Peacemaking aims of President Woodrow Wilson and Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau differed, although both ultimately wanted a peaceful resolution to mark the end of the Great War. Wilson advocated a comprehensive Fourteen Point plan, which advocated for a diplomatic end of the conflicts that had led to and perpetuated the wartime conflict in the post-Ottoman world. Wilson emphasized free trade and national sovereignty as key points. His approach to peacemaking was less punitive and more proactive, at least on paper, than that of Clemenceau and even David Lloyd George. Clemenceau hoped for a more heavy-handed response to the German's behavior during World War One. France had suffered tremendous economic blows. Wilson's declaration of reverting the Alsace-Lorraine to France was not believed to be sufficient from Clemenceau's perspective. Clemenceau wanted to severely debilitate, even decapitate Germany. Wilson had hopes for a future in which European powers could be balanced politically.
The differences between Clemenceau and Wilson affected the deliberations of the Paris Peace Conference, and also the nature of the final peace settlement. Wilson advocated strongly for the League of Nations. Clemenceau reluctantly accepted, but ironically, the United States never joined. The deliberations impacted how the former colonies of Germany would be ruled and divided, as well as the question of how the former Ottoman colonies would be ruled. However, Clemenceau was generally receptive to Wilson's diplomatic ideas in spite of the French push for a more punitive approach to Germany.
Wilson's proposed Mandates, related to the division of former Ottoman and German colonies after World War One, was related to the more general trend towards de-colonization. The pan-African congresses represented the grassroots movements to extricate African colonies from European dominion. Wilson's plans did not suggest any notion of self-rule for Africans. The pan-African congresses represented the struggles of subjugated people against colonial leadership, including being tossed around in the...
United Nations: Failures The United Nations is the result of an international policy experiment that aimed at bringing together the countries of the world in an attempt to avoid conflagrations such as the First and Second World wars from taking place again in the modern history of human kind. The loss of lives in the wars that marked the 20th century determined world leaders and in particular the five great powers
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