George Burson

Aspen School District

Aspen, Colorado

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Understand the European conflicts that led to World War I

The conflict between Russia and Austria over the control of the Balkan peninsula, the struggle between Germany and France over domination of the Continent itself, and the race for colonies in Africa all helped create tensions that led to war in 1914.

Russia's primary interest centered on the Balkan peninsula and the Dardanell straits. Russia was concerned because it wanted a warm-water port and because of cultural factors. Russians felt close kinship to the Balkan Christians, most of them Orthodox and Slavic. Many Russians envisioned a supra-national state embracing all Slavs under the Russian tsar. Until the mid-1870s the Ottoman Empire controlled most of the Balkan peninsula except for Greece, independent since 1829. In 1875 an anti-Turkish uprising broke out among Balkan Christians. The Turks reacted to the revolt with brutal massacres, which outraged people throughout Europe. In April, 1877, claiming that he was coming to the aid of the persecuted Balkan Christians, the Russian tsar declared war on Turkey. Russia won the war and in the Treaty of San Stefano (March, 1878) Turkey was expelled from most of the Balkan peninsula. Several independent states were created. The new Balkan states were in theory constitutional monarchies, but the usual method of settling political disputes was by violence. Dissatisfied groups frequently resorted to assassination and kidnapping. The treaty assured Russia undisputed influence in the Balkans.

Until the war of 1877, Russian expansion into the Balkans had run mainly into British opposition. From then on it met increasingly with the resistance of Austria. Austria had only consented to the Russian attack on Turkey in return for receiving the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austria's interest in the Balkans grew out of the unification of Italy and Germany. The emergence of strong national states south and north worried Austria and it sought to increase its strength and influence in the Balkans. The conflict over the Balkans led to a deterioration in relations between Russia and Austria.

The tension in the Balkans presented less of a threat to the general peace than did the post-1870 antagonism between Germany and France. At stake, fundamentally, was hegemony over Europe. France had aspired to this hegemony since the 17th century, and under Napoleon, had actually attained it. Except for distant Russia, France had been traditionally the largest, the most populous, the richest, and therefore the mightiest state on the Continent. By 1870, it had ceased to be all these things. The German Empire equaled its territory, vastly surpassed its population (64 million to France's 39 million in 1911) and industrial productivity, and, as the Franco-Prussian War had demonstrated, excelled it in military power.

France and Germany leaders became convinced that only war could truly solve their disagreements. The French wanted revenge for their defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. They wanted to recover Alsace and Lorraine. Germany wanted to protect itself from a French attack. Both sides sought allies--Germany with Austria, France with Russia and Britain.

Russia allied with France because the Germans supported the Austrians in the Balkans. The critical event in the rupture between Britain and Germany was the naval race between the two countries. In 1900 Germany began spending huge sums of money on the construction of a high-seas naval fleet. The purpose of this fleet was to create an offensive navy of sufficient strength to menace the British Isles, in the expectation that such a threat would force Britain either to withdraw a good part of its navy to home waters and thereby endanger its empire, or yield to German demands for territory and commercial advantages. The navy, in other words, was to serve as an instrument of diplomatic blackmail.

For Britain naval superiority was a matter of survival. Since the early nineteenth century the British Isles imported a majority of their basic necessities. Four-fifths of the wheat consumed in Britain came from abroad. By obtaining control of the high seas, a hostile power could force Britain into submission without an invasion. It was to prevent this from happening that Britain in 1889 proclaimed the "two-power standard," a formula committing it to maintain a naval force superior to that of the two next most powerful navies combined. Any country that challenged this rule invited the enmity of Britain.

The naval race convinced British leaders that nothing short of acknowledging German superiority on the Continent and on the high seas would satisfy the Germans, and that it was essential for Britain to safeguard its vital interests by extending full support to the Franco-Russian bloc. In 1902 Britain signed a defensive alliance with Japan, and in 1904 it entered into a loose act of friendship with France. In 1907 Britain entered into an agreement with Russia. The agreement did not call for automatic military assistance, but it left no doubt with whom Britain would side in the event that the Austro-German and Franco-Russian blocs went to war.

By the second half of the 19th century it was widely believed that imperial expansion could permit the absorption of excess goods made possible by modern technology. In addition, colonies gave countries access to raw materials, ports for their merchant ships and navies, and the opportunity to prevent their enemies from acquiring the same.

