The peace conference that convened in Paris in 1919 was contentious from the start. Even among the victorious Allies, there was no consensus about the shape of the postwar world and thus no consensus on the terms of peace. France, Britain, and the United States each had its own agenda and its own expectations. President Woodrow Wilson’s vision of a permanent peace seemed to many in France to be a recipe for French isolation and decline. Britain was more interested in strengthening its grip on its overseas empire than it was in the problems of France or the implementation of Wilson’s lofty principles. Delegates from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East came to the conference hoping to share in Wilson’s promise of self-determination, only to discover that, even before the war had ended, France and Britain had entered into secret agreements designed to perpetuate the imperialist system. Finally, Germany was forced to sit on the sidelines while the Allies reached compromises at its expense, ultimately producing a punitive treaty meant to prevent Germany from ever rejoining the ranks of the great powers.