Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles

1
Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles

• Lecture 4

2

• It was the strength of the opposition forces ,
  both liberal and conservative , rather than the
  ineptitude and stubbornness of President Wilson
  that led to the Senate defeat of the Treaty of
  Versailles.
• Using the documents and your knowledge of the
  period 1917-1921 , assess the validity of this
  statement.
• USE American Spirit Readings
• Pages 248-253
• Pages 258-264

3
TO DO

• Define the terms in the question
• Determine the essence of the question
• Brainstorm relevant outside information

4
To Do

• Read each document try to write a quick one
  sentence summary of each document
• Categorize documents into three groups
• Wilson supporters and liberal internationalists
• Reservationists conservative internationalists
• Irreconcilables isolationists

5
Who in your opinion was MOST responsible for the
demise of the Treaty of Versailles?

• You must be able to categorize evidence.
• What evidence supports placing the responsibility
  for the demise of the Treaty ratification on each
  potentially responsible group?

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Liberal v. Conservative

• Liberal Interventionists /Internationalists
• Conservative Isolationist
• Terms Liberal and Conservative meanings differ
  when applied to foreign vs. domestic affairs.
  Progressives were liberal on domestic issues but
  many of the irreconcilables were progressive
  although they were isolationist (conservative)
  when it came to the Treaty of Versailles.)
• Reservationists - Internationalists

7

• It was the strength of the opposition forces ,
  both liberal and conservative , rather than the
  ineptitude and stubbornness of President Wilson
  that led to the Senate defeat of the Treaty of
  Versailles.
• Using the documents and your knowledge of the
  period 1917-1921 , assess the validity of this
  statement.

8

• Recognize the complexity of the question
• The tension between
• Wilsons ineptitude and stubbornness
• vs.
• The strength of the opposition forces, both
  liberal and conservative
• The thesis may argue for one of these
  contributing factors over the other but the best
  answers recognize the other sides role in the
  defeat , if only in a few references or sentences
• DO the DBQ Thesis Worksheet on this question

9

• The 96 senators who were eligible to vote on the
  treaty belonged to one of three groups
• Wilson Supporters and liberal Internationalists
• Reservationists led by Henry Cabot Lodge
• Irreconcilables who were mostly isolationists

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I. WILSON'S FOURTEEN POINTS

• JANUARY 8, 1918
• a speech to Congress which was his proposal for
  peace after World War I

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Fourteen Points a mixture of

• Human rights principles
• Preventive medicine in dealing with the causes of
  warfare
• European territorial division of spoils
• Wilsonian idealism with the proposed League of
  Nations

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1. No secret treaties (A)

• Secret diplomacy abolished
• Nations would practice diplomacy openly and make
  no secret treaties
• All treaties open covenants arrived at openly

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2. Freedom of the seas (M)(I)

• Ships allowed to move freely during peace and war

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3. No economic barriers between nations (I)

• Removal of tariff (taxes on imports) barriers to
  allow free trade

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4. Arms cuts (M)

• Nations would reduce their armaments

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5. A voice for colonized peoples (N)

• Self determination for former colonies
• Competing claims over colonies settled
  impartially in the best interests of the colonial
  peoples
• National borders adjusted to allow for self rule
• Protection of ethnic and national groups under
  foreign rule
• prevent genocide
• attempted by Ottoman Turks against Armenians

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• 6. Germany out of Russian (I)
• 7. Germany out of France and Belgium (I)
• 8. Alsace - Lorraine to France (I)
• 9. Expansion of Italy (I)

18

• 10. Autonomy for Czechs, Magyars, Bulgars (N)
• 11. Poland's independence (N)
• 12. Autonomy for Greeks, Armenians, etc (N)
• 13. Free passage thru the Dardanelles (I)

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14. A league of nations

• "A general association of nations should be
  formed on the basis of covenants designed to
  create mutual guarantees of the political
  independence and territorial integrity of States,
  large and small equally."

