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Episode 2.8: Deception As Policy examines the increasingly secretive plotting which took place behind the scenes in early autumn 1956. While Eden worked feverishly to make the conflict he desired come together, the countless variables continued to haunt him. We see here a glimpse of a common theme which will occupy us later on – the use of legal arguments to support the Anglo-French operation, on the grounds that Nasser had infringed upon British ‘rights’ and that Britai...
2018-12-21 18:45:26 +0000 UTC
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Episode 2.7: Blind Intrigue examines the steps which led towards the military intervention in Egypt, by placing the British behaviour in its imperial context. In spring 1955, Britain remained a premier power in the Middle East, while American representation in that theatre was not particularly impressive, save for the commercial connections which American citizens had with the different oil barons there. In the space of a year though, disquiet in the Middle East and several th...
2018-12-21 17:49:33 +0000 UTC
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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...
2018-12-19 16:11:14 +0000 UTC
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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 ...
2018-12-14 02:02:00 +0000 UTC
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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 conv...
2018-12-13 01:30:01 +0000 UTC
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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 coa...
2018-12-12 18:06:18 +0000 UTC
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Great news - we have reached 20 Delegates for our Delegation Game, so this is definitely going ahead. Make sure you join us by clicking here, upping your pledge to $6 or contacting me and letting me know...
2018-12-09 21:02:45 +0000 UTC
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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 clea...
2018-12-05 00:02:00 +0000 UTC
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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...
2018-12-03 20:42:04 +0000 UTC
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ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - 1st December 1918 - The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is proclaimed by Prince Regent Alexander of Serbia
This kingdom, known to history as Yugoslavia, was to have a tumultuous birth, life cycle and death, but even its very name was contentious! Serbs wanted the state to indicate the greater Serb role in its administration and creation; non Serbs wanted to maintain the facade that all were equal under the new kingdom, a...
2018-12-01 00:02:00 +0000 UTC
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If finding a solution to Western Europe was difficult, then untangling the morass which was Eastern Europe seemed like mission impossible. Thankfully for those flocking to Paris, Eastern Europeans had taken it upon themselves to do the legwork for them. Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavs and Romanians had all taken advantage of the power vacuums left by the vanished empires, and had staked their claims to land, people and resources while those in Paris gathered. Some leaders, like Edvard Benes...
2018-11-29 23:26:47 +0000 UTC
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ON_THIS_DAY_IN_HISTORY - sort of - everyone was going to Paris!
Destination Paris: Mission, end the war! As thousands of people from all across the world flocked to Paris for the looming conference, Parisians and civil servants of all shades had the unenviable task of preparing the way for them. Hotels would have to acquired for the different delegations, some of these would have to be scrubbed from top to bottom.
Wine would have to be found, as would tons of food...
2018-11-28 00:01:59 +0000 UTC
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"From the blind confusion of factional strife the Frenchman has emerged in this hour all of a piece throughout, stronger, more resolute, silent, smiling, his eyes bright with an invincible fire which affirms that the legend of France shall not fail…It is in that mysterious hour when something comes to birth in us which burns out the dross and clears the way for the casting of a metal which neither steel nor diamond can scratch. And when, some day, after superhuman efforts, all ...
2018-11-24 00:02:02 +0000 UTC
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France, that critically important cog in the machine of the Paris Peace Conference, had scores to settle and plenty to feel sorry about. The war had ripped through her people and country, bringing with it a plague of devastation unmatched in living memory. The flower of her youth lay dead, a demographic fact which she never truly recovered from. The final year of the war had been a trying and at times, gloomy one for France. Could Germany ever be defeated, was the question which seem...
2018-11-23 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Episode 2.6: The Entente Rides Again looks at the increasingly close cooperation between Britain and France in light of the signal defeat of Western imperialist ambitions in Egypt. We open our episode with a defining scene – President Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal. From this moment, every event in the proceeding crisis would follow, so make sure you give it a listen and bring yourself up to speed! The nationalisation of the Canal, while foreign opinion did not favour...
2018-11-20 23:43:53 +0000 UTC
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Episode 2.5: Oh No Cairo looks at British commitments in the Middle East, and how setbacks there could massively drag down ideas of British ‘prestige’ in that region. What did the French have to fear from Colonel Nasser, and how did this tie in with later Anglo-French agreements? The answers can be found here. Also of note in this episode is the moment when the Anglo-American loan to Nasser was cancelled, which meant that the Egyptian leader would be unable to construct his Aswan...
2018-11-20 20:11:28 +0000 UTC
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Remember - check out the Delegation Game, and find out how you can participate in this exciting new way to make the very most out of this incredible centenary era...
The famed armistice was signed followed several weeks' worth of diplomatic process, and several hours' worth of meetings between statesmen that ...
2018-11-19 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Remember - check out the Delegation Game, and find out how you can participate in this exciting new way to make the very most out of this incredible centenary era...
