The End of the Great War - The Position of France

Fear and Revenge

The bulk of the fighting and destruction that occurred on the Western Front was contained within the boundaries of France. The country had suffered huge military and civilian losses, and the cost to rebuild the nation would be astronomical. These problems were compounded by the fact that France shared a common border with Germany. The common border would once again put France on the front line of any future conflict with Germany. With these issues in the background, France prepared to enter the negations to end the war.

The President of France was George Clemenceau, or as he was nicknamed, the “tiger.” The “tiger” was elected to run the government when France looked like it was to be defeated during 1917. He led the country during difficult times and pushed the country successfully to the end of the war. Like most French people, Clemenceau wanted good old-fashioned revenge on the Germans. This drive for revenge stemmed from the Franco-Prussian War, the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, and the recent horrors of the Great War.

Clemenceau wanted to develop a lasting security for France. Thus he proposed a number of conditions to ensure the future of France from a German threat. He suggested three items to be included in the treaty:

1. That a “buffer zone” be created between France and Germany. In other words, a strip of land be carved out of Germany and turned into a new unarmed country between them. That way if a war occurred in the future, the battles would be fought on former German soil, not in France.

2. Germany should be permanently demilitarized. The idea was that Germany should not be allowed to have an army, navy or air force that could be used to threaten Europe again.

3. Germany must be made to pay a huge sum of money to the victors because they started the war. The money was to be used to rebuild France and recover some of the money that governments spent fighting Germany. Both France and England had to borrow large sums of money from the United States to buy war materials.

The position France took reflected that fears of the nation. Germany had a population of 60 million compared to that of France at 40 million. This meant that Germany could raise more soldiers than France in a future war, and without a natural barrier to protect them Germany could invade again. France believed that England was safe behind the English Channel, and the United States was protected by the Atlantic Ocean, but she was on the Front line.