[PATRONS]
Here we take stock of the situation by the last week of April 1919 by focusing our microscope on two apparently unrelated, but hugely important issues – specifically the future of the Rhine, and the status of the city of Danzig. These two issues of the Rhineland and Danzig were intrinsically linked with the ...
2019-04-26 19:22:21 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
On 24th April 1919, Italy left the Paris Peace Conference. This stunning development was a long time coming, and was a natural result of the behaviour of the big three. Notwithstanding the justness of Italy's demands, these demands had brought her into the war, and now that it was plain the allies would not li...
2019-04-24 14:50:32 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
We finally turn our attention to Italy in this episode history friends, where the relationship of Vittorio Orlando with his peers in the big five comes under our microscope. What were Italy's demands? Why was Italy upset with how its interests had been received? Were these interests fair, or unjust altogether?...
2019-04-23 13:29:11 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Episode 12 of the game sees our focus hone in on one eventful day, 19th April 1919, where three separate meetings were held, and where dreams were debated and dashed. The Japanese put forward their long anticipated racial equality proposal - which you will have to vote for - and the dominions made their cases ...
2019-04-20 21:35:51 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Episode 2.14: Attacked At Home takes us to the scenes facing Anthony Eden in Britain in the final days of October. Having orchestrated an Israeli-Egyptian war, the plan now was to issue an ultimatum, and for Anglo-French forces to swoop into Egypt to separate the two belligerents. Such a noble act, Eden believ...
2019-04-20 03:00:59 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Episode 2.13: When A Plan Comes Together examines the final moments of peace between 25-29 October, as the different governments involved in the conspiracy to attack Egypt and make it look like an accident all prepared the ground before them. In Britain, the focus was on the legal argument still, even despite ...
2019-04-19 03:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
The situation in our alternative universe continues to heat up, but some might say, for the better. The President Marshall of France, Ferdinand Foch, having survived the recent vote, now has his regime confirmed, but not all delegates have to like it. Foch's regime was buoyed by several successes over the last...
2019-04-14 13:52:50 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
The Japanese were utterly determined to pass the racial equality proposal, which actually consisted of a few sentences that would be inserted into the preamble of the League of Nations. This had been their for weeks, and it was publicly known, and feared, by much of the allies, with the exception perhaps of Fr...
2019-04-11 02:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
It's high time we turned our attention to a neglected theatre of this story. No, not Africa...No, not the Middle East...Yes, that's right - Asian! Well, more specifically, just Japan! The story of the Japanese rise to power in the late 19th and early 20th century is one which has always fascinated us here at W...
2019-04-08 18:45:09 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
After a traumatic event which rocked France, the world and the Peace Conference to its core, how can the delegates involved possibly refocus their attentions to the task at hand - that of making peace? Fear not, the President-Marshall of France is on the case, and with his ambitious, but by no means impossible...
2019-04-06 16:40:48 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
In the first week of April, 1919, American President Woodrow Wilson had reached the end of his tether. He was eternally sick of Georges Clemenceau lording the agonies of France over his head - what he needed was compromise, not to be accused of being pro-German by the French premier in one particularly explosi...
2019-04-05 15:49:01 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Whoa, Nelly, have we got a story for you! In the aftermath of failed efforts to achieve satisfaction with reparations and with the intervention into Russia, one could be left feeling sorry themselves if you happened to be a delegate in this fictional version of Paris in late March 1919. However, the real movem...
2019-03-31 21:27:34 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
We return to the question of reparations with some startling revelations. If you thought the French were the greedy, grasping and bitter sponsors of a massive reparations bill, then prepare to question everything you know! It was not the French, but the politically trapped British PM David Lloyd George, who wa...
2019-03-31 10:49:30 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
At long last, we turn our attention to the controversial issue of reparations. Perhaps no issue at the Paris Peace Conference, and no single tenet of the Treaty of Versailles has been the source of as much controversy as the question of how much Germany should pay to answer for its crimes of launching the Grea...
2019-03-27 13:52:46 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
After a week of conspiracy and controversy, the fallout must be confronted. An exhausted and demoralised cast of delegates are challenged with creating some kind of policy approach to Russia, to listening to one another without going crazy, and with remaining wary at all times of former enemies, or should that...
