The U.S. and the Creation of the Postwar World

Learning Objectives

  • Describe Woodrow Wilson’s vision for the postwar world, built around the Fourteen Points and the League of Nations
  • Explain why the United States never formally approved the Treaty of Versailles nor joined the League of Nations

The Battle for Peace

While Wilson had been loath to involve the United States in the war, he saw the country’s eventual participation as justification for America’s role in developing a moral foreign policy for the entire world. The “new world order” he wished to create from the outset of his presidency was now within his grasp. The United States emerged from the war as the predominant world power, and Wilson sought to capitalize on that influence to make his moral foreign policy principles the standard for international conduct.

Postwar Goals

As early as January 1918—a full five months before U.S. military forces fired their first shot in the war, and eleven months before the actual armistice—Wilson announced his postwar peace plan before a joint session of Congress. Referring to what became known as the Fourteen Points, Wilson called for openness in all matters of diplomacy and trade, specifically free trade, freedom of the seas, an end to secret treaties and negotiations, promotion of self-determination for all nations, and more. In addition, he called for the creation of a League of Nations to promote the new world order and preserve territorial integrity through open discussions in place of intimidation and war.

A photograph shows David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, Georges Clemenceau, and Woodrow Wilson conversing outside of a building at the Paris Peace Conference.

Figure 1. The Paris Peace Conference held the largest number of world leaders in one place to date. The photograph shows (from left to right) Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Great Britain; Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, prime minister of Italy; Georges Clemenceau, prime minister of France; and President Woodrow Wilson discussing the terms of the peace.

As the war concluded, Wilson announced, to the surprise of many, that he would attend the Paris Peace Conference himself, rather than sending professional diplomats to represent the country. His decision influenced other nations to follow suit, and the Paris conference became the largest meeting of world leaders to date. For six months, beginning in December 1918, Wilson remained in Paris to personally conduct negotiations. Although the French public greeted Wilson with overwhelming enthusiasm, other delegates at the conference had deep misgivings about the American president’s plans for a “peace without victory.” Specifically, Great Britain, France, and Italy sought to obtain some measure of revenge against Germany for drawing them into the war, to secure themselves against possible future aggression from that nation, and also to maintain or even strengthen their own colonial possessions. Great Britain and France in particular sought substantial monetary reparations, as well as territorial gains, at Germany’s expense. Japan also desired concessions in Asia, whereas Italy sought new territory in Europe. Finally, the threat posed by a Bolshevik Russia under Vladimir Lenin, and more importantly, the danger of revolutions elsewhere, further spurred on these allies to use the treaty negotiations to expand their territories and secure their strategic interests, rather than strive towards world peace.

The Paris Peace Conference

In the end, the Treaty of Versailles that officially concluded World War I resembled little of Wilson’s original Fourteen Points. The Japanese, French, and British succeeded in carving up many of Germany’s colonial holdings in Africa and Asia. The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire created new nations under the quasi-colonial rule of France and Great Britain, such as Iraq and Palestine. France gained much of the disputed Alsace-Lorraine territory along its border with Germany.

Watch it

This brief video shows how national borders changed in Europe after World War I due to various separatist movements and territorial changes written in the Treaty of Versailles. There is no audio.

The sole piece of the original Fourteen Points that Wilson successfully fought to keep intact was the creation of a League of Nations. At a covenant agreed to at the conference, all member nations in the League would agree to defend all other member nations against military threats. Known as collective security, this agreement would basically render each nation equal in terms of power, as no member nation would be able to use its military might against a weaker member nation. Ironically, this article would prove to be the undoing of Wilson’s dream of a peaceable “new world order.”

The Question of Self-Determination for Vietnam

Nationalists from the whole world over were hoping that Wilson’s promises about a review of colonial claims would mean that their own nationalistic aspirations would be respected. In 1919, a Vietnamese waiter was working in Paris. Because of political activities in his home country, he often went by different names to avoid scrutiny from French colonial police who disapproved of his aspirations for an independent Vietnam. In 1919, he went by the name Nguyen Ai Quoc. By the time his name became familiar to Americans in the 1960s, he went by a different name: Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader of North Vietnam. By then, the United States was locked into a punishing war in South Vietnam, trying to prevent a communist takeover and unification of the country.

