American History Hit - Woodrow Wilson & The End of WW1: The League of Nations

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

When it comes to US foreign policy in the early 20th Century, isolationism tends to come to mind. What, then, was Woodrow Wilson's impact on the end of WW1?Don is joined by Charlie Laderman to find out more about the peace negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, and how these things were understood in the US.Charlie is Senior Lecturer in International History at King's College London. He is the author of 'Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order'.Produced by Freddy Chick and Sophie Gee. Edited by Max Carrey. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/ You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. Late afternoon sunlight illuminates the manicured park grounds, visible through 17 high-arched windows along one side of the room.

Opposite those, 17 tall arches comprised of 357 mirrors reflect the light back, refracting it through massive crystal chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. In the middle of this remarkable chamber, there is another reflection underway, in a struggle to brighten the darkness of a world-weigh. wide conflict. It's the 28th of June, 1919. It's exactly five years since the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at his wife, and over seven months after the armist silenced the First World War. Now, 27 delegations representing 32 powers of the world meet for a final time here in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The delegates have been discussing a resolution

in Paris since the 18th of January. George Clemenceau, in his home, home country of France, has been pushing for harsh punishment for the aggression of Germany and her allies. He wishes to see German power effectively destroyed. Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, the American president, is pushing for less harsh punishment, advocating for clemency in the name of ongoing peace. The opposition between the two men's views has been such that the Brit, David Lloyd George, will reportedly reflect on the experience as being seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon. The treaty of Versailles will go down as one of the least effective peace treaties in history, and among its 440 articles in 15 parts sat the League of Nations, an idea of the

American President's creation. American History hit with your host, Don Wildman. That's me and welcome. Thanks for joining us. It is a too often repeated fact of human history. It takes the tragedy of war to accomplish the triumph of peace. One seems to follow the other. Of course, there are many exceptions to this notion, but in 1948, it was certainly the case when World War II led to the creation of the United Nations. But that global organization, headquartered in New York, had its origins 28 years earlier in another, founded after World War I. It was called the League of Nations. Often attributed to the policies of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, the League of Nations founded in 1920 can actually be traced to diplomatic efforts in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. But it's all connected, as is usually the case.

And to explain these connections and how the League of Nations came and went and then came back again is Charlie Laterman, senior lecturer in international history at King's College London and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His book, Sharing the Burden, Explored British and American Responses to the Armenian Crisis, a big chapter of the League of Nations origin story, as we'll soon discover. Hello, Charlie, welcome to American history hit. Nice to have you. It's a pleasure. Thanks, Don, for having me. The League of Nations. I'll loosely define it as an international body founded to peacefully resolve through diplomatic means, conflicts arising between and concerning member nations. Am I close to the wording?

Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, it's sort of an early version of international government. As you mentioned at the outset, some of these ideas go back to the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century. and there's a long history of ideas of governing the world. But this is the sort of the first major permanent international organization on the scale that we will ultimately see for the rest of the 20th century with organizations like the United Nations. So it's a major shift in international politics. It's a very, very famous, but doesn't get enough attention in the modern world. And it's reassuring to me that we have been struggling with this idea of talking before fighting

for literally centuries now. We're still having a problem with it, but there's an infrastructure to this idea. Let's set the stage for this to happen, the context of the League of Nations. Nothing less than World War I and all those horrors unleashed. How was this conflict so different from those prior

that it would lead to the birth of an organization for peace finally? Yeah, well, I mean, this is a conflict on a huge scale, a global scale in terms of the parties that are involved but also just the scale of the violence exceeds anything that we had seen before. Fritz Stern, the historian, talks about this idea being the sort of the calamity, the crisis from which all other crises stem. It is this major earth-chattering event. And a major sort of aspect of this is that we'd had these large-scale conflicts in Europe and outside of Europe with the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century, but then from about 1815 to 1914,

we avoid a large-scale conflict on the European continent. There are wars like the Crimean War, but there isn't anything on the scale of the Napoleonic Wars. And then 1914, we have the First World War, which really, for many of the actors involved, for many of the nations involved, throws really into distribute the whole idea of international order as it existed in Europe from the Napoleonic Wars. onwards. So really in the aftermath of the outbreak of the First World War, new ideas about how you have to organize international politics start to bubble up and build on some of what goes before. But there's a sense to which this level of fighting, this level of destruction has been so great

that something needs to change for this to become the war to end all wars. We can't get too far into this conversation without talking about the origin of the nation state. We don't want to get too deeply into it. But that's really the change. happening in Europe, especially, where we're moving from one kind of organization of these countries into another, which is with very strictly defined borders, the kingdoms and the sort of leftoverness of feudalism is gone. And we have this new idea of sovereignty that is really creating more problems, actually, more challenges as to how we resolve international disputes. That's what kind of leads to the mega wars that we end up in the 20th century, isn't it?