The rush for Africa began with the completion in 1869 of the Suez Canal. The canal cut the route from Europe to Asia in half and immediately acquired great commercial and military value, especially for Britain which, along with France controlled the canal. The canal gave Britain a base from which to establish hegemony over northeast Africa. By 1914 the African continent was so carved up by the great powers that only two countries, Ethiopia (in 1896 Italy had been soundly defeated by the Ethiopians in an attempt to colonize the country) and Liberia (founded in 1822 as a colony for emancipated American slaves and virtually a protectorate of the United States) retained their independence.

The immediate cause of World War I was the conflict between Austria and Serbia. Serbia, small but vigorous and highly nationalistic, stood in the path of Austrian expansion into the Balkans, competing with it for the legacy of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. Gradually, the Austrian government concluded that Austrian interests required Serbia to be crushed and it looked for an opportunity to open hostilities. The occasion presented itself in June, 1914, when an Austrian-Serb terrorist assassinated Austrian Crown Prince Francis Ferdinand and his wife during a visit to Sarajevo. Although the assassin was an Austrian subject, and Sarajevo, located in Bosinia, was Austrian territory, Vienna charged Serbia with the responsibility for the crime. The dispute initially appeared to be leading to yet another Balkan crisis of the kind the world had learned to take in stride. But this time the outcome was different because the intricate chain of alliances forged in the preceding 35 years was brought into play.

Before attacking Serbia, Austria requested German assurances of support against Russia should Russia come to Serbia's aid. The request placed the Germans in a quandary. They did not want war with Russia and its ally France, yet Austria was the only ally on whom they could count. The Germans could not let Austria down without risking complete diplomatic isolation. On July 5 William II yielded to Austrian pressures and gave them the desired assurance--the so-called "blank check"--of unconditional support against Serbia. The Germans counted on this assurance to intimidate Russia and forestall its intervention. But if this device did not work they were prepared to fight. Many German generals believed that time was working against Germany because the Russians were making great strides in modernizing their armed forces, and that the sooner war came, the better.

The Russians could not accept the destruction of Serbia, for to have done so would have meant forfeiting all influenced in the Balkans. But they too did not want to act without consulting their ally. The French, like the Germans, felt that they risked isolation if they failed to honor their treaty obligations, and on July 25 pledged to the Russians support against Austria. On July 28 Austria declared war on Serbia. The next day Austrian artillery shelled Belgrade. Austria's haste was due to its desire to destroy Serbia before the other powers had a chance to arbitrate and settle the dispute.

At this point events got out of control. On August 1, Germany declared war on Russia, and that very night, without a formal declaration of war, Germany sent its troops into Belgium and Luxembourg on their way to Paris. Europe, in the midst of the summer holidays, was not aware of what these events portended.The Germans knew that the violation of Belgian neutrality would bring Britain into the war, but he Germans were not much perturbed by this prospect. Britain had only 160,000 men under arms--a minuscule force compared to Germany's 5 million or France's 4 million. The British navy could make its weight felt only in a protracted war, and the Germans felt certain that by crossing Belgium they could finish the war in two or three months. The outbreak of war caught the Continent by surprise.

World War I differed fundamentally from all other wars that had preceded it. It was the first industrial war--the first in which the manpower and technology of the industrial era were applied to the slaughter of human beings. Within a few weeks after the outbreak of war 6 million men stood poised to fight. Behind them were many millions who could be drawn upon as the need arose. Such masses of soldiers could not be equipped and armed by conventional arsenals; they required the services of the nation's entire industrial plant. Countries like Russia, Italy, and Austria-Hungary which lacked an industrial base found themselves at a great disadvantage. By contrast, the superior industrial capacity of Great Britain and the United States allowed them to quickly mount strong fighting forces. The application of industrial methods to warfare accounted for the unprecedented destructiveness of World War I. Warfare acquired a new dimension: it became total, calling for the full commitment of human and economic resources.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Understand why the United States entered World War I.

Like Europeans, Americans were caught off guard by the opening of hostilities. The slaughter of 1914-16 convinced them they did not want to become involved in the conflict if they could help it.

