The fatal flaw of Versailles, we concurred, was the attempt by Woodrow Wilson to draw the map of Europe on the principle of self-determination, whereby states and peoples would be one and the same.
This overlooked the fact that eastern Europe was a heterogeneous patchwork of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. It also created a contradiction, since applying self-determination consistently would have made Germany bigger than it had been before the first world war.
You only have to spend a little time in the Welsh Marches to see the dangers of idealising the homogeneous nation-state. People move and mingle; you can’t pin blood and soil together.
Niall Ferguson - A Bit of Blather with Bookworms then it’s off for a Wild Swim
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