Yes, which is a sort of a consolidation of these smaller territorial units which had existed in Europe, really from the Treaty of Westphalia onwards, and starting to be sort of consolidated and to adhere into larger nation states, like the unification of Italy that occurs in 1860, 61, then you have the unification of Germany in 1871, and you get this sort of this shift really from at the beginning of the 19th century, you have still hundreds, or at least not quite as many as we'd had with the treaty as Westphalia, but a large number of territorial entities. And then by the end of the 19th century, these have been cohered into a much smaller number

of nation states. And that's really the shift. It becomes a much more competitive international system. And what we're starting to see is the rise of challenger powers to the more established powers, the British, the French, and the Russians. And now we're starting to see emerging states that are looking for their own place in the sun,

like the Germans, like the Italians, but then you're seeing the breakdown of old territorial empires as well that had existed for centuries. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, are starting to be really undermined by nationalist forces within them. So this is a really feebriam mix that we see in Europe at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and which play into the origins of the First World War.

My reading for this introduced a new term for me, the concert of Europe. This was an effort in the late 19th century really starting to begin this sort of creation of an organization, isn't it? Yes. So after the Napoleonic Wars, again, there's a sense to which this bigger had come along that had really sort of changed international politics, the aftermath of the French revolution, but there's a sense to which Napoleon had taken those ideals packaged them in a will for power that had been on a scale to which Europe couldn't necessarily cope with this idea of conflict and tensions on that level. So out of the Napoleonic Wars, there's a sense that something new has to be established. And there's a big debate among historians about whether

this is sort of just a reestablishment of a balance of power or whether it is a completely different form of international organisation. I tend to sort of lean towards the latter. So there is, I mean, it's based on power dynamics, but there is the sort of the germ of an idea of international organization, regular meetings between the great powers to try and resolve major politics, still very much conservative and aimed at sort of tamping down on the forces of revolution, which they see as being sort of undermining international politics. But really you're starting to get a sense to which you need a structure to international politics, regular meetings and ways in which the nations, meet and work together and that becomes a sort of basis for a new European order from 1850 onwards. I want to underscore what you're saying here. The fact that we're now dealing with two factors here, not just the conflicts between these sovereign states, but also this rising sense of nationalism within these states. That's what's really feeding the monster here to this day. That's what creating a nation creates is that this internal problem of, of how do you deal with these people who are so nationalistic and calling for war so often.

That's what happens. Teddy Roosevelt had much to say on the subject in 1910, accepted his Nobel Prize at the time for negotiating the peace with the Russians and the Japanese. Here's the quote, which came from his acceptance speech then. Those great powers honestly bent on peace should form a league of peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent it from being broken by others. This is fascinating. 1910, these ideas are already being expressed on a very big stage.

Yes. So Roosevelt is obviously a fascinating, large, and lies bigger. And the first American leader to think of the United States as being part of a global community of nations and an important role that the US should play within that is as an arbitrator of international disputes. So he helps mediate the end of the Russo-Japanese War, sort of almost a dry run for the First World War, large-scale conflict in East Asia, the first defeat by a European power of an Asian power. Roosevelt helps to mediate the end of that conflict. He also helps mediate a dispute between France and Germany in 1905-06. And out of that, he gets awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And at that time,

American presidents didn't really travel outside of the continental United States. Roosevelt's actually the first. He goes down to Panama with the Panama Canal. But they don't come to Europe because the sense is that's not something that American leaders do. So when he leaves office, he goes off on a world tour, he's hunting big game in Africa, and then he comes to sort of claim his Nobel Peace Prize, sort of five years after the fact, as you say in 1910. And that's when he delivers this speech. The storm clouds are starting to descend, and there's a scent to which Roosevelt is recognizing that if the balance of power breaks down in Europe, then there's going to be a need for the US to get involved.