President Woodrow Wilson, his special advisor Colonel Edward M. House, and his Secretary of State Robert Lansing also wanted to keep the U.S. out of the war in order to achieve the country's foreign policy objectives. They wanted to insure that no country gained hegemony over Europe. If that happened American markets could dry up (not only in Europe but in other parts of the world because of the increased strength of the European power). If the balance of power in Europe was upset American security would be threatened. If for example, Germany defeated France and Britain, its control of the French and British navies could give it control of the North Atlantic. This control could threaten American security and its access to markets and raw materials in regions like Latin America.

The way to achieve our goals and avoid the war was through a policy of neutrality and the adherence to certain legal principles. The U.S. advocated an open door policy and freedom of the seas. Wilson believed that if all countries abided by these principles there would be a greater chance of stability in the world.

The first objective of Wilson's neutrality policy was to promote the economic and commercial interests of the U.S. without going to war. The recession of 1913-14 had caused government and business interests to look to exports to help the economy. At first Wilson believed that he could trade with both sides in the war. He became just as angry at British violations of neutral rights (e.g. mining the entrance to the Baltic Sea) as he did with Germany's use of the submarine. But, Wilson soon realized that since Britain controlled the seas the U.S. could not trade with Germany. From 1914-16 American direct trade with Germany and Austria declined from a little under $170 million to about $1.2 million. During the same period, U.S. trade with the Allies increased from about $825 million to over $3.2 billion. In short, the U.S. virtually became an Allied warehouse.

By the end of 1914 the Allies needed U.S. loans to continue the war. Whether to grant the loans or not caused a great debate within the Wilson administration, but if the loans were not granted, Germany would win the war, and U.S. objectives would be lost. At the end of the year Wilson approved loans to the Allies By early 1917 American bankers and purchasers of Allied bonds had loaned the Allies nearly $2.3 billion (the Central Powers received $27 million).

On February 4, 1915, ostensibly in retaliation for the Allied mining of the North Sea, Germany announced a submarine blockade of the British Isles; within the war zone, all belligerent shipping would be destroyed without warning and without making provisions for the safety of crews and passengers. Germany cautioned the U.S. to avoid the war zone on the grounds that Allied misuse of neutral flags as a cover, and the ramming of U-boats when they made a surface challenge, precluded the customary procedure of visit and search. Therefore, the Germans claimed, they could not always avoid accidental attacks on neutral ships.

Wilson refused to accept the German declaration because he realized that it was American goods that was keeping Britain and France in the war. Wilson argued that U.S. citizens and ships had the right to use the high seas freely. On May 7, 1915, off the Irish coast, the British passenger ship the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine. 1,198 people lost their lives including 128 American citizens. Although the British denied it at the time, the Lusitania was loaded with American munitions for Britain and hence it sank in 18 minutes. The Germans did not want war with the U.S. They foresaw that as an opponent the U.S. could bring almost unlimited financial strength, industrial resources, and fresh manpower into the struggle, and would greatly boost Allied morale. On September 1, 1915 Germany pledged not to sink passenger liners without warning and without provisions for the safety of those on board--an indemnity was promised for the losses of American life.

On March 24, 1916 the Germans torpedoed the Sussex, an unarmed French channel steamer. Although no Americans died, the attack clearly violated the earlier German pledge. On April 18 Wilson warned the German government that he would break diplomatic relations immediately unless it halted U-boat warfare against belligerent merchant and passenger ships. The German's responded with the Sussex pledge of May 4 promising that unresisting belligerent merchant and passenger vessels would not be attacked without warning and without provisions for the safety of those aboard. The German note also stated that if the American government failed to secure Allied observance of "freedom of the seas" for neutrals to trade with either side in the war, Germany reserved the right to alter its policy. The Sussex crisis thereby outlined the issue so sharply that any renewal of submarine warfare would cause the U.S. to enter the war.

After his reelection in 1916 ("he kept us out of war") Wilson made a major effort to end the war on terms favorable to the U.S. Wilson asked both sides to formulate their intentions. Wilson wanted to act as the mediator in order to insure that U.S. goals were achieved. Both sides refused the U.S. offer of mediation. The war had become a sheer contest of wills--a primitive struggle for national survival.

