Just after the New Year of 1919, Paris once again came alive.
A great number of soldiers had returned from the front, and more than a thousand delegates from across the world arrived for the peace conference, turning the French capital into a bustling stage after the brief gloom left by war.
The boulevards of Paris blazed with lights, laughter spilled from cafés, and music filled the air. The double intoxication of New Year's festivities and victory at the front made the Parisians—already fond of calling themselves the most romantic of peoples—more extravagant and reckless than ever.
Amid this celebration, a group of young men in fine suits and polished leather shoes drew particular attention on the crowded streets.
"Drunk on illusions," muttered Major General Harut, head of a secret German delegation, his voice tinged with disdain.
Major Mainz glanced at him. Beneath the words, he thought he caught a trace of envy—envy of Paris's prosperity, or perhaps of France's fortune in winning the war. Maybe both. For in the German officer corps, many still could not believe they had truly lost.
"It might be better to call it a drunken dream before death," Mainz replied with a faint smile. He knew well why the French were celebrating so wildly. Their yearning for triumph had been pent up too long; their losses had been too great. Now that victory was theirs, they wanted the entire world to witness their joy.
France, swollen with pride, seemed convinced it was now the strongest nation on earth. In such intoxication, it was not surprising they embraced excess. Yet the more they celebrated, the clearer it became: the war had left them deeply scarred. Their frenzied jubilation was also a cry of pain, masking the unimaginable price they had paid.
Mainz's thoughts drifted further. Only two decades later, France—once hailed as Europe's premier military power—would collapse in just six weeks before Hitler's blitzkrieg. Some joked that France had surrendered even faster than the Wehrmacht captured Paris. It was, of course, dark humor, but many historians believed France's swift defeat in 1940 was rooted in the immense trauma of the First World War.
France had lost over 1.5 million soldiers from a population of barely 40 million. Counting civilians, the war had claimed nearly four million lives. Such losses haunted the nation. After the Armistice, ordinary French citizens became deeply averse to war. Few wished to fight again, fearing another generation might be wiped out as their fathers had been.
That was why Mainz regarded this revelry as a dance on the edge of the grave. The French thought they had won—after all, they had crushed the German Empire and presided over its fall. But in reality, they had sown the seeds of hatred. That hatred would take root among the German people, grow strong, and one day return as the Third Reich—the true nightmare of France.
The strongest and most enduring force in the world, Mainz reflected, is not love, but hatred.
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The French themselves, of course, were oblivious to such reflections. They were lost in their victory. But the delegates who had arrived from London, representing Britain, frowned as they watched the Parisian carnival.
Britain too was a victor, and the relief across the Empire was immense. Yet their celebrations carried a different tone. The war had cost Britain dearly; families mourned, food had been rationed, and German U-boat blockades had strangled supplies. When peace finally came, there was joy, yes—but tinged with exhaustion, grief, and relief.
For many Britons, the war had never been their own in the same way it was for France. The Germans had invaded French soil, not British. Ordinary Englishmen had gone to fight largely because their king and government had commanded it, not from a burning sense of homeland defense.
At the beginning, some young aristocrats had even viewed the war as an opportunity for glory, promotion, or adventure. But after the slaughter at Verdun and the Somme—two great meat-grinders where entire battalions vanished—the illusions of heroism had died. The war left no room for romantic notions.
Britain's Empire, "the realm on which the sun never sets," had survived, but at tremendous cost. Inflation soared, food shortages persisted, and the death toll scarred every town. Their joy at victory was tempered, and unlike the French, the British bore little personal hatred toward Germany. They did not long for annihilation of the German people. Thus, the Parisian frenzy seemed incomprehensible to them.
Still, as outside observers, the British could see what the French could not: such intoxication with victory might one day prove disastrous.
"Mark my words," one British delegate muttered, "if the French treat Germany as they were once treated, if they fail to destroy her completely, the hatred they sow will return. And next time, France will be the victim."
Even more blunt was the American president, Woodrow Wilson, who had crossed the Atlantic to attend the conference. He, too, saw clearly the dangers ahead. From across the ocean, he warned:
"The abused, if punished with the abuser's methods, will become a greater danger still. Unless France crushes not just Germany's empire but the spirit of her eighty million people, she will one day find herself the victim again."
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