But most Americans don't recognize this. most Americans don't believe that they have a major role in any conflict that might break out in Europe. So Roswell is partly talking about it in that sense, that the US has a responsibility in the world, and he talks about this idea of the major civilized nations, as he sort of terms it, have a responsibility of the great powers to join together to police the world. That's partly sort of an imperial vision about major powers sort of policing their spheres of influence, but it's also about preventing war between what he sees as a civilized power. So the possibility of a large scale conflict in Europe is on his mind.

But as I say, most Americans are not thinking this way. Roosevelt's very much ahead of his time on this. There's an internationalist element of it, but there's also a belief that America is destined to be a global leader, and he believes that the US has this responsibility, and that's something which he's urging both on Americans, but also on the international community. So fast forward, the years of entrenched bloodshed from 1914 to 1917

finally lead to American involvement, joining the Allies Against Germany and their allies, Turkey being one, keep that in mind. This is the era of Woodrow Wilson, who has made the notion of a League of Nation part of his presidential campaign. He actually writes a manifesto. He had tried to broker a peace in 1916. He makes a famous speech in Congress, Peace without victory, a brand new idea to human beings, let alone Americans, trying to maintain neutrality in the war.

It doesn't work. The Lusitania is sunk. Events take over. How much did Wilson decide to enter this war in order to affect a League of Nations? How much was that at the front of his mind? Yeah, it's a great question. We tend to think of Wilson as this sort of very sort of like mushy-haired academic, sort of not necessarily thinking in terms of pragmatic terms.

But we have to remember he's an extremely effective politician. And he gives a whole range of different reasons for why he gets involved. He famously says to Jane Adams, the feminist leader and peace activist, that ultimately by entering the war, the US can help sort of set the terms of peace and that he, rather than being a nation that would be sort of outside the conference room, sort of trying to whisper through the keyhole, they'd be there in the room. So that's one reason that he gives. But there's also the elements to which this is about, as you say,

Americans being sort of fired on on the higher seas. You have the sinking of the Lusitania, and we see these sort of attacks on American shipping once the Germans resume unrestricted submarine warfare in the beginning of 1917. We have the Zimmerman Telegram as well. So there's also these other sort of more pragmatic reasons. And when the US enters the conflict, these sort of two aspects are very much intention, because Wilson makes a very idealistic speech for the US. to join the war about making the world safe for democracy, talking about sort of a concert of nations. He's already started to talk about a League of Nations from about 1916 on which he inserts it into the democratic platform in 1916, the first American party to sort of commit themselves

in a manifesto to joining an international organisation. But at the same time, he enters the war, only declaring war on Germany, he doesn't declare war initially in April 1917 on Austria, Hungary, or the Ottoman Empire. There's a very sort of pragmatic side to Wilson as well. And he also wants to keep the US separate from the allied powers, who he thinks are imperialists, they're sort of old school, and they are committed to a much more sort of anachronistic vision of international politics than what he believes. So the US becomes an associate power rather than an ally in the conflict. So you've got this sort of idealistic vision, but at the same time, a very pragmatic politician as a political leader. And that idea of making the world safe for democracy covers

a whole range of complex terms. Is it about spreading democracy? Is it about making the world safe for American democracy? Wilson is this masterful phrase maker, but trying to unpick exactly what he means is a challenge for us looking back on him, but also for those at the time. So what does he actually mean by this? But at the same time, because he has this way with words and he's the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, at least the most powerful economic power in the world, but which will soon show itself able to sort of marshal power the military means as well. He becomes someone that those around the world look to as a potential figure that would inspire a new shift in international politics.

Sure. We've done a recent episode on Woodrow Wilson, at least we recorded it. He is the enigma that is America. I mean, that president is so much of the conjure. of what this country still, how it represents itself to the world. It's amazing when you study his presidency. Is it fair to say his objective was to found a reformed international system? Yeah, I mean, he very much, I mean, and I think it's important to remember the, as you say,

from the outbreak of the conflict, Wilson is initially determined to keep the U.S. out, both for political reasons. He knows that the American public don't want to get involved. He knows about the sort of the makeup of the melting potty in the United States. There's all ranges of sort of sympathy by Americans for different nations on either side of the conflict. So he doesn't want to get involved. But right from the beginning, he talks about the idea that the US should stay out so that ultimately after the war, it could help reshape international politics afterwards.

