The British and the French made a mess of reconstructing the Middle East out of the debris of the Ottoman empire, including committing the original sin of crowbarring a Jewish settler colony into Palestinians’ land.

Their efforts in 1919-20 to reconstruct Europe out of the collapsed Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires had equally disastrous long-term consequences, mainly because of their determination to punish Germany and Austro-Hungary.

To that end they dismantled their empires and deliberately imposed impossible financial penalties to try to ensure Germany would never again be in a position to pose a threat to western Europe, especially France.

The brilliant economist John Maynard Keynes resigned in May 1919 from the British delegation at Versailles in protest at the size of the reparations demanded of Germany.

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In November 1919 he published an astonishingly prescient book, ‘The Economic Consequences of the Peace’. In it he predicted almost exactly what would happen in the next 20 years in Germany.

So vast were the sums demanded of Germany they were only paid off in October 2010 (sic) when Angela Merkel signed a cheque for the last instalment. Though mind you, there was an........

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