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Description: | Mr Lloyd George drew this during the meeting when the terms of the Armistice were decided, Versailles, November 1918. It
was taken from his place at the table by Herbert A. Olivier.
image: a complex webbed doodle in red pencil.
The Paris Peace Conference in 1919 allowed the victorious Allied nations to resolve the end of the First World War, to
apportion blame and financial responsibility and to demand reparations from Germany. They also addressed wider issues such as forming the
League of Nations and the creation of new nation states. Complex negotiations tried to match public desire for reparations to Germany’s
willingness and ability to pay.
Some of the complexity and uncertainty of the discussions can be seen in a doodle Lloyd George made on the blotter at Versailles and saved
by Herbert Olivier, an official artist present at the signing. Lloyd George had been re-elected in 1918 on a clear and uncompromising
platform of seeking full restitution from Germany. Although he was soon persuaded that Germany could not realistically repay the amounts
that the Allies wanted and that they would need a sound economic base in order to generate future payments, some sort of compromise had to
be reached that would match the public expectations he had helped raise.
In the doodle, the black outline of a figure is locked into a complex structure, repeatedly re-examined and redrawn. The image could be
read as a map or a towering structure, and either reading suggests parallels with the discussions to redraw the map of Europe following
Germany’s defeat and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | politicians David historical reference Treaty of Versailles 1919 Lloyd George International Diplomacy cartoons First World War | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Lloyd George, David | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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