the future. Keynes played a critical role in turning American public opinion against the treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, but it was Wilson's poor management of the issue and a number of strokes he had that would be decisive: America would not participate in the League of Nations. Impact in the United Kingdom Keynes' portrayal of the treaty as a "Carthaginian peace" – a brutal peace which has the intent of crushing the losing side – quickly became the orthodoxy in academic circles and was a common opinion in the British public. It was widely believed in Britain that the terms of the treaty were unfair. That was influential in determining a response to the attempts by Adolf Hitler to overturn the Versailles Treaty especially in the period leading up to the Munich Agreement. In Germany, the book confirmed what the overwhelming majority of the people already believed: the unfairness of the treaty. France was reluctant to use armed force to enforce the treaty without the support of the British Government. Prior to late 1938, the strength of public opposition to prospective involvement in another war meant that British support for the French position was unreliable. Reception The French economist Étienne Mantoux criticised the impact of Keynes' book in his book The Carthaginian Peace: or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes by saying that it did more than any other writing to discredit the Treaty of Versailles. Mantoux compared The Economic Consequences of the Peace to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France because of the immediate influence on public opinion. Mantoux sought to discredit Keynes' predictions of what the consequences of the Treaty would be. For example, Keynes believed European output in iron would decrease, but by 1929, iron output in Europe was up 10% from the 1913 figure. Keynes predicted that German iron and steel output would decrease, but by 1927, steel output had increased by 30% and iron output increased by 38% from 1913 (within the pre-war borders). Keynes also argued that German coal mining efficiency would decrease, but labour efficiency by 1929 had increased on the 1913 figure by 30%. Keynes contended that Germany would be unable to export coal immediately, but German net coal exports had grown to 15 million tons within a year and by 1926 the tonnage exported had reached 35 million. Keynes also claimed that German national savings