And initially his belief is that they can do that best as an arbitrator, as a neutral nation. But this is not a neutrality that says we're not interested in what's going on here. Wilson has a vision, which he talks about from very early on in his political career of the idea of the US as a global leader. And he is a believer that the US should play this international role. And so his idea, as you mentioned, he talks about a peace without victory before the US comes in. That's the idea of arbitrating the conflicts so the Americans aren't poured in. But once they are poured in, he still has this belief that essentially, the US can sort of stand slightly above the fray, that it hasn't got the sort of same material

gains to get out of the conflict. So it can start to sort of recreate international politics. And this is most famously espoused in his 14 points address where he's trying to say, we can move towards a new form of international politics because this First World War has pulled, well, obviously at the time they don't know it's a First World War, but his senses, is this is a global war that it could lead to sort of larger conflicts. The U.S. has now been poured into a conflict. And ultimately, international politics is going to need to be reformed if the U.S. is going to be kept safe and its prosperity can be secured.

So that's sort of part of Wilson's vision for international politics. I'll be right back after this short break. Meantime, if you'd like this to cover anything specifically, if you have any ideas of subject matter, we should be looking at, Send us an email at ah-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-historah-h.com. We'd love to hear from you. World War I ends on November 11, 1918. Six months later in January of 1919, we begin the negotiations, which lead to the Treaty of Versailles. This is largely done between the big four, as they say, France, England, Italy, and the United States. Germany is not part of the conversation. This is really a negotiation between the powers that won.

The treaty is signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on June 28, 1919, the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife. How do the various parties, these big four, feel, well, we know how the United States feels. How do the other three feel about the treaty? Do they want this League of Nations to come out of it? The Europeans are quite conflicted on this. For the leaders, and particularly the French leader, Georges Clemenceau, he says, well, the Lord Almighty had 10 commandments and Wilson's got 14 points. There's a sense to which that Wilson is sort of so supercilious idealist. And Lloyd George will make a similar comment.

When he gets to Paris, he talks about being sat between Napoleon Bonaparte and Jesus Christ, where Clemenceau is Napoleon and Wilson is sort of this theologian who's sort of pushing these ideas that of trying to change international politics. There's a sense to which Wilson is sort of seen as too high and mighty, too idealistic, too academic. But for radicals and for liberals in European countries, Wilson is seen as a potential figure who can change international politics. John Maynard Keynes will talk about Wilson as being someone who was sort of a philosopher, but never as a philosopher held so many weapons to bind the princes of the world, Kane says, because there's a sense to which with his

economic power behind him, the United States is economic power and its military power by the end of the First World War, Wilson has an ability to sort of put in place an international organization through the League of Nations that can revise international politics. So there's this real conflict between these different perspectives within Europe that's playing out as well. Wilson is not the only person thinking in this idea and the Americans aren't the only people thinking about a about a league. In Britain there have been a whole range of thinking with regard to international organisations as well. People like E.D. Morel, the famous peace activist with regard to the Congo.

He is a leader in an organisation called the Union of Democratic Control, also involving future British Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald is part of this as well, the philosopher Bertram Russell. And they're talking again also about an idea that post this war, there's going to need to be an end to sort of secret treaties. There's got to be greater democratic control of great power politics. There's got to be disarmament. So they're pushing this idea, and that's coming from more of a sort of a radical leftist perspective,

but there's also sort of conservative figures as well who are sympathetic to this idea. And so there's a lot of talk within Britain about what is going to be the war aims of Britain. And that sort of very slippery character, David Lloyd George, who's been prime minister since 1916, he is not particularly sympathetic to the idea of a League of Nations. He tends to reflect the more sort of conservative vision of the possibility of sort of recreating something along the lines of the consulate of Europe. But he is also sort of immersed in the sort of William Gladstone tradition, which Wilson also comes out of from sort of the liberal perspective,

which is about sort of independence and self-determination for small nations. But most important for Lloyd George and the sort of the conservatives in his coalition is the idea that out of the war, there should be an alliance between Britain and the United States, that essentially coming out of the First World War, having fought together, that actually what's required is a close connection between the two. That should underpin international order, this alliance between the British Empire and the United States. A special relationship.

