Defeating the League of Nations

Unfortunately for Wilson, he was met with stiff opposition. The Republican leader of the Senate, Henry Cabot Lodge, was very suspicious of Wilson and his treaty. Article X of the League of Nations required the United States to respect the territorial integrity of member states. Although there was no requirement compelling an American declaration of war, the United States might be bound to impose an economic embargo or to sever diplomatic relations. Lodge viewed the League as a supranational government that would limit the power of the American government from determining its own affairs. Others believed the League was the sort of entangling alliance the United States had avoided since George Washington's Farewell Address. Lodge sabotaged the League covenant by declaring the United States exempt from Article X. He attached reservations, or amendments, to the treaty to this effect. Wilson, bedridden from a debilitating stroke, was unable to accept these changes. He asked Senate Democrats to vote against the Treaty of Versailles unless the Lodge reservations were dropped. Neither side budged, and the treaty went down to defeat.

Why did the United States fail to ratify the Versailles Treaty and join the League of Nations? Personal enmity between Wilson and Lodge played a part. Wilson might have prudently invited a prominent Republican to accompany him to Paris to help ensure its later passage. Wilson's fading health eliminated the possibility of making a strong personal appeal on behalf of the treaty. Ethnic groups in the United States helped its defeat. German Americans felt their fatherland was being treated too harshly. Italian Americans felt more territory should have been awarded to Italy. Irish Americans criticized the treaty for failing to address the issue of Irish independence. Diehard American isolationists worried about a permanent global involvement. The stubborness of President Wilson led him to ask his own party to scuttle the treaty. The final results of all these factors had mammoth longterm consequences. Without the involvement of the world's newest superpower, the League of Nations was doomed to failure. Over the next two decades, the United States would sit on the sidelines as the unjust Treaty of Versailles and the ineffective League of Nations would set the stage for an even bloodier, more devastating clash.

Over there after all....

Now, what did all this have to do with the United States? Nothing at all, some would have heoped. George Washington had warned the US against becoming entangled in European wars, and for 150 years the US had followed Washington’s advice. Wilson and his Secretary of State Bryan were committed to this “non-entanglement” tradition, trying to keep us from getting involved.

But it wasn’t easy. As the war raged in Europe, tremendous trade opportunities were available to American businesses, and American businessmen took advantage of this.

Germany had resorted to U-boat warfare to try to block supplies from getting to Britain. They warned us that anyone sailing on a British ship was subject to attack, but Americans continued to travel on British ships anyway.

In 1915, the Germans sunk the Lusitania, killing 1,198 people including 128 Americans. This didn’t play well with the American public. On top of that, the British-controlled transatlantic cable was transmitting information designed to make us sympathize with their side and be outraged by German atrocities.

Still, Wilson held the line, and, when he ran for reelection in 1916, he made that a key point in his campaign. His Republican opponent Charles Evans Hughes (called Charles Evasive Hughes by his detractors) didn’t make clear where he stood on US entry into the war. The Wilson campaign, however, made much of Wilson’s success in avoiding American involvement. “He kept us out of war” was a featured slogan. One campaign ad: “You are working, not fighting; alive and happy, not cannon fodder; Wilson and peace with honor, or Hughes with Roosevelt and war?”

Well, Wilson won reelection, but in a close vote: 277 to 254 in the electoral college. The American people had chosen Wilson, at least partly on the implied promise we were *not* going to enter the war.

But there were soon problems with this policy. The papers played up the Zimmerman Note, an intercepted German message to Mexico that said that, in the event of American entry into the war, Mexico should attack the United States. At the end of the war, the Germans would repay them by getting back for them Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

On top of that, the Germans were sinking American ships taking supplies to Britain. Anti-German sentiment increased, and Wilson decided we had to go to war.

The American war effort as "progressive" reform

But if he was going to break his implied campaign promise, Wilson better give the American people good reasons for doing so. He did.

1. This would be a “war to end all wars.”
2. This would be a war to “make the world safe for democracy.”

Good goals—but more than goals. Wilson was determined that the war would be a “progressive” war, one that did in fact lead to a more peaceful world and that did in fact lead to free and democratic societies.

Wilson suggested a way of settling the war that might have done just that, his “Fourteen Points,” Wilson’s plan for resolving European (and world-wide) problems after the fighting was done.

Wilson’s points included:

1. Open covenants (no secret diplomacy)
2. Freedom of the seas
3. The removal of economic barriers
4. The reduction of national armaments “to the lowest point consistent with safety”
5. The impartial adjustment of colonial claims
6. The evacuation of Russia by foreign armies
7. Belgian independence
8. The Alsace-Lorraine area restored to France
9. Adjustment of the Italian frontier
10. Autonomy for the peoples of Austria-Hungary
11. The restoration of Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro
12. Autonomy for Turkey
13. An independent Poland
14. The creation of a League of Nations

Now these ideas reflect a pretty solid understanding of the causes of WWI and a pretty sound recipe for an amicable peace. American entry into the war *did* turn the tables in Europe leading to the defeat of Germany, and our contributions *should* have meant that we would have an important voice in how the war was actually settled, *especially* since the Germans surrendered under the belief they would be treated in accord with the generous terms promised by Wilson.

But what actually happened is that, after the war was over, the British, and even more the French, insisted on much harsher terms for Germany—and Wilson gave in. Why? He sacrificed most of his goals to achieve the one goal he thought most important, the creation of the League of Nations. The Versailles Treaty that actually ended the war (June 28, 1919) stripped Germany of the Saar Basin and the Danzig region, reduced the German army to 100,000 men, forbid German fortifications on their border with France—and imposed on German an indemnity of more than $30 billion to pay for the war. But Wilson had got his League of Nations—sort of. And World War I was a victory overall for the good guys—sort of.

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