In 1919, however, that was a long time away. Minh was working with the French Socialist Party and becoming involved with Bolshevism when Wilson and the American delegation came to France to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. Writing as Nguyen Ai Quoc, Minh delivered a petition to Robert Lansing, the U.S. Secretary of State, and hoped to meet with Woodrow Wilson. In it, he asked for the people of Vietnam to receive the same civil rights that French citizens had, and for Vietnamese representation in the French National Assembly.

It’s unlikely that Wilson ever even saw this petition, and Lansing took no action on it. Minh was already involved with the Communist International and engaged in radical politics, but the episode nevertheless raises questions about what might have been. The fact that Wilson and the American delegation ignored this petition raises the question: why? Why did they prioritize some national liberation projects over others? And what effect did that have on long-term struggles for national liberation? Minh ultimately pivoted toward the Soviet Union and China in his own struggle for Vietnamese liberation, and decades later, American troops were fighting a protracted war in Vietnam.

Ratification of the Treaty of Versailles

Although the other nations agreed to the final terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Wilson’s greatest battle lay in the ratification debate that awaited him upon his return to the U.S. As with all treaties, this one would require two-thirds approval by the U.S. Senate for final ratification, something Wilson knew would be difficult to achieve. Even before Wilson’s return to Washington, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a list of fourteen reservations he had regarding the treaty, most of which centered on the creation of a League of Nations. An isolationist in foreign policy, Cabot feared that the requirement of collective security would require extensive American intervention, as more countries would eventually seek U.S. protection. Interventionists argued that it would impede the United States from using its recently acquired military power to secure and protect America’s international interests since other nations could intervene against the U.S.

Wilson’s greatest fight was with the Senate, where most Republicans opposed the treaty due to the clauses surrounding the creation of the League of Nations. Some Republicans, known as Irreconcilables, opposed the treaty on all grounds, whereas others, called Reservationists, would support the treaty if sufficient amendments were introduced that would eliminate collective security. In an effort to turn public support into a weapon against those in opposition, Wilson embarked on a cross-country railway speaking tour. He began traveling in September 1919, and the grueling pace, after the stress of the six months in Paris, proved too much. Wilson fainted following a public event on September 25, 1919, and immediately returned to Washington. There he suffered a debilitating stroke, leaving his second wife Edith Wilson in charge as de facto president for a period of about six months.

Frustrated that his dream of a new world order was slipping away, a frustration compounded by his difficulty in speaking clearly following his stroke, Wilson urged Democrats in the Senate to reject any effort to compromise on the treaty. As a result, Congress voted on, and defeated, the original treaty in November 1919. When the treaty was introduced with “reservations,” or amendments, in March 1920, it again fell short of the necessary margin for ratification. As a result, the United States never became an official signatory of the Treaty of Versailles. Nor did the country join the League of Nations, which undermined the international authority and significance of the organization. Although Wilson received the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1919 for his efforts to create a diplomatic model for establishing world peace, he remained personally embarrassed and angry at his country’s refusal to be a part of that model. As a result of its rejection of the treaty, the United States technically remained at war with Germany until July 21, 1921, when it formally came to a close with Congress’s quiet passage of the Knox-Porter Resolution.

