and invaded france in 1914, the french didnt start the First World War with germany, the germans started it with frenchs. And most of the war on the western war was false unfriendly the belgian soil the damage that was done by that war and im sure many of you have been to the western front, you can see some of that damage, the damage had been done to belgium and to france, done to their economies, belgium was stripped bare of much of his agriculture much of its wealth belgian historians will tell you that belgium has never really recovered from the German Occupation in the First World War. The war in france was fought in what had been the most industrialized parts of france. French factories were destroyed. Something like 40 of french Production Capacity was destroyed in the fighting in the First World War. French mines, french railways, french bridges. You can understand why the French Public looked over at germany, which was largely unscathed unoccupied, largely unscathed by the war, where the infrastructure had not suffered that sort of damage and said, they can pay. Why should we pay, why should we paid to do the damage, to pay for the damage which germany has done to us . And the British Public felt much the same and so to the american public. The american president Woodrow Wilson was worried about what he fell to be the anti german feeling that he was encountering among the american public. The pressure that he felt too and flicked we tributed piece on germany. And so the allied public wanted someone to pay and they look to germany and thought germany was the proper country to pay. Austria hungry couldnt pay because it fall into pieces. It was no longer an empire, only a tiny Little Austria and a hungry that was in revolution and upper new countries which didnt really see themselves as being on the losing side. The Ottoman Empire clearly was unable to pay anything, bulgaria, which was an