ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 26th December 1918 - Woodrow Wilson meets David Lloyd George in London!

Hope you're all not TOO full of foodstuffs, because we have an important little bulletin to bring to you! The US President's visit to London in late 1918 was significant for a myriad of reasons - not least of which was the sight of an American President getting a horse and carriage ride through the city's streets! Who would ever have imagined that such displays were possible between former colony and former master?

Now these powers were firm friends, and the relationship between President and PM would only improve as time went on, and the two men realised they had more and more in common, to the detriment of the French premier of course, who quickly became something of an outsider. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you history friends!

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Here we conclude this incredible and early podcast Christmas present, which is 2/3 alternative history and 1/3 a breakdown of whether I believe this makes sense and why I went with what I did. How plausible was it all? You decide. This could be a very fun topic to have a number of debates on, but here we look at the opening phases of the war and what went right/wrong for each side. Irish troubles? Of course they are ever present! I hope you've enjoyed a different path instead of the dire one we got in 1914. Would the world be a better place had Princip missed? That's probably a story for another day, but for now we examine how the Entente came to collapse, and what this meant for the thoroughly victorious allies...

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Welcome history friends, as we launch into a little sideshow I cooked up for you all. This is the first in a chunky 2-parter series on alternative history, where we build a different world in the style you're used to, having asked the question - what would have happened if Gavrilo Princip missed, rather than actually successfully assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand? Using all I've gathered in my years studying the First World War and the July Crisis in particular, I give you my answer, so I hope you enjoy it! Over the course of the episode we will look at several threads, such as the change in Serbian government and increasing tensions provoking reactionary policies across the Balkans, it remained to be seen whether the European alliance system would save the peace or help destroy it. Find out here, and remember to catch part 2!

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You've been introduced to the Big Three of Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George - you know their aims, their backstories and their fears. What happens though when these men gather together in the same room? Could they possibly cooperate? Could their varied viewpoints and aims be reconciled? Before the Paris Peace Conference opened, I feel it'd be useful to take each of the three men under our microscope again, and refresh ourselves on what they wanted, what they did NOT want, and that grey area where they could see themselves compromising.

This episode will conveniently tie together all we've learned about the three men so far, and it is our last episode of the Versailles project before Christmas, so have a listen, refresh yourself, and I hope you have a safe and happy holiday season festivity Christmas food time! I think I covered all my bases! Thankssss :D 

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ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 14th December 1918 - The Coupon Election secures Lloyd George's Coalition Government.

It had long been expected that Lloyd George would call for an election at the end of the war, to beat off challenges to his position from both sides of the political spectrum, and to secure his mandate for the looming peace conference. Much was said about punishing Germany during the campaign trail, and making her pay what she owed to Britain and everyone else. The British electorate were thus heavy with expectation once their PM left for France in the new year - they anticipated Lloyd George would drive a hard bargain, and wrest concessions from the defeated foe which would vindicate their losses. As Lloyd George discovered, but probably knew already deep down, it wasn't so simple as taking things from Germany.

Lloyd George, whatever his white lies, did managed to secure a mandate from the British electorate with this election. It was the most votes ever cast in any election in British history, and for the first time ever, women were also entitled to vote (so long as they were over 30 and were connected to someone with at least £5 of property that is...). The Coupon Election - so called for the curious way with which the incumbent government represented itself, with a coupon that indicated the loyalty of several varied candidates - was a success for the PM, but dark clouds were on the horizon.

In Ireland, the old Irish Parliamentary Party had been wiped out by a new force called Sinn Fein, which refused to take its seats at Westminster. Within a month, a guerrilla war would erupt in Ireland, instigated by the decision of those Irish MPs to set up their own Parliament in Dublin. Still though, for the moment, Lloyd George could be happy. It was the result which Woodrow Wilson would have died for, because it granted a mandate for everything he did later, and demonstrated the faith and gratitude which the British people wished to express in their wartime leader.

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ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 13th December 1918 - US President Woodrow Wilson lands in France.

Woodrow Wilson had a vital role to play in the Treaty of Versailles, and was certainly the most dynamic actor in the Paris Peace Conference. Apparently immune to the old trappings of statecraft, intrigue and power, Wilson represented something new and promising for those French citizens and Europeans who were sick of war and who longed for something better. Wilson's rapturous welcome convinced him that he had done the right thing by deciding to travel to Paris personally, even though many had disapproved back home.