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Wilson was also against war reparations
21

• 2. Woodrow Wilson Versus Theodore Roosevelt on
  the Fourteen Points (1918)

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II. TREATY OF VERSAILLES

• JUNE 28 1919

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A. The four leaders who dominated the conference

• President Wilson (US)
• Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Britain)
• Premier Georges Clemencaeau (France)
• Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando (Italy)

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B. Germany is required to

• 1. Admit guilt
• 2. Pay war reparations
• Allies take temporary control of the German
  economy
• 3.Return the rich Alsace - Lorraine region to
  France
• 4. Surrender her overseas colonies
• 5. Disarm
• German rearmament is strictly limited

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C. Redrew Map of Europe

• Divided the Austria-Hungary empire into four
  nations
• Sudetenland
• Created mandates in the former Ottoman Empire and
  Germanys former colonies

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D. Established the League of Nations

• Executive Council (like the Security Council)
• Decisions would require unanimous approval for
  action
• Agreed to not make war without arbitration
• Unilateral action amounted to war against the
  entire league
• Article X
• Executive Council could advise upon measures
  necessary to maintain order and keep peace in the
  world.

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Woodrow Wilson on the League of Nations

• I think I can say of this document that it is at
  one and the same time a practical and humane
  document. There is a pulse of sympathy in it. It
  is practical, ad yet it is intended to purify to
  rectify to elevate

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Wilsons Reasons for Ratification

• Collective Security
• League of Nations would simply make the world a
  safer place by
• reducing the chances for war
• stopping needless arms building
• Enable US to assume its rightful role in
• the forefront of world affairs
• where we could use our best intentions and
  leadership to promote world peace
• We are participants in the world, whether we
  wish to be or not What affects mankind is
  inevitably our affair as well

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III. THE RATIFICATION FIGHT
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TIMELINE

• February ,1919 trip to Washington listened to
  harsh criticism
• March, 1919 - Wilson allows 4 changes
• July , 1919 presented the Treaty to Congress
• August , 1919 Wilson met with entire Senate
  Foreign Relations Committee
• DOCUMENTS - Read 1,2,3,4 The Text of Article
  X Wilson testifies for Article X (1919) The
  Lodge-Hitchcock Reservations(1919) The Aborted
  Lodge Compromise (1919)
• late in the summer of 1919- Wilson took his case
  to the people

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Speech Wilson 1919

• When you read Article X, therefore you will see
  that it is nothing but the inevitable , logical
  center of the whole system of the Covenant of the
  League of nations, and I stand for it absolutely.
  If it should ever in any important respect be
  impaired, I would feel like asking the Secretary
  of War to get the boys who went across the water
  to fight and I would stand up before them and
  say, Boys I told you before you went across the
  seas that this war was a war against wars, and I
  did my best to fulfill the promise, but I am
  obliged to come to you in mortification and shame
  and say I have not been able to fulfill the
  promise. You are betrayed. You have fought for
  something that you did not get.

32

• Wilsons speech defends Article X of Treaty as
  essential to achieve goals for which the war was
  fought.

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TIMELINE

• November , 1919 Senate voted
• with reservations 39- 55 defeated
• DOCUMENTS - Read 5. Wilson Defeats Henry Cabot
  Lodges Reservations (1919)
• without reservations 38 53 defeated
• DOCUMENTS - READ 6. Lodge Blames Wilson (1919)
• March 19, 1920- with reservations 49 for 35
  against (7 short of 2/3 needed for approval)
• November - 1920 Presidential Election - Wilson
  believed it would be solemn referendum on the
  League

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Woodrow Wilson Appeal to the Country October
3, 1920

• This election is to be a genuine national
  referendum The chief question that is put to you
  is, of course Do you want your countrys honor
  vindicated and the Treaty of Versailles ratified?
  Do you in particular approve of the League of
  Nations as organized and empowered in that
  treaty? And do you wish to see the United States
  play its responsible part in it?... The founders
  of the Government thought of America as the
  light of the world as created to lead the world
  in the assertion of the rights of peoples and the
  rights of free nations this light the opponents
  of the League would quench.

