ABSTRACT
David Lloyd George feared ‘a Soviet Republic’ in Britain if the government did not gain the upper hand in a threatened miners’ strike, but the pressures of the peace negotiations prevented his return home to deal with the situation. Although he had been successful on the conscription issue, the rest of his peace conference strategy seemed on the verge of collapse. Moreover, there was growing concern among leading members of the British delegation about the cumulative severity of the peace terms being drafted by the various commissions. Those British policy-makers who expressed concern about the severity of the peace conditions were apprehensive about the consequences for British interests of an inordinate temporary weakening or a permanent alienation of Germany. Like General Woodrow Wilson, Sir Maurice Hankey feared Bolshevism as a fundamental threat to European civilisation; he contended, therefore, that the peace terms must promote the creation of a barrier against its westward spread.
