Naturally France, as the country that suffered the most during the war, wanted to see Germany crippled so far that it could never again inflict the damages it had done on France in the Franco-Prussian war and in the Great war (WWI) again. The French people sought utmost revenge as all the atrocities of the war happened in their own back yard and the ordinary people witnessed the war first hand. France wanted to crush Germany in every dimension; monetarily, militarily and territorially (with the occupation of the Rhineland and the confiscation of Alsace Loraine.) In short France wanted the army, air force, tank regiments, weapons factories and basically anything connected to the army to be destroyed- attempting to crush German military dominance forever. Moreover, they wanted the Germans to pay for all the damage they faced during the war.
Lloyd George was somewhat seen as the ‘middle man’ however even he still wanted reasonably harsh terms to be imposed on Germany by the treaty- George would’ve undoubtedly felt considerable pressure from the people with popular campaigns such as ‘hang the Kaiser’ floating around, it was clear the people wanted revenge as payback for the millions of casualties suffered during the war. Furthermore George was quoted saying ‘squeeze them until the pips squeak’ showing how he wanted utmost revenge and would try get as much out of Germany as possible, however the difference between the two was that Lloyd George wanted to destroy Germany ‘within reason’ whilst Clemenceau probably would’ve cast Germany back into the stone age if such was possible. However the reason why Britain didn’t have such an extremist side as France was that Germany was seen as a valuable trading partner at the time (and Keynes, a brilliant economist of the time explained that by crippling the German economy it would thus cripple all of Europe’s great economies leading to great depression- this stuck fear into Lloyd George and thus why he was more hesitant to cripple Germany than Clemenceau was). Furthermore Britain did not want to see France become the most powerful nation in Europe and lastly and most importantly it was France where the war effort did the most destruction so Britain wasn’t effected nearly as much.
Finally America, under Wilson was by far the most liberal of the three nations. America went into the treaty proposing Wilson’s fourteen points which in France and British eyes was ludicrous- how could a nation who hardly got touched at all by the war decide that France and Britain would receive virtually nothing from the Germans after fighting an extremely costly war.
From this, we can now see from the outcome of the treaty which member of the big three had the most influential role in shaping the treaty of Versailles. However from the aims it is clear to see that if France had its way the treaty would definitely be shaped ‘to exact revenge and to ensure Germanys permanent weakness.’ This however was certainly not the case, as it seemed from the outcome of the treaty the only satisfied nation was Britain; America completely refused to sign the treaty as it was far to radical and they were set on fulfilling, Wilson’s fourteen points, they saw the treaty as a recipe for disaster as it would clearly crush Germany to an extent where the country would be ruined, which would make it vulnerable to communism, and as it was thought that the other European powers economies were linked to Germany they feared Europe would decline and as it declined they feared communism could prosper. France as well was not satisfied by the terms of the treaty, in fact the only reason why France signed the treaty was because they felt if they signed it America and Britain would agree to sign their pact stating if Germany was to attempt to invade France again, America and Britain would intervene immediately, however this also backfired as both America and Britain both refused to sign the pact and America couldn’t be seen to be signing secret treaties, and thus Britain wouldn’t sign if America didn’t! France was clearly left feeling hard done by, and although the treaty did provide them with lots of Clemenceau’s aims, the French public felt what the treaty enforced was far too lenient, thus choosing to kick Clemenceau out of power showing how harsh thy treaty needed to be in their eyes- even thought they managed to crush Germany economically and monetarily they wanted to crush Germany further.
In conclusion I feel that France did attempt to ‘exact revenge and to ensure Germanys permanent weakness,’ however it didn’t not manage to shape the treaty to the extent it wanted, hence why Clemenceau was taken as a scapegoat and was evicted from power. I feel that Britain, being somewhat of the middle man managed to largely shape the treaty being able to pick and choose what they thought was best from American and French aims whilst adding points to their benefit.
