Lloyd George had three main aims: A 'just' peace that would be tough enough to please the electors who wanted to 'make Germany pay', but would leave Germany strong enough to trade, land for Britain's empire and to safeguard Britain's naval supremacy. He claimed that he would ‘make Germany pay’ – because he knew that was what the British people wanted to hear. He wanted ‘justice’, but he did not want revenge. He said that the peace must not be harsh – that would just cause another war in a few years time. He tried to get a ‘halfway point’ – a compromise between Wilson and Clemenceau. Lloyd George was anxious to preserve Britain’s supremacy. "Hang the Kaiser" and "Make Germany Pay" were two very common calls in the era immediately after the end of the war and Lloyd George, looking for public support, echoed these views. However, in private Lloyd George was also very concerned with the rise of communism in Russia and he feared that it might spread to Western Europe. After the war had finished, Lloyd George believed that the spread of communism posed a far greater threat to the world than a defeated Germany. Privately, he felt that Germany should be treated in such a way that left her as a barrier to resist the expected spread of communism. To conclude, Prime Minister David Lloyd George was more sympathetic to Germany. Lloyd-George realised that if Germany was harshly punished this would cause great resentment amongst the Germans and could cause tensions in the future. He also believed that a strong Germany would be a good trading partner for Britain, and that a healthy German economy would prevent the rise of extremist parties either Communists or Fascists. On the other hand Lloyd-George had to listen to British public opinion which was calling for ‘make Germany pay’.
The aims of Lloyd George and Clemenceau were distinctively opposite in terms of their ideologies and what they wanted. Georges Clemenceau of France had one very simple belief - Germany should be brought to its knees so that she could never start a war again. This reflected the views of the French public but it was also what Clemenceau himself believed in. He had seen the north-east corner of France destroyed and he determined that Germany should never be allowed to do this again. In 1871, France had lost Alsace Lorraine and had been forced to massive reparations. French causalities between 1914 and 1918 were the highest sustained by the allied powers. The other great victorious power was the USA. Led by President Woodrow Wilson, the Americans had no great desire to punish the Germans. In January 1918 Wilson had proposed his Fourteen Points, which was a blueprint for a fair peace settlement at the end of the war. Wilson was primarily concerned with establishing a fair and lasting system of international relations. In particular, he wanted to set up a League of Nations and favoured the principle of self-determination for all subject peoples. Wilson did not wish to punish the Germans, but at the Peace Conference he was overruled by Clemenceau and Lloyd-George.
After analysing the aims of the treaty the next question is: is it really fair to blame them for something that happened two decades later? The treaty is often criticised to be unfair and too harsh. Historians have often criticised the treaty that the treaty was worst of all worlds: too severe to be permanently acceptable to most Germans and too lenient to constrain Germany for long, without effective enforcement. Some historians such as A.J.P Taylor have gone as far as to claim that it was the Allies’ failure to solve the German Problem 1919 and laid the foundation of Second World War. However, some historians are not critical for instance Paul Kennedy. Even though agreed that the German problem was not solved, it is difficult to suggest realistic solutions to the problem. They have claimed that prime problem was not the Treaty of Versailles, but rather German hostility to the treaty because it represented a defeat that most Germans were not willing to acknowledge. It can be possible to blame the Versailles peacemakers for the Second World War. But this is not fair as Lloyd George, Wilson and Clemenceau faced a host of possibly intractable problems. They did their best in difficult circumstances to resolve them.
After looking at all the arguments, Lloyd George had often been seen as the main architect of the Versailles settlement. It is claimed that that he was in a strong position because he often found himself able to mediate between Clemenceau and Wilson. Many historians see him as charting a tricky and skilful course at Paris in 1919 between the opposing views of Clemenceau and Wilson. However, at the same time He is trying with great success to preserve British Interests. Moreover, Lloyd Geroge secured the best deal available at the time and reckoned on the terms being revised later. As claimed earlier, the terms that has been set Lloyd could have been more harshly by any other prime minister that time under circumstances where the Britain has not even recovered by the losses of First World War for instance, the financial crisis. The economic and financial crisis meant that there was growing disparity Britain’s global commitments. In 1919, 30 percent of Britain’s government expenditure had been on defence. At this time it was best to put the terms and improve the interests of Britain. The aims of Lloyd Geroge were seen as less inconsiderate than the aims of Clemenceau. France had lost some 1.5 million military personnel and an estimated 400,000 civilians to the war and much of the western front had been fought on French soil. To appease the French public, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau wanted to impose policies deliberately meant to cripple Germany militarily, politically, and economically so that it will never be able to invade France again. Historian Adamthwaite sees Versailles as ‘a brave attempt to deal with intractable, perhaps insoluble problems’.
