When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
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Versailles #81: Hollow Triumphs
🕑 Added 2019-06-27 17:36:04 +0000 UTC[PATRONS]
If you thought we'd simply fast forward to the infamous scene where the Germans signed on the dotted line, then you haven't been paying attention! Between the 24 and 27 June, there was a great deal going down, even if many of the peacemakers had mentally checked out, knowing that the signing was only a few days away. As the allies blamed the Germans for Scapa Flow, and Clemenceau imagined a new scheme involving the occupation of the city of Essen, the Germans worked to find someone, anyone, who would sign.
The German Colonial Minister would request his title be changed, so that he wouldn't be known as the German colonial minister who signed away Germany's colonies, and this individual, Johan Bell, made his way with Herman Mueller, the German Foreign Minister, to Versailles. The ground was being prepared for the scene, but there seemed like an overall feeling of 'meh' had crept in. Was it not a bit of anticlimax, after all they'd worked on together, that the end result was just some unhappy Germans? Perhaps, but that couldn't be allowed to stand in the way of the gravity of the moment. The 28th loomed, and peacemakers pushed relentlessly on...
