SOURCE 15
The peacemakers of 1919 made mistakes. of course. By their offnand treatment
of the non-European world they stirred up resentments for which the West is
still poying today. They took pains over the borders in Europe, even if they did
not drow them to everyone's satisfaction, but in Africa they comied on the old
practice of handing out territory to suit the imperialist powers. In the Middle East
they threw together peoples, in Iraq most notably, who still have not managed
to cohere into a civil society. If they could have done better, they certainly could
have done much worse. They tried, even cynical old Clemenceau, to build a
better order. They could not foresee the future and they certainly could not
control it. That was up to their successors. When wer came in 1939, it was a
result of twenty years of decisions token or not token, not of arrangements made
in 1919.
Historian Margaret MacMillan writing in Peacemakers, 2001