In February, 1917, the German government decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare. It announced its intention of sinking any ship, regardless of flag, that entered the waters designated as a "war zone" around Allied ports in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. This step was a desperate gamble. The Central Powers had at their disposal fewer human and material resources than did the Allies. The Allied blockade was making itself increasingly felt, causing serious food shortages. The only chance of victory lay in a supreme effort to knock out Britain, thereby freeing the Central Powers from the blockade. The German navy thought it possible, by means of the submarine, to sink 600,000 tons a shipping a month, at which rate Britain would run out of food by the autumn of 1917. The Germans knew that unrestricted submarine warfare would bring the U.S. into the war, but this risk was considered worth taking because the U.S. was so unprepared militarily that the Germans believed that the war would end before its power could make itself felt.

As expected, unrestricted submarine warfare brought the U.S. into the war since it endangered all aspects of America's goals. Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany on February 3. Several U.S. ships were sunk in March. The Zimmermann telegram further inflamed U.S. public opinion. German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann proposed to Mexico the conclusion of an alliance against the U.S. in case of an American-German war. He proposed that with the defeat of the U.S., Mexico would recover the territory that it had lost in the Mexican War. The British intercepted a copy of the telegram and when it was released to the American public an uproar ensued. On April 2, Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, and on April 6, 1917, it did so.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Understand the American mobilization for the war.

At first, unrestricted submarine warfare was very successful. In April, 1917 the U-boats sank 850,000 tons of Allied shipping. But, the convoy system and new military countermeasures soon brought the submarine threat under control. By late 1917 the Allies so thoroughly commanded the seas that they were able to transport over 2 million American soldiers to Europe without a single casualty. Relying primarily upon conscription, the U.S. raised armed forces numbering about five million men. General John Pershing commanded the American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.) sent to France. Americans eventually held about one-fourth of the entire Western Front.

Agencies such as the War Industries Board mobilized the incredibly productive American economy. When the railroads could not handle the extraordinary wartime traffic they were put under the control of the U.S. government. The booming economy helped workers, real income increased an average of 20 percent. Farmers also benefited greatly from the war as the demand for their products increased.

The Committee on Public Information flooded America with propaganda materials designed to rally public opinion which was not universally enthusiastic about the war (about 200,000 young men fled the U.S.--most going to Mexico--to avoid conscription). Lurid movies, such as "The Beast of Berlin" and "The Prussian Cur," pamphlets, books, posters, and photographs inflamed the war emotions of the people. Sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage;" the teaching of German was dropped from many school curriculums, and German-Americans were harassed. More seriously, opponents or critics of the war were silenced, about 900 were imprisoned after Congress passed the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sabotage and Sedition Acts in 1918. These harsh laws provided heavy fines and prison sentences for anyone obstructing the draft or aiding the enemy, or uttering abuses against the American government, flag, and uniform. Laws suppressed pacifist and socialist dissent and the post office banned a number of publications from the mails.

The government used the war as an opportunity to destroy the International Workers of the World, a socialist labor union. Socialists tended to oppose the war because they believed that workers in every country had more in common with each other than they did with the capitalists of their own country. Socialists would ask: "Why should American workers kill German workers to enrich the capitalists of each country?" In September 1917, Department of Justice agents made simultaneous raids on 48 IWW meeting halls across the country, seizing correspondence and literature that would later become courtroom evidence. In 1918, 101 IWW leaders were tried for conspiring to hinder the draft, encourage desertion, and intimidate others in connection with labor disputes. All were found guilty. Fifteen were sentenced to twenty years in prison; 33 were given 10 years, the rest shorter sentences. They were fined a total of $2.5 million. The IWW was shattered.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Understand the consequences of the war.

The Russian government fell under the pressure of the war and the new Bolshevik government, which seized power at the beginning of November,1917, sued for peace. The withdrawal of Russia from the war enabled Germany to transfer forces from the East and to mount one final supreme effort aimed at capturing Paris. Timing was essential to the German plan: the offensive had to succeed before U.S. troops could reach the Western Front in sizable numbers. The attack was launched in March, 1918 with the main brunt of the offensive falling on the British sector, which nearly caved in. At its height, the German offensive came to within 40 miles of Paris. But the Allies, reinforced in May by several fresh American divisions, fought back furiously. In July, 1918, they counterattacked. The Germans were exhausted and short of men and material. The Allies broke through the German fortifications and swept toward the pre-1914 frontiers.

In September, 1918, the Bulgarians sued for peace, followed in October by the Turks. One by one the ethnic minorities of Austria-Hungary proclaimed their independence, and on November 3 the Austrians capitulated. The next day violent revolts and mutinies engulfed Germany. The Kaiser abdicated and fled to Holland. Finally, on November 11, 1918 an armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany.

