When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Join me and other history friends on Flick - a great app for history friends and important conversations! My agora friends and others are going to be in New York for a special conference on 29th June - meet Mike Duncan, Kevin Stroud, David Crowther and more! Search Intelligent Speech Conference now! Use the code WDF to get 5% off your ticket! There was nothing simple about the allied policy toward...

Join me and other history friends on Flick - a great app for history friends and important conversations! My agora friends and others are going to be in New York for a special conference on 29th June - meet Mike Duncan, Kevin Stroud, David Crowther and more! Search Intelligent Speech Conference now! Use the code WDF to get 5% off your ticket! By the last week of May 1919, the focus in the allied c...

In episode 16 of the game, we visit four distinct scenes, where a great deal of drama goes down. Lloyd George has some words for the British Empire Delegation; four allied figures meet to try and address their differences; the Austro-German party urge action in the creation of some peace treaty which will actually end the war, and in the American delegation, the fallout from Woodrow Wilson's strok...

Join me and other history friends on Flick - a great app for history friends and important conversations! My agora friends and others are going to be in New York for a special conference on 29th June - meet Mike Duncan, Kevin Stroud, David Crowther and more! Search Intelligent Speech Conference now! Use the code WDF to get 5% off your ticket! The aftermath of the Greek landing was one thing, but t...

Join me and other history friends on Flick - a great app for history friends and important conversations! My agora friends and others are going to be in New York for a special conference on 29th June - meet Mike Duncan, Kevin Stroud, David Crowther and more! Search Intelligent Speech Conference now! Use the code WDF to get 5% off your ticket! It's high time we considered the American angle once ag...

After so many weeks of preparation, it is finally time to journey to Warsaw where the Council for Russian Freedoms presents its mission. Accompanied by volunteer forces from all over the world, the message is clear - the extinction of Bolshevism and the rescuing of Russia. However, beneath of the surface of the good intentions and proud speeches, lurks dark rumours, doubts and further conspiracy.....

Are you ready for this? After a long time teasing you all, it's time I dropped some incredibly exciting news on the world. This news has the potential to change history podcasting FOREVER...sort of, but first and foremost, it means big changes for you and I. I hope you'll have a listen to the first half of this show to hear my news and get to grips with what I'm all about. Pat yourself on the back...

My agora friends and others are going to be in New York for a special conference on 29th June - meet Mike Duncan, Kevin Stroud, David Crowther and more! Search Intelligent Speech Conference now! Use the code WDF to get 5% off your ticket! OTD 100 years ago, the switch was finally pulled, and Greek soldiers were landed in Anatolia for the first time in centuries. The cause was the city of Smyrna, t...

My agora friends and others are going to be in New York for a special conference on 29th June - meet Mike Duncan, Kevin Stroud, David Crowther and more! Search Intelligent Speech Conference now! The story of Greece comes under our microscope at long last. Here we are introduced to a fascinating vision, yet another example of what might have been. Greater Greece was a project which appealed to many...

The President Marshall arrives in London to take his seat alongside the big three in the Council of Eight, as a very exhausted SIR Alistair Tancred accompanies him. Awaiting Foch in London are several developments; the Minor Council continues to quarrel, the League of Nations is under severe threat, and the concerned nations prepare themselves to contribute men to the cause of Russian freedom, aft...

My agora friends and others are going to be in New York for a special conference on 29th June - meet Mike Duncan, Kevin Stroud, David Crowther and more! Search Intelligent Speech Conference now! Somehow, we managed to cram an hour of content in an episode that examines the 8-10 May 1919! That's because in that episode, a great deal happened which requires our attention, so sit down and relax as we...

On this day 100 years ago, the Germans were finally presented with the treaty had been under construction for nearly five full months. What would they think of it? That remained to be seen, but in the process of handing this treaty to them, the German delegation, represented by Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, would be given a chance to speak while seated, before the entirety of the plenary conferen...