Sometimes, it isn't always the best idea to take vain people at their word. In the case of Edward House, the situation which he claimed to have created in P...
2018-11-18 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Now THIS is exciting - click here to learn more about the aforementioned Delegation Game which I talked about for a great deal in this episode, and remember to connect with me if you have any questions! To everyone else, I hope you weren't too bothered by my rambling about it for ten minutes - I'm just super excited, an...
2018-11-17 00:02:00 +0000 UTC
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It is impossible to tell the story of the Treaty of Versailles without Germany, and in episode 2 of the VAP, 'Germany Falling, Germany Falling', we examine the state of Germany in military, economic and societal terms by mid-1918. A campaign which had started out so strong and filled everyone with false hope ended in failure. The gamble to move all men from east to the western front had failed, and the chasm in capability was growing by the hour.
Stark pronouncements on the tru...
2018-11-16 00:16:00 +0000 UTC
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Here we have yet another introduction episode - this final one will be giving us a brief(ish) rundown on the origins of the Great War, for the benefit of those that have not listened to the July Crisis Anniversary Project of old. The world went to war in 1914, and the circumstances which surround that event are often held against Germany in the subsequent peace negotiations. Germany, it is said, started the whole wretched thing, so she should be punished once her gamble failed, and s...
2018-11-13 00:02:05 +0000 UTC
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We must set the structure and sources of this project in front of you before we jump right into it, and we should also clarify our aims before we go any further too. We have got a LOT of ground to get into over the next eight months, but I hope that you are ready to join me for this fascinating and illuminating journey, as we examine this era of our past like you've never seen it before.
Of course it is worth setting forth our aims: 1) create the most comprehensive, but also th...
2018-11-12 03:00:01 +0000 UTC
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To make it through the tons of research material available on the Treaty of Versailles, it is essential we take a certain angle as our guide. Find out what kind of angle I am interested in, and how I plan to divide the different sections of this project up, so that you and I can get through it with our sanity maintained!
It's going to be a wild ride to the 28th June 2019, but before we reach those sumptuous halls of Versailles, we first have to paint a picture, or series of...
2018-11-12 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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It's time. It's time at long last to unleash this project, to reveal the hidden complexities, the terrible truths, the dire dangers, the fascinating characters and the inspiring anecdotes of the period in history so often maligned and misunderstood, but so critically important to our world. It's time to go to 11th November 1918, where the guns fell silent at long last, and the birds could finally be heard to sing.
2018-11-11 00:02:00 +0000 UTC
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WDF is about to be positively lit up by the most ambitious project we've ever taken on, but before we jump into that, I felt it only right that I bring you guys up to speed with my new job, how I got on in the Sound Education Podcast Conference in Harvard, some notes about the podcasting schedule, a bit on Dan Carlin, some more info about my future and even more ramblings - sounds like a state of the podcast address to me!
2018-11-08 10:51:24 +0000 UTC
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It's time to say goodbye to this incredible era, and to end this whopper journey we've been on for the past 11+ months. I really can't believe we're here, but we are, and I figured there was never a better time to end this series, than on my birthday, so happy birthday to me!
Our conclusion examines a suitably poignant moment in recent history - the location of a reunion of Korean families, trapped and separated for more than six decades by a war which they never wanted, but wh...
2018-10-30 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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It's time to say good bye!
Episode 48: Something Of An Ending gathers together everything we’ve learned over the last 47 episodes and returns to those key questions, theories and goals which opened our series all those months ago. It is a typically intensive episode, since we have a good deal of stuff to talk about, several things to reiterate and not a small amount of final goodbyes to wave at our key figures. By now you have seen our narrative unde...
2018-10-29 01:02:00 +0000 UTC
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Episode 47: Ike Will Bring Them Home! This is our penultimate episode, and as such plays a critical role in bringing several threads of our narrative together. How fluent in the use of atomic diplomacy was Eisenhower’s administration? Armed with the knowledge we have from the last episode, we can state that Eisenhower was far from the first President to bring atomic weapons into the diplomatic discourse. Indeed, it makes sense that the first and last president of the US to make use...
2018-10-26 14:48:38 +0000 UTC
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Episode 46: Atomic Diplomacy looks at the fascinating tactic supposedly made use of by the Eisenhower administration in the first half of 1953. This policy of threatening nuclear war if the communists did not see sense worked, so the conventional account suggests, and it worked because NSC68 had so empowered American defensive capabilities. However, as we’ll see in this episode, Eisenhower’s tactic was neither completely successful nor was it unprecedented. In fact, to set the ba...
2018-10-21 23:02:00 +0000 UTC
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Episode 45: The Culminating Factors brings several threads of our story together, as we count down towards the establishment of peace amidst the political climb of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would be elected President of the US and wave goodbye to the Truman administration. The story of how Eisenhower got there, and why he decided that “I will go to Korea” is a fascinating one which we examine here. At the same time, we look at what the departing Truman administration meant for Am...
2018-10-20 12:06:19 +0000 UTC
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