The most immediate and tragic consequence of the war was the loss of lives. There were about 10 million dead and nearly twice that numbered wounded, many of them permanently mutilated. A generation of European youth had been wiped out.

The known dead, in millions, were as follows: Germany, 1.8; Russia, 1.7; France, 1.4; Austria-Hungary, 1.2; the United Kingdom, 1.0; Italy, 0.5. Serbia lost 360,000 men, the Ottoman Empire 325,000, Romania 250,000, and the United States 115,000. The actual fatalities were certainly much greater, and have been estimated as high as 13 million. There were also heavy civilian losses, the worst in Anatolia, where in 1915 the Turks massacred nearly 1 million Armenians.

Because of technology World War I became the world's first "total" war. The phrase "home front" came into use during the war, when the role of civilian production became as important to victory as the soldiers in the trenches. Artillery shell production, for example could hardly keep up with demand. The Russian army's guns fired as many shells in a day as Russian factories could make in a month. At the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917, the 19 day British bombardment used 4.3 million shells--a year's production for 55,000 workers.

Since the mobilization of so huge number of men left vast gaps in the normal work force--France put 20 percent of its entire population into uniform, Germany 18 percent--the remaining adult civilians had to be directed by government into whatever jobs were needed to keep production going. In effect the civilian economy was conscripted too: the governments of Europe quickly took control over labor and raw materials, imposed rationing on scarce goods, and created true war economies. Women flooded into factories to replace men at the front, and most production beyond the basic needs of subsistence was diverted from the war effort.

Since the entire civilian population of a nation was now an essential part of its war effort the "home front" became a legitimate military target. German submarines sank 15 million tons of shipping bound for Britain, and during the last two years of the war it is estimated that the British naval blockade of Germany caused an excess of 800,000 civilian deaths through malnourishment over the peacetime mortality rate.

Bombing civilians in cities with the deliberate purpose of killing civilians, breaking moral, and disrupting war industry, became the final step in the logic of total war. On September 8, 1915 the first zeppelin raid hit London, dropping 15 high-explosive bombs and fifty-odd incendiaries. In all, the raid caused 72 casualties and destroyed $2.5 million worth of property. The German raids on Britain in World War I, by Zeppelins and later by bombers, were tiny by later standards: only 4,000 British civilians were killed and wounded throughout the war. But the raids were the precedent and the prototype for World War II, and for all the cities that have been destroyed from the air in the twentieth century -- and for the strategy of nuclear deterrence that now dominates the world. The delay was only due to inadequate technology; after 1915 everybody was a legitimate target.

The most important middle-term effect was the change in the international position of Europe. The war deprived Europe of the world hegemony it had enjoyed throughout the 19th century. The war also caused immense material losses, destroying much of the wealth accumulated during the preceding century. Europe, before 1914 the world's banker, became by 1918 its debtor. The United States came out of the war as the strongest Western state, in large part because of the sales and loans it made to the other belligerents had gained it a great deal of wealth. The Russian Revolution brought to power a radical regime that immediately declared war on the entire Western political and economic system. The international position of Europe was further weakened by provisions of the peace treaty which, by penalizing the defeated powers, solved few of the problems that caused the war in 1914. Twenty-five years later Europe was again at war.

In the long run perhaps the most profound consequence of the war was the demoralization of Western man. The postwar atmosphere was ripe for power-hungry demagogues to exploit the accumulated resentments, especially among the war veterans, by focusing them on concrete objects. Some of them blamed the useless carnage or their country's defeat on the capitalists, others on the Jews, yet others on the Communists. And since life had become terribly cheap, it became possible to clamor for mass extermination of the classes, races, and political groups allegedly responsible for the war. For if a million men could have been sacrificed for a few square miles of no man's land, why could not a similar number by liquidated to assure a "constructive" aim such as the creation of a classless or pure society? In other words, why not kill off all the bourgeois or all the Jews or all the Communists?

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Understand the Treaty of Versailles.

The principal peace terms concluding World War I were drawn up at a conference held at Paris beginning in January 1919, and signed in June. The Treaty of Versailles set the surrender conditions for Germany and at the same time provided for the establishment of the League of Nations. Supplementary treaties with the other Central Powers were signed later.

