Book Report: Paris 1919

It feels like I have been reading this book forever. Overall, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World was pretty good (although her writing and organization is a little confusing at times). I wish I had a map of Europe and the Middle East on hand as I was reading it as her descriptions of the boundary negotiations were quite detailed. And I also found I needed to brush up on my 19th Century European history as I was reading (good old Spark Notes).

It's amazing how much the World War I peace conference set up the world as we know it today - especially in the Middle East and Eastern Europe - and therefore is the cause of many of the problems that we face.

One of the failings of the treaty was how it had to reconcile two different time periods. It was in some ways wedded to the past peace treaties that focused on imperialism, distributing spoils of war and punishing the losers. At the same time, it tried to also look to the idealism of Wilson's Fourteen Points of self-determination and equality (in some cases). So what we got was an imperfect treaty that often diverged from the Fourteen Points.

All of the decisions on the Middle East ignored the idea of "self-determination." The borders of the new countries of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq were based on imperialist aims, not on how best to divide up Kurdish, Persian, Arab and Turkish nations or Sunni, Shiite, Marionite Christians, Orthodox Christians, Druse, and secular religions. And the homeland for Jewish people in Palestine ignored whether Palestinians wanted an influx of European and Russian Jews.

The decision to unite Iraq was based on the British recognizing the value of oil in Mosul and its desire to protect its interests in India. It added Kurish populations to the new country just to add more territory. Lebanon was expanded to give the Marionite Christian population more land, dividing Syria and ignoring the fact that the extra land would include Muslims. At the time this book was written (2002), Syria was still occupying Lebanon.

It is also amazing to see how important personality was in the treaty discussions. Greece was often given its way because its representative was popular and charismatic, while Italy was largely spurned because its reps were tactless and unpopular. The support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine came from effective lobbying.

The bottom line is that the final treaty is obviously imperfect. It was a massive undertaking, but comes out inconsistent and sloppy in many ways. After reading this book however, I am not sure that I blame it for World War II or the conflicts in the Balkans. I do though blame it for some of the problems in the Middle East (Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine).