Clemenceau, Georges

[ (klem-uhn-soh, klay-mahnn-soh) ]


A French political leader of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the premier of France at the end of World War I and afterward. He presided at the peace conference after the war, which produced the Treaty of Versailles. Less forgiving than the American president, Woodrow Wilson, Clemenceau wanted a peace treaty that would punish Germany for having started the war and would compensate France for its losses.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.