Both the victors and the vanquished looked to the United States as the pivot of the new order. As Wilson had prepared to leave Paris on 26 June, Lloyd George addressed to him a final despairing letter, imploring him to place the credit of the American government ‘at the disposal of the nations for the regeneration of the world’.2 But it was not only financial reconstruction that hinged on Washington. The Franco-German peace depended on the joint security guarantee of London and Washington. In Asia, Prime Minister Hara of Japan was hinging his foreign policy on Washington, whilst China looked
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