Lord Riddell's Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After 1918-1923

xii, 435 pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. Index. Cover has some wear and soiling. Some pages have edge tears. George Allardice Riddell, 1st Baron Riddell (25 May 1865 - 5 December 1934), known as Sir George Riddell, Bt, between 1918 and 1920, was a British solicitor, newspaper proprietor and public servant. Riddell went into the newspaper business. By 1903 he was managing director of the News of the World and also owned other newspapers. A close friend and ally of David Lloyd George, he was knighted in 1909, on the recommendation of H. H. Asquith During the First World War, he liaised between the government and the press and represented the British press barons at the Paris Peace Conference and later peace conferences. For these services he was created a Baronet, of Walton Heath in the County of Surrey, in 1918 and raised to the peerage as Baron Riddell, of Walton Heath in the County of Surrey, in the 1920 New Year Honours He was the author of several books, among them Some Things that Matter (1922), Lord Riddell's War Diary, 1914-18, and Lord Riddell's Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After. He was not impressed by his contemporary, Winston Churchill. Lord Riddell was the official British press delegate at a series of important international negotiations beginning with the Peace Conference at Versailles. The present book carries the story from the Peace Conference through to November, 1923, when he abandoned the diary habit. Racy and revealing, Lord Riddell's Diary is one of the important commentaries on the stirring and unhappy years immediately following the war. The Paris Peace Conference, also known as Versailles Peace Conference, was the meeting of the Allied victors, following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris during 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities. The major decisions were the creation of the League of Nations; the five peace treaties with defeated enemies, including the Treaty of Versailles with Germany; the awarding of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as "mandates", chiefly to Britain and France; reparations imposed on Germany, and the drawing of new national boundaries (sometimes with plebiscites) to better reflect the forces of nationalism. The main result was the Treaty of Versailles, with Germany, which in section 231 laid the guilt for the war on "the aggression of Germany and her allies". This provision proved humiliating for Germany and set the stage for very high reparations Germany was supposed to pay (it paid only a small portion before reparations ended in 1931). The "Bog Four" were the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Lloyd George; President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson; the Prime Minister of France, Georges Clemenceau; and the Prime Minister of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. They met together informally 145 times and made all the major decisions, which in turn were ratified by the others. Lord Riddell's diary also provides insights into the formation of the League of Nations. First U.S. Edition, presumed first printing.…