Opening paragraphs.....................

After the end of the World War of 1914 there was a deep conviction and almost universal hope that peace would reign in the world.  This heart's desire of all the peoples could easily have been gained by steadfastness in righteous convictions, and by reasonable common sense and prudence.  The phrase "the war to end war" was on every lip, and measures had been taken to turn it into reality.  President Wilson, wielding, as was thought, the authority of the United States, had made the conception of a League of Nations dominant in all minds.  The British delegation a Versailles moulded and shaped his idea into an instrument which will for ever constitute a milestone in the hard march of man.  The victorious Allies were at that time all-powerful, so far as their outside enemies were concerned.  They has to face grave internal difficulties and many riddles to which they did not know the answer, but the Teutonic Powers in the great mass of Central Europe which had made the upheaval were prostrate before them, and Russia, already shattered by the German flail, was convulsed by civil war and falling into the grip of the Bolshevik or Communist Party.
-Winston Churchill,  The Gathering Storm