In our longest episode to date (and hopefully ever) we examine the incredible story of the first week of May 1919, by delving into primary sources never before used on a podcast, and rarely used in books! This delivers to us a narrative rich in detail and plainly, in length, but it is a necessary chapter to absorb in our story simply because it is so fascinating. The Italians, as is commonly known...

The German delegation had arrived in Paris, but despite the confident exterior, Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau would have known full well that all was not well back home. Germany was tottering on the edge of the abyss, and nowhere was this danger more acute than in the traditionally safe, conservative heartland of the Empire - Bavaria. What had led this second state of Germany to veer so far to the...

The 30th April was a strange day. It was barely a microcosm in the grand scheme of the Paris Peace Conference, and it was wedged awkwardly between the Italian walkout and the German arrival, not to mention the madcap adventures of the drafting committee, as hundreds of overworked printers and technicians worked to get the Treaty finished within 48 hours - the intended deadline at this stage. It is...

At long last, the German delegation has arrived in Paris, and resides in the exact same hotel where in 1871, the French government was forced to kowtow to Bismarck. What a coincidence! Leading the delegation was Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, a Wilhelmian German official of the old order, so it seemed. Brockdorff-Rantzau was the German Foreign Minister, and was utterly determined to get what he be...

OTD 100 years ago, perhaps the most infamous international organisation in history was officially blessed by the plenary conference of the Paris Peace Conference. This made it essentially impossible to ignore that institution, or to fail to bake it into the final Treaty of Versailles. And so it was done. Yet, at the time, on that eventful day, and in that stuffy room where the minor and major nati...

As the Conference at London works towards several compromises, we tune in to some new arrivals, some storm conference scenes, and a weighted meeting between the President Marshal, Ferdinand Foch, and the delegation of British, Swiss and Spanish delegates sent to meet him. They would arrive in Foch's office uncertain of precisely what to expect, but they would leave with yet another proposal... ***...

It's time we cleared the air about reparations and war guilt, arguably the two most controversial elements of the Treaty of Versailles. Here, making use of studies long since ignored or forgotten, we unwrap the reality of the Germans were actually faced with, what the infamous articles actually said, and why the Germans determined, rather than face their mistakes, to make up a whole load of stuff...

Here we take stock of the situation by the last week of April 1919 by focusing our microscope on two apparently unrelated, but hugely important issues – specifically the future of the Rhine, and the status of the city of Danzig. These two issues of the Rhineland and Danzig were intrinsically linked with the outbreak of the Second World War, and it is thus important in our narrative to establish wh...

On 24th April 1919, Italy left the Paris Peace Conference. This stunning development was a long time coming, and was a natural result of the behaviour of the big three. Notwithstanding the justness of Italy's demands, these demands had brought her into the war, and now that it was plain the allies would not listen, Vittorio Orlando felt he had little choice other than to call the allied bluff. It...

We finally turn our attention to Italy in this episode history friends, where the relationship of Vittorio Orlando with his peers in the big five comes under our microscope. What were Italy's demands? Why was Italy upset with how its interests had been received? Were these interests fair, or unjust altogether? How do we balance our innate repugnance at Italy's expansionist demands with the fair po...

Hello dear listeners, this is a jack of all trades episode, which serves several purposes: It explains what the Suez Crisis was, and why you should be interested in it. It examined each one of the episodes, providing audio previews for most of them It announces our Q&A episode due on 18th May - our 7th birthday, and I need your questions! It serves as a call to arms, for history friends everyw...

Episode 12 of the game sees our focus hone in on one eventful day, 19th April 1919, where three separate meetings were held, and where dreams were debated and dashed. The Japanese put forward their long anticipated racial equality proposal - which you will have to vote for - and the dominions made their cases before a packed plenary council meeting. With Poincare present, as the Premier of France...

You can order Tim's book here!   Something very special for you indeed history friends! A mere days away from launch, the lovely Tim Bouverie joins us for a fascinating chat about his monumental book, Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War , available in all good book stores! To say this book is monumental is to do it an injustice - in fact, I would go as far as saying,...