At the vital moment there seems to be a failure of leadership, and also a failure of the general human spirit among the peoples. I hope I am wrong, but I have a sense of impending calamity, a fear that the war was only the vanguard of calamity... I cannot look at that draft treaty without a sense of grief and shame.

Smuts to Mary Murray, wife of Gilbert Murray, on the Treaty of Versailles, 2 June 1919, as cited in Antony Lentin, 2010, Jan Smuts - Man of courage and vision, p. 106. ISBN 978-1-86842-390-3