Although the representatives of 32 governments participated in the deliberations and were consulted in cases involving their interests, the terms of the treaty were in large measure set by the major powers, the so-called Council of Four, composed of President Woodrow Wilson and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain (David Lloyd George), France (Georges Clemenceau), and Italy (Vittorio Orlando). Japan constituted a fifth great power on issues directly involving the Far East. The defeated powers did not participated in the negotiations and had to sign a treaty in which they had taken no part. The Soviet Union was also not allowed to attend.

The Council of Four intended to lay the groundwork of a lasting peace, but they differed greatly on how to go about it. Two general approaches were discernible: the "hard" line espoused by the French, and the "soft" line, advanced by the U.S. The Italians sided with France, while the British vacillated between the two positions.

Clemenceau saw German aggressiveness as the major cause of international instability. He considered it essential to weaken Germany to the point where it no longer would be able to wage effective war. This goal meant a demilitarized Germany with reduced territory. It was on his insistence that the British maintained their naval blockade of Germany, preventing the flow of food into a country on the verge of starvation, so as to soften it and force it to accept onerous peace terms.

President Wilson, by contrast, did not regard Germany as the principal source of instability or as the country responsible for the outbreak of the Great War. To him the cause of the war lay in fundamental flaws of the system regulating relations between states: in secret diplomacy, thwarted aspirations to national statehood, and, above all, the absence of institutions capable of peacefully resolving international disputes. Wilson saw himself as a reformer÷someone that would take the middle-way between the conservatism of Clemenceau and the radicalism of Lenin.

Wilson had specifically addressed these problems in a speech before Congress on January 8, 1918. His "Fourteen Points" speech called for: the evacuation of all Allied territory occupied by the enemy; return of Alsace-Lorraine to France; creation of an independent Poland with access to the sea; and autonomous development for the peoples of the Austrian and Turkish empires. He outlined certain general principles that should guide the writing of the peace treaty: open diplomacy (no more secret treaties); freedom of the seas in war and peace; reduction of armaments to a level sufficient for national security; and the adjustment of colonial claims with proper consideration for the interests of colonial peoples as well as the claimant powers.

The fourteenth point, in Wilson's view, served as the key to the peace: "A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."

Each of the Council of Four, in addition to serving as a diplomat, also headed a political party dependent on a democratic electorate. This electorate, in general, had little understanding of the broader issues of international relations, and responded readily to simplistic slogans made by demagogic politicians and irresponsible journalists. Public opinion and partisan domestic politics thus exerted an invisible but ever-present influence on the negotiations.

The Germans had originally agreed to an armistice on the basis of Wilson's "Fourteen Points." The French, British, and Italians did not much care for the proposal, but they went along for fear that unless they did, the U.S. would sign a separate peace treaty. The Fourteen Points were promptly lost sight of during the peace negotiations and later on, the Germans and Austrians could claim with some justice that they had been tricked into signing an armistice.

The provisions of the Versailles peace treaty that pertained to Germany may be grouped under three headings:

1) Territorial. Germany surrendered Alsace and Lorraine. German territory west of the Rhine and within a belt thirty miles deep to the east of it was declared permanently demilitarized. For 15 years the Saar region was placed under international administration, to be followed by a plebiscite (at which time it voted to revert to German control). Germany ceded to Poland the area of Posen as well as a "corridor" to the Baltic. German overseas colonies were taken away. These provisions deprived Germany of one-seventh of its territory in Europe and one-tenth of its population. The lost territories contained three-fourths of Germany's iron resources and one-fourth of its coal.

2) Military. Germany was allowed an army of 100,000 men and a minuscule navy. It was to have no heavy artillery, tanks, military aviation, or submarines. Military conscription was abolished.

3) Reparations. Germany had to pay the Allies $33 billion in reparations.

The Germans protested these terms loudly but to no avail. They were told that if they refused to sign, Allied troops would occupy Germany and the British would maintain indefinitely their naval blockade. During the 1920s the Versailles treaty was widely regarded as a harsh and punitive peace. The bad conscience over Versailles weakened the will of Europeans later to resist Hitler, who rode to power on slogans pledging to rectify the treaty's real and alleged injustices. Recent scholarship has taken a more tolerant view of the treaty. If Germany had won the war it would have almost certainly imposed harsher terms on the Allies (the Treaty of Brest Litovsk illustrates German territorial ambitions). It had been a custom of long standing in Europe for the loser to pay for a war. Napoleon imposed an indemnity on Prussia, and the Germans in turn, collected from France after the war of 1870. After Hitler came to power, Germany easily raised the money for rearmament that it had allegedly been unable to pay in reparations.