Special relationship. We are something akin to that. And the figure who sort of really recognises that the League of Nations can be used for that purpose is a guy called Yang Christian Smuts, who's the South African leader. He's fought, well, he's not the South African leader at this time, but he's a leading South African politician. He's been a board general during the war war,

but then during the First World War, he serves in the Imperial War cabinet. And he writes a pamphlet called the League of Nations a practical suggestion, which sort of looks at a structure for an international organisation. But what Smuts' main thing is, is that coming out of the First World War, with all these empires that are collapsing, so Zaris Russian Empire collapses, the Ottoman Empire collapses, Austro-Hungarian Empire collapses. His sense is, well, these territories are going to be governed by somebody.

And ultimately, that's the main purpose of the League of Nations to ensure who's going to govern this. Partly he wants in Africa for South Africa to get access to some of these German colonies. But he's also concerned about the sort of the breakdown of border in Europe. So there's a sense of what are we going to do with the Middle East? Now the Ottoman Empire has collapsed. Someone's got to govern this territory. That's all in this pamphlet.

And Lloyd George thinks, well, actually this is a good way to sort of appeal to the Americans. It's practical. The Americans can join us. Smuts is talking about this as well. Maybe they can take on some of these territories, help us and the French. We can sort of take some of these territories together. But Wilson is also reading Smuts' manifesto, which is sent to him. And he reads it on his way over to Paris. And he particularly likes the idea of the sort of the structure of the League of Nations that Smuts has sort of developed,

this sort of tri-partite structure, a bit like the sort of separation of powers between an executive, a legislature, a judiciary, to put that into an international organisation. So Smuts works with Wilson. It becomes a really sort of British and American pushed idea on the League of Nations. So the British and the Americans are both sympathetic to this,

but for very different reasons. Wilson doesn't necessarily want to come in and be sort of an imperialist power. The British want to pour the Americans in and they're the ones who are really pushing the league. The French, on the other hand, they really want a guarantee by the British and the Americans of their defence against the Germans.

So they're much more realpolitik, much more realist, and so that's what they want, but it's the British and the Americans who really push the idea of the League of Nations, and that's what really ensures that Wilson gets his vision of a league, but it's one that's very much wrapped in some of these sort of pragmatic political considerations that people like Smuts and the British ones as well.

How much of their discussions and the negotiations in those six months were confirmation of his 14 points, which was an early version of all of this? He makes a speech in Congress. I kind of skipped over this point. Yeah. He makes a very famous speech in Congress in January where he outlines what he will be looking for in these 14 points. Too long a list to go through. But give us a brief on what he was trying to express. And how presumptuous would this have been to the Europeans?

Yeah, I mean, so Wilson, with the 14 points, that's again a way of sort of undercutting traditional European imperialism. So the sense is from Wilson's point of view that the war has been caused by the European sort of squabbling over territories. And then when the Bolshevik revolution happens in Russia, they publish all these secret treaties that are in the Russian archives. So Lenin publishes them, Trotsky publishes them because they want to push this idea of this sort of bankrupt, decrepit international order. And Wilson realizes that essentially we've got to come up with a new vision. This is during the war itself, that this is going to sort of undermine the desire to carry on fighting the wars.

Wilson, the 14 points, is a response to the Bolshewit Revolution and the secret treaties. And Wilson, the idea of this is there's going to be sort of this new way of doing international politics. There's going to be freedom of the seas, free trade. There's going to be independent. or at least autonomy for certain nations within the old style empires and the League of Nations is going to sort of replace the old balance of power in Europe. And there's some aspects of those 14 points that don't get delivered in the league.

So there's aspects of the ways in which Germany will be treated under the treaty, the reparations, the war guilt clause. Those aren't there in the 14 points. But Wilson comes to believe that the Germans, they've caused the war. He believes that they've got to be punished. but it's not the sort of liberal peace that many had envisioned. But there are aspects of the 14 points that are delivered on, particularly with regards to sort of independence for nations like Belgium, Poland,

do get the sort of self-determination of nations within the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman empires. And of course, as we've just said, the League of Nations is created out of the Paris Peace Conference, which is a big part of the 14 points. So these are all sort of important aspects of this. but there's other ways in which it doesn't sort of deliver what people expect. So there's a whole belief among colonial peoples, and there's an idea that essentially this is going to lead to an end to sort of the European empires.

There's revolutions in China, there's revolutions in Egypt, Korea, India, all believing that essentially Wilson's rhetoric is going to deliver on a new international order that's going to undermine empire. Wilson hadn't actually sort of specifically talked about these places. he was very much sort of laced through with many of the same sort of racial stereotypes of others. He's mainly talking about Europe and to a certain extent the sort of Christian populations of the Middle East. So as we said at the beginning, he's sort of a phrase maker. He has these sort of highfalutian phrases that ultimately get picked up in ways that he wasn't expecting.

And it leads to a huge amount of disillusionment when the international organization that develops doesn't lead to sort of a whole new anti-imperial system. he's still a believer in sort of the great powers and the U.S. and the Europeans working together as the sort of the zenith of the international system. Well, everyone knows. I mean, this ultimately fails. And that's how the story is usually told. But it's important to understand that these are very bold ideas and that this was a very coherent notion that, as we've demonstrated here, has grown out of a long time, long process has been happening. And I want to bookend this, really. I mean, what we talked about nation states rising in the 19th century, Germany and Italy,

especially the other side of this is the self-determination, this idea of self-determination, which really sort of underscores everything that happens in the 20th century, you know, and why we have the world we have today with so many different countries and decolonization and all of that, which happens. It's really the shrinking of empires. And all of that is baked into this experience of creating this treaty that ultimately really fails because it creates such an imbalance in the country. Because ultimately, Woodrow Wilson has to get this treaty ratified. And that has to be ratified in the Congress, it has to be voted by, you know, by a majority, et cetera. And this is a process that he now has to undertake when he comes home. So what

happens when he arrives back in the United States? Yeah. So Wilson really from the sort of late period of the war had started to sort of lose his sort of grip over American politics. So in the congressional elections of 1918, the Republicans win back control of Congress. And Congress and Henry Cavett Lodge becomes the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the and the head of the sort of Republican Party. Now Lodge have been sort of a longstanding internationalist in the Theodore Roosevelt mold. There's sort of much more conservative internationalism, great power internationalism. He had supported a League of Nations, but he was very much an allied partisan. He was someone who supported during the war joining together with the British and the French like Roosevelt does, whereas Wilson thinks that,

America as an associate and doesn't have the same vision of international politics. But there are many on the Republicans side who believe in an international organization, but much more of sort of a great power politics ideas. So they talk initially about the idea of the sort of the allies that had won the war, that they would stay together, that the British and the Americans would join together in sort of guaranteeing the French against the Germans. To a certainly extent, maybe a precursor, at least in these ideas, of what NATO will become ultimately, sort of a Western,

security guarantee that the US will be involved in this respect. But during the league fight, Wilson ultimately and Lodge, they never liked each other. They're the two scholars in politics. So Wilson comes along as this sort of academic, well previously, Lodge, he had a PhD from Harvard. He saw himself as the scholar in politics. So there's a personal element to it, but also a very different sort of ideological vision. Wilson with this sort of very sort of far-reaching idea of reforming international politics, Lodge much more great power internationalism.

But during that treaty fight, Lodge is pushed by many in the Republican Party towards the sort of a much more of an anti-league position, or at least an opposition to Wilson's form of internationalism. Wilson also bears responsibility for this. He doesn't involve any of the Republicans in terms of the peace treaty and the negotiations. There's no leading Republicans on the American delegation that goes to negotiate the League of Nations. Franklin Roosevelt will learn the lessons of this with the United Nations and there's a need to involve the other side of the aisle. But by the time Wilson has come back from Paris, he's tried to sort of compromise to a certain extent, but ultimately there is this real sort of disconnect between their visions. And it tends to

focus on what is known as Article 10 of the League Covenant, which is essentially the collective security guarantee. That out of this, the borders of all nations will be guaranteed. And Wilson thinks that this is the heart of the treaty. Lodge says, I'm not signing up to that. There's no way we're signing up to guarantee the independence of every state. And that becomes the sort of the nub of the intellectual and the political debate. And Wilson recognizes he's not going to get this through Congress.