35

• Wilsons appeal to the country views election of
  1920 as a referendum on the Treaty.

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Factors that Defeated the Treaty Ratification

• 1. Climate of post war U.S.
• Rising intolerance towards things un-American
• Ku Klux Klan reborn
• Red Scare
• The Great Migration

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• 1. Climate of post war U.S.
• B. Backlash against the Great War
• Questioning the wisdom of having participated in
  a war that had caused many American deaths and
  wounded
• Stories of Allied greed and desire for revenge
  disillusioned many who thought that the war had
  been fought to make the world safe for
  democracy
• revulsion of the treaty led to desire to return
  to isolationism

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2. Political Opposition

• Irish Americans
• German Americans
• Italian Americans
• Conservatives
• Liberals
• Isolationists
• Senate Republicans
• Anti-Wilsonites

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1a. Wilson

• supported ratification un- amended
• Democrat
• Internationalist
• Liberal foreign policy because he was an
  internationalist

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1b.Other Internationalists

• Liberals who believe the treaty does not do
  enough to change the old world order or enough to
  put in place the protections against future war
  against the treaty with any restrictions on the
  power of the League of Nations

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The New Republic May 24,1919an editorial from
the new liberal periodical

• Liberals all over the world have hoped that a war
  ,which was so clearly the fruit of competition
  and imperialist and class-bound nationalism ,
  would end in a peace which would moralize
  nationalism by releasing it from class bondage
  and exclusive ambitions. The Treaty of Versailles
  does not even try to satisfy these aspirations.
  Instead of expressing a great recuperative effort
  of the conscience of civilization which for its
  own sins has sweated so much blood, it does much
  to intensify and nothing to heal the old and ugly
  dissensions.

42

• refers obliquely to issues (war guilt and
  reparations) that sully the treaty from the
  editors viewpoint students should make those
  issues explicit
• Based on the excerpt / document do you think The
  New Republic editorial is for or against the
  Treaty ratification
• LIBERAL
• For or Against ???
• Probably Against liberal internationalist
  against

43

• The New Republics liberal position that war was
  caused by imperialism and nationalism and that
  Treaty intensifies dissension and will not heal
  wounds.

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1b.John Maynard KeynesEconomic Consequences of
the Peace,1920

• According to the French vision of the future,
  European history is to be a perpetual prize-fight
  , of which France has won this round, but of
  which this round is certainly not the last. For
  Clemenceau made no pretense of considering
  himself bound by the Fourteen Points and left
  chiefly to others such concoctions as were
  necessary from time to time to save the scruples
  or the face of the President Wilson.
• The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for
  a generation of degrading the lives of millions
  of human beings and of depriving a whole nation
  of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable
  abhorrent and detestable , even if it were
  possible even if it enriched ourselves, even if
  did not sow the decay of the whole civilized life
  of Europe.

45

• Based on the excerpt / document do you thin John
  Maynard Keynes is for or against the Treaty
  ratification
• For or Against ???
• Seeds for future war sewn in the treaty

46

• J.M. Keynes foresees that the Treatys
  destruction of Germany will lead to the decay of
  European civilization.

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1b.WEB Du Bois The League of Nations, Crisis,
1921

• Forty-one nations , including nearly every Negro
  and mulatto and colored government of the world ,
  have met in Geneva and formed the assembly of the
  League of Nations. This is the most forward
  looking event of the century. Because of the
  idiotic way in which the stubbornness of Woodrow
  Wilson and the political fortunes of the
  Republicans become involved, the United States
  was not represented , but despite its tumult and
  shouting this nation must join and join on the
  terms which the World lays down. The idea that we
  single-handed can dictate terms to the World or
  stay out of the World , is an idea born of the
  folly of fools.