Flattered, excited, vindicated though he was, the reception did not last. Wilson would never be so popular in France again...

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David Lloyd George's assent to the top of the greasy pole came at a difficult time for Britain and the allied war effort. The war did not appear near its end after all; instead the bloody stalemate had begun to tell, on all sides, and 1916 had been a year of crushing disappointments. Faced with a crisis in confidence, PM Asquith made way for the last Liberal Prime Minister of the age, Lloyd George, who ensured by early 1917 that he had the support of his colleagues in the wartime coalition to continue on with the war in the manner that he saw fit.

Lloyd George's vision was tempered by realities and the hard lessons which still lay ahead, but he was at his best when delegating to his colleagues, when relinquishing something of his iron grip on power, and when accepting that sharing the load was the best way to win the war. New men were made and old men retreated from public life in disgust, but Lloyd George wasn't here to make friends. His single minded determination to win this damned war earned him admiration and appreciation, but it also represented the greatest test he had yet faced. That is, of course, until he had to craft the peace. Join us here as we unravel the traits which helped Lloyd George lead Britain to victory, no matter the cost...

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David Lloyd George, the unlikely Prime Minister, and the only PM in history to have spoken Welsh fluently, comes under our microscope in the final of our profiler episode couplets. Lloyd George's childhood and upbringing, his experience of life in Wales, his love of country, of justice and of independence - these were all important building blocks of a character which would soon serve Britain at its most critical time.

We open our account of Lloyd George with an anecdote from Harold Nicolson, a vital eyewitness to the events of the Paris Peace Conference, and a man who happened to be present when the PM jubilantly announced the end to the war. This represented the end of a long, exhausting journey for Lloyd George, but he wasn't finished yet! Join us as we unwrap Lloyd George the man, before he became Lloyd George the leader.

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Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points are an integral part of what made the end of the First World War so fascinating, but also so confusing. Did the President want to go easy on Germans for the sake of it, or did he have more ambitious goals in mind? Was he as determined to remake the post-war order as we are often told, or were these fourteen points simply a smokescreen for the imperialistic policies which the president wished to pursue? The answers to these questions are not clear cut, but join us for episode twelve where we discuss each of these points in turn, assess how they were received by the international community, examine the impact of each point, and then detail the president's feelings on the document which he had just communicated to the world. The Fourteen Points were supremely important, not least because they represented the first true statement of peace terms revealed by any of the allies. Coming as they did in January 1918, the end of the war was some way off, but it is impossible to understate their importance as the months ticked by. As the provided image shows, Germany made use of these points as the basis for a peace settlement which, they hoped, would grant them what they wanted. For a variety of reasons, they were to be sorely mistaken...

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Welcome to Woodrow Wilson's United States of America. As we build towards a key concept, the Fourteen Points, here we set some background and ask some pertinent questions, such as - why did the US intervene in the war, and why did Wilson wait so long before doing so?

Woodrow Wilson is a character we must understand if we are to grasp the nuances of the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles which that created. Wilson was an integral part of what made the end Treaty so significant, but he can also be blamed for its uninspired record in America, and its ultimate failure. All the while, his message was one of firm but fair treatment for a defeated Germany, and this message was one which many at the top levels of Germany's government could not fail to heed.

To understand where such high minded ideals came from, we must examine Woodrow Wilson before he arrived in Paris in late 1918. More than that, we must investigate whether Wilson's ideals were developed not to meet the crisis of the Great War, but as a repeat of what he had done before, in Mexico.

Thus, we take a seemingly strange detour into the Mexican American border over 1913-1914, to get to the bottom of what the President was doing and why. Why did he care so much about what government was represented in Mexico? Why did he feel compelled to work against big businesses when they could have cut him a tidy profit? Wilson's actions led to turmoil along the border with Mexico, and even some Mexican raids into American soil, which Uncle Sam had to meet directly, as this cartoon suggests.

My point is, in history, nothing is ever so straightforward as we might think. Wilson's famed ideals did not come from nowhere, and here we debate whether we can see their origins in the tumultuous relationship which America's southern neighbour had with the President. It's quite a journey, so I hope you'll join me to see where it takes us... 

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