Grandeur and Misery of Victory

432 pp. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Georges Eugène Benjamin Clemenceau[1] (28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French politician who was Prime Minister of France during the First World War. A leading independent Radical, he played a central role in the politics of the French Third Republic. Clemenceau was Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and from 1917 to 1920. Demanding a total victory over Germany, he wanted reparations, colonies, Alsace-Lorraine, and strict rules to prevent Germany from rearming. He achieved these goals in the Treaty of Versailles imposed on Germany at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Nicknamed "Père la Victoire" (Father Victory) or "Le Tigre" (The Tiger), in the 1920s he continued his harsh position against Germany, though not quite as much as the President Raymond Poincaré. He obtained mutual defense treaties with Britain and the United States, to unite against German aggression, but these never took effect. During his last months, he wrote his memoirs, despite declaring previously that he would not write them. He was spurred into doing so by the appearance of Marshal Foch's memoirs, which were highly critical of Clemenceau, mainly for his policy at the Paris Peace Conference. He only had time to finish the first draft and it was published posthumously as Grandeurs et Misères d'une Victoire (The Grandeur and Misery of Victory). He was critical of Foch and also of his successors who had allowed the Versailles Treaty to be undermined in the face of Germany's revival. He burned all of his private letters.