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In March 1919 the French delegations for the Versailles treaty were stuck between the Loyd Georges maximalists views and the moralists view of Wilson and started talks with the Germans through French "ambassador" to Berlin. The French were willing to talk about the peace settlement in general (including territorial clauses) but they stressed especially the French Government's intention to discuss financial and economic questions, such as reparation, reconstruction and industrial collaboration. What the French proposed was basically a political arrangement. Those efforts were even followed after the Germans first rejected them, in 1920 and 1922 (far from the sadly far too common view on this board that the French had maximalists aims at the treaty of Versailles). The proposal fell through due to the Germans misunderstanding Wilson's position completely (the guy was actually the one that pushed for the so-called "war guilt clause", not the French who were realists, not moralists like Wilson). source