As critics like John Maynard Keynes, the brilliant young economist advising the UK Treasury, had predicted, delivering the knock-out blow to Germany put Britain at the mercy of the United States. Lloyd George had willingly courted this risk, expecting America to understand its own interests in an Atlantic alliance. But as Keynes was to experience first hand in Washington in the summer of 1917, the reality of transatlantic partnership was less reassuring than the rhetoric of a democratic alliance might suggest.
