Paris 1919 circa 1920 recoloured

How did what Britain wanted going into the conference differ from what they got out of it?

Britain being Britain was extremely concerned by the health and unity of the British empire, however the integrity of the empire wasn’t in question for much of the meetings so they had more pertinent things to discuss. The prime minister and nation had just recovered from a brutal war and those at home were starting to hear stories of the horrors over seas. This made the nation and their leader hungry for peace and justice. Some of their major concerns were the security of France and the Rhineland. They also wanted to cripple the German navy while also hopefully boosting their own. On top of these two main concerns they also wanted to maintain peace by settling territorial disputes and pushing the League of Nations.

During the conference there was one notable shift in the British empire although they did not lose country because of it. Canada demanded a separate seat from Britain and eventually the British prime minister decided that they would get their own seat as a minor power. This while not a huge shift was not how Lloyd George saw the conference starting. French safety was hard to get. Not because Germany wanted to take it but because each country had their own idea of what that would look like. France wanted to split up Germany into smaller, independent states to economically and militarily cripple them. Eventually the conference came to an agreement that allowed for France to be safe but for Germany to remain whole. They agreed to demilitarize Germany to a point where they could defend themselves but had no ability to invade. They also demilitarized the Rhineland, this allowed France a buffer of neutral German land between them and the rest of Germany. While the League of Nations was ultimately a failure Britain did promote it with some of the allied forces however it did not include Germany or the USA who are 2 of the biggest players.

Overall Britain got what they wanted but only to a point. They sort of got what they half wanted. On top of all the other stuff they did have one major failure. When Germany agreed to give Britain its navy instead of actually handing it off to them they blew it up. They got half the League of Nations, no navy, French security and Europe was calm, not peaceful but calm. So Britain did get what but only to an extent.