The first chapter is a brief three-page introduction on the book’s subject, which is Keynes’s criticism of the Treaty of Versailles.

Keynes agrees with the main victors of World War I—Britain, France, Italy, and the US—that Germany was responsible for starting the war: “Moved by insane delusion and reckless self-regard, the German people overturned the foundations on which we all lived and built” (5). However, he also asserts that punishing Germany with the unfair terms of the postwar peace agreement runs “the risk of completing the ruin” (6). Continental Europe is too culturally and economically integrated, and excessive punishment of Germany would lead to dire consequences for other European nations, a fact that the US and Britain do not adequately consider:

England still stands outside Europe. Europe's voiceless tremors do not reach her. Europe is apart and England is not of her flesh and body. But Europe is solid with herself. France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Holland, Russia and Roumania and Poland, throb together, and their structure and civilization are essentially one. They flourished together, they have rocked together in a war, which we, in spite of our enormous contributions and sacrifices (like though in a less degree than America), economically stood outside, and they may fall together (6).