United Kingdom
David Lloyd George
1863–1945 Prime Minister
The Welsh Liberal who had led Britain since December 1916 won a landslide in December 1918 on slogans of making Germany pay. At Paris he was the mediator between Wilson and Clemenceau, weighing British interests in the empire, trade and the balance of power. In his Fontainebleau memorandum of March 1919 he warned that too harsh a peace would drive Germany into the arms of the Bolsheviks, and he worked to soften some terms, such as the plebiscites in Upper Silesia. His coalition dealt with Irish partition and a restive Empire, and fell in October 1922, when the Chanak crisis with Turkey turned Conservative backbenchers against him. He never held office again, and he was the last Liberal prime minister.