48
WEB Du Bois The League of Nations, Crisis, 1921

• Liberal- represent the disappointment and dismay
  that lingered in the years after the treaty
  fight.
• Editorial in the NAACP periodical Crisis
• one can still hear echoes of the hopes that
  Wilson had raise when he spoke of anti
  colonialism and self determination of his 14
  points.
• Du Bois still on the road to being radicalized
  wishes a plague on both the Internationalist and
  Reservationists houses but his sympathies still
  rest with the League

49

• W.E.B. Du Bois editorial in Crisis argues that
  U.S. must join League and that both Wilson and
  Republicans are responsible for the defeat of the
  Treaty.

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1b.Jane Addams Peace and Bread in time of War,
1922

• The League of nations afforded a wide difference
  of opinion in every group. The Womans Peace
  Party held its annual meeting in Chicago in the
  spring of 1920 and found our branches fairly
  divided upon the subject. The difference of
  opinion was limited always as to the existing
  League and never for a moment did anyone doubt
  the need for continued effort to bring about an
  adequate international organization.

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Jane Addams

• after noting the sharp division of opinion among
  members of the Womens Peace Party regarding the
  treaty itself
• notes that her (liberal) group is still virtually
  unanimous on the need for an adequate
  international organization.

52

• Jane Addams admits that women are divided on the
  League of Nations, but some international
  organization is needed.

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2. Lodge

• supported ratification amended
• Reservationists? supported ratification with
  amendments (mostly Republicans led by Lodge)
• Republican
• Internationalist
• Liberal foreign policy

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2. Herbert Hoover (R) to Wilson, November 19, 1919

• I take the liberty of urging upon you the
  desirability of accepting the reservations now
  passed . I have the belief that with the League
  once in motion it can within itself and from
  experience and public education develop such
  measures as will make it effective. I am
  impressed with the desperate necessity of early
  ratification. The delays have already seriously
  imperiled the economic recuperation of Europe. In
  this we are vitally interested from every point
  of view. I believe that the Covenant will
  steadily lose ground in popular support if it is
  not put into constructive operation at once
  because the American public will not appreciate
  the saving values of the Covenant as
  distinguished from the wrongs imposed in the
  Treaty.

55

• Herbert Hoovers letter asks President Wilson to
  accept reservations peace can be developed with
  reservations and public support may decline over
  time.

56

• based on the brides homeliness (undesirable
  Foreign Entanglements) and the grooms (Uncle
  Sam) nervous look
• Political Cartoon can be interpreted as
  pro-Reservationists
• grasp the cartoons viewpoint, not merely as
  descriptive

57

• Cartoon shows U.S. Senate opposing foreign
  entanglements and infringement of its
  Constitutional rights.
• Show you understand this issue remember Lodge
  Hitchcock reservations re Article X

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3. Irreconcilables

• opposed ratification
• Conservative - Isolationist
• many of the irreconcilables were progressive
  although they were isolationist (conservative)
  when it came to the Treaty of Versailles

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3. William Borah Idaho Senator (Irreconcilable)
speech in US Senate , December 6, 1918

• The first proposition connected with the proposed
  league is that of a tribunal to settle the
  matters of controversy which may arise between
  the different nations.
• Will anyone advocate that those matters which are
  of vital importance to our people shall be
  submitted to a tribunal created other than by our
  own people and give it an international army
  subject to its direction and control to enforce
  its decrees? I doubt if anyone will advocate that
  If you do not do so, Mr. President, what will
  your league amount to?
• In its last analysis the proposition is force to
  destroy force, conflict to prevent conflict,
  militarism to destroy militarism, war to prevent
  war. In its last analysis it must be that -- if
  it has any sanction behind its judgment at all.
  There is where the difficulty lies

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• Senator Borahs isolationist position that fears
  loss of U.S. sovereignty and contends that Treaty
  encourages the use of force, conflict ,
  militarism, and war.

