The First World War was the defining event of the twentieth century and the Paris Peace
Conference the most important such conference. The four years following the war helped
determine whether the world would find peace or face another war. In December 1916 David Lloyd
George became Prime Minister of Britain and came to dominate wartime diplomacy and postwar
international affairs. Although he resigned in October 1922 and never held high office again
he was the pre-eminent liberal statesman of the twentieth century. Arguably Lloyd George was
the equal of Winston Churchill as a war leader and indisputably superior as a creative
ingenious and visionary statesman.
