29 OCTOBER 1932, Page 6

Having had the opportunity of seeing and hearing the protagonists

at the Peace Conference myself over a period of months, I went with rather more than ordinary interest to see Dr. Ludwig's play Versailles. Of the dramatic side of it I say nothing. As history I find it mainly travesty—not because not one of the events depicted took place at Versailles (but all of them, of course, in Paris), but because Dr. Ludwig, who for obvious reasons could not be at the Peace Conference himself, has had necessarily to rely on second-hand information, and on top of that to over-dramatize his story in order to make it into any semblance of drama at all. There is nothing convincing in his characteriza- tion of Lloyd George and Wilson. Clemenceau is more successful. But why, by the way, did Herr Ludwig miss the chance of bringing in Signor Orlando's relapse into tears at the meeting of the Council of Four when President Wilson forced the Fiume issue to a crisis I know tears were shed that day, because Mr. Wilson himself told me so.