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• WRITE YOUR ESSAY
• 45 minutes

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I. Attempts to mediate a peace in Europe, 1916-17
63

• 1916- Wilson offered to mediate a peace
• Britain rejected the proposal
• Therefore never extended to the Central Powers

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B. The Development of Wilsons Ideas on a peace
settlement

• Formation of a world federation (an association
  of nations ) to end future wars
• 1917 Peace without Victory speech to Congress
• a. US had a right to a voice in the peace talks
  at the end of the war as a neutral whose rights
  had been violated
• b. US would insist upon a just and lasting peace
• i. No victors peace
• ii. Peace without victory

65

• 3. Difficulties in Wilsons position
• A. impartial mediator inconsistent with US
  policies toward Britain
• B. the US as a powerful neutral
• 1. by March 1917 Wilson had concluded that
  the US could play an important role in the
  peace negotiations only by becoming a
  belligerent

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II. Wilson as spokesman for the Allies
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Declaration of the Fourteen Points (basis for a
just peace)

• 1. First five points aimed at elimination of the
  fundamental causes of war
• a. abandonment of secret diplomacy
• b. freedom of the seas
• c. elimination of economic barriers
• d. reduction of armaments
• e. recognition of subject colonial peoples
  rights

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• 2. Next 8 points dealt with various territorial
  restitution and adjustments, and with the
  political self determination of peoples
• 3. Last point , Wilson felt most important,
  creation of a general association of
  nationsunder specific covenants for the purpose
  of affording mutual guarantees of political
  independence and territorial integrity to great
  and small states alike.
• 4. Wilson closed by stating that the Allies would
  never make peace with a German Government
  controlled by the military invitation to the
  German people to revolt

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B. The Fourteen Points and the Armistice

• 1. October 4, 1918 Germany asked Wilson to
  arrange for the negotiation of an armistice and a
  treaty based on the Fourteen Points
• 2. November 11, 1918 Armistice signed
• Germany forced to agree to
• Provisions designed to ensure that she would not
  start war again in the near future
• Surrender her navy and heavy armaments of all
  types
• Allied forces occupied portions of German
  territory
• British blockade was continued until June 1919

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III. Wilsons Troubles on the Home Front
71

• Republican Victory in the Election of 1918
• 1. Republicans won control of both houses of
  Congress
• a. Negated his claim to speaking for the whole
  American people
• b. Although continued to be the spokesman for the
  Allies

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B. Costly Mistakes Before the Peace Conference

• December 1918 Wilson
• Decided he would attend the peace conference in
  person Hoped to be the presiding officer at the
  conference

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Costly mistakes.

• Selection of a Democratic Delegation
• Treaty would have to be ratified by a
  Republican-controlled Senate
• Failure to Consult Senators
• Attitude toward the senate extremely arrogant
  cost him support of Democrats as well as
  Republican Senators
• Failure to Understand European Economic Problems
• Primarily concerned with political aspects of the
  formation of a league of nations

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IV. Wilsons Reception in Europe
75

• Accepted as a great democratic champion by the
  people of Europe
• B. Example of misunderstandings
• 1.French people supported Wilsons idea of a just
  peace but
• a. A just and lasting peace for France would
  strip and dismember Germany
• b. Not what Wilson had in mind

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V. Wilsons Defeats at the Paris Conference
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• Character of the Conference itself
• 1. Not actually a peace conference
• The defeated powers were not allowed to send
  delegates
• Decisions made by a small minority of delegates
• 1. A committee of 10 out of the 32 victor
  nations set up
• 2. The committee of 10 turned into the Big Four
  who met in secret violation of one of the 14
  Points that called for open covenants, openly
  arrived at
• a. France Clemenceau
• b. Britain Lloyd George
• c. Italy Orlando
• d. US Wilson
• Passions and hatreds of war would dominate the
  conference

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B. French and British demands for revenge

• Georges Clemenceau
• a. Alsace-Lorraine
• b. Mr. Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points
  why , God Almighty has only ten !
• David Lloyd George
• a. German Reparations
• b. When I talk to Woodrow Wilson, I always feel
  that I am addressing Jesus Christ !