Germany and the Treaty of Versailles

There were no German representatives present during the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles, and the result was a long list of harshly punitive requirements for Germany. The inclusion of a war guilt clause in the Treaty, demanding that Germany take public responsibility for starting and prosecuting the war that led to so much death and destruction, was controversial in the postwar period, and contributed to the tensions that ultimately led to World War II. Great Britain led the aggressive pursuit of reparations, with Germany agreeing to pay more than $33 billion to the Allies. France and Belgium assumed control of the majority of Germany’s industrial zone along its western border, while Poland took territory along the eastern border. Germany was forced to cede control of all its overseas territories and to severely reduce the numbers of its military forces. The purpose was to “disarm” the nation so that it could not create any more problems by maintaining a standing army. Per the terms of the treaty, Germany was permitted no more than 100,000 troops, no paramilitary organizations, no chemical weapons, armored cars, tanks, or aircraft. The country was also forbidden to have any modern naval ships, only old-fashioned ironclads, and was forbidden from having submarines. All fortifications along Germany’s western border were to be demolished, including munitions factories, and no new ones could be built. The Rhineland region, between Germany and France, was to be occupied by Allied troops for up to 15 years. These provisions created social and economic chaos in the already strained German political system.

In the last days of the war, the German revolutionaries who had forced the abdicated of Kaiser Wilhelm called for the establishment of a German Republic. In 1919, the Weimar Constitution was signed, officially creating a system of parliamentary republican government which would come to be known as the Weimar Republic and would last until Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933.

The Treaty of Versailles and World War II

The Treaty of Versailles played a decisive role in shaping Germany in the decades between World War I and II. Many of the provisions in the treaty were later blamed for Hitler’s rise to power. In the aftermath of the Paris Peace Conference, the new governments of Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the other Central Powers scrambled to rebuild themselves and maintain control over populations devastated by war. The monetary reparations required by the treaty combined with the economic depression of the late 1920s plunged Germany into a period of hyperinflation and unemployment. Nationalist and far-right-wing politicians took advantage of the unrest and poverty by declaring that they would reverse the Treaty of Versailles if they were elected. Many, including the Nazis, also began to blame Germany’s troubles on other nations and on “outside” groups within Germany, particularly the Jews. Hostility toward homosexuals and the Roma people within Germany was also enflamed by the ascendant far right. The left-wing officials of the Weimar Republic, who had forced the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm and then signed the Armistice, were painted as traitors to Germany.

Hitler and his followers harnessed the general sense of dissatisfaction, anger, and humiliation in post-war Germany in order to convince people that a radical change was needed to bring Germany back to its former glory. While Hitler planned his “Final Solution” for groups he considered undesirable, he also promised the German people an era of economic stability. Many were willing to ignore his racist rhetoric and the atrocities committed in front of them because they believed that it was necessary to accomplish the things that Hitler had promised, including the reversal of the Treaty of Versailles’ provisions. You can read more about how the Treaty of Versailles led to the rise of Hitler and the start of World War II here.

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Review Question

What barriers did Wilson face in his efforts to ratify the Treaty of Versailles? What objections did those opposed to the treaty voice?

Glossary

collective security: a provision of the Treaty of Versailles which required all League of Nations members to promise that they would come to the aid of any other member who was attacked or suffered aggression at the hands of another nation

Fourteen Points: Woodrow Wilson’s postwar peace plan calling for openness in all matters of diplomacy, including free trade, freedom of the seas, and an end to secret treaties and negotiations

Irreconcilables: Republicans who opposed the Treaty of Versailles on all grounds

League of Nations: President Wilson’s idea for an international body that would help to diffuse conflicts before they became wars by facilitating talks and negotiations, and pledging collective security in case of aggression

Reservationists: Republicans who would support the Treaty of Versailles if sufficient amendments were introduced that could eliminate collective security

self-determination: the right of groups of people (ethnic, religious, national, political, or other groups) to determine their own fate in terms of independence or sovereignty; essentially the opposite of imperial or colonial control

Treaty of Versailles: the treaty negotiated by the Allies after WWI which set forth Wilson’s 14 Points and League of Nations, determined who would control the dissolved Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, and placed the burden of guilt and reparations on Germany

war guilt clause: the article of the Treaty of Versailles which required that Germany take full responsibility for starting and perpetuating the war; this clause has been the subject of controversy due to its role in the rise of Adolf Hitler and the events leading up to World War II