2019-03-23 21:51:02 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
A century ago today, Budapest was circling the drain of revolution, after several months of Bolshevik infiltration and grand promises, combined with mounting frustrations over President Mihaly Karolyi's consistent failings. What was to be done about the situation in Hungary? Where a population was so desperate...
2019-03-21 21:31:22 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Check out the collaboration I did with Thom Daly, where we talked about Ireland and Brexit!
As the Paris Peace Conference welcomed back...
2019-03-21 09:15:41 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Episode 7 of the game analyses the events surrounding the shocking murder of Georges Clemenceau, and the return of the American President to the scene. How will the President cope with the new atmosphere of cooperation, facilitated by Roosevelt's help and support, when he couldn't stand the man? How will Franc...
2019-03-16 20:11:51 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
After a month back home in the States, it was high time Woodrow Wilson returned to face the music in Paris. Exactly what tune this music would contain varied depending on whom you asked. Would Wilson find support in the leaders of the free world, or would he find only opportunists instead? What kind of impact ...
2019-03-14 20:03:58 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Our largest episode yet, with an absolute legion of things to get through... it must be the first two weeks of March, 1919! Herein we see several things go down in the Council of Ten, which was still shorn of its major leaders, but which did not sit still nonetheless. The Italians get antsy over some bad Serbi...
2019-03-13 22:04:32 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Episode 2.12: Collusion & Delusion follows on from the previous episode, and takes us to the contentious few days between 22-24 October 1956, where the war plan that would create the Suez Crisis was created, developed and signed by Britain, France and Israel in an unassuming Parisian suburb. This process w...
2019-03-10 00:02:16 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
In episode 45 of the Versailles Anniversary Project, we examine the lesser known mission of William C. Bullitt, Philadelphia aristocrat and Ivy League prodigy – at least according to his mother – who was selected to lead a top secret American delegation to Soviet Russia. Bullitt’s aims were multi-layered...
2019-03-09 20:44:54 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Episode 2.11: A Protocol For War takes us at long last into that controversial moment when Britain, France and Israel began to move closer together. The Sevres Protocol was neither developed nor signed in a day, and in the first two weeks of October, negotiations critically important to the later conflict were...
2019-03-09 00:01:06 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Episode 2.9: Israeli Sneaky takes us first to a scene of division. The Commonwealth, seen as so vital to British interests, was beginning to fracture along the question of what the best course of action to take against President Nasser would be. The Canadian, Australian and NZ governments were all uneasy at th...
2019-03-08 00:02:01 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
In our latest episode, we introduce you to the revolutionary wasteland that was Russia in 1919. Russia was a very confusing place at this time, because it was the subject of a lot of debate regarding that key question – should the allies launch some kind of military expedition against the Bolsheviks? That ap...
2019-03-07 21:12:36 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Episode 2.9: The Fix Is In looks at that moment which has become infamous in history – the collusion between Britain, France and Israel. We are almost ready to see these sneaky meetings take place, and for the infamous agreement take shape, but first, it is worth investigating another important and underrate...
2019-03-07 00:03:52 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
Before we delve into the Russian situation, I felt it would be beneficial, and darkly interesting, to examine what was happening in between the lands caught in the middle of the Russian and German crises. The Freikorps - disgruntled, right wing, extremist former soldiers and civilians, was exactly the wrong in...
2019-03-06 11:22:56 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
The unofficial second parter to our examination of Woodrow Wilson's campaign to get the League of Nations approved of back home, in episode 42 we further our analysis of the different parties and their interests in the US. Who was in favour of the League, who wanted the League with some adjustments, and who wa...
2019-03-02 19:31:00 +0000 UTC View Post
[PATRONS]
In the aftermath of Woodrow Wilson's exit from Paris, along with the British and Italian premiers, Clemenceau was alone to hold the fort against a resurgent and empowered German delegation. It was at that moment that an anarchist's bullet felled the Tiger, which provided an unprecedented opportunity for the Ge...
2019-03-02 18:24:37 +0000 UTC View Post