79
C. Secret Agreements Among the Allies

• Dating back to 1915 ,
• a. provided for dismemberment of German and
  Austrian empires
• b. Distribution of the spoils among the victors
• Critics claimed that Wilson should have insisted
  that the Allies give up these treaties as a
  condition of US participation and aid
• a. Wilson claimed he had no knowledge of these
  secret agreements

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D. Difficulties with the Fourteen Points

• Principle of Self Determination
• a. Polish Corridor
• b. Ethnic groups in Central Europe the Balkans
• Wilsons faith in the League of Nations to
  establish security and prevent war not shared by
  European governments
• a. Member nations
• i. not required to give up any of their
  sovereignty
• ii. Would retain the right to maintain their own
  armed forces

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E. The Treaty of Versailles

• 1. June, 1919
• a. Presented to Germans
• b. Signed by Germany
• after protest of harsh conditions
• and
• ultimatum sign or Allies would resume
  war against
• Germany

82
Robert Lansing

• US Secretary of State
• Memorandum not made public until 1945
• Regarded the treaty as too harsh , the League
  used to enforce the harsh conditions , and the
  arbitrary placing of peoples under government not
  of their choosing would lead to future war

83
VI. Analysis of Alternative Solutions

• Would the treaty have ensured peace if it had
  been based entirely on Wilsons plan?

84

• Wilsons Peace Program
• Germany retain colonies
• Few boundaries in Europe would have been drawn
  differently
• Japan would not have been awarded the Shantung
  Peninsula
• No reparations would have been imposed on
  defeated German nations

85
B. These differences would probably not have
prevented the outbreak of future wars because

• The League of Nations was inadequate as a
  guarantor of peace.
• No provision designed to deal with the basic
  problems of imperialism
• Wilsons program would not have achieved
  correction or removal of the fundamental economic
  causes of the war

86
VII. The Fight for Ratification in the U.S.

• July 1919 submitted to the Senate

87

• Reasons for Hostility to the treaty
• 1. Small group , led by Senator Robert M. La
  Follette , opposed ratification on idealistic
  grounds , seeing in the treaty a betrayal of
  Wilsonian idealism
• 2. Personal feelings of Wilsons enemies in both
  parties his aloofness

88

• 3.Opposition by certain national groups
• Irish Americans opposed as Ireland remained under
  British Rule
• German Americans opposed because of harsh
  conditions on Germany
• 4.Traditional American attitude of avoiding
  involvement in the affairs of Europe
• 1. Now that Germany defeated, semblance of
  balance of power restored, feeling of security
  desire for isolationism
• 5. Partisan politics
• 1. Republican leaders opposed in part due
  to Wilsons actions towards Republicans in
  Congress

89
B. Four Groups of Opinion in the Senate

• 23 Senators
• a. Supported Wilson and wanted the treaty
  ratified without changes or reservations
• Approved of the treaty but would accept moderate
  changes
• a. Mostly Democrats
• Group led by Henry Cabot Lodge
• a. Insisted on drastic changes and reservations
• b. Mostly Republicans
• Irreconcilably opposed smallest group
• a. La Follette, Hiram Johnson and William Borah

90
C. Defeat of the Treaty

• The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee recommended
  ratifications with 42 amendments
• Wilson went on tour for public support of the
  un-amended treat
• Suffered a physical collapse (stroke)
• Mrs. Wilson served as his unofficial secretary
• Compromise might have secured passage
• Vote 49 for / 35 against (less that 2/3 needed)
• i. 12 of 35 against were the irreconcilables
• ii. 23 of the 35 against were Wilsons friends
  who he told not to vote for a compromise
• Wilson partly responsible for defeat
• If Wilson not so stubborn about compromise the
  treaty would have been accepted without basic
  alterations