As the flu virus wracked the world, Europe and America rejoiced at the end of hostilities. On December 4, 1918, President Wilson became the first American president to leave the country during his term. He intended to shape the peace. The war brought an abrupt end to four great European imperial powers. The German, Russian, Austrian-Hungarian and Ottoman empires evaporated and the map of Europe was redrawn to accommodate new independent nations. As part of the terms of the Armistice, Allied forces followed the retreating Germans and occupied territories in the Rhineland to prevent Germany from reigniting war. As Germany disarmed, Wilson and the other Allied leaders gathered in France at Versailles for the Paris Peace Conference to dictate the terms of a settlement to the war.<\/p>\n
Earlier that year, on January 8, 1918, before a joint session of Congress, President Wilson offered an enlightened statement of war aims and peace terms known as the Fourteen Points. The plan not only dealt with territorial issues but offered principles upon which a long-term peace could be built, including the establishment of a League of Nations to guard against future wars. But in January 1918 Germany still anticipated a favorable verdict on the battlefield and did not seriously consider accepting the terms of the Fourteen Points. The initial reaction from Germany seemed even more receptive than the Allies. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau remarked, \u201cThe good Lord only had ten (points).\u201d<\/p>\n
President Wilson toiled for his vision of the post-war world. The United States had entered the fray, Wilson proclaimed, \u201cto make the world safe for democracy.\u201d At the center of the plan was a novel international organization\u2013the League of Nations\u2013charged with keeping a worldwide peace by preventing the kind of destruction that tore across Europe and \u201caffording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.\u201d This promise of collective security, that an attack on one sovereign member would be viewed as an attack on all, was a key component of the Fourteen Points.<\/p>\n
But the fight for peace was daunting. While President Wilson was celebrated in Europe and welcomed as the \u201cGod of Peace,\u201d his fellow statesmen were less enthusiastic about his plans for post-war Europe. America\u2019s closest allies had little interest in the League of Nations. Allied leaders sought to guarantee the future safety of their own nations. Unlike the United States, the Allies endured firsthand the horrors of the war. They refused to sacrifice further. The negotiations made clear that British Prime Minister David Lloyd-George was more interested in preserving Britain\u2019s imperial domain, while French Prime Minister Clemenceau sought a peace that recognized the Allies\u2019 victory and the Central Powers\u2019 culpability: he wanted reparations\u2014severe financial penalties\u2014and limits on Germany\u2019s future ability to wage war. The fight for the League of Nations was therefore largely on the shoulders of President Wilson. By June 1919, the final version of the treaty was signed and President Wilson was able to return home. The treaty was a compromise that included demands for German reparations, provisions for the League of Nations, and the promise of collective security. For President Wilson, it was an imperfect peace, but better than no peace at all.<\/p>\n
The real fight for the League of Nations was on the American homefront. Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts stood as the most prominent opponent of the League of Nations. As chair of the Senator Foreign Relations Committee and an influential Republican Party leader, he could block ratification of the treaty. Lodge attacked the treaty for potentially robbing the United States of its sovereignty. Never an isolationist, Lodge demanded instead that the country deal with its own problems in its own way, free from the collective security\u2014and oversight\u2014offered by the League of Nations. Unable to match Lodge\u2019s influence the Senate, President Wilson took his case to the American people in the hopes that ordinary voters might be convinced that the only guarantee of future world peace was the League of Nations. During his grueling cross-country trip, however, President Wilson suffered an incapacitating stroke. His opponents had the upper hand.<\/p>\n
President Wilson\u2019s dream for the League of Nations died on the floor of the Senate. Lodge\u2019s opponents successfully blocked America\u2019s entry into the League of Nations, an organization conceived and championed by the American president. The League of Nations operated with fifty-eight sovereign members, but the United States refused to join, refused to lend it American power, and refused to provide it with the power needed to fulfill its purpose.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t