He tried to sort of stitch the league into the treaty to such an extent that they couldn't sort of reject one without the other. It becomes clear that that hasn't worked. He's being sort of stonewalled within, say, decides to take it to the country and sort of a whole series of barnstorming speeches around the US, but ultimately he's already failing in health and he collapses. He has a stroke, brought back to the White House, and really his condition is covered up by his wife and by many of the sort of the leading figures in the White House. And while Wilson is sort of secluded in the White House, the debate continues. There's no compromise by Wilson and the treaty goes down to a defeat in November 1919. But after that defeat, there's still a sense that there's a

huge amount of support in the country for the leave. It ultimately drops from where it is in November 1990, but it's brought back to Congress in March of 1920 to have a vote on this. Lodge puts together a whole form of reservations where he says we will join but on this basis you have to accept these 14 reservations i mean as you hear 14 revelations not not necessarily a coincidence that this is the same number as the 14 points Wilson is is in ill health at this point he becomes extremely stubborn after his stroke and he says i'm not compromising let lodge hold out the olive branch ultimately what happens is that there's a vote on the treaty there's a vote on the reservations and it falls seven votes short on the reservations because the Democrats at Wilson's behest join with those who

are irreconcilably opposed to joining any league, the sort of the true isolationist and its rejected. So America doesn't join the league. And this is ultimately a huge defeat for internationalism in the US because there is probably a majority for some sort of internationalism, sort of a combination of the sort of great power, Teddy Roosevelt, traditional internationalism and the Worsonian internationalism within Congress, but they can't get together on a compromise, and ultimately it's the irreconcilables who win out, and America reverts to sort of isolationism, or at least to, it doesn't join the league at this point. Yeah, this is the big takeaway is that we end up with this duality. At least it's finally articulated as such that we have this exceptional status in the

world, and our neutrality, as far as the Republicans at that time felt, preserves this. You know, we are different than Europe, and we have this right to be. and we should be recognized as such, and we can be useful that way. You know, they don't see themselves as irresponsibly walking away from the world. It's that we represent the future. And that's how we pursue this. You know, there must be so many PhDs written on the real politics at the time. I mean, there's a presidential election undergoing,

and you've got Woodrow Wilson on his back, literally, you know, out of sorts. And probably a lot of chess was being played in terms of American politics at the time. But what comes out of this is this new definition or, redefinition, I suppose, of how America should behave in this foreign arena. We mentioned at the top, or I did mention at the top, this Armenian crisis. I know it's a podcast of its own, probably a series of its own. But this resonates around the world in different crises. So I'm curious, you've written a book on this subject.

How do you include this in this conversation? Yeah. So it's ultimately, during the First World War, this is the first large-scale genocide in terms of, obviously we've seen colonial genocides. This is the first mass killing within the sort of European great power arena, which occurs within the Ottoman Empire, of about a million to a million and a half Armenian Christians massacred. And out of this debate about how do you respond to this,

there are some in the United States who believe that the US should ultimately go to war against the Ottoman Empire to redeem the Armenians. and those are people like Theodore Roosevelt and others who during the war had called for the US to declare war on the Ottoman Empire. Wilson believes essentially at this point, and this is, I mentioned previously, he's a much more pragmatic figure than some often give him sort of credence for. And his sense really is that the US should focus on Germany and it doesn't declare war on the Ottoman Empire, much to the chagrin of people like Roosevelt, who says, if we're making the world safer democracy, we should be declaring war on these human rights. abusers, these nations that are committing humanitarian atrocities. But out of the war, Wilson,

who has been close to many sort of missionary figures who'd been involved in the Ottoman Empire, does believe that the US does have a responsibility to really, to nation build a sort of the term that will be used later in the 20th century and to help create an independent Armenia out of the Ottoman Empire. So we know out of the end of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, the Europeans will take on these famous mandates, Britain for Palestine, France, for Syria. There is a discussion that the United States would take on a mandate for the Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. And Wilson is supportive of this because he believes that this is a tangible commitment. He believes there's been a huge amount of American support, huge amount of American fundraising for the Armenians to help provide relief to them after the massacres.

and Wilson believes that a mandate is a way that the US can sort of show its global leadership. And as I mentioned previously, the British are also keen to get the Americans in. They believe this is a way to get an alliance with the Americans if the two countries joined together in this project in the Ottoman Empire, the British are taking on Mesopotamia and Palestine. Coming out of the League conference is this idea for a mandate. And many of the figures in the United States who are opposed to the League, this to them is exactly what they thought. the league was all about. This is what all the problems is, that the world is going to be policed with

American boys. Essentially, the British are going to get all the rich provinces that have all the oil like Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq, and the Americans will be stuck with these sort of territories that don't actually provide any financial benefit and they're having to sort of clean up after this genocide. But Wilson sort of pushes this idea of a protector for the Armenians and ultimately, even after the league has been defeated, he, He puts this to Congress in May 1920. It's often not really written about within the League of Nations debate, but there's a really important part of it.