The terms for the four other Central Powers essentially involved territorial changes. Austria-Hungary was broken up. Serbia, united with several Austrian provinces inhabited by Slavs, to become Yugoslavia ("the country of southern Slavs"). The Czechs and Slovaks merged to form Czechoslovakia. Poland regained its independence lost in the 18th century. Its territory consisted of lands partly ceded by Germany and Austria, and partly won from Soviet Russia in the war of 1920. Romania enlarged at the expense of Hungary, acquiring the province of Transylvania. Hungary separated from Austria and became fully independent. The Italians gained several Austrian regions, including the port city of Trieste. As a result of these losses Austria, which in 1914 had been the second largest state in Europe, was reduced to the status of an insignificant power. The peace treaty forbade Austria from uniting with Germany. The Ottoman Empire lost all of its non-Turkish territory, including Palestine, Syria, and Iraq, which came under British or French control.

Woodrow Wilson made many concessions to the other Allied countries on questions of territory and reparations in order to secure what mattered to him most: the League of Nations, on which he pinned his hopes for a lasting peace. Clemenceau realized this fact and exploited it to wring concessions from the President. The League, as created by the peace treaty, was conceived not as a super-government but as an association of free sovereign states. Its members merely undertook to help each other to repel aggression and pledged to submit to arbitration their own disputes. The League was intended to act as an organ of collective security, obviating the need for military alliances, considered one of the main causes of the war.

The League of Nations consisted of two chambers: a General Assembly, composed of representatives of member states; and a Council with executive functions made up of representatives of the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, as well as those of four additional states, elected by the Assembly. The headquarters of the League was Geneva. Operating under the League's auspices were numerous international offices (labor bureau, economic bureau, etc.). Its day-to-day business was carried out by a Secretariat. Among the important responsibilities imposed on the League were trusteeships of the colonies taken away from the Central Powers (the so-called mandates).

LEARNING OBJECTIVE:

Understand why the United States Senate refused to ratify the Versailles Peace Treaty.

The success of the entire peace settlement depended in large measure on the willingness of the U.S. to help with its execution. The French had consented to moderate their claims on Germany only because the U.S. and Britain assured them of joint protection against German attack. A defensive treaty to this effect was signed by the three powers on the same day the Germans agreed to the Treaty of Versailles. Furthermore, the League of Nations was Wilson's idea. Many European statesmen viewed it skeptically, and agreed to the League only as a means of ensuring the permanent involvement of the U.S. in European affairs.

Unfortunately, President Wilson made several major domestic political blunders in his handling of the entire peace process. In the off-year congressional elections of 1918 Wilson appealed to the electorate to vote Democratic. He claimed that "the return of a Republican majority" to Congress would "certainly be interpreted on the other side of the water as a repudiation of my leadership." Republicans charged that the President had violated his own earlier plea that "politics is adjourned" during the war, and that he impugned the loyalty of Republican Congressmen who had cooperated in the war effort. When the Republicans won control of both houses of Congress, it was easy for them to claim that Wilson had asked for a popular vote of confidence and lost (in the previous Congress the Democrats had a 6 seat majority in the House and a majority of eleven in the Senate; in the 1919-1921 Congress the Republicans had a majority of 50 in the House and two in the Senate). Wilson's actions impaired his position at the peace conference and insured that the new Congress was not political obligated to support his policies.

Wilson also made a serious error in his appointment of the members of the American commission to negotiate the peace at Paris. The President did not appoint a prominent Republican or any members of the Senate to the commission. Moreover, Wilson made no effort to consult powerful senators on what terms to seek, despite the obvious fact that the Senate would have to approve the treaty.

During the peace conference, Wilson left Paris in mid-February for a quick return to the U.S. Critics, mostly Republicans, were already attacking the League as a world superstate that would seriously curtail American sovereignty. The opponents of the League were led by Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a personal and political enemy of Wilson. Lodge hoped to handle the issue in such a way as to humiliate Wilson (and the Democrats) and to strengthen the Republicans. Lodge publicly urged that the League be separated from the main body of the peace treaty, and he warned against entangling alliances and a departure of America's traditional policy of diplomatic freedom. A Republican letter signed by 39 senators, six more than necessary to block approval of a treaty, declared that they found unacceptable the concept of the League of Nations as drafted. Wilson had ample warning of the opposition's determination.

