XIV.

Postwar Wilsonian Idealism

Although Wilson did not make World War I the “war to end all wars” as he had hoped, his idealism played a significant part in finally bringing peace to Europe. The Fourteen Points he delivered in a January 1918 speech outlined his blueprint for settlement and ultimately helped lead to the armistice, signaling to the Germans that they would be spared a humiliating surrender. Wilson’s vision of a just peace encouraged German military leaders, who had suffered an accumulation of battlefield setbacks, to press their government to stop the fighting.

In his proposals Wilson envisioned a world in which freedom and self-determination would eliminate imperialism and colonialism. The president faced serious obstacles. Nationalism and politics drove the postwar negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles, and Germany was hit with a penalty far more severe than Wilson had proposed in the Fourteen Points. However, the last of the points, the creation of an international alliance called the League of Nations, remained intact. At home in the United States, Wilson waged a noble battle for U.S. acceptance of the League. In September 1919, during an extensive speaking tour of the American West, Wilson collapsed from a massive stroke. By this time the tide of isolationism was rising in the United States. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts seized on the League of Nations as a threat to “the vital principles of American foreign policy,” and Congress killed the drive for American membership.