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When Woodrow Wilson
arrived at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, one of the men he faced at the negotiating table was
British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It was Lloyd George who
served to balance Wilson's Fourteen Points
against the harsh demands of French premier Georges Clemenceau
and who, with his "conference diplomacy," did much to shape the final version of the peace
treaty.
Born in 1863 in Manchester, England, one of three children of
Welsh parents, David George incorporated his mother's maiden name
Lloyd into his own last name from early manhood on. After the death
of his schoolteacher father, he was sent to Wales to be raised by
his maternal uncle -- a Baptist preacher and a political liberal.
After becoming a lawyer in 1884, Lloyd George frequently defended
men against the "poaching" laws. Sympathetic to the farmers and the
poor, he soon became a spokesman for the Liberal Party. His marriage
to Margaret Owen in 1888 produced three children, but his frequent
infidelities guaranteed an unhappy union.
Lloyd George's election to Parliament from Caernarvon Boroughs in
1890 established him in politics. He would hold that seat for 54
years. His reputation as a social reformer grew as he rose through
the ranks of Parliament, first as president of the board of trade,
then as chancellor of the exchequer. In 1911, he delivered a speech
at the London lord mayor's residence, Mansion House, that garnered
national attention. In the Mansion House speech, Lloyd George warned
an expansionist Germany not to interfere with British interests. He
asserted that Britain would not stand by and let its power and
prestige be assailed, stating that "peace at
that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country
like ours to endure."
Lloyd George was reluctant at first to see Great Britain join the
conflict of World War I. But as minister of munitions, then as
minister of war, he soon advocated a fierce, swift offensive against
Germany. In 1916 he deposed Herbert Asquith, the leader of his own
party, to form a coalition government with the Conservative
opposition, and took Asquith's place as Prime Minister. Lloyd
George's aggressive war policy caused frequent clashes with Allied
military leaders. However, he advocated and was able to establish a
unified Allied command under Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Lloyd George
would lead the British through the war's end.
The Paris peace agreement did little to ease post-war tensions in
Britain. When the Conservatives withdrew from Lloyd George's
coalition government in 1922, claiming that the prime minister had
intervened recklessly in a Greek-Turkish crisis, Lloyd George's
ministry was over. He would hold no position of true power again. He
died in Wales in 1945.
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