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Georges Clemenceau's Role In The Treaty Of Versailles

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Georges Clemenceau's Role In The Treaty Of Versailles
Georges ‘Tiger’ Clemenceau was Prime Minister and French Statesman from 1906-1909 and 1917-1919. The Tiger was born to a political activist, and noted atheist, in 1841. His father instilled in him many beliefs, such as, hatred of Catholicism and radical political beliefs.1 Clemenceau came from a long line of physicians and was a physician himself. Clemenceau played a key role in the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Georges Clemenceau was the senior French representative at the Versailles settlement. Georges Clemenceau needed the terms of Versailles to crush Germany, while David Lloyd George of Britain secretly needed a non-emotive way to deal with Germany's discipline at Versailles.2 Georges Clemenceau was totally tuned in to what …show more content…
He had a good education and studied medicine. Clemenceau is remembered as being one of the greatest orators of all time, and even his political rivals could not disagree.3 He settled in Montmartre where he was appointed the town’s mayor in 1870. From 1876 to 1893 he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies and in 1902 he became senator. He held this post until …show more content…
During the war he was a critic, but not much more than that. He did not make any huge war plans or end the war with diplomacy, but somehow he still managed to have a greater impact than either of those would have created. Clemenceau managed to have impact not on WWI, but on WWII. The Tiger created very harsh reparations and made the Treaty of Versailles very harsh on Germany. This stems back to the beginning of his life when his father instilled in Clemenceau a hatred of Germany. I believe that Georges Clemenceau was largely responsible for the start of WWII. Had it not been for Clemenceau’s instillations in the Treaty, Germany may not have fallen so low and needed to look to a leader like Hitler. This is all hypothetical considering this was almost 100 years ago. But, I believe we have learned from The Tiger’s mistake and we know not to treat a losing country so badly, for fear of retaliation. On a side note, it is instances like this that provide examples of why we need to study the past and learn from

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