Wilson was able to obtain several modifications in the League that he hoped would satisfy his critics -- he exempted domestic matters from League jurisdiction; and in effect sanctioned the Monroe Doctrine as a regional understanding permissible under the League Covenant. Wilson was unwilling to ask for additional changes. He concluded that he had done everything reasonable and that the Senate would either have to accept the League or do the unbelievable and reject the entire peace treaty, and he prepared to fight his opponents on that basis.

On July 10, 1919 Wilson presented the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate for its ratification. The Senate was divided into four major groups concerning the League. A small group of "Irreconcilables" adamantly opposed participation in any kind of international organization. They viewed the League as an intolerable diminution of U.S. sovereignty and insisted that the wisest course for America was noninvolvement in world affairs. Republican "Mild Reservationists" favored membership with only a few changes in the League Covenant. The "Strong Reservationists" led by Senator Lodge, advocated more sweeping alterations to the League Covenant. They particularly objected to Article X which pledged the member nations' assistance to any other member nation that had its territorial integrity and political independence threatened by another country. These Senators believed that American interests could best be protected through independent action, based on a balance of power, rather than using collective security through the League of Nations. Most Democrats supported the President.

Lodge proposed a number of amendments (reservations) to the Treaty that helped unify the Republicans and embarrassed the Democrats. It Wilson accepted them, Republicans could claim that they had repaired defects in the League and made it safe for America to belong; if the President rejected them, he and the Democratic party would bear the responsibility for the defeat of the Treaty. In their final form, most of the fourteen Lodge Reservations were petty in nature, designed primarily to reduce the President's control over foreign policy. The most important reservation provided that the U.S. would assume no obligation to defend the integrity of other states or to use its armed forces at the request of the League without the specific approval of Congress.

Wilson feared that acceptance of the reservations might force renegotiation of the peace treaty. He also hated Lodge. As Lodge told a fellow Senator who expressed fear that Wilson might indeed accept the reservations: "You do not take into consideration the hatred that Woodrow Wilson has for me personally. Never under any set of circumstances in this world could he be induced to accept a treaty with Lodge reservations appended to it." Wilson decided to take his case directly to the people. In September, Wilson left on a speaking tour through the Midwestern and far-Western states. After delivering over 30 major addresses in defense of the League, he suffered a cerebral thrombosis in Pueblo, Colorado that left him bedridden and partially paralyzed. For the rest of his term no one had effective control of the executive branch and it functioned largely by inertia.

Wilson's stroke apparently left him psychologically more rigid and uncompromising than before (this behavior is characteristic of stroke victims). Democratic Senators warned him that the only hope for Senate approval of the Treaty was to compromise with the Republicans and they urged him to do so. Wilson refused to compromise, and he requested that loyal Democrats vote against the Treaty with the Lodge Reservations. Since the Democrats could not muster enough strength to approve the Treaty without changes, its defeat was insured. The final vote on the Treaty with the Reservations fell seven votes short of the necessary two-thirds for approval, 49 for to 35 against. The most essential element of the entire peace settlement was thus knocked out: The League lost its main champion, and France lost the principal guarantor of its security.

Wilson was determined to convert the 1920 presidential contest into a national referendum on the League. Yet as Wilson should have known, a presidential contest cannot provide a mandate on a single issue. Traditional party loyalties, personalities, and a variety of issues and grievances tended to eclipse or confuse the question of the League in 1920. The Republican candidate, Warren G. Harding, overwhelmed the Democratic candidate, James M. Cox, by a plurality of over 7 million votes. The Republicans also won heavy majorities in both houses of Congress. The election was not a mandate on the League or any other single issue, but Wilson's insistence on a "Solemn Referendum" helped insure that the Republican victors would interpret the results as a decisive popular rejection of the League. Wilson, by his insistence on all or nothing, had killed his own idea. The Harding administration signed a separate treaty of peace with Germany in 1921 that reserved for the U.S. all of the privileges but none of the obligations of the Versailles Treaty.

Go on to  Ch. XI.  The Great Depression & the New Deal

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