The Allies had been warned of what they were inviting. But they had not listened. Shortly before his death, “exhausted and disillusioned,” Gustav Stresemann, the widely respected German foreign minister, summed up his dealings with the Allies: “I gave and gave and gave until my followers turned against me.… If they could have granted me just one concession, I would have won my people. But they gave nothing.… That is my tragedy and their crime.”
