Prof. Margaret MacMillan’s Paris 1919 is not a book – it’s a movie. Her description of all major and minor characters, their egos, their desperation, their tactics, their mistresses make the book a moving experience. Her eye for detail is amazing. Her description of the ladies of the story from a socialite who plotted to marry General MacArthur to the charming Queen of Romania is amusing. Her portrait of the Hall of Mirrors where the German empire was born and where two German ministers had to sign the certificate of humiliation, also known as Treaty of Versailles, touches the heart. When the main actors leave Paris after signing the treaty, one feels a sense of melancholy.

Like a sad man who unsuccessfully hides his broken heart with humour, the characters in Paris 1919 are involved in high voltage drama about principles only to cover their national and individual greed.

President Wilson went to Paris with 14 points for the conduct of international relations. His very first point proclaimed the importance of transparent and open diplomacy in the place of secret deals between powerful men. If the Paris Peace Conference was anything, it was about secret deal making between four powerful men, though they went through the process of open hearings by experts, nationalists, and others.

President Wilson introduced the principle of self-determination, something he had tough time achieving for himself vis-à-vis his own Congress. He did not even try to sell this to the French when they claimed Alsaice Lorraine. He did try to sell it to the Japanese who wanted a pie of the Chinese cake but relented, precisely in the course of secret negotiations that the 14-point charter was averse of.

President Wilson was certainly a visionary. He conceptualised the League of Nations and its offshoot, the International Labour Organisation. He wanted a peaceful world but he was also an opportunistic man. He wanted peace in Europe where the spectre of Bolshevik revolution was knocking on the door. He was least bothered about the Arab world. The British and French leaders distributed Arab land as if spoiled school kids were exchanging marbles. Less than one hundred years later, the Americans, the British and the French are all paying heavily for the games played in Paris of 1919. If they don’t realise the mistakes that were made, they will be in an unpredictable situation in 2019.

The negotiations between the big four were an exercise in land grabbing. Prof MacMillan must be credited for her very impartial critique of all the four without any bias to her grandfather, Prime Minister Lloyd George of Britain. Venizelos of Greece had an eye on the Turkish properties. Queen Marie of Romania wanted half of Hungary. Prime Minister of France, Georges Clemenceau, wanted to seize the German coal reserves and Italy’s Orlando wanted the Adriatic ports. Further away, Clemenceau also wanted Syria while the British wanted Suez Canal to control access to India.

The book reveals how supreme selfishness is in the ladder of human properties. Europe had just gone through massive destruction. War was followed by the plague. One would expect that such a series of catastrophes would have sobering effect on anyone. The negotiators of Paris seemed immune to any such sentiments.

The world has paid heavy price for the greed of old men who played ruthless games in Paris that year. Hitler’s rise can be attributed to the humiliation the Germans suffered, not to mention the surrender of their colonies, the navy, and industrial output. Mussolini was inspired by Fiume. The British plot to create Israel, without proper negotiations with the Arabs, along with encouragement to Arab nationalism to revolt against the Ottoman empire without redeeming the promises made, has led to wars, Intifadas and Al Qaeda. The cheating of China contributed to the rise of communism, with all its consequences.

As the world entered twenty first century, with terrorist attacks on the American symbols of economic and political power, and myriad conflicts in the developing world, one is reminded of how the mistakes of Paris were repeated at Yalta. The United States, UK, France and the former Soviet Union, so thoughtful in distributing zones of influence in Europe, have again and again forgotten that real people also live in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

Prof Margaret MacMillan reaches a very dangerous conclusion as to why the Paris peace conference was more like negotiations between real estate brokers than a plan to create a sustainable world order, capable of carrying most parts of the planet for at least a century or two. In the last paragraph of the book, she says, that the negotiators might have been willing to contemplate a completely new way of conducting international relations if only the world had been thoroughly devastated by the war. Obviously the destruction caused by the First World War was not enough by the standards of their morality.

The behaviour of our leaders indicates that the first world war, the second world war, the Vietnam war, the two Gulf wars, the Arab-Israeli wars, and several regional conflicts have not yet caused thorough enough devastation of the world for them to seek a new way of managing international relations. How can the irrational passions of greedy old men be contained before their excuses of nationalism, religion and even democracy do more damage? How can we ever have national and international governance based on the principles for the benefit of the world’s people, rather than pursuit of power by those driven by insatiable thirst? How can we create the architecture of the sustainable global security and development? Prof MacMillan deserves thanks for provoking us to ask these questions.