It's ultimately rejected. But it's to say it's an important part of this discussion because for Wilson, it's a tangible commitment. For the British, this is a big part of this Anglo-American-led global order. And as I say, for those who are opposed to the league, this is everything they hate about internationalism because it's about an international organisation telling the Americans, you need to go and defend these territories and that's sort of what they resent and rebelling against.

So it's a big part of this whole story. The irony is that the Treaty of Versailles will on its own create the very agent of change that we most feared, which is Adolf Hitler and all of that rise of nationalism within Germany. And that does finally change the balance within Congress and within American politics and frankly, American identity that we belong in this international alliance. and we need to be realistic about this or else. Therein lies the dilemma for all Americans. It's an interesting problem.

And I think one of the important things also to bear in mind in this debate and into the 20s, the U.S. doesn't completely retreat from isolationism. It does ultimately play a role in helping to order Europe to American economic loans to the Europeans. But the most important thing to remember on what the league debate is ultimately. about is about political commitments. And for Wilson and for people like Theodore Roosevelt, the US does have a role in the world and should undertake certain political commitments for international security. And that's really what's rejected in the league fight. And ultimately, that's what collapses at the end of the 1920s, this very fragile order that it's fine for the

US to be involved culturally, to trade with the world, to provide certain loans. But when push comes to shove and the revisionist powers like the Japanese, in Manchuria or the Italians in Abyssinia or the Germans elsewhere in Europe, when they start to challenge the order, the Americans don't necessarily have a belief that they have a role within this and that they should commit themselves to European security. And really, it's from emerging from the breakdown of international order that the US is pulled back into European politics

after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Declaration of War by Hitler on the United States, and out of that there's a belief, okay, we now need to remain engaged, we need to help underwrite international order. And so ultimately, there's a sort of a revival of interest in Wilson and his ideas. And there's a sense to which Franklin Roosevelt almost combines aspects of Wilson, who he'd served under as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and Theodore Roosevelt, his cousin, in this sort of, the United Nations becomes sort of a bit of a combination of the two, where you've got an interoperative. international governance, but there's a sense to which the great powers need to have sort of oversight

and police power within it. So the role that America takes on after the Second World War is really a combination of Wilson's vision and Theodore Roosevelt's vision. So that's what internationalism becomes, both the Republican and Democrat vision are essentially united in Franklin Roosevelt's vision of international politics after the Second World War. When the United Nations is founded in 1948, is it actually, articulated that it is the outgrowth of League of Nations, or have they left that far behind? No, very much so. I mean, Robert Cecil, who's a British figure who'd been majorly involved in creating the League of Nations, he presides over the last session of the League of Nations,

and he will say, in the last word spoken in the League, is the League is dead, long-lived the United Nations. There's a sense to which this is an outgrowth of this. And a number of the sort of non-governmental institutions, things like the International Health Organization or International Labor Organization or outgrowths of some of these sort of bureaucracies within the League. But the most important aspect is the Security Council and the veto power of those major five nations. That wasn't there in the League. That is there in the United Nations. And most importantly, the most important powers are all there in the United Nations. They hadn't been in the League of Nations. And above all, the United States, the most powerful nation, is their front and century in the United Nations in a way that it hadn't been in the legal nations.

And right there in New York City, I mean, symbolically as much as anything, the dilemmas of all of this are captured every day at the United Nations. I mean, all the effectiveness of that organization is up for debate. It's an enormously complex place that is full of issues that people never hear about. It's a great deal of machinery that's going on that is or is not fixing problems. as we perceive it. But there it is. And it is the modern day representation of everything we've discussed, which lasted longer than we think. You know, I was surprised by that. I always thought of the League of Nations as over by the 20s, but it was really lasted until the 30s. It's really interesting. It stuck with it for a while. Charlie Laterman is a senior lecture in international

history at King's College London. His latest book is Hitler's American Gamble, Pearl Harbor, and Germany's March to Global War. His first book, as we discussed, was share the burden, exploring the Armenian crisis as we have. Charlie, fascinating conversation. I can't wait to have you back on the show. I hope you'll come. It's been a pleasure, and I've very much enjoyed our conversation. Not the lightest topic always, but it's, as you say, fundamentally important, and I'm glad we had a chance to discuss it. The 20th century is a complicated time. Hello, folks. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. Each week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays.

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