Clemenceau was no simple-minded realist when it came to international affairs. On the contrary, in early April 1919 he would make an impassioned appeal for the Versailles Treaty to set a dramatic precedent by bringing the Kaiser to trial as an international criminal.38 But the frustration that Larnaude and Bourgeois experienced in the Commission confirmed Clemenceau in his suspicion that the League was a